How I Edit My Book (Before I Call in the Professionals)
December's Newsletter
Happy Holidays, friends! This will be my last newsletter of the year, and I think it will be a long one so let’s get right into it.
In this Issue:
Wyrmrot Update
The Lost Queen Update (Serial Fiction Numbers)
How I Edit My Book (Before I Call in the Professionals)
The Wyrmrot Update
We are on to the next step of the self-publishing journey.
In last month’s newsletter, I was waiting to get my developmental edits back and expected to have a lot of work ahead of me. I received my edits at the end of November, and I am happy to report, it was a lot better than I expected. Turns out I might actually know what I’m doing when it comes to story structure. Who knew? Not me.
Unfortunately, while I may understand story structure, I apparently do not know how to use a comma or a semi-colon, for that matter. And don’t get me started on lay vs lie and further vs farther.
So what did I do next?
I gave myself three weeks to work through my editor’s suggestions. For the most part, I only had to make small changes. Some chapters only required some comma fixes while others I needed to tweak character reactions or add descriptions (another weakness of mine). While I touched every single scene in the book, I would say overall, it wasn’t too bad., and I even finished before my three-week deadline.
Now I plan to let the book sit for two weeks over the holidays and pick it back up in January. I’ll do another read of the entire thing to make sure there isn’t anything else I missed. Then I will be on the hunt to hire a proofreader.
Also at the beginning of December, I had my first call with my cover artist. I now have an initial sketch for the cover, and I’m so excited for it. I won’t share the sketch, but I will tell you there is a dragon on it. When I have the final, I will be revealing it here first, so make sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss it.
The Lost Queen Update (Serial Fiction Update)
At the beginning of December, the second book in The Lost Queen series, May Shadows Reign, finished posting for early access subscribers. For those following along on the free updates, we are a little over halfway done.
Another exciting thing that happened this month was that The Lost Queen was featured in the Romance Fantasy reading event over on Tapas. The Lost Queen, along with 3 other romance fantasy books, was promoted for about four days.
And wow did my notifications blow up.
I was definitely not expecting this, and at first, I thought there must be some glitch with the site (if you’re on Wattpad then you know why my first thought is always glitches). Then following the reading event Tapas added The Lost Queen to their Staff picks lists. What! Huge thank you to the Tapas staff and all the readers showing this series some love. It makes me so happy to see.
Now I thought I would share my end of the year read counts across the various platforms this book is one for those who are interested in numbers. These numbers will cover Dec. 19th 2023 to Dec. 19th 2024 for The Lost Queen and June 3rd 2024 (the first numbers I have after posting the first chapter) to Dec. 19th 2024 for May Shadows Reign. For those platforms where The Lost Queen and May Shadows Reign are split into two book, I added the counts for each book together for easier comparison to the platforms where they are not split.
Okay, here’s the table:
As you can see, Tapas beat out Wattpad for most reads. This was very unexpected because prior to the reading event that happened last week, Tapas was my worst-performing platform. It will be interesting to see if it continues to grow over the next year or if it drops back down again.
For Inkitt (where May Shadows Reign is posted as a separate book from The Lost Queen), May Shadows Reign has struggled to get reads. I think this is because I set up subscriptions there for early access. While there are still new free chapters every week, the book does have a subscription label on it, which I think turns readers off. I’m guessing they assume the whole book is paid or that they will not be able to read the entire book because it’s partially behind a paywall. I’m not sure what to do about this other than wait to see if anything changes once the book is complete and nothing is behind a paywall anymore.
If you are on any of these platforms (as a reader or a writer) how has your experience been this year? Do you have a favorite platform you like to use? Do you have any other serial platforms you like to use that I haven’t tried yet? Let me know in a comment or send me a DM on substack ( guess that’s a thing we can do now).
How I Edit My Book (Before I Call In the Professionals)
As promised in last month’s newsletter, here’s a quick (hopefully) overview of how I edited Wyrmrot on my own before I called in a professional.
Disclaimer: This is just my process and is meant to be used as a guide. You do not need to do the same things I do. Take what works for you and leave the rest.
