I hate this: my editing process

pls make it stop

As promised, in the wake of my drafting process, I must now share the dreaded editing process. I’ve never enjoyed editing. It’s a necessary evil, and while it’s deeply rewarding after the fact, I have never once been excited to sit down and look at my own work with a critical eye.

Because editing uses an entirely different part of the brain (she said, knowing nothing about neurology or brains or science): The logic part, the part that looks for things that are wrong and comes up with ideas on how to fix them. The part of my brain that is atrophied and malnourished, and always has been. But I’m brave and strong, so I push through. And what, exactly, does pushing through entail?

Let’s break it down:

1. Reread the full rough draft. This part truly sucks. It’s a humbling and shameful experience, reading what might have sounded good at 10:00 PM hyped up on caffeine and candy, but now looks like pure nonsense. When I first read through the rough draft, I don’t make any notes. I tend to read this draft on my Kindle, to discourage myself from changing things as I go and getting bogged down in the smaller details. This phase is mainly to remind me what the fuck I just wrote, who the characters are, the plot arcs, and everything else (because usually by this time I’ve forgotten).

2. Read it again, but take notes this time. The purpose of this second read-through is to note changes I’d like to make in my first round of developmental edits (that’s the big picture stuff — plot, character, world building, etc).

3. Make an edit outline. While I read the draft a second time, I use a separate document to note, chapter by chapter, what changes I’ll make and why, which I then use as a guide for my first pass at revisions. In this stage I look at the book as a whole, decide where I want it to be ideally, and I write down all the ways I think I can get it as close to that ideal as possible.

4. Start editing. Yuck. The worst. But I do it! Chapter by chapter, I use my outline to guide me in revisions. Usually this means adding scenes and chapters to flesh out characters, removing bulky exposition, fixing inconsistencies, and so on. I do this until I’ve made all the big-picture changes listed in my edit outline.

5. Involve someone else in your misery. It’s usually at this stage that I’ll send the book out to beta readers! They get the fixed-up version of a rough draft. I prefer not to put too much effort into editing until I get some feedback from outside perspectives, as I generally don’t know what I’m doing and rely on the good sense of my colleagues and friends to make my books palatable. Beta readers will usually point out countless major issues that I completely missed, and that’s why I love them (but also hate them).

6. Do 3 & 4 again. It’s endless. But I have to do it. I collect all the notes from my beta readers, pick the feedback I’m going to implement, and put it into a fresh new edit outline! And then I do stage 4 again. By this time I’ve typically lost my will to live.

7. Send the manuscript to a real editor. At this point, I’m usually pretty confident that the book is perfect, and if I have to look at it one more time, I’ll spontaneously combust. So I send it to my editor, thinking she’ll respond with an email saying, “Wow Meg, this book is literally perfect. No notes,” as if I’m Nick Miller writing The Julius Pepperwood Chronicles. Unfortunately, this has not yet happened. Instead, she sends me a multi-page memo on what needs fixing, and a manuscript teeming with notes. Because she’s a professional, and I pay her to harm me psychologically.

8. Implement my editor’s notes. This happens in 3 separate stages!

   1. Developmental: As above, we work on the big picture items first: character, plot structure, romance, world building, etc. Usually only one pass is needed here, unless you’re my upcoming book Sanctifier, which nearly drove me to an early grave. (It needed two developmental passes. I barely survived.)

   2. Line: These are more nitpicky edits like, did you use this word three times in the same sentence? Would this character actually say that? Did you use the correct word here? Fix this confusing syntax, you’re not as smart as you think you sound. And so on.

   3. Copy: Even more nitpicky. More spelling, more grammar, more attention to detail. At this point I don’t even know — I just do whatever my Word Dom (editor) tells me to do because I’m simply a lowly author, uwu.

And that’s… it. That’s all. Just a few easy steps to take your rough draft and turn it into a book! I have cried so many times while editing but I’ve never regretted the pain for a second. There’s a reason editors exist, and it’s to save authors from ourselves.

I hope that if you’re a writer, an author, an aspiring author, or whatever else that you find this useful in some way, and not terribly harrowing. Don’t forget: we’re all in the trenches together.

If you're a reader, I do all of it for you. I'm sorry/you're welcome.

Meg x