Editing Highlights

This post was originally published October 5, 2023.

As I’ve mentioned in some previous posts, I’m deep in editing my book right now, and it’s taking forever. I’ve since learned to be more proactive in outlining my scenes so that I have fewer inconsistencies. I wrote a book before this one that will never see the light of day. Part of the reason for that was because I didn’t do any outlining with that book. I was rereading it and realized I wrote the same scene twice. When I sat down to start my current book, I broke it into sections, notating which scenes should happen when. Truthfully, the editing process hasn’t been that bad. Out of twenty chapters, only a couple needed major rewrites, and now that I know each of the main characters better, I can weave their character development more purposefully and seamlessly throughout the narrative.

Editing Highlights 2023

Every writer will admit that the hardest part of writing is doing the actual writing. Even with editing, I try to find ways to keep the momentum. I’ve taken to sticky notes like a four year old takes to stickers. They go everywhere that could use a little extra work—the parts of the book where I need to actually think about it for more than a minute. When my brain stops working, I mark it with a blue sticky note, which is code for “you’re never going to get anything done if you keep thinking about this so for the love of God please just move on.”

Editing Highlights 2023

My favorite thing to do to keep up my momentum while writing is to skip parts I need to fill in later. I often format it [LIKE THIS], so I can easily see it on the page. The content of these notes varies, sometimes containing things to fact check like [INSERT NATIVE BIRD] or the ever-helpful [MORE]. While editing, I’ve realized that I have a tendency to do this when I can’t think of the right word, so I thought I’d share a few of my highlighted notes out of context, if not to give you a laugh then to at least demystify what it’s like to actually edit a novel.