Writing: Editing The Rill Lord

I've just handed first edits of The Rill Lord back to my editor. There are several rounds of edits, beginning with the ones I conduct myself before turning in the finished manuscript. Next come a couple rounds of edits from my "first readers," both of them people with strong editing skills who I trust to point up weak parts of the story, character arcs, dialogue, or plot. Only after they have seen it do I pass the manuscript along to my publisher.

There are no spoilers in the examples below.

First Edits

First edits come from a professional editor and they can be brutal. I'll be honest... mine usually aren't. I've been writing fiction for fifty years. I've been edited for fifty years. I catch a lot of errors in early stages and my first readers catch more which I can fix before the pros see it. My manuscripts are pretty darn clean. But clean isn't good enough. The story, the prose, every part of the book needs to be as good as we can make it.

So what do first edits look like? Well, often they don't look like anything much at all. A few flagged words that are getting used too often. A "What's this?" because a reference to a person or event doesn't make sense and needs to be bolstered. Easy fixes. But then there are the cases where the editor says there needs to be more... like rewrite a scene. Or add one.

Like here below. This is the opening of a scene that leads into another scene where Aubrey meets with Dorilian again. I use Word and Track Changes, and rewrites look like blood spilled on the page. In this case the editor wanted some exposition about why Aubrey wasn't thinking kind thoughts about Emyli's rune-reading replaced by a scene that actually brings their rune-reading onto the page. That's quite the right call, to be fair. So I did it. [I am not including the editor's notes (or my replies) because I haven't procured her permission to use those.]

Notice I kept some of the original text. What Aubrey was thinking still factors into the action of the scene. The point of the scene is to bring her thoughts into what my editor likes to call "the Now." [We have an ongoing dialogue about my dislike of that phrase, mostly because she uses it often and I feel a bit nagged. But she's right about what it does and that I need to do more of it.]

I'm quite fond of the new line about Aubrey wanting to wring Emyli's neck. That's so her. Also it is very in the Now.

I also use this new scene to do some worldbuilding about Kheld rune-reading. Emyli and Aubrey are doing a paired reading using Emyli's stones. Her stones are a different set from the ones Aubrey uses, which readers have seen more because Aubrey has been the rune focus so far. Here readers see Emyli established firmly as a rune-reader who is at the very least Aubrey's equal. Readers previously only knew that Emyli read runes from dialogue in The Kheld King. This matters later.

Here's a bit more of the scene. Notice it still looks like blood spilled on the page.

The scene uses rune reading to shift the focus to what each woman is acrually doing. Emyli's goal is to look into the future, something rune reading doesn't do well. Or at all. Aubrey is protecting the man Emyli is trying so desperately to see.

There's more, of course. The scene goes on a bit further. The above is now a lead-in scene. Below is the original.

"But," you might say, "It's not much different!" And you'd be right. It's the same scene. What's different is the telling. The execution. The focus. That Emyli is present. That she and Aubrey are actually reading the runes.

So that is editing. And what first edits can look like on the page. There's also a bit of a glimpse into my process. I want my characters to feel real. I try to use my words to give them a kind of life on the page and in readers' minds.

And by reading through this scene yet again I just discovered a spelling error that I will have to correct soon... in second edits.