The Editor Has Spoken!
My editor had some amazing ideas for strengthening my book. Now comes the hard part...the rewriting.
A month ago I received my developmental edits back from my editor!
She is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, incredible! If you’re an author who needs help with developmental edits, line and copy edits, beta reading, and more, please please please check out Liza at Revision Room Editorial.
Here’s some of the frequently asked questions I’ve been fielding from friends on Instagram and IRL about what the editing process looks like:
How did you find your editor?
I met Liza several years ago through TikTok. We are both huge readers who were running BookTok pages in our spare time. We’ve chatted a few times in our comments sections and DMs over the years and she’s one of my favorite people to listen to book reviews from. She’s very insightful and we share similar reading interests.
When I was about two thirds of the way through my first draft of GAME OVER, I opened TikTok and the first video on my for-you page was Liza’s announcement post that she had quit her job to open a freelance editorial business to pursue the thing she loved and support the needs of her family.
I breathed an immediate sigh of relief. In the back of my mind I was already thinking forward about finding an editor. And huzzah! The search was over before it had even begun. I definitely lucked out. She was one of the easiest decisions I’ve made during my writing process.
What was the process of editing like?
Three words: patience, then collaboration.
I submitted a website inquiry with Liza back in November. I had finished the first draft, but had not yet received feedback from my first round of beta readers, nor had I done much in the way of self-editing. I wanted to get on her radar so we could start work together in January.
She sent over a contract and then I waited for beta feedback to come.
I was ready to submit my manuscript to Liza on January 14th of this year. She provided me with a couple little slices of encouragement while she was editing, but for the most part, we didn’t communicate much while she was working through her edits.
While it was hard to wait the few weeks she had the manuscript, it was a needed exercise in patience. I spent the time focusing on the first draft of my second book. I was sitting on pins and needles! I’m always jittery for feedback. It’s my favorite part of the writing process. With a completed draft, I now have a clear roadmap of the plot and character arcs, so the hardest part of the process (for me, anyway) is already done. Feedback gives me ideas and tools to refine, clarify, and make better the bones that are already there. For a lot of authors, feedback is one of the hardest parts; sharing your work with someone else is vulnerable. You believe in this book so much and have been in this world with these characters for such a long time. It can be hard to hear there are parts that are not working, or whole scenes or chapters that need to be cut or restructured. Luckily, I’m in a mental space where I don’t take this process personally at all. I so trust the people who have had eyes on the manuscript and take every piece of feedback they have to heart. I believe that every thought they share with me is in shared effort to make my book the best it can be, and I’m happy to make changes to that end.
On February 2nd, I received my editing package back from her (an exceedingly quick turn around time; I was anticipating six weeks, but she was so on top of things!). The editing package included an editorial letter, which was a nine page summation of her thoughts and notes on the manuscript as a whole, and a new, separate copy of the manuscript with her comments and tracked changes.
What were the next steps?
Then came the collaborative part. I asked Liza if we could set up a Zoom meeting to discuss the edits she’d sent me. I’m a verbal processor and like to debrief feedback out loud. Liza agreed to schedule a meeting with me for a week out, encouraging me to take time with her edits and sit on what further questions or ideas may come up.
In that week between receiving the editorial package and our follow up meeting, I think I sunk about 50 hours into the editing process. Liza had some fantastic ideas for bettering the plot and it set me on fire immediately. It was a fever dream of a week. I am by no means a high energy type of person, but that week I felt close to mania. I was so excited about the changes and the vision of the end product. Progress has slowed significantly since that first week, as I did hit an emotional obstacle during the re-writes. But I was able to process that hurdle with some amazing friends, and now I’m back on track with the editing.
I also took one night that week to write on-location in the esports arena where I’ve been researching. I had the opportunity to talk with the director and ask her a few more research-related follow up questions to further refine some of the new content in the second draft.
By the time I met with Liza during our follow up meeting, I had reworked my entire beat sheet and was able to share the form the second draft was taking with her edits incorporated. She was excited for the direction I’m heading, and agreed to beta read for me once the second draft is complete!
What’s changing in the book based on the editing?
A couple major structural things are changing in the book.
Switching which character is in the role of director.
I received feedback from both my editor and my beta readers that the first draft (where my MMC is the director of esports, and the FMC is his employee along with another assistant coach) contained an uncomfortable power dynamic. With my MMC being FMC’s boss, their sexual relationship felt a little too imbalanced and hard to root for (along with the fact that my MMC was an absolute, irreverent asshole). Thus, the male assistant coach and MMC will switch roles to prevent any particularly sticky HR situations. This switch also allows for a fun surprise reveal that wasn’t in the manuscript before.
More flashbacks
Because of the un-redemptive nature of my MMC’s assholery, I knew I needed to include more scenes to humanize him. In the second draft, my MMC and FMC will have actually known each other for eight years prior to the exposition of the novel. This is unknown to the FMC, as their relationship has been an anonymous online friendship where they game together.
The second draft includes several timestamped flashbacks to their online conversations, which show much more of my MMC’s humanity and care for my FMC.
The flashbacks serve the additional function of nixing what was essentially the prologue in the first draft. Agents don’t like to see prologues, since it tends to signal that you as an author don’t trust yourself to unfold information about your characters and their history to the reader gradually across the narrative arc rather than dumping information at the outset.
Because of the above structural changes, the entire first third of the book needed to be overhauled. Some chapters needed tweaking to align with the new plot points, other chapters needed to be built from the ground up. Still other chapters were cut completely because they were not serving to advance the plot.
A lot of the chapters in the middle of the book can essentially remain as they were in the first draft, but there are a few chapters that need heavy editing on the back end of the novel.
This weekend, I was working diligently to finish my reworking of the first third, as this is where the majority of the work needs to be done.
What’s coming up next?
My goal is to be finished with the second draft, have it self-edited, and sent out to second round beta readers before I leave for a cruise on March 20. A lot to get done? Yes. Do I think I can do it? Maybe. Am I feeling motivated? Yes, absolutely. I have fallen in love with my MMC all over again, as these big changes make him such a lover boy and all around good person. I’m loving being back in the manuscript and having more time with him.
If all that gets done as intended before the cruise, I’ll be working on my fourth book while on a boat in the middle of the ocean. (Research trip, tax deductible, yay.) With no wifi, I’ll be forced to stretch my own creativity and just write instead of getting bogged down in technicalities. (Which is another reason I love writing in the arena. I get no wifi and horrible reception, which forces me to lock in and actually work on the manuscript instead of getting distracted by scrolling on Instagram.)
After I get back to dry land, I’ll probably chip away at working on my second book while I wait for beta reading friends to give feedback. After that, I’ll do another round of self-edits before sending it back to my editor. After that, more self-edits, and a third round of beta readers. In the meantime, I’ll be researching agents I want to query and gathering information and materials for submitting to each.
The more and more I get into this process as an author, the more I’m understanding the slow-moving nature of the publishing industry. But I think it’s a good thing! I’d rather move slowly and turn out quality work than rush through something that I’m not truly proud of. At the end of however many years it takes to get GAME OVER published, I will look back and smile at all of it, because the accomplishment was worth the work and the wait.
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