Start At The Beginning

Your editor is your friend. They make your books much tighter, brighter, smarter…I could go on and on about the importance of having a good relationship with your editor. For me, my editor is also my sounding board, and not just at the end of the project.

Right now, I’m working on the sixth book in my wedding planner series and I’m looking for a little guidance. I just sent my editor the beginning of the story to do a quick read through. The beginning is so very important to the story, it pulls the reader in. Without a good one, you can’t expect the reader to continue on.

As the writer, you are often too close to see what the issues may be (after all the story lives inside your head!), so it’s good to reach out to your editor or beta reader to see what they think before you get too far along in the story. It’s much easier to change things when you’re ten thousand words in versus seventy thousand.

So we’ll see what she has to say before I continue on. Hopefully if she suggests changes, we’re talking minor makeover, not full surgery on the story. Either way, it’s a step forward in the right direction.