I have in the past written a post about my editing process. It is long and it is tedious (the process, not the post) and is usually composed of five official stages of editing, and within each stage, an infinite number of passes through the manuscript. If you want to look it up, it's here:
https://gaylecarline.blogspot.com/2013/10/editing-its-not-for-wimps.html
Since that's the way I've always done it, that's the way I expected to do it for this book (currently titled MOON DRAGON FALLING, book 2 of the fantasy trilogy). As usual, my great expectations were incorrect. I'm going to chalk it up to two things.
One is that this is a Big Damn Book that refuses to come in under 110,000 words. (My editor might eventually disagree when she reads it.)
The second is that this book, much like the first, refused all attempts to be outlined like my mysteries and insisted on being born naturally, without a plan. Or an epidural.
So instead of doing many sweeping reads to get rid of my go-to words and fix grammar and tidy things up, I went straight to Step 4, where I reverse-engineered the book and made an outline, then looked at the pacing, re-arranged chapters, and fixed what fell flat.
I'm now going to the Read Aloud portion of the program, followed by the Listen to the Digital Voice Recorder step, and hopefully end up Verifying My Edits without losing my mind.
I'm thinking of making a board game out of this process.
As I was re-structuring the chapters, an idea slapped me. Why not make the beginning of the second book echo the beginning of the first? If I can do it subtly, it's one of those things that brings the reader confidence, makes them feel like they know and like this story without knowing why. Like when a woman wears leopard-print lingerie under her business suit--her secret brings her confidence. No one else knows why there's a spring in her step. They don't have to.
They just have to stay out of her way.
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