If you think writing your novel is hard…. by David Little

Through my various attempts at writing a novel I always thought that completing it would be the hardest part. After all, trying to get the plot down the way I had envisioned it or making the characters and dialogue work in a way that not only made sense and was realistic, but actually make them sound like different people was usually so difficult that many of the works were never completed.  Once I managed to get over the creative hurdles and complete the novel, surely I could then relax. The next stages had to be easier didn’t they?

When I had finished the first draft of my novel I took a month off to get away from the project. I was elated to be done and to have broken through the ceiling which I had smacked my head against so many times before, but at the same time I was drained and the thought of continuing on to the next stage at that point filled me with dread. Better to leave things as they were and take a little break. In any case, I was due to go on holiday in a month’s time, so that would be the ideal opportunity to dive into the editing process with renewed gusto.

So it was, around four weeks later, I printed off the first draft and settled down with a beer and a red pen and spent the better part of two hours scoring out paragraphs and writing so much in almost non existent margins – I had attempted to be more ecologically sound and printed off two pages of text on each page but my supposedly noble gesture did nothing more than cause pain in my eyes and make the mark-up process twice almost impossible.

As I sat there feeling shaken and quite literally shaking, I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. How could my first draft be so littered with mistakes and logical inconsistencies? And that was only the first two chapters.

It was then that I realised that editing was just as hard, if not harder, than writing in the first place.

In hindsight it was obvious really. Getting the words down and completing the first draft was a means to an end, so to speak, and along the way I had to have taken short cuts and liberties aplenty. Scenes would have finished abruptly as my desire to crack on and get to a more important part provided the right impetus to keep going. Characters’ motives and actions may be more illogical and out of step from previous actions to make them fit into the overarching plot. All of these would need work to be brought back to order, and it would be foolish to believe these would be easy to pick out in isolation.

The only real way to get these kinks ironed out, other than to get an industrial steam press, was to sit down and take the time to re-read the entire first draft and make notes as I went. Yes, I’d have to get the red pen out and once it ran out of ink, perhaps go for the green pen, but it had to be done.

So, now that I knew what lay ahead, how do I tackle it?

My first desire was to keep everything to myself. I mean, it was my creation and who else knew what I wanted to say or the points I may be trying to make better than me? Of course, I wasn’t writing this for my own enjoyment and I always hoped that there would be an audience out there for the book, even if it was just my family. So, how could I not turn to others to help and hopefully provide a new perspective on things? Constructive criticism is always beneficial in the long run, or at least that was the belief that I now had.

After quite a lot of thinking about it, I came to conclusion that I had to perform the first edit myself so that I could make sure the most glaring of holes were filled and biggest mistakes were corrected before then taking it to someone who would be able to provide that next level of editorial input and cover off areas that, being so close to the project, I would be oblivious to.

It took a while to get to the first stage of my plan as the first stab at editing did take the wind out of my sails a bit, but now I’m back in the thick of things. The red ink is gone, replaced by track changes in red and with blocked yellow highlighter formatting but I am making progress and seeing how the corrections will make the second draft more coherent and at least in a fit state for someone else to step in and provide their own view.

And while its going to take some time, with the added complication of finding the right person to edit the second draft, I am sure that what will come out at the end of the process will be a much better novel and one that I’ll be happy to put my name to when published.

Or a pseudonym at least.