I made what I’m sure is a rookie mistake last night in my editing. I revised an entire chapter based on the comments of my editor only to get to the last page and read, “Rewrite the chapter. Nothing really happens…”. There was more to the comment, but I had just spent over an hour tweaking and making everything better based on previous comments.
Am I angry? No, not at all. The rewriting process was good and I will be able to use some of what I did. The joke, and it is a joke on me, is that I didn’t read all the comments on the chapter before I started my revision.
That could lead to the question: did I actually read all the comments from my editor before I started? The answer is, “Yes”. The problem is, there are 400 comments and remembering where each is can be a problem. I knew I was coming up on a chapter rewrite, I just didn’t remember which one.
Now I know.
The good thing is, now that I’ve revised the chapter, I have to agree with all the comments. I even have a good idea how to fix the problem to address them. The effort wasn’t wasted at all.
I’ve also learned a very good tip that may or may not relate to how most (many?) editors work. They work linearly, out of necessity, I think. A book is much too big to read through and then start making general comments on how to fix everything. I did get that, but there was also the edits for language, believability and so on. Those have to be done on a line by line, paragraph by paragraph basis.
Lesson learned for me: always read all the comments in a chapter before I start revising. Now to rewrite and move on.
