Finished my latest edit of the first book of the four-book series. This is the fifth draft of the book, as I mentioned yesterday. I didn't change very much in this draft, or indeed the draft before -- but they're still crucial to the overall impact of the piece. As I've often said here, a first draft is just a starting point for a story or novel. Pretty much every writer I know or ever read about goes through at least 5 or 6 drafts before they're happy with a book. (Yes, there are exceptions, such as Mickey Spillane, but they're few and far between.) The little changes I was making this time round didn't make much difference if you were to look at them one at a time -- a word added or taken away in a line here, a couple of words shifted around in another line over there. But when you add up all the little alterations, they make a huge difference. A book should be smooth. When you're reading, you should be able to lose yourself in the story, to get sucked in by it and ride along as if on a roller coaster ride. If lines are jagged or slightly out of kilter, you WILL notice them, even if only subconsciously. The occasionally dud or two won't disturb you too much, but if you start noticing a lot of loose ends, that will distract you, and you'll start looking out for them, and the story will lose its grip on you. I'm not talking about out-and-out mistakes -- more things like using a certain word or phrase too often, or awkwardly structuring a sentence, or making a sentence longer than it needs to be, and throwing in more words than you need, thus slowing things down a bit, and making things a bit more complicated than they need be, and thus losing your reader -- much like this very sentence, in fact!!!

Did you notice the length of that last sentence? The repetitions? The awkwardness? THAT is what I am talking about!! First drafts are full of lousy lines like that -- when you're first dealing with a story, you should be focused on the big picture, on taking it all the way to the end, not on the neat and even lie of every line. But as you go through later drafts, you begin narrowing your field of vision, judging the merits of each and every line, looking for small ways to improve. And those small tweaks are just as important as the big plot twists and character arcs. A huge step forward for me as a writer was when, having written a handful of first draft books, I sat down and re-wrote and then edited one of those books for the first time. I think it's the same for writers everywhere. Whether you enjoy editing (as I do) or not, it's essential, and the sooner you realise and accept that, and start doing it, the sooner you can move forward and begin to learn and advance.

Right -- enough sage-like advice for one night -- I'm off out for a walk, and then I'll maybe answer some fan mail when I get back. There's no editing when it comes to my letters -- if I don't get a letter right first time round, it's doomed to stay that way forever -- there's not enough time in life to make EVERYTHING perfect!!!!!