The intricacies of editing

[John Dean]

I am carrying out the editing of the latest DCI Blizzard novel before sending it to my publishers The Book Folks and, as I may have mentioned in previous blogs, for me this is the most enjoyable part of the writing process.

I know that some writers detest editing and love the creative process of filling blank pages but I am one of those authors who loves the intricacies of editing and dreads empty pages!

So, once I have a workable draft, I print it out and go through it line by line. Yes, I am looking at the big things, ensuring that the plot holds together etc, but for me it is much more about individual words. It is very much a forensic process.

By the end of the read-through, I will have made more than a thousand changes to the printed draft and the pages will be covered in spidery notes.

What are the changes? Well, many of them involve deleting unnecessary words which add nothing to the story and slow the pace, everything from too much description to lines in which the character thinks too much when his/her thought processes are already clear in what he/she does and says elsewhere in the story.

Getting dialogue right is a huge part of the process and I will take out words and phrases that make conversations come across as cluttered or stilted as well as removing sections that add little to the story.

I will also add material, including, crucially, lines that help the reader to better follow the plot. Sometimes adding a single word can have a huge effect.

Hopefully, the end result is a novel which moves along at a rapid pace and avoids the reader becoming  confused. If I get that right, I’ve written a page turner. Now all I have to do is hope that the editor agrees!