Some Editing Things I've Learned Lately

Hello, lovely writer friends! I think I mentioned in my last post that I was going to regale you with editing knowledge I've gained through this whole Pitch Wars thing. I was incredibly lucky to be picked by my mentor of choice for Pitch Wars, and receive a critique of my entire manuscript! I've never had anyone do that except for family, so it was pretty epic. Here are the main things I worked on for Everdream:

• More of everything for my characters. Main character needed more inner motivations. Evil Queen needed more evilness. Funny side characters needed to show their uniqueness more. Pirates needed to be more pirate-y.
• I needed to get my characters into more trouble. I was letting them off the hook too easily. I massively changed the endings of several scenes to make sure that they had to fight their way out of something, and in some cases had lingering consequences. This sets them up to be stronger at the end in order to face the final challenge, whatever that may be.
• I need to trust my own editing instincts more. Both of the things above I had noted when I worked on earlier edits of Everdream (I just finished the 7th round of edits). But I let myself off the hook too soon. Things were still nagging at me, but I didn't address them as fully as I should have, until I felt fully satisfied. I think the book is so much stronger now that I've handled them. I no longer feel the inner editor nagging at me :)

Of course, I'm not totally done editing yet! Until they print this baby, it's still fluid :) And right now, Heidi and I are working on a 50-or-less word pitch. Queries are challenging enough, but fitting your whole book into an enticing 50 word bite? Good gracious.

Anyways, are you editing these days? Drafting? How's everything coming along in 2013? I hope it's awesome!