Let the Editing Begin!
I have been going through and editing my newest book The Wanderer (working title). It is currently 69,758 words and I hope to break 70,000 by the time I'm done editing. My first goal was to just get the story down. With editing I hope to clean it up, cut off the fat (as my sister would say) and add a little bit of muscle ( my own creative twist).
The story is solid and I'm absolutely in love with it but there is always room for improvement! As I wrote it my sister and mom were reading it chapter by chapter giving advice and grammatical help. Now my husband is reading it which is important for a few reasons. He is in the Army and my story is about a retired Army vet. While his job is in aviation and my character, Landon, was a cavalry scout, my husband can provide me with help as far as Army lingo and accuracy goes. In fact he actually wrote the outline for a pivotal chapter in the story; a flashback to his Army combat days.
In addition to helping maintain military accuracy he is also helping me keep the character of Landon "purely male". As a female writer I look to his, at times brutally honest, opinion to make sure that I keep the characters believable. Writing in the male perspective can be hard at times and sometimes I fall short. He makes sure that he points out how to make it the whole distance in a believable voice.
You might think that having my husband and family provide help would be in fact unhelpful. Family is usually the one who tells the kids on American Idol who can't sing that in fact they can, and well enough to try out for public humiliation. That, in my family, is not the case. As I said, my husband is brutally honest. He is also not a big reader so he takes a long time to actually sit down and read it. This alone makes me question my writing, wondering how I can make it flow in a way that it will read much faster. The other day my husband read two chapters without realizing it. He was very surprised. I was relieved! He also usually says, "Oh my gosh, you totally screwed this up." at some point while reading (did I mention that he was born missing the subtle bone that most of us have in our bodies?). But this time he just read it to the end without a word. Now that for me is considered a real breakthrough in my writing!
Now, about half-way done with my editing I'm looking for ways to improve the story and it's flow. I'm far from done but I look forward to the final outcome!
The story is solid and I'm absolutely in love with it but there is always room for improvement! As I wrote it my sister and mom were reading it chapter by chapter giving advice and grammatical help. Now my husband is reading it which is important for a few reasons. He is in the Army and my story is about a retired Army vet. While his job is in aviation and my character, Landon, was a cavalry scout, my husband can provide me with help as far as Army lingo and accuracy goes. In fact he actually wrote the outline for a pivotal chapter in the story; a flashback to his Army combat days.
In addition to helping maintain military accuracy he is also helping me keep the character of Landon "purely male". As a female writer I look to his, at times brutally honest, opinion to make sure that I keep the characters believable. Writing in the male perspective can be hard at times and sometimes I fall short. He makes sure that he points out how to make it the whole distance in a believable voice.
You might think that having my husband and family provide help would be in fact unhelpful. Family is usually the one who tells the kids on American Idol who can't sing that in fact they can, and well enough to try out for public humiliation. That, in my family, is not the case. As I said, my husband is brutally honest. He is also not a big reader so he takes a long time to actually sit down and read it. This alone makes me question my writing, wondering how I can make it flow in a way that it will read much faster. The other day my husband read two chapters without realizing it. He was very surprised. I was relieved! He also usually says, "Oh my gosh, you totally screwed this up." at some point while reading (did I mention that he was born missing the subtle bone that most of us have in our bodies?). But this time he just read it to the end without a word. Now that for me is considered a real breakthrough in my writing!
Now, about half-way done with my editing I'm looking for ways to improve the story and it's flow. I'm far from done but I look forward to the final outcome!
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Ashley wrote: "I think it's so great that you have such honest people surrounding you and working as your support system! You stand a much greater chance at professional and personal success if you know that you'..."Yes, it also helps that I'm receiving help from people who enjoy reading different types of books. My husband, as I said usually doesn't enjoy reading, but when he does read he reads books like Lord of the Rings and The Road. My mom was a big Steven King fan for a while and reads a bunch of different books now. My twin sister on the other hand reads books like the ones I read such as young adult novels and books like the ones Nicholas Sparks writes. But she sees what I can't simply based on the fact that she didn't write it. She's also helped me build on the story as well in ways I didn't see before.
I'm definitely lucky!
I loved hearing about your writing process, too. It sounds like you really enjoy it.