Wednesday 30 March 2011

The last leg of the editing process

Writing
Courtesy of jjpacres on Flickr
I'm nearing the end of the second draft of Sanctuary. It's very exciting but it's been a bit of a slog. Actually, it's one month ago since I started typing up my hand-edits. It's been quite a quick, albeit difficult, process.

The Process

I finished all the writing and set it aside for a week or two. I then printed it all and sat down with a red pen.

I went through, marking any errors, striking through bits and adding notes. Almost 200 double-spaced pages later and I had a manuscript covered in scribbles.

That was at the end of Feb. Since then I've been going through my electronic version and making all those little grammar changes as well as cementing in a plot twist that came to me at the end of writing and adding in a whole new sub plot.

What's next

I'd intended to email this to a few readers who could look over it and give me some feedback (family and friends at this stage) but I think I'm going to do another draft before I do that. Just a quick sweep to fix any continuity errors and find any remaining grammar issues.

The shiny 3rd draft will then be sent to a few people and I'm not going to have much to do with it while they all read it. I don't know if I should give them a list of things to look out for or if I should just let them read and leave it to them to mention anything they think I should know. Advice?

That then brings me to the dilemma of choosing between Forgotten and Heat of the Moment for my next main project. They're both around a similar wordcount and I'm having issues with both. Hopefully once I know Sanctuary is out of the way I'll be able to focus a bit more.

Tell me, what's your editing process?

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