Edit, edit, edit

The book has been written and i've picked a date to put it on Kindle. Feedback from the first readers was that the first two chapters were really heavy, with too much background detail and exposition. So i rewrote them.

Every writer's blog has an entry (or several if they're obsessive) about editing. Most are Get An Editor. Get It Edited. Edit. Edit. Edit. and Anybody But You!

The first draft was edited. Mostly grammatical stuff, and the usual set of comments about the first couple of chapters. Since then i've rewritten several parts, added a new chapter at the end and now i'm going through, paragraph by paragraph doing the pre-edit edit.

It's really hard. Some of the early stuff i've read so many times that i know it verbatim, and can't see what's wrong with it any more. The later stuff is still fairly fresh, so i'm coming on bits i'd forgotten about, which means i end up reading for enjoyment (yes, i do like my own stuff and i also laugh at my own jokes) rather than looking at it critically. I've found a few continuity errors, and a bit where i've clearly intended to come back and replace XXXXXXX with something that makes sense, but major changes? Just not happening.

So, next week,  i'm going to hand over to an editor. I'm cheating slightly. She used to Edit professional publications rather than novels, but inaccurate grammar is inaccurate grammar and she shares my angst at inappropriate apostrophes. And she's not afraid to tell me if something's rubbish.

It's a learning process.

If everybody who has said they'll buy it actually does so, i'll make a "loss" of about £50. If people out there in Kindle land pick up on it, i'll invest any profit in having book 2 edited by a novel editor. I'd love to see what the difference actually is. You can help. Keep watching the blog and i'll let you know when you can BUY THE BOOK. 190 copies feeds an editor for a month.

Tomorrow, a story about snow white