Developmental Edit

Step Two of the Fix Your Damn Book edit is to do a developmental edit.

As far as I can gather, this means checking through for a number of things:

• identifying the writer's voice, and keeping it consistent throughout
• checking the novel fits into the traditional three-step structure, or the structure that you've chosen for your novel if you're writing a novel based on a structure from a different culture or tradition
• accents, appearance and culture
• balancing description, exposition and action
• catharsis - why have it switch off when you can have it blow up?
• characters
• head-hopping and faulty exposition
• lazy writing
• plot holes
• pacing
• scenes - do they have a start, middle and finish? Do characters have time to reflect, make a decision and act on a decision?
• the ripple effect

Phew! Is that enough to think about on my first read through edit? I feel as if I have to keep a thousand things in my head when I'm reading through, just to check the entire thing fits together well.  

I've still got to rewrite the scenes that weren't working to make sure they do, or reduce them down, or cut them entirely. I am thinking that they could be a conversation between the two main characters, and I could really do with scraping back the word count so I could add in something else later in the story, and/or thread in a subplot that I'm lacking at the moment. 

So, this is my next step: developmental editing. I'm also trying to get my pitches reading for #pitmad on the 2nd September. 

The more I work on this book, the more I wonder if it's complete rubbish and if it should be scrapped.