Saturday, April 9, 2011

I'm Baaaaaack!

Sorry for the long silence--I had to ask for a tiny extension on my revisions due to a surprise root canal. I love surprises. Just not when they're root canals... Soooo. About the revisions (which are offically completed and turned in). I know I mentioned before about the 4 page editorial letter. I thought it was mostly minor issues, tweaking, re-touching. But when I went back through the MS with fresh eyes, I realized it was major revisions, and some of those not even in the editorial letter. In a way, I performed a root canal on my MS. It was still mostly my original, but I gutted it and re-made it, only better and stronger than the original. I cut 18k words and wrote 17k words to replace those. I cut scenes I loved, but they did nothing to move the plot forward. Then I replaced them with scenes I loved more, scenes that worked like a donkey for the plot. And I'm really, really excited about it. I wanted to share something I found very helpful in this process. I created an excel spreadsheet to document my revisions. The left colum indicated the chapter number. The middle column told a short synopsis of the content of each chapter. The right one indicated what needed to be changed in that chapter, if anything. As I went through and revised, I replaced what needed to be changed with a description of what actually changed, and I notated the page numbers for reference. This will help you when you turn in your revised MS--outlining all the changes for your editor saves him/her a big chunk of time for the re-read. What about you? What editing advice do you have? I'd love to know!

12 comments:

  1. Wow, what awesome advice! Thanks for sharing. :)

    Did you actually send the spreadsheet to your editor, too?? MAN, she's going to love you even more than she already did! LOL

    Smart girl. I'm glad you got them sent off, and so relieved you have that root canal behind you. Now you can smile, pain-free, at a job well done. :)

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  2. Okay, WEIRD, but my verification word on that last post was "dentles", I KID you not! Haahaa.

    Like a combination of dentist and dental. Freaky and random, right?

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  3. Thanks, girl! LOL I didn't send her the actual spreadsheet, but it was basicallly cut and paste to outline the changes I made. I'm soooo glad I did that!

    And yes, dentles is weird, but I'm past that now. I'm just glad it wasn't something like "murderi" or "accidentles". That would just make me nervous...

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  4. I did a chapter map in a Word doc when I was editing my ms, thanks to my super-organized attorney husband, who does such things for breakfast. It was immensely helpful. Wow, what a lot of work for you, but it sounds well worth it!

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  5. UGH! You are TEASING me! Why must you tell me how drastically the story has changed since I can't read it for another year! I need a time machine! Glad you got the extension though!

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  6. Jenny! "who does such things for breakfast" LOL!
    But it really does help to have a map to get you where you're going, doesn't it?

    Mandie-All I can say is SORRY! :( And, Albert Einstein had some interesting theories about time travel you might want to look into. I'd love to go with you! :)

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  7. Anna- great idea! I used to keep a list of propsed changes and delete them as I went through them, but that got really confusing, so I started putting lines through completed items. Your idea sounds really good since you have to actually share what you did with someone else!
    I saw the link to your blog on QT, so glad I came over. Good luck!

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  8. Hey Kelly! Thanks for stopping by, my fellow QTer! :) Not sure where you are on your journey, but stay the course!

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  9. Gasp! You had me at spreadsheet. I loves them. :)

    New to the blog, but I'll be back!

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  10. Hi Robin! You heart spreadsheets??? You sound intimidatingly organized. Thanks for stopping by!

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  11. LOL--don't come to my house. I'm only organized when it comes to writing or work. Personal life = very messy. :)

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  12. Personal lives are supposed to be messy. :)

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