The Edit
How does a book get to that "as complete as it can be by pub date" stage? When you work with a traditional publisher, it gets there by four stages of editing:
1) The substantive, or "macro" edit. This is the 30,000 foot view edit. It usually comes in the form of a letter from your editor and addresses issues such as plot, character, length, flow and anything that isn't working. And so you go in and revise--often drastically. This isn't the stage to nit-pick at sentences, but I do anyway.
2) The line edit. This is a more granular edit, often by a freelancer hired by your editor. It addresses sentence structure, pace/flow, sections that can be cut, things that aren't clear or consistent, and any general questions that arise as the editor is reading. It includes some sentence structure and grammar. You rewrite a little more, in smaller chunks. This is supposed to be a far less time-consuming edit, and some authors will simply addresses comments and be done, sanity in tact. I tend to rewrite any sentence, dialogue or scene that doesn't feel right to me even at this stage. I will work on it every day I have until I need to turn it back in, sometimes up to 20 hours a day.
3) The copy edit. This is grammar, place and character names, and punctuation. The copy editor--the third set of eyes provided by your publisher--usually makes a list of all the names, places and grammar conventions that will be used in the book for the sake of consistency. You're not supposed to do much re-writing at this stage. Notice I said "supposed to."
4) The galley/design pages. This is a hard copy edit where you receive a printout of the sheets, laid out and designed as they will be for the book. At this point, you are only looking for misspellings and typos that escaped the copy edit and things that got weird while being typeset. I will still rewrite sentences that don't flow smoothly and cut a paragraph here and there even at this stage, generating curse words at the New York office, I'm sure. After the design pages for Sheba were turned in and revised, I sent a bottle of wine to the copy editor who made my final changes as an apology. But it was really a bribe because I wasn't that sorry.
1) The substantive, or "macro" edit. This is the 30,000 foot view edit. It usually comes in the form of a letter from your editor and addresses issues such as plot, character, length, flow and anything that isn't working. And so you go in and revise--often drastically. This isn't the stage to nit-pick at sentences, but I do anyway.
2) The line edit. This is a more granular edit, often by a freelancer hired by your editor. It addresses sentence structure, pace/flow, sections that can be cut, things that aren't clear or consistent, and any general questions that arise as the editor is reading. It includes some sentence structure and grammar. You rewrite a little more, in smaller chunks. This is supposed to be a far less time-consuming edit, and some authors will simply addresses comments and be done, sanity in tact. I tend to rewrite any sentence, dialogue or scene that doesn't feel right to me even at this stage. I will work on it every day I have until I need to turn it back in, sometimes up to 20 hours a day.
3) The copy edit. This is grammar, place and character names, and punctuation. The copy editor--the third set of eyes provided by your publisher--usually makes a list of all the names, places and grammar conventions that will be used in the book for the sake of consistency. You're not supposed to do much re-writing at this stage. Notice I said "supposed to."
4) The galley/design pages. This is a hard copy edit where you receive a printout of the sheets, laid out and designed as they will be for the book. At this point, you are only looking for misspellings and typos that escaped the copy edit and things that got weird while being typeset. I will still rewrite sentences that don't flow smoothly and cut a paragraph here and there even at this stage, generating curse words at the New York office, I'm sure. After the design pages for Sheba were turned in and revised, I sent a bottle of wine to the copy editor who made my final changes as an apology. But it was really a bribe because I wasn't that sorry.
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And Sheba was amazing!