Editing Techniques

I'm in the process of editing my novel, Rider, which has been sold to Entangled Publishing (Yay!) My lovely editor has gone through and pointed out areas where I needed to make corrections; grammar, plot, characterization. I can honestly say I enjoy the editing process. Yeah, I know, I'm weird. ;-)

But I thought I'd share how I do it.

First pass: Grammar 
I seem to be the queen of the coma splice so I had a bunch of those to correct. And there were issues about capitalizing certain words. These were all easy to correct since I accepted my lovely editors wisdom in almost every case and made the appropriate changes ;-)

The interesting part is that as I made this first pass, I took note of the comments left in the margins. Comments about plot or characterization or description. I didn't make any changes at the time because I wanted them to settle in my back brain and simmer for a spell.

Second pass - Plot, Characterization and Descriptions.
It's amazing to see what others think as they read Rider - what they like, what confuses them, what they think would make the story better. I'm generally from the school of 'The Editor Is Always Right' so I don't have a problem with fleshing out the story.

Even though I've listed it last, I start with any description problems since those are easiest to fix. Sometimes I forget that readers can't see the image I have in my mind and it's good to have someone point out that they're missing exciting details.

Once I'm done with Characterization, I move on to Characterization. I do this because my plots generally hinge on character so I need that firmly grounded.

Finally, I correct any plot problems. These aren't huge problems but sometimes need a little tweaking especially as I'm a Fly Into The Mist type of plotter.

Simple? For me, it is. I don't know how others would take to this. In fact, if you have a different way, please share your techniques. I'm sure we all could use the inspiration :-)

Have a Blessed Day!

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