The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Writer #11

Evisceration or enhancement – the wild and wacky world of the edit

As advertised last time, I’m going to plunge back into the editing process.

Before that, one key psychological point.  Until signing the contract, I had been, as far as the book was concerned, master of all I surveyed.  After signature, it became a joint enterprise.   I was not ready for this.  In the most frustrating moments, the plaintive wail “Whose fucking book is this anyway?” could be heard resonating around my house.

The publisher had always expressed reservations about the ending; I was prepared to consider removing the appendix, as explained last week.  We agreed to delegate the final decision to their editor.  If she thought it should go, I would remove it and deal with the (significant) fallout for the narrative itself.  Well, she did – so the first thing I had to do was purge my hero’s testament, discovered post-mortem.  That took out around 7,500 words and I added back around 2,000.

Next, the editor went through the manuscript line-by-line, submitting her tracked changes and questions/comments for my consideration and, where necessary, rewriting.  This was intensive, challenging and not entirely pleasurable.  But it needed to be done.

I was surprised by the number of errors she found.  They tended to fall into three broad classes: errors of fact, plot inconsistencies and some less-than-excellent writing.  The errors of fact were very annoying, though I do comfort myself in thinking I’d have caught them with a thorough check had I pressed ahead with self-publishing.

The plot inconsistencies were more problematic.  I’m not sure that I would have picked those up, being so deeply immersed in the book.  It is, of course, an imponderable now but I have to be honest and say that there was probably no way they’d have been spotted without the objective and distant eye of my editors.

Then, most painfully, were the eruptions of poor writing.  These really shocked me.  All those countless read-throughs, improvements and revisiting had still left shards of incompetence that stuck out like sharp thongs which scratched my eyes when they were drawn to them.  Most frequently, there were far too proximate uses of the same word. Other times, it was overwrought writing that just seemed to scream from the page.  On some occasions, I realised there were better ways of expressing things.

Once I had worked through her forest of red, I sent the corrected manuscript back for final checks and sign-off.

Quelle naïveté!  Then the publisher herself got busy, and she was much tougher and demanding than the editor.  Twice.  Both times face-to-face, her with marked-up draft, me with my laptop.  This process was new to me.  From my own days as an editor and in the toing-and-froing over executive speeches, think-pieces and the like, such discussions were always based on pre-exchanged views.  This was something altogether different – and challenging – as I listened, made notes on screen and retired to consider, submitting a new version with changes highlighted after each session.

We got there, of course, or I wouldn’t be writing this blog.  Is the novel better for the input, if not the process? Yes.  Would I have liked to understand all that was entailed before it started?  Most definitely.  I have no idea whether this is the standard way of working, so this element of sharing may be of no relevance to anyone else.

But the exposure to the business of publishing fiction has certainly had many more upsides than down, of which more next time.

Ian Phillips is a freelance writer for businesses whose first novel, Grosse Fugue, will be published by Alliance Publishing Press on April 11^th. Further information is now available at www.alliancepublishingpress.com.  He’s tweeting developments @Ian_at_theWord.