From My Mind, To the Page, Then Edits

My editor Tina has been with me since the very beginning. When I turned over the manuscript for ‘The Chameleon Soul Mate’, I felt like I handed in a final exam. By the time I got her edit back, I didn’t have any fingernails left. I’ve learned a lot since receiving the initial 8-page content edit summary. Tina provides a content line edit for everything I’ve written since. She’ll make revisions within the body of the manuscript (with revision marks) and comments in bubbles. I follow along with the version of the manuscript I sent her, make the revisions, and take notes related to rewrites I’ll make. Here is a page of edits from Tina I printed out from ‘Blood Interwoven’ where I wrote my revisions before placing them in the novella.

In this particular case, she felt I tied things up too quickly, not providing enough suspense. Tina has always been into conflict. My heroine isn’t getting her happily ever after without a lot of obstacles to overcome, turns in the road, and someone is always trying to kill somebody.