Editing. It's important.

Even the best authors miss something here or there.  I read, early on, that you should have an editor check your manuscript at least once prior to querying agents or self-publishing.  If you're a writer, you'll see it everywhere - get an editor who is not your mom  and not your teacher.  They may be great at grammar, yes, but there is so much more to editing than just grammar and typos.

For the record, my mom did help me edit.  And she's read my book more than anyone else, not counting myself.  I've read it hundreds upon hundreds of times.  It's been ten years.  It's a commitment.  If you love it, make it so others will love it, too.  And I had other grammar nerds read it.  But, I did hire a professional editor.  He was a literary agent who edited on the side.  And it was the best investment I could ever make.

You could be the best writer on Earth, but you're not going to publish a polished jewel without some work.  That can be hard to accept for some people.  Even I thought my manuscript was a masterpiece before I realized it was a masterpieceofcrap.  I cringe so much when I see the copies I sent out to those first few agents.  I'm sorry for their eyes.

My professional editor did what you might expect - checked grammar, caught typos and misued words, and so forth.  He also brought a wealth of knowledge of what readers want, type of voice, and how to tighten the narrative.  I gave him a 118,000 word manuscript and he gave it back with 10,000 fewer words.  He turned whole paragraphs into sentences.  He cut out unnecessary components that muddied the scene or dragged the story.  He cut out exposition and pointed out areas or characters that needed action or depth.  In short - he was amazing.

He wasn't cheap.  But he was worth every penny.

He told me I was a beautiful writer, not as in physically beautiful, but that I had a flowery type of prose that was beautiful to read. The bad?  People generally don't like to read that in long stretches.  You need to lay out the story so it's easy to read and pepper in beautiful writing and metaphors and comparisons.  It wasn't easy and I was nervous about what I'd get back from him.

When I got my edited manuscript back, I was surprised in several ways.  One - it wasn't polished.  This was round one editing and it was a choppy, grammatical mess.  But it was a mess easily fixed, and polishing was my job.  What surprised me most was reading my story for the first time with new, fresh eyes.  I had no idea what he'd cut or added or changed, so it was the closest to reading my book for the first time that I've ever gotten.  It was awesome.

Sure, things were cut that I added back in and some things were cut that I missed, but when I read it, it made sense, so I left them out.  In the end, the author is the creator and the author chooses what stays and goes.  I learned a lot from him.  In fact, while he was whittling away at The Arrival, I applied what I'd learned to Confessions of the Second Born.

Confessions was 176,000 words when I finished the first draft.  After two rounds of editing utilizing what I'd learned, I cut out 68,000 words.  The manuscript currently sits at 109,000 words and reads so much better than it ever did.  Until a few months ago, I hadn't touched it since early 2015 and hadn't done any serious work on it much further back.

The author has the final say and only the author can decide how much editing to do, but if you love your project and want to put the best out there for the reader, I strongly advise putting in the extra effort and investment.  The Arrival would not be the tightly written book that it is today without my pro-editor.  But I can't discount the assistance from mom and beta-readers.  Everyone who helped, HELPED. 

Grammar nerds and detail-oriented people are excellent for catching those early, obvious errors that your eyes gloss over because it's the 167th time you've read that page.  And beta-readers are supremely important in getting that early reader information - what works, what's confusing, what characters need something, how this or that is actually perceived versus how you wanted it to be perceived, and how the plot evolves.  Professional editors have that inside edge and know what the industry wants and what readers on the whole generally want.  Everyone plays a role and everyone is important.

But the most important thing is doing it.  Asking for insight.  And listening to it, even if you don't like it.  My editor had largely positive things to say, but I didn't like everything.  For example, I had to change the title, the name of the forest, and the name of the town due to a large, commercially successful book series that I hadn't read.  Since I was 13 years old, the town had always had another name.  And I had to change the opening line.  The opening line is the one thing that had never changed since I first wrote it.  But, once I changed that line, I realized that the book would flow better if I added a new chapter one and cut other scenes out of latter parts of the book. 

Hence, the first chapter as it is - which, I understand now is confusing and I didn't see it before - cut down on exposition later on in the book and allowed me to insert an active scene.  Show, don't tell.  After I got my manuscript back, I cut another 4,500 words from it, even after doing my assigned work to flesh out this part or beef up this scene, etc. 

There are a few things I'd change now that I've gotten reader feedback, but they're small things and, admittedly, they are things I added after working with my editor.  He might have seen what the readers are seeing and prompted me to make some changes.  Overall?  It was a great experience.  From writing it to editing to criticism to editing to publishing.  That was a decade of my life for a story that's been in my head for nearly 3 decades.  I'm so happy it's out of my head into the hands of people across the country!  And that I'm hearing their theories and their opinions.

The whole experience to this point now is helping me see Confessions in a new light.  Hopefully it'll be a better book for it.  Once it's published, that is.  ^_-