In a previous post, I blogged about the seventy-four versions of Mistletoe Everywhere, my Regency Christmas story, that I wrote before I submitted it.
I've since edited the story, producing more versions. The editor didn't make very many changes, so I had sent in a pretty clean copy. Still, I made improvements.
Most of the changes involved replacing words I use too often with better words. Some of my particular culprits are "turn", "face", "head", "place" and "look". I type several possible choices into the manuscript and bold them. When I finally make my selection, I delete the losers. I also eliminated unnecessary words, rewrote some sentences that now sounded awkward, and gave better explanations of a few plot points.
The size of the story didn't change much. The length of the story at first submission was 26, 560 words. When I finished my edits, the length was 26, 388 words, after 17 versions. I'm allowed thirty days for edits, and I returned the story a few days early. The editor said she liked my changes, so I guess the extra work was worth it.
Then the galley arrived. I found all of seven typos and added something for the "Praise for" page.
The editor returned the galley with everything fixed. Now I wait for the release date. Since Mistletoe Everywhere is a Christmas story, I expect the release date to be sometime in December.
Thank you all,
Linda
2 comments:
You sound like me, Linda. I did the same thing on FL. I had very few edits from the editor to change, so I found my own. I clarified and added a bit too. My word count increased by about two hundred words and my editor approved it. But I also tried to find overused words and sentences that didn't work well.
Hi Kaye, I think using all the time allotted for editing is a wise move. It's amazing the things you see once you haven't looked at the story for a while.
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