Welcome to my new monthly blog post (Oh! Look What I Found!), all about shit I found while researching for some creative project. I do a lot of random digging and searching and connecting to try and flesh out my stories, worlds, and characters. Now, I want to share some of it with you!
Editing a Book in a Few Weeks
I haven’t been researching anything exciting for work the past few weeks. My job has me doing a lot of research, but not on anything you fine reader would be interested in reading about. It’s all boring business formation and state statures. Exciting to me, but not too many people. So, instead, I’ll give you an update on the book process and where I’m at with my editing and nailing down the hard part of the story.
In my expanding life as a novelist, I’ve been moving into the editing stages for my novella. I finished it last month. Then I spent a few weeks away from it so I could recharge and come back anew to the draft. I started reading through the manuscript a couple weekends ago, making notes on what worked and what didn’t. All and all, the book is in good shape. I’m aiming to have it ready as early as May.
Currently, I’m working through implementing the notes I made on adding new scenes or expanding/cutting existing ones to help with the pacing, character development, character relationship development, and better locking the reader into the mad spell of the story. This week is all about bringing in those changes and hammering out content and development issues within the draft.
I’m also looking to nail down some alpha readers to help me figure out specific areas that may need help that I’m not seeing. So far, I have one and am looking to get 3 to 4. If you’re a speculative fiction writer who can provide helpful feedback on a horror manuscript, please drop a comment below and let me know. I’d love to get your feedback to make this book everything I know it can be.
For people who don’t know what alpha readers are, they are the people who read the early drafts of manuscripts before the writer really lands on how they are going to tell their story. Beta readers are what are commonly used, but they come later in the process. Alpha readers also focus less on the subject matter and more on whether or not the scenes, characters, and story as a whole work together. While beta readers tend to be fans of the genre or somehow closely related to the potential reader base, alpha readers are usually writers, editors, or critiquers that are able to explain where something in a story is going wrong.
Once I get my alpha reader comments back at the beginning of May, I’ll be moving into my final round of content, development, proofreading, line, and copy edits. Not all in that order, but those are the edits I do on my stories to keep them functioning. Then it’s off to either my agent or out on query/submission.
Thanks for swinging by and reading about what I’ve been up to the past couple of weeks. I appreciate it. I’d appreciate it even more if you’d consider subscribing to my blog or checking out some of the books, games, and stories I have available for fans, followers, and readers.
And if you have any recommendations for horror novellas, I’d love to hear about them. Just drop a comment below!
Aigner Loren Wilson Writer & Editor 