How was your summer? Do anything fun? I have lived vicariously through you.
As summer is coming to a close, I have been dedicated to my computer in a way that is usually normal in winter.
I have been embarking on a rewrite of Witches of the Waves, a manuscript that I have been querying literary agents for the last year.
In June, I received feedback from a literary agent who had asked for my manuscript after the initial 30 pages. The feedback from the full-manuscript read from the literary agent was the following:
I struggled with the plot and pacing—some chapters were very high octane, but the main storyline wasn't pulling me forward, and I had trouble seeing where the story was going. Without that forward momentum, I didn't find myself immersed in the read the way I'd hoped.
I want to take time to thank the literary agent who provided this feedback because it has helped me become a better writer and set me forth on a summer-long editing process.
June 2024
It's always challenging to look at your own work and try to see it from a third-person perspective.
I had started to go through my manuscript again but realized that I was going to need third-party help and a new lens for me to look through. I decided on a course of action:
Paying for a professional beta reading
Reaching out to some writer friends (hey, Bi Book Gang!) for peer-review beta reading
Removing my feelings and getting to work
And so it began with three different groups going at the same manuscript to tear it apart.
July 2024
By end of June, I had all feedback, so I compiled all feedback in the margins, even if I didn't agree with it. Even when I looked at it again, I was going to have a different vision than I did previously.
Besides the third-party perspectives, I also had a new perspective to this story since I last read through it in August 2023. I have grown as a writer in a year, and I really focused on the feedback about pacing, main storyline and plot points, and overall momentum.
As of Summer 2023, I couldn't see through the pacing issues because the whole 110,000-word novel (at the time) took place over about a week. While I prefer to go straight into action when I first start reading or writing (no thanks, worldbuilding and info dumping), I had to add in chapters that were ready meant to build out the characters.
I estimated I needed to add approximately 10,000 to 30,000 words. According to genre norms in a fantasy novel, manuscripts should be around 100,000 words. At the same time of adding words, I simplified magic systems and took out perhaps repetitive language.
I also rearranged chapters, which proved to be the most work:
The literary agent feedback said "some chapters were very high octane," which pulls the reader forward, but what is there to pull forward to?
A singular chapter I can think about was chapter 18 that was pushed to chapter 45 because it didn't have the payoff or the overall affect I wanted where it was.
I shortened chapters.
The three chapters of character introductions, though were part of the inciting action, were too long and dragged the story. Instead, I changed the first three chapters to six or seven chapters, cutting them in half for the readers to learn the characters individually.
I changed up the order in which the characters were introduced.
As I read through, too, that I saw clearer about who the main characters were in each scene, and they should be the POV. Because each of the three POVs play very specific parts, it also changed up the chapters by shortening, elongating, and moving around in their entirety.
In second half of July, I forced myself to rewrite one next chapter every week night and three on each weekend day. In those drafts, I added 15,000 words.
I had two documents open constantly: one was the manuscript (Track Changes on) and two was a bullet point list of everything I needed to do, including a color coding of what had changed and what had moved. With dates assigned to each task like a deadline, I set to the task of editing.
August 2024
In September 2023, I was querying draft 15 of Witches of the Waves. In September 2024, I'll be querying draft 21.
In August, I went through the Witches of Waves searching for manuscript updates with a different lens:
Focused on ensuring that the newly added sections and moved sections worked into the story.
Each of those new or moved sections had a purpose to play, whether it was connecting dots, plot points, romance beats, or pacing.
Ensured the manuscript remained consistent, including lore, characters, and voice--especially for the parts written at different times in the writing process.
I also used the read-aloud ability via Microsoft Word to read me back my newly written and moved sections, so I could listen for any missing words, etc.
Kept the manuscript editing to a minimum
This required me to do two or three chapters every week night and eight on the weekends.
At 8:22pm on Saturday, August 31, I finished the final edits.
Next Steps
Over the last three months, I have also kept up to date with possible literary agents, so in the first week of September, I will be querying the next round of four literary agents.
My hope with this is that I will get more of the first round of wins: asking for the full-manuscript. Then that will hopefully lead to the next steps in the traditionally published process.
If someone were to ask me if I recommend squishing three rounds of editing into a month, I would say no. If someone were to ask me if anyone required me to do this much editing over the summer, I would also say no. But I did it.
So how was your summer?
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