How I Edit My Books

My latest work, a space opera scifi entitled “The First Nova I See Tonight,” had gone through my editing process to the point that I’ve handed it off to my editor, Donovan Reves at Bloomsday Editing and Proofreading. About 77K words worth of space pirates, cyborgs, and alien lovers! But even after he’s done, there’s more to do until publishing.

So what is that editing process? Let me tell you….

Some editing notes from my latest scifi novel

First, a caveat: every writer has their own process that they follow. Mine is very thorough and works for me, but if you are a writer and want your own method, shop around a bit and see what works for you.

1) Editing as I go: Some writers out there espouse the idea that you should just write straight through without any editing until you reach the end. Don’t judge your work. Let it flow. In fact, some writers and writing instructors insist this is the best way to write. Great idea for some, but disastrous for me. If I do that, I wind up with massive developmental issues. I also find that the process of editing so many typos, sentence structure, and plot holes for the entire length becomes overwhelming and demoralizing. It’s better for me to edit as I go, at the chapter level. It stretches out the period of time it takes to do the writing, but it’s so worth it to me to wind up with a finished draft…