I have nearly finished what I hope is the penultimate thorough edit of my novel. I must have done over twenty edits. Editing has been an exhausting, but enlightening process. In the beginning, I thought that each subsequent edit would be much easier. I was wrong. But after each subsequent edit my novel was tighter and pacier.
During my edits I discovered weaknesses, repetition, shoes and socks problems, clunky sentences, poor grammar and punctuation, missing signposts, unsuitable chapter titles, chapters that ended without a hook or cliff-hanger, 48,000 words of superfluous text, lengthy descriptions, and dialogue that needed much improvement.
I thought my first draft was brilliant, but Hemingway was right, ‘The first draft of everything is always shit.’
I continued to read the best award winning authors of adult and children’s literature as I wrote my first draft. I believe it was beneficial to my prose. I noticed a significant improvement in my writing, the further I progressed through my manuscript.
I have learnt much in the process of writing my first novel. I believed I had a firm grasp of the aspects of the novel, but knowing how to best orchestrate them was another matter. I hope that I have got it right. I have more work to do, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The most important lesson I learned is to thoroughly plan from the outset. If I had planned better, I would have saved myself considerable effort and time. But I am confident that the second novel in what I hope will be a series, will take less than half the time of the first.
A rather more practical "useful lesson" (or two)...
1. Always - that is ALWAYS - make a hard copy of at least the first draft - even just the first outline - - and put one copy away safe somewhere where you will be able to find it later (as distinct from "somewhere safe"). Then make hard copies at significant milestones as you progress.
2. Definitely make a hardcopy and store it before you start your editing/revising etc. - and preferably commit to disc or other seperate digital storage - so that if the editing etc blows up on you you can retrieve at least the original.
3. When actually editing - it can be very useful to take chunks of text to completely seperate documents to work on. (I change the colour of the bit I'm working on in the original and then copy and paste). This allows you to both mess about with the seperated chunk as much as you want and to compare it against the original.
I hope this is helpful :-)
David
I've learnt so many things on my Writer's journey so far that it's difficult to know where to begin; however, I wonder if any of the lessons you have learnt but perhaps weren't sure you'd learnt have now been clarified for you by reading the above Members' comments? Personally, I briefly returned to a much earlier draft of my manuscript and almost couldn't believe how raw it was; however, this can of course be a positive experience in terms of gauging how far you've progressed on your own Writer's journey. I know what has helped me continually improve the writing and editing of my full book proposal as well as my manuscript is: sharing it with others (for example, on here, with family and friends); reading various other books (for example, ones in your chose genre(s) - both first-time Writers and otherwise, as well as ones in other genres); reading, listening to and/or watching various Writers and industry professionals sharing useful information, advice and guidance (for example, on here, in the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2013, on YouTube, on the Brit Writers' Awards website, and I'll soon be speaking to my live-in landlord's father (who is a Publisher - not in my genre, unfortunately) and one of his brothers (who wrote and published a book called For Fukui's Sake); speaking to anyone who will listen about your book(s) and noting what they say; and so on; and so forth. I am at the stage now where, if I don't become agented and/or published beforehand, I'm going to save up for some literary mentoring, which, compared to simply paying for a full manuscript assessment, my head, heart and instinct 'says' is right for me and my journey; however, despite whatever anyone and everyone else may think, say and do, I believe the best person to answer your original question is the same person that knows what is right for you and yours; that is, you. I wish you well, Adrian.
hastily scribbled notes, not vastly scribbled notes