Editing

After I received the First editing feedback, I made another pass through the manuscript. I added a couple of chapters, bringing my page count to about 125k. It shored up points of the story, like providing background on the main character and his abilities earlier in the story so that the second section made more sense.

One other thing my editor mentioned was dialogue. Again, this is an area where I had that nagging feeling. In some conversations, the dialogue crackled. In others, I felt it wasn’t as crisp. After the original editing pass, I did something different. I don’t remember if I read about it somewhere or how I decided to do it, but I made yet another editing run through the book.

Except this time I read it out loud.

Fortunately, I write in the morning before most of the family is up. That minimized the wife or kids walking by my office and hearing me mumble to myself.

It was extremely valuable, and I highly recommend the practice. Hearing the dialogue out loud allowed me to see how it flowed and where it sounded unnatural. It also served as another proofreading exercise, finding words left out, for example. Overall, it was a great way to make sure the entire story, not just the dialogue, felt right.

I’m sure it’s not perfect, but so much better than it was because I took the time to read it out loud. And unlike hiring an editor, this one comes free and you’ll learn more than you imagine.

Next time I’ll talk about what I did regarding characters based on a suggestion from my editor.