The Editing Process

            I haven’t had a blog about my writing recently, so I thought I ought to change that. Since I finished writing my latest book last week (throw confetti!), I thought it would be appropriate to share what happens next.

            While I budget myself a year to write each of my books, that clock stops ticking when I write the last word of the book (usually with a couple months to spare). The process, however, does not stop there. That is when the editing starts.

            First, naturally, I read through the book myself, fixing all the typos I can find, smoothing out awkward sentences and such. Sometimes I need to rewrite sections that aren't good enough and occasionally there’s a minor plot hole to fix (for a while, in my second book, there was an object in two places at once). Once that’s done, I hand the book off to my wife, Colleen.

            Now, Colleen has a very special job while editing. Not only does she have to watch for the same flaws I did, but she also needs to fill in a few... blanks that I left for her. Blanks that tend to look like [INSERT DESCRIPTION], [DESCRIBE PRETTY SUNRISE] or [DESCRIBE DAY AT FAIR]. Plus she has to report back to me on her thoughts on the book (incidentally, two chapters into the latest one she has emphatically declared that this is my best book yet. Be excited).

            Then the book comes back to me to go through once again. I read the whole book again, making the same edits as before and making Colleen’s suggested changes, as well as editing her new parts (sometimes – although rarely – I send some back to her to be rewritten with, usually with specific requests). Oh, and I get to read her delightful comments, particularly on some of the references I made.

            Once I'm done that edit, the book goes off to my parents. I know this might seem cheesy to some people, but my parents (along with being awesome) are very talented and, while most parents will shower their children’s work with praise, mine have always been fantastic at providing wonderful feedback.

            My dad has done a fair amount of writing himself, and – back when he had more free time – he used to tell his great stories at schools and events. He is also a library technician and he reads a lot. Like me, he is the type of person who analyses a book while he’s reading it, picking up on the foreshadowing and guessing what’s going to happen next. He’s my best source of feedback on the book’s overall content. He’s stopped bothering with doing technical edits because my mom will catch all of those.

            My mom is one of those (despicable) people who are amazing at everything they do. She knows her grammar exceptionally well and, if she’s not sure on something, she takes the time to look it up. She also reads at a snail’s pace, making her an ideal line editor. By the time she’s done reading my book, I'm confident that there are next to no technical errors remaining. It’s definitely worth waiting the six (or more) months it takes her to read the whole book.

            With my feedback from my parents, I go through the book again, making even more changes. Then, it’s time to get down to business. I sit down with Colleen and we go through the book together, making it as perfect as we can. This is where the greatest conflicts in our marriage come from – we once spent over an hour arguing over the wording of a sentence. It was great.

            At long last, the book gets declared done and I get to work on getting it published, which will involve even more editing.

            Blogs, on the other hand, are much simpler. I usually skim through them once after writing them, then don’t bother with any editing until someone sends me a text of Facebook message to let me know I've got a bunch of typos. Thanks, editing types! All literature would be a lot messier without an outside eye to whip thins into shape.

            (P.S. I'm taking the liberty of not reading a single word I wrote in this blog. How did I do?)

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.