Editing Hell

My editor, Sasha, asked me to add some more romance to my book. Originally, the romance was only a minor part of the story. The focus was more on the suspense elements. However, she thought that it would find a wider audience if I could make the romance a more central aspect of the story.

I knew this was possible. There were a few moments in the original where I chose very specifically how I would handle the scenes with romance. And I knew with some work, I could give her what she wanted.

First, I printed out the whole thing. Then, I handwrote any changes I wanted to make...crossing out things I could cut and writing in new stuff or just making notes for myself. That took about a week of work on and off. This week I did the actual typing up of all changes into the manuscript.

It was tough.

The hardest part I had was not altering much of the suspense story that was already there. Some of the emotional parts had to be tweaked in order to fit. In fact, I'm not quite sure if it 100% works. But that is my editor's job. To tell me what works and what doesn't. To help me shape the story into something better.

She had told me right before New Year's Eve that we would likely start editing within 'two to three weeks.' I'm right in that window now and expect to hear from her any day now.

I just emailed her my 'finished' edit so we'll see what she says. It's a bit nervewracking. I've worked with critique partners before, had writer friends give me their thoughts, etc. But this is one step higher for me. An actual editor telling me about the good and bad in my book. Hopefully, there's more good than bad.