edits... Edits... And more edits!

A few years ago I wrote a story for Big Bang. It was about a psychic living in New Orleans who meets and falls in love with a US Marshal. Anyway, my girlfriend, who is an editor, kept saying that I needed to revise it and submit it to her publishing house and if nothing else see what the head editor had to say about it.

So I sucked it up and did. Okay! Okay! My husband did! I had the cover letter written and everything they wanted in the email and I just couldn’t force myself to push the button to send. He walked up and asked if it was done and I told him it was but I was scared to send it! So he reached around me and hit the button. THEN he asked me where his balls- to- the wall bitch was he loved and married. He finished that off by telling me to grow a pair! I love that man!

They had great comments and useful suggestions but again I needed to go back revise and re-edit. When I heard other writers talking about writing as a process there was a certain part of me that thought that it sounded a bit like bullshit. I mean you wrote a story right? Sure there would need to be edits to make sure that commas were in the right spot but you got your ideas out on paper, so to speak. What more is there?

There is stuff like story flow, characterization, and plot. What I was told was I needed to make up my mind about my story. Was it going to be a romance with action elements vs. an adventure with romantic elements?

I’ve gone back and basically re-wrote the story using about 50% of the original content. Using the suggestions that the head editor made, I made sure that I got those suggestions in the story. For the record ANY writer that doesn’t take the advice of an editor is a fucking idiot! These people aren’t here to tell you WHAT to write just HOW to write better so your books will SELL!

I guess the point of this particular blog is to say that while the main part of writing may seem done it never really is. My particular story was edited for Big Bang. Then it got edited for submission and now it’s going through a third edit for a second submission. That’s not including the edits that it is going to have to go through if it gets picked up by this particular publishing group. Why so many edits? I am proud of my writing. This is a tiny bit of me going out into the world and I want it to be the best it can be.

 You HAVE to go back revise/ rewrite and for the love of god, trust your writing group to say that yeah it’s good. Your writing group may like it; your editors will turn what is good into something great if you listen!