More than two years into my journey as a self-published author, which is a very short time in the life of a writer, I think I have made enough mistakes and discoveries to write (and publish!) a book about my experiences so far. Maybe I will, although I am not sure who would buy it. Genre is a whole new subject.
One of the most important parts of the process is the editing. Writing is the easy part.
I develop my stories in layers, so I create a short version of the story, and then build the characters and the plot by in-filling. As a general rule I set-aside two hours in a day, during which I re-read whatever I wrote the last time, and then write at least another one thousand words. This means that there are plenty of opportunities to screw-up timelines! I have a spreadsheet which contains lists of the characters, their physical appearances, significant others and incidents such as birth dates. I have a second spreadsheet onto which I note details about places such as The Woodford Tearooms, and events like the Drayton Flea Market.
When the first version of the manuscript is finished I set it aside for a few weeks, and turn my attention to the next project. When I come back to it I am astonished by the number of mistakes I have made. I find huge gaps in the story, or miniscule errors in the description which would grate if I was the reader, as well as numerous obvious spelling and grammar mistakes.
Eventually I have to draw a line under that, and begin the nerve-wracking task of sending the manuscript to other people. This is nerve-wracking because I have found it hard to be objective about my own work, and have no idea if the story makes sense, if it is captivating, or if the characters are strong enough. It hasn’t happened yet, but I dread the day it comes bouncing back from one of the first readers with a great big question mark stamped across it. I can cope when it happens, as it inevitably does, after a few Woodford fans have read it.
I also have to be ready to consider the criticism I have asked for. Notice I haven’t written ‘accept’. One of the lessons I have learned is to be aware of the credentials of the person I have approached for help. I am not talking about professional and non-professional readers, but about a person’s expectations and previous experience. There are the people who are supportive, and who don’t notice or are not bothered by certain errors; the people who don’t like my style of writing or are highly critical about the content, but are still able to offer useful suggestions; the people who are looking for something specific which isn’t there, and doesn’t need to be, but the fact they have raised it makes me think; the people who offer alternatives which don’t suit my story, and cause me to work out how to re-write so the issue doesn’t arise; the people who enjoy the manuscript, even though they find plenty to correct within it. Until I began this journey I thought ‘editing’ was ‘proof-reading’. Even within proof-reading I wasn’t aware of all of the variables!
In the cross-section of readers who preview the manuscripts before I publish them it is rare that more than one person will highlight the same inaccuracy. Isn’t that interesting?
I am so very grateful to everybody who has taken time out of their own lives to read the manuscript for me. This is my project, I am the one who as so much invested in it. None of the people who put their brains to work and spent time reading and correcting many tens of thousands of words have anything to gain from the success or otherwise of these books, and yet they made the effort to report their thoughts back to me. By reading their suggestions I learn about the art and presentation of writing and of story-telling. I could not publish these books without Team Woodford.
As I come to do the final edits on The Silver Salver Mystery I am still finding errors. Since I started on this journey I have become more critical of the quality of published books. I have always had a good eye for proof-reading, and in the days when I was a school librarian various members of staff would surreptitiously turn up in my office with reports they had prepared for senior management or presentations intended for staff or parents for me to check. I quickly learned that my ability to retain what was written was almost zero because I was scanning for grammatical and spelling mistakes, and not reading the content. When reading fiction books I am immersed in the content, and saddened by the number of errors I find in books which are published by reputable publishing houses, who must employ numerous members of staff specifically for this purpose. But now I am a part of this world, albeit 0.00001% (no, no one ever brought their arithmetic for me to check) I have sympathy for the authors.
Self-published authors have autonomy over work published in their name, and so all of the errors in my books are made by me. One or more of the people I have asked to help me may have pointed them out, and I have chosen to ignore their advice, or didn’t understand it, or I may have added it after that person had access to the manuscript.
Published authors do not have the final say on their books, even the titles and blurb are decided by the publishing house. In our book club we sometimes have a discussion about the covers and the quality of the printed work, and I think this aspect is more important to some readers than others. For me the external appearance of a book is unimportant, although I seem to spend an awful lot of time on the presentation of my own! I am trialling a photograph of myself on the cover of The Silver Salver Mystery and depending on the feedback will add it to the covers of the first three Woodford Antiques Mystery books. The history of the production of these books is fairly long, considering it has been less than two years since the first one was published. Apologies to everyone who is trying to collect every version of them!
Now that I have posted this I will probably have to edit it a few times, as the mistakes which have been camouflaged at the time of publishing now spring out at me.