Hello,
This week found me deep into the editing process of my next fantasy book two months after completing the rough draft. Fourteen chapters saw many corrections from my haphazard approach to putting my thoughts into words. Numerous times where it should have read “off,” only “of” appeared. One paragraph had present tense, while the next showed past tense. A few sentences carried past and present, but the plot was established. I made it all to have past tense and to document history. This added very little to the length of the book.
Once the initial edit is completed, I will delve into a thorough review for plot holes, contradictions, and errors in the timeline. This process often leads to expanding small scenes into more descriptive portraits of the action, significantly increasing the word count. I repeat this review process three or four times, with a week or more breaks, to ensure a fresh perspective each time. In the meantime, I've also been working on a collection of short stories, all of which are undergoing the same rigorous editing process.
Starting this summer, the final round of edits will add and enrich the characters' actions. This includes bringing out their personality, temperament, and intellect. This lets the reader know what happened and how the actor feels during the action. The color of the portrait comes alive in the round of edits and expands the story with emotion. The book expands by a few thousand words, enriching the story with passion, excitement, and sentiment.
I still need a title for this book, but I am thinking of “The Devil’s Gambit," which is one of the chapter titles. Writing a title is one of the most complex parts of writing a book. This and the blurbs for the back of the book always cause me the most distress.
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God bless,
Danny Mac