Monday 24 December 2007

Editing

I have a big editing job to do at the moment, and a smaller one. The smaller one is bugging me …. Or maybe I’m using it as an excuse not to move on to the bigger one. With the smaller one, I’ve quickly agreed the changes the editor wants, taken out a couple of sections he suggested, then in one case, made the surrounding text run more smoothly. There are some slight alterations he has suggested, though not demanded and I tend to agree with him, though the reason those items weren’t there in the first place is because they are beyond the realms of my knowledge and I don’t have the time to do the research at the moment- especially as we are now into the Christmas period.
But all of this seems trivial compared with the bigger edit I have been putting off for months. This is a YA novel, over 100,000 words long. What has been suggested is very similar to what an editor might suggest after you’ve got the text as perfect as you can.
I see there being three basic levels of editing:
1. Major structural change.
2. Strengthening of weaker parts and getting the balance right. This will involve sharpening up characters and removing parts that don’t need to be there.
3. Checking flow and copy-editing.
I need to do something in all three areas.
Oh, well, best get down to it, I guess.

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