Still learning.
Well, I am, anyway.
I recently received edits back from McKenna Gardner who is line editing my first novel, Vanguard Legacy. In the margin, tucked away in a little pink comment, was this gem: “I hope you’re not fed up of us coaching you . . .” And I loved it. Honestly!
Okay, so it sounds like the editing team have had to nag me a lot. This process is just that—a process. It involves a lot of learning on the go. But we are also a bunch of very creative, very invested people. Does all of this mean we’ve fallen out? Yes it does. But in a good way.
You see, it’s hard to let people mess around in your book. It’s hard to let go of your preconceptions and ideas about the theme and content of your work and accept that, just maybe, someone else’s opinions might count. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’ve been unbearable, but they might! I know my universe and my character, and the team at Xchyler just want everyone else to know them too. Our passion for the story will ring true though—it’s going to be an incredible book!
I’ve had to learn a lot over the last few months. Juggling the demands of my everyday life is a challenge itself. I teach full time, a time consuming career whichever age range you work in. On top of that, I have four incredible children who all need me in their own way. Between the end of a term, Christmas, the start of a new term and a birthday, I’ve had to find time to redraft and edit Vanguard Legacy. It’s not been easy, but then the best things never are.
I knew nothing about what ‘editing’ really meant. Rather naively, I assumed someone would read through the text. Then they would tell me how great it was, add in a few full stops, change a few misspelt words, and then send it on its way. Ha! I am, literally, laughing as I write this.
What took place was both devastating and magnificent in equal measures. Penny Freeman, Editor-in-Chief, laid out Xchyler’s procedure for selecting a novel in a previous blog post which you can read here. I’ve been through it, the emotional roller coaster that is laying out your work only to find out the stitches aren’t holding.
I had to fill in the spreadsheets, tick the boxes, give numeric values to categories, analyse my characters . . . it felt endless. But it was because I didn’t see the value in it then. I was confident that my story was well written and would pass muster. And it did, sort of. Myself, Penny and Caitlin McColl—my content editor—all completed the same analysis. And all came up with different answers. I have to admit I panicked a little then.
What took place after that was nothing short of intense. My novel was stripped back to its bones. The major dramatic query was unpicked from sub-plots and restructured to support the flesh of the story better. The secondary characters were given souls, rather than one-liners and token appearances. As for me, I was supported throughout as I filled out the skeletal story with all of the personality I thought it already had.
And I’m still learning. I have a tendency to slip into the passive voice, I’m too reflective and need to be more active (that’s probably true in real life too—I’ve been tied to my laptop for months!). I get into ruts with words, the same ones will appear several times in sections. I waffle. Sentences are too long without enough full stops. “So. Tired. Of. Punctuation.” Okay, McKenna, I take your point!
Crazily enough, the one thing I have come to understand from this experience is that even the smallest thing can be interpreted in a hundred ways if you aren’t precise. Be specific. Be consistent. Be clear. I swear this has become my mantra. So much so that I wrote it up on the board at school for my Year 6 extended writing class. I turned to face thirty bemused faces who, apparently, have heard me say this more than a few times over the last couple of months.
Now there is a light at the end of what has seemed like an incredibly long tunnel. Most of the line edits are finished and we’re working through final approval. Nothing slips through the cracks. The smallest phrase, a misplaced capital letter, tiny little things are tidied away properly. It’s been an exhausting process, but now it’s ending I am beginning to wonder what I’m going to fill my evenings, late nights and early mornings with. Hopefully some of that time will be filled with sleep. And chocolate.
Joanne Kershaw lives, works, and spells in West Yorkshire, England, with her husband and four children. Look for her first book with XP, Vanguard Legacy, a paranormal fantasy, in Spring, 2013.
