Howdy,
I’d like to say the Arduous Edit is complete, as in done and dusted. I expected what I call the stage VII edits to be it. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you think about it, this is not to be. There are still two or three editing phases I need to go through. I must admit the process is becoming somewhat arduous.
Here is what I left to do:
I need to surgically edit the scenes in the protagonist’s narrative voice to make sure I have the depth of emotion that’s necessary. As Donald Maass would say, the story beneath the surface needs to be spot on.
Likely as part of this effort, I will look into combining two of the later chapters into one. During the last listen through I decided these chapters felt repetitive.
Once both those tasks are whipped, it will be time for one last read through.
Hopefully, having completed those three tasks, the manuscript will be shipshape. Fingers crossed, literally. On a positive note, I’m pleased to report the plot holds together just fine and dandy due to the Great Rewrite and previous editing efforts. Also, this last listen through has been very successful at finding typos/missing words. Good stuff.
Before I start on the stage VIII edits, I’ll probably be refining my query letter and my synopsis since I received some excellent constructive criticism from the writers’ guild. Expect a post about that in the next few days.