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Debra is one step closer to finishing the final stretch of things to do on One Great Night.
Over the weekend I received the galley files for One Great Night from my editor. I was a little surprised, because I thought I'd be seeing the project in pre-galley format first, but I guess we skipped that step. Now's the time for looking at minute mistakes: misspellings, grammatical errors, misplaced punctuation, etc. Essentially line edits. It's not the time for changing anything about the story or even rephrasing lines or substituting words.
It's exciting and scary all at the same time. It's exciting because a galley is almost the last step before getting a release date. (I'm still waiting on a cover, too.) It's a bit scary because the time for tweaking and changing has passed. The story won't be changing...even in a small way...at this point. It is what it is.
Because of that, I approach this step of editing in a different way. Instead of reading from the beginning to the end, I read from the end to the beginning. I start with the last page. This way, my mind is not wrapped up in the story, and those pesky errors I mentioned tend to stand out more. Another way to do it is to read all of the odd pages and then all of the evens. Anything that breaks the flow of narrative.
I think no matter what the stage, everyone has their own system for editing. I've been to lots of sectionals and heard lots of presentations on it, but it really all comes down to finding what works for you. Writing is a very personal thing. Even in the editing stage.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
Is it hard not to be able to change anything, Debra. Self-published authors can tweak their books and re-upload.
ReplyDeleteI would love to be able to do that. So many times I've reread one of my books after it was published and thought I'd really like to be able to change...and unfortunately, there's usually more than one part I want to do differently.
DeleteI had the chance to do that recently with 'His Leading Lady' which is being re-released by a different publisher. I was amazed at how my style had changed since I first wrote it (lost count of how many 'that' words I deleted, for example!), and I also made a few changes. Not to the basic plot but certainly to some of the thoughts and actions - and I finally got my hero wearing a kilt in one scene, which I always wished I had done in the first version!
DeleteAgree that the final galley edit is quite nerve-wracking, because you are determined not to miss any error or typo (but you invariably do!). My usual method is to enlarge the print and read it out loud. Best of luck with yours, Debra!
ReplyDeleteA read-aloud is a great way to catch things, too.
DeleteAnd yep, no matter how fine the comb you go through it with, there's always something that seems to get missed.
DeleteI love the "all even pages, then all odd pages" method. I might have to try that next time. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jen. I used to do both the even/odd and the backwards read. With my last couple of books I've done either/or. I probably should go back to both...I catch a lot more mistakes that way.
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