Editing

I have finished the very rough draft of my seventh Captain Beauregard Mystery novel. It's name is not yet finalized. Now comes the difficult work. First step is a rewrite. I must view my work as critic of plot and character consistency. It takes time and great mental effort including memory recall. The process requires active thinking. I do not hate it as much as I do editing for use of words, punctuation, and grammatical use of phrases and clauses positioning.
Next I do the first of my three self edits. These edits are more automatic processes for me, but they annoy me. Despite my religious efforts at detail, I often miss the most common item. I wish perfection, but this writer often does not catch self-made mistakes. By the third editing try, I'm ready for the third process. I send my book out to my police procedural editor, a former police chief. She takes me to task for pushing policing too far in any direction. She reminds me I once was on our city's police commission and should remember more than I do. Since it's fiction, I research policing and sometimes use policing methods from smaller departments. We then discuss my deviations and I make decisions to stay or rewrite. Next I send the manuscript our to my mainstay editor. He likes the genre and sends me notes when I have had logic strays. Other than that it is grammar and word use. I then re-edit the manuscript. Exhausting is how I view the process, but necessary. My baby is now ready for publication. And........that is the most psychically problematic process. I hope when you read my books, you will remember, I work diligently to make a good read in murder.
K. B. Pellegrino, Author