I've just sent my first round of edits for The Star of Ceylon to my editor, Vicky, at Storm. I know there are some of you who’d like to know more about what goes into getting a book out into the world. So, here’s a peek behind the scenes into what writers often call ‘the editing cave’.
Editing isn’t a one-off thing but a multi-step process. The edited manuscript I've just returned was step one – Structural edits. After reading my submitted manuscript, Vicky came back to me with her thoughts on how the structure of the book might be improved. This stage can cover how the book is organised – the ordering of events etc, characterisation, pace, style, plot, setting, and voice. It ensures there is a logical flow to the story and all the pieces hang together. I’m pleased to say I didn’t have a lot to do. Vicky suggested one of the two main characters should appear sooner so the reader can meet her before chapter three. So, I wrote a new chapter two and shuffled some of the later bits forward. She also wanted my other main character to be lightened up a bit in the first chapter as he was coming across as rather too intense and a bit judgemental. A fair cop! Otherwise, it was adding a couple of paragraphs to flesh out one or two minor scenes and introducing a secondary character sooner. As there wasn’t a lot to address, I took the opportunity to go through the whole manuscript line by line to polish further and make sure that the changes I’ve made don’t throw it off balance. I’m hoping also this will reduce the edits needed in the next phase…
…Which is the Line Edit. Here Vicky will return my manuscript with suggestions and corrections wherever needed. Whereas the structural was a written document from her, the Line Edit involves Track Changes in Word – including her comments and questions. This phase focuses on style, readability and tone and gets much more granular – chopping out any repetition or overcomplicated sentences, spotting anything that might confuse the reader, correcting any errors, identifying any points where the pace is sluggish. Usually, my line edits involve comments such as “Can we break up all this dialogue here? I’d like some more visual details – expressions, actions, gestures.” I suppose as the author I am there in the middle of the dialogue and can see exactly how the participants are feeling – so it can be easy to forget that the reader needs more visual cues. I make my revisions using Track Changes and provide a comment with my reasoning if there’s something I don’t want to change (that’s not often as Vicky’s usually right!)
Stage 3 is the Copy Edit and involves someone else – usually a freelancer. This phase gets into the details of punctuation, spelling, consistency such as use of capitalisation. This is also done with Track Changes and I go through accepting or rejecting the changes – and, if the latter, explaining why.
The last stage is the Proof Read. It’s the final check to ensure that in the previous stages errors haven’t crept in.
While all this is going on Vicky is busy briefing the cover designer and giving them feedback. Once she’s happy she’ll pass it to me to have a look and make any comments. The publisher has the final say on covers but Storm are very collaborative and I’ve loved all the covers they’ve done for me so far.
She will also write the book description – the sales copy used on the retailer’s pages to entice you to buy the book – and on the back of the print edition. Again I get a chance to input. I try to keep any comments to a minimum as I think it’s important that the publisher has full responsibility for how to market the book.
The Production team are involved now – formatting the book and incorporating the front and back matter – all the legal stuff at the front and the stuff such as About the Author and Also By at the back. Once it’s formatted for print and ebook I get another pass at it – not to make changes, but to check for any errors that have been missed.
So you can see there’s a lot involved in editing – it’s not just a quick pass to spot typos. I’ve always believed editing is not to be shortchanged. I worked with one fantastic editor, Debi Alper for all my indie-published books – except for Jasmine in Paris, which was edited by the equally fabulous Lorna Fergusson. I have been blessed in finding such wonderful and supportive colleagues.
Here are Vicky’s opening words to her structural report on The Star of Ceylon.
“It’s such a pleasure to be working on a new book with you, and this is a cracker! I’m excited about readers discovering it and know they’re going to find it as gripping and immersive a read as I have.”
I hope you do!
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