Before we start, let me tell you a little about my drafting process: it is chaos. I am not a planner. I do not start with an outline and know all my plot points and the ending. A lot of times I don’t even know the beginning. I usually start with part of a scene that popped into my head and go from there. Sometimes that scene will be the opening, other times it belongs somewhere in the middle. Most often I have no idea what my ending is going to be, and I figure it out along the way.
All that to say, I make a lot of work for myself in the editing phase.
Step One: Let the book sit.
Try to let it sit for at least a few weeks after you finish the draft. The longer the better. In the case of Wyrmrot, it sat for a few years because I was working on other projects. Taking a break from a project can help you gain a fresh perspective on it.
Step Two: The Reverse Outline.
Since I don’t outline before I draft my books, this is where I finally make an outline.
I go through the book scene by scene and write a little one to two-sentence summary of each one. I like to do this both in Scrivener (my writing program of choice) and on a giant whiteboard using post-it notes. I’ve tried using a spreadsheet before, but I quickly gave that up. I’m just not a spreadsheet person.
While doing this I also mark the places where I have plot points (I like to use the Save the Cat method). I also make a note of anything that immediately sticks out to me as needing fixing (things like places I find boring or I think the scene doesn’t serve any purpose or where I might need to add more description so my characters aren’t just talking heads.)
Step Three: Check my plot structure.
Now that I have my outline, I can easily see where I might be missing some plot points or if they are occurring at the wrong place in the book. For example, your inciting incident should not be halfway through the book. If it is, you’ve done something wrong. If my structure appears solid, I move on to the next step. If not, I go to the places where I’m missing something or it appears in the wrong place, and I get to work rewriting.
In the specific case of Wyrmrot where I’m working with dual timelines, I made sure each timeline had its own structure. So when checking for my inciting incident, I had to make sure there was one in the past timeline and the present timeline (I like making extra work for myself).
Step Four: Check my character arcs.
I check to make sure my character has goals, motivations, wants and needs (yes, want and need are different, but that could be a whole newsletter topic on its own).
You should also be able to pick out where your character grows (or doesn’t grow) throughout the story. Your character should be actively making choices that steer the plot, and the plot isn’t just dragging them around. The choices your character is make should make sense for their personality and the lesson they need to learn in order to achieve their goal.
Side characters need their own arcs. They don’t necessarily need to be as big as the main character’s, but they should have their own goals and motivations too. This is especially true if you are writing in multiple POVs like I have for The Lost Queen series (again, I like to make more work for myself).
Step Five: Pacing
Time to check my story’s pacing. This is where those notes about boring parts or scenes that don’t add anything to the story come in handy. When I’m drafting I have a tendency to add a lot of filler when I’m struggling to figure out an idea. Now I have to go back and cut it all out.
I try to make sure each of my scenes is serving a purpose in the story whether it’s for the character’s arc or advancing the plot or both. Ideally, there should be a mix of action scenes and reaction scenes. There should be the occasional slower moments to let readers catch their breath before diving back into intense action again. Those slow scenes should still be contributing to the plot in some way. Same goes for the action scenes. If explosions are going off just for the sake of explosions, they should be cut.
Step Six: Theme
In this step, it’s time to check the story’s theme. What are you trying to convey with this story? Some common universal themes are: coming of age, good vs evil, revenge, love, betrayal, etc.
I admit I shouldn’t be giving advice on this step because I usually get stuck here and end up hoping it works itself out. Don’t ask me what the themes are in Wyrmrot, because I still don’t think I could tell you.
Step Seven: Setting and Character Description
I like to do all my description work at once and save it for last. This is where I try to make sure I have enough description in each scene for the reader to picture the setting and I’m not spending paragraphs describing something that isn’t relevant/ could have been done in a single sentence. Description is one of my biggest weaknesses and where I tend to need the most help.
Step Eight: Word and Comma edit
After I’m done looking at the bigger pieces of the story, now it’s time to look at the smaller things like flow, word choice, word echoes, and if my commas are in the right place (lol no, they most certainly aren’t).
And that’s it.
Then I call in the professionals so they can point out all the things I missed (and trust me, even when you think you got everything there is always something that can be improved).
Until next year! <3