Editing Journey

Drafts

One of the tweets from an author and editor I follow said this:

Dev editing: Story coherence and character believability—along with genre guidance. 

Line editing: Clarity and elegance. Concision short of amputation. 

Copy editing: Clarity and grammar. 

Proofreading: Grammar, consistency, punctuation.

If you can hire an editor—do it. There are so many amazing professions who can help you.

I have seen a lot of services offered on Twitter, Reedsy seems to be dedicated to it and then a lot of professional organizations have lists of vetted editors who you know their craft. If there are authors you like, you can look in their Acknowledgments in the book and they usually list the editor there and thank them profusely.

If you can not hire an editor, or at least if you are not pursuing publishing (traditional or self) you can use other free resources. 

Critique Partners

Writing Groups

Beta Readers

Critique partners are like your best friends but for writing purposes. Then they might become your best friends for real. You agree on reading each other's work and on the kinds of editing you want to do for each other. You can help each other with any/all of the above (dev, line, copy, proof) and some CPs are better at certain kinds than others. There is a high level of trust that needs to be present for best CP pairings and the copy or proofreading can be easier done even if you are not on the same wavelength with your CP, the Dev and Line editing usually needs someone who understands you but isn't going to try and make you write as they do.  It's a delicate balance. Honesty and integrity are a must. There will be a lot of breakups before you find the CPs that are a good fit.

Writing Groups - I have little experience with them but they are similar to what Wattpad bookclubs are. You read each other's work, usually one or a small number of chapters per week. Everyone reads the same work and all critique it.

Beta Readers - I'm starting on this journey. I finished my second draft and will be sending it to people who told me they'd want to read it. I also have a questionnaire I hope they can fill out that will help me see what works and what doesn't. It's high-level feedback. One piece of advice I received is it's best if Betas are in your target audience and not someone who'd never read the genre you write in.

My journey with Love Novice and editing:

November 2019 - July 2020 - Draft 0 (got to THE END)

August 2020 - September 2020  Draft 1: Dev editing mostly. Cleanup of glaring issues (it took me so long to write Draft 0 there were major inconsistencies), some restructuring (moving information around, adding/removing some chapters). 

December 2020 - January 2021  Draft 2: More Dev Editing and some Line Editing. I moved more parts around, modified one plotline, expanded the denouement, and did a lot of line editing (put scenes on the page that were narrated before, cut down the exposition (back story, talking about what is happening instead of showing it), added more emotions, more voice to the main character, more external and internal reactions for the MC and more external reaction for other characters.

February 2021 -  TBD (April 2021?) Draft 3: I am sending Draft 2 to Beta readers and when I get enough of the results my plan is to see if there is any more Dev editing needed (plotline, character arcs) and address those, then see what are the common themes in the feedback and address those as well. The end date for this will depend on when I will get back the stuff from the Betas but I hope I can finish some time by end of March. The results of incorporating Beta feedback will be my Draft 3. I hope to send it out into the world to the editors/agents at that point.