I am still doing edits to Hurricane Baby, making comma and quotation mark changes throughout the document. I’ve discovered the limits of search-and-replace edits–you can insert as many errors as you fix this way. Now I am down to the reading the entire document again stage of proofreading. Finding all the periods that need to be commas and vice-versa. Correcting the backwards quotation marks throughout. Trying to make sure the right character names are attached to the correct dialogue.
I hope next week to be able to report on the newest revision direction once I get feedback from another beta reader, someone who can tell me what is working on a deeper level than maybe the ones who’ve read it so far. I think the next edit will not involve huge revisions but probably smaller, sentence-level deepening of character motivations and making areas that I feel are clear and understandable even more so.
It’s all important when it comes to getting the attention of an editor–characters, plot, story, grammar, arcs, climaxes, denouments, endings–they all fit together to make or break a book, and what I need to know is what more needs to be done. Hopefully I will find out this week. Wish me well on my journey!
Julie Liddell Whitehead 