Editing, Don't Hit Send Without It

For those following agents this holiday season, you might notice many of them giving pub tips along the lines of: After NaNoWriMo, it's NaNoEdMo or National Novel Editing Month.

Many will tell you stories about a flood of novel submissions fresh off the National Novel Writing Month rush.

And what do I do with that freshly written novel? I let it sit for a bit. Yup. That's right. I do NOT send it off for submission. I walk away and take a break from it once I've wrapped up the last scene. It's Draft 0 to me.

Then I come back to it and begin the Edit Phase.

This is not just for simple spelling and grammar, my friends, oh no. There's several levels to my edit phase.

Plot – Do I have a solid plot throughout? Are there too many questions left unanswered at the end? Is anything too contrived or weak? Did the pacing slow down or speed up too much anywhere?
Characters – Do I have too many? too few? Do my main characters come to life the way I'd hoped they would? Are they likeable? Do any of my secondary characters pop? Do I want to lay the ground work for possible future books featuring those secondary characters?
PoV – did I head hop anywhere? Would any of the scenes come across stronger from a different Point of View?
Heat level – do all of my hankity pankity scenes have a purpose? I don't write sex simply for the sake of sex
Nitty Gritty – check for all of my bad habits: passive voice, repeated word usage, too many similes, dialog tags that break up the flow of the scene.

Every time I work with an editor at any of my publishing houses, I save their notes. I add to my list of things to look for BEFORE I ever send a new manuscript into my publishing houses again. It's my desire to learn from my editors (because they are Awesome!) and become a better writer based on how they've helped me polish each of my stories.

I feel it is my responsibility to work on my writing craft and develop my skills.

To that end, I've also taken courses when the opportunity arises. One excellent course I've taken is the self-editing course offered by Angela James of Carina Press. Every time I look through my notes from that course I learn something. I kid you not. I also owe many thanks to the Rebels of the Kelley Armstrong Forums Online Writing Groups for their excellent beta reading and critiques.

And, at the end of the Edit Phase, the final question I ask myself is, do I still love this story? Usually, the answer is yes! Even more after all the polishing.

And hopefully, my readers will love my new stories too.