At Newcastlewest Books, we're getting ready to release our second offering of well-crafted historical fiction. That means editing the manuscript.
As an author, you're probably too close to the novel that you slaved over for months if not years. With the words so deeply imbedded in your brain, it can be difficult to stand back far enough to spot the small flaws that make readers put your book down.
Hence, the need for a third party to come in and read, and search out the problems that spoil the fun for your potential audience.
It's easy enough to write your story, but you may not realize that you've lost the tension somewhere in the middle. An editor can help you spot such things, and point out areas where you need to rewrite a segment. It could be something as minor as adding an additional sentence. It might require a revision of an entire chapter. It could mean cutting out two or three chapters altogether.
So I'll be working on edits today, reviewing the changes that our author has made. We want our readers to keep on turning the page until they get to the end. Such an accomplishment requires effort on our part, but what's the point of publishing something if it isn't done well?
Not something that can be done quickly, but it must be done if the book is to succeed when it's released for the holiday book-buying season.
No comments:
Post a Comment