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Happy Wednesday! I wanted to take a second to talk about the developmental edit that I received since a lot of you were interested in how it went. So, tiny backstory: this book has been with me for roughly 11 years now. I started it for fun, and it went through multiple evolutions before I actually hunkered down, revised it, and felt like I wrote a book last year. I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt pressure to call it done, so I got some beta readers on it and 2 of them finished. One of them was really helpful, and the other was slightly helpful but mostly a cheerleader (which was nice but I needed more than that). So I set the book down, thought about edits, asked a couple of editors for rates and suddenly realized that I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t done.

I encourage you all to follow your instincts. I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. I waited until I had the funds and found the right editor to help me. Developmental edits can seem like they’re not worth the price, but for me it was. I needed trained eyes.

I got my editor’s notes back and had a meeting with her about it. It was VERY different from what I was expecting. I had thought I made all the characters, plot, and all that work pretty well, but really I had just shoved all my ideas in, removed the super terrible ones, and forced it to work. My editor suggested removing characters, huge sections, drastically changing POV, as well as giving me some ideas for changes that to make my story more… poignant, I guess. It wasn’t that the bones of the story weren’t good, but if I follow her advice, I have to rewrite it… for the third time. I’m not depressed about this though, because she’s right. All the “forcing” made it hard to read. I need to focus on my main characters more so that the readers feel with/for them. I went back and followed a few plotting methods, so I’m back to the drawing board. I just finished chapter summaries today!

So, my very inexperienced advice:
– Get a developmental edit if you can’t figure out why your story doesn’t feel right (and especially if it’s a first book, like mine)
– Find an editor who is just as concerned with encouraging you as making you better
– Take the advice in stride and again, trust your instincts. Not everything they suggest is worth doing. It’s not their story, it’s yours!