I was at the lovely Fighting Words centre today in Dublin city, helping with a class of 5th and 6th year boys. They made up a story with the help of fab Jen, their storyteller.

Anyway, I met several most interesting women who were also helping out, 3 of whom are writing and are very interested in the whole creative process. I told one of them I was editing my latest adult book (sorry folks, more about the darned editing – which I should be doing right at this moment in fact – but it’s important) – and she asked ‘What do you mean by ‘editing’ exactly?

Interesting question.

The way I see it there are many, many different stages to an ‘edit’ and some are not ‘editing’ at all.

I’ll go through it step by step just to freak out all those people out there who think a book is finished once the first draft is done and dusted.

Here’s what happens to my novels in a nutshell (the non fiction books are a little different):

1/Finish first draft – now I don’t rewrite much as I go along – so it’s a messy first draft and needs a lot of work.

2/ Print out the whole thing – I can’t edit on screen – I need to scribble – and read through the whole thing – A4 pad by my side, to write on and insert extra scribbled pages into the manuscript as necessary.
I delete scenes/chapters that don’t work, plotlines that go nowhere, delete a lot of descriptive passages and rewrite them in a sentence or two. Work on making each character stronger.

3/ I type in all the changes, print out and start editing on the pages again.
I might do this 3, 4 or 5 times until I’m happy that my editor won’t laugh me out of it.

4/ I email the book to my editors (at the moment I have 2 who work as a team) and now, my agents.
My previous agent didn’t actually read my manuscripts, but my new ones do – I have 1 who deals with the kids books, 1, the adult books. To get feedback from so many experts is fabber than fab. I’m very lucky.

5/ They all send me their notes – or I chat to them on the phone about the book. I make my own notes on the changes to be made.

6/ I mull over these changes for a few days, making more notes.

7/ I print out the manuscript again and scribble the changes on to the pages. Sometimes if I have to rewrite a long scene or add a new one, I’ll type straight onto my laptop.

8/ Then I type the changes in.

9/ Then I print the whole thing out again, read it again, and make more changes, type in.
And I haven’t gone near the actual writing yet – this is all mainly plot and character stuff!

10/ Once I’m happy with the actual story and characters, I send it to my editor again and she sends me a ‘line edit’ – a more detailed, line by line edit of smaller, but important changes.

11/ So I make those changes – this usually only takes 1 or 2 print, scribble on pages, type ins. And then I send it back to her, and if she’s happy she passes it to the copyeditor.

12/ The copyeditor does what Joe public thinks ‘editing’ is – correcting typos, suggesting word changes for repeated words; smaller changes, additions for clarity and deletion of unnecessary words.

13/ When I get those notes, I make those changes (usually on screen at that stage) start tweaking the language – taking any any unnecessary words, tightening up the dialogue, making sure each chapter starts and ends as crisply and with as much impact as possible.

14/ Then once I’m happy with that (after printing out and reading one more time!), I’ll send it back to the copy editor and once she’s happy and the manuscript is ‘clean’ – free of any mistakes – she passes it on to the typesetter – who puts it into the book’s format – with the chapter headings, page numbers, prelims etc.

15/ Final stage (thank God!) – I get sent the ‘galleys’ or the proof pages to check through – which I do carefully, every single word – small mistakes pop up even at that stage that have been missed (and it’s the author’s duty to double check for these I feel – no one cares as much about your book as you do).

16/ The book is printed.

Oh, and I’m usually half way through a new book (let’s call it book 2) when the edits for book 1 hit – so I have to stop writing book 2, edit book 1 – send book 1 back to my editor – get back to writing book 2 – get the edits for book 1 back – work on the edits for book 1 again – send them off – back to book 2 – etc etc.

OK, hold it there, you’re saying – isn’t that a lot of work?
YES!
But are all books written like that?
No, some are published with a lot less editorial attention – on the publishers and/or the authors’ part. And some books require less work for some reason. My first Amy Green book was a joy to write – just flew out of me – but the 2nd one needed more work as I was trying to do too much – I needed to pare it back, make it simpler, concentrate on what I was really trying to say.

So there you go – now you probably know far too much about my editing process. Sorry if I’ve scared you.

SarahX
PS Sorry trees for all the printing – I’m green in other ways, promise!