While I was proud of the work I had done in getting a rough draft of my book done, Grad school largely prevented me from doing much editing until the spring of my first year.
I discovered in January or February of 2010 that Tor Books was doing a contest for unpublished writers. I quickly made use of my own editing notes as well as Doug’s initial feedback to cleanup grammatical mistakes and fix some inconsistencies within the story. This second draft I turned in and while I did not win the contest, it did bring me to face the opportunities in my book:
1) The large gaps in writing meant early chapters were written with a different, more black and white, stance and end goal in mind, and I had also become a better writer as my progress went on. This meant a lot of work was needed to bring them in line with what came later.
2) Many of my charactera lacked definition and were merely there to serve the plot.
3) While the imfluence and varying viewpoints of history were always themes I wanted to explore, I realized that I had made the history of Si’ranna too stagnet and unchanging.
4) I realized some of the travel times and directions did not make a lot of sense.
Those were the main opportunities and I largely found the editing process tedious. In part because of the exposition needed, and partly because of my less refined writing style, I always have found getting through the first 6-10 chapters by far the most difficult and while I made improvements in many areas, some of these issues are why it took me another 7 years to publish . . .
Leave a comment