The Publication of a Novel — The Editing Process
May 15th, 2008 Posted in The Publication of a Novel
I’ve signed the contract with Cladach Publishing. They’ll be publishing my novel, The Fountain. I promised you I’d keep you up to date on the process. We’re now in the editing stage. I’ve received about three e-mails from my editor, Hannah. She’s read the novel through a couple of times, plus some. She’s given me about two pages of suggestions.
Some of the suggestions deal with the pacing of the story, for instance, adding a little more material at the end so it doesn’t conclude so abruptly. Other suggestions concern the characters and how some details of their lives or their feelings and emotions could be fleshed out a bit. She’s even suggested I change the breed of the pet dog of my detective character Ben. I will, even give him a different name - I think it’ll be Bruno.
I’m OK with the suggestions. Most of them, I feel, are valid and will make the novel better. It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child. I see now that it takes a small village of people to write a good novel!
Good writing almost always involves much re-writing. This re-writing process can benefit greatly if there are some others who can give the writer input. A good editor does this. The challenge for me is to look at the different parts of the story and add to, take away, and change words and sentences to make it a better story. It’s a work in process at this point. I’ll keep you up to date.
Dave
