How Did the Editing Go?

I have posted before about going into editing and using a number of editing books to help me with the process. I thought I'd report back and let you know how it went. 

I used Fix Your Damn Book by James Osiris Baldwin. I really liked this book because I really connected with the voice and the first thing James says to do is to be kind to yourself. Sometimes I need a reminder. 

There are a few things I was looking for when editing my book, and I took all these from Fix Your Damn Book. 

As I was reading through, I was looking for: 

• identifying the writer's voice, and keeping it consistent throughout
• 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?

I had this written on a note next to me so I don't forget and kept it in mind while I was reading through The Book. I'm not saying that the editing was perfect at this point, but I think I got it. 

I started editing immediately after finishing The Book, the next day in fact. James says in Fix Your Damn Book that you should leave your book between 2 - 6 weeks to let it sit and do other things in the mean time, before editing. I didn't do that, mainly because I needed to be finished in time for Pitch Wars. 

Luckily for me, I have a terrible memory so sometimes it is as if I've left the book for 2 - 6 weeks because sometimes I forget what I've written. I forgot that I'd cut out a teleportation scene that did nothing except show that the setting had teleporters. I was going to rewrite it and make it more interesting but it turned out I'd cut it out. I left it that way. 

The first round of edits on the 1st draft, I moved scenes, edited whole scenes and tried to make sure the book flowed. I cut events, moved them and added conflict. I tried not to do a line edit but I find it really difficult to leave clumsy writing if I spot it so I did do some line editing but mainly I took my metaphorical scissors to the manuscript and chopped it where I thought it needed chopping up. 

The second round of editing was to check that the chops made sense and to go through the scenes to cut or add sentences/paragraphs/words that were or weren't needed. I must have chopped quite a few words from the manuscript as I went from 65,000 down to 59,000. Fingers crossed the chops were right for the story. 

The third edit was going through each line and making sure it flowed correctly, it went together with the story, the parts where I'd stitched the story together were seamless. I also had to check POV because it turns out, when I'm tired, I switch POV backwards and forwards even in a single sentence. I checked spelling mistakes, typing errors, character names and everything was in the correct spot. 

What I wasn't supposed to do in this round of editing was add in an entirely new challenge for my protagonists. However, reading the novel through from the start, which went a lot quicker when I wasn't trying to edit the entire thing, it made a lot of sense to link an event from the middle into a challenge in the climax. That was only an additional 500 words so I didn't think it mattered that I added it in at the wrong part of editing. It is an evolving process, after all. 

There is still one scene that I don't like at all. I took it out to edit it, or completely rewrite it but I'm not sure what to do with it. I know the aim. Hopefully a publisher or agent will have an idea for that part, or a Pitch Wars mentor if they pick me. 

All in all, I think I did follow the Fix Your Damn Book method for editing. I definitely knew what to look out for when editing. Consistency in voice was not something I'd thought of before. It's about the voice.That's one thing I kept an eye out for in my book when editing. 

Fingers crossed that this has made my book compelling.