Writing Update: Edits, Edits, Edits

In July, I sent Draft 3 to a small group of early readers. Their feedback (both positive and critical) has steadily trickled in since then. My last few months have been devoted to addressing the critical feedback.

My focus right now is on story-level edits, specifically character arcs. Good characters, in my mind, undergo a significant transformation throughout the story. My goal is to ensure that my main characters each do exactly that (and they are not quite there yet).

I’m a discovery writer, which essentially means I figure things out as I go. I discovered the story, the characters (their wants and needs and personality) as I wrote. I tested things out to see what worked. By the end of Draft 3, I had a solid understanding for each my characters. But the feedback I received made it clear that my vision for these characters isn’t reflected on the page. My goal is to infuse that vision into the existing story, which means cutting things that might not fit the vision and fortifying the things that do. Sometimes this is easy. Sometimes it’s not.

What’s next?

I know it might not look like it, but I promise I’m having fun here!

I will continue to work through story-level edits until the jagged edges are smooth. What I do after that will depend on what’s needed. I may do another round of story-level edits, or dive deeper and fine-tune specific scenes, or seek more feedback.

(I will not get more specific, because I’ve learned I am terrible at predicting the next step of the writing process. I am learning to be okay with that. I’ve never done this before, and I trust my future self to determine the next best course of action when the time comes. She can handle it.)

One book or two?

In the last update, I mentioned potentially splitting Echoes into two books. After weeks of pondering and discussing with early readers, I ultimately decided to keep it one book.

It was planned as one. It was written as one. Given the time-travel elements, it works better as one. I’m looking for ways to trim it down so that it is not a behemoth, and therefore more appealing to agents and publishers, but I am proceeding through edits as if it is one book.

Check back in three months to see whether that decision stuck!