How I Edit My Books
This post has been a long time in the making because with every book I learn something new, and I feel like this advice will never been “done.” A lot of the processes I have in place have grown and changed with each book, and I’m sure when I look back on this in a few years I’ll have even more new tips and tricks that I’ve worked into my flow. But, now that I have four (almost five) books under my belt, I thought I’d describe how I get a book from a draft to a finished manuscript. I’ll specifically be using SOULBIND as an example because this one was a task to get through. And, although I will be going into more detail later on, it goes without saying that I create these books largely because of the team I’ve built. I am super impressed authors that can do it all themselves, but that’s not me!
The Draft
The amount of time it takes me to write a book varies, I have written some in two months and some in four years. I do not outline my self-pub books, but I do outline my trad ones to share with my agent. Either way, I’m a discovery writer by nature, so I have drafting days where it’s like pulling teeth to write 500 words, and others where I fly through 3k because I’m so in the zone. To keep from slowing down with self-editing I do two things:
A lot of my first draft will be sparse and littered with details like [eye color] or [time of day] that I have the pleasure of correcting later. But in not trying to track down details it helps to keep my flow. I also use this method for questions I have, so if something needs further research, but does not impact the story later (IE: the instance of [arrow pocket] when I mean quiver) then I just leave it be and correct it later.
Though I do not outline, I name all of my chapters the specific story beat I want to hit. This helps as a broad guide to where I’m going (even when it changes) but it also makes it easier for when I inevitably need to switch around certain story beats. I know which chapter I need to move because it’s in the name. My favorite placeholder chapter for SOULBIND was “uh oh, cult” which I can’t wait for y’all to experience.
Developmental Edits
Here’s where that team I mentioned comes into play. Though I didn't have time for SOULBIND, usually I have a few friends beta read the first draft for me. While they’re reading I go through myself on a different format, either printed or Kindle, and do a dev read myself. This time, I jumped straight into developmental edits with my editor, Kal. He goes through and makes hundreds of in-line comments, as well as creates a style sheet and edit letter for me to work off of. I have worked with Kal on all my books, and it’s really cool to see the both of us grow together. Kal is fantastic and my books are stronger for it. He picks up on inconsistencies, beats that don’t work, beats that do work so we can expand on it, and just really gets into the nitty gritty on what is or isn’t working.
A new part of the process I’ve implemented is a spreadsheet, which I use to track each chapter and the details in it. I note word count, time of day, plot threads, location, etc. I didn't use it as much for this book, but for the last book I did with my agent it was instrumental in the editing process as we moved a lot of chapters around and expanded storylines, so keeping track was vital. Nevertheless, writing this sheet out for SOULBIND did help me to place big edits I wanted to make, as well as track the passing of time which in an adventure quest turned out to be quite the task.
Once I get all of Kal’s comments and the edit letter I go through each chapter and make myself a to-do list, writing out all the changes he suggested as well as the ones I had thought of during my own reading. I would say on average I accept 95% of Kal’s suggestions. We wouldn’t be working together if we didn't have similar tastes and perspectives on story, so even the other 5% I usually end up considering and incorporating in a different way. Then I go one chapter at a time, hacking things away and leaving placeholders where I need to add new content. I cut everything before I start writing in case I cut something that changes the new content. For SOULBIND I ended up cutting about 25k and adding 11k of new content. Once I’ve done the big picture edits and new content, I go through Kal’s comments in the document and make sure everything is addressed, leaving my own notes or questions along the way. I do not address comments prior to this point because a lot of text ends up getting cut or changed in a way that addresses/negates a comment.
After the chapter-by-chapter checklist is done I do another pass with smaller details. These are things that apply to more than one chapter, so it’s easier to do a pass just paying attention to these edits once the story is more locked in. For SOULBIND these were some of my notes:
Add watch rotations to all camp scenes.
In draft 1 they were raw dogging it.
Add descriptions.
I have aphantasia, so physical details are usually very light in a first draft.
Address [redacted]’s beef with [redacted.]
Sometimes I have a plan for something and then forget all about it! So I go back and tighten up plot threads and character arcs that I started for myself and never finished.
Copy Edits
Once I have tweaked the draft enough that the story is locked in, it goes back to Kal for copy edits. The style sheet really comes in to play here to make sure I’m consistent with my world building choices (Hells instead of Hell, a character having hazel eyes vs green) and where we start to pick apart the prose and word choice. While Kal has this version of the manuscript I again read through on kindle, making comments as I go. This is where I live on Word Hippo and make sure the words I picked are the best choice, the descriptions and action feels varied, and so on. This part is very humbling for me as I tend to repeat certain quips or scenarios, so I have to decide which instance of a phrase I want to keep and then alter the rest. This also goes for certain words that feel too frequent. For whatever reason SOULBIND’s word was sycophant. No idea why I used it so much, but boy it kept coming up.
This stage is also when I decide on formatting. For this book I had to decide how the demon would be portrayed in the text, as well as how I wanted the chapter headers and scene breaks to look. I also take this time to order a proof copy to see the cover in print, how big the book will be (roughly) and all the other details I want to hammer out before the final copy is uploaded with the printer.
Proofreading
This is the last stage in editing before a manuscript becomes a book. My proofreader, Robin, goes through and catches grammar, typo, and formatting issues. While she has the manuscript I do two different things during this stage:
I send out ARCs to those that signed up to read them. Different authors send out ARCs at different stages, but I try to have as clean a copy as I can for ARC readers. So while there will still be typos, it’s pretty close to the published version. This also gives me time to catch typos that helpful readers point out, and check them against the draft I get back from Robin to make sure everything was caught.
I listen to the text with the read aloud feature. This can be very tedious, but I find it’s the best way to find all those pesky typos your brain skips over, as well as clean up awkward or unnatural phrasing that’s slipped through. Especially for a book like SOULBIND, which is medieval, I try to strike a balance between dialogue that is not overly modern, but not too olde(TM) either, and sometimes I have to decide if I’m sticking with tone or something accessible. Hearing it spoken aloud helps for when I’ve gone too far in one direction or the other.
And then, once I get the proofed copy back it goes to the printer and out into the world. The timeline for this varies, and with self-publishing I have the freedom to keep things incredibly tight. For SOULBIND all of these steps will have taken place from mid-May to the beginning of August. As I write this I am waiting for copy edits back and the proof to arrive in the mail.
Every book feels like I’ll never be able to write one again, and then somewhere along the way I remember why I love this so much. Right now I’m sitting in that excited anticipation. ARCs will be opening soon and that means within a few more weeks you can step into this world I love so dearly. Thank you for reading, and more to come soon <3
