Edit With Me: Incorporating Feedback

A real-time look at how I prepare for my next round of edits

Last I checked in with my enchantress book, I was ignoring it. Intentionally. Ideally, when I look at these words now, they’ll feel less mine, and I can approach them with the eye I bring to my work: that of an outside editor.

However, before I can make changes, I need to figure out what changes need to be made. Both critiques I received provided me with in-line comments and a short summary of their notes.

The best way to go about making changes, then, is to start at page one and address the comments one at a time, right? Unfortunately, no. Because, as I’ve written about elsewhere, a problem noted on one page isn’t necessarily a problem that will be fixed on that page. There’s a chance it will require going back and adding foreshadowing, or making something matter later, or looking for consistency among a setting description throughout the whole book.

So if I want to go through page by page for my edit — and I do, as editing chronologically is usually a good idea — the first step is figuring out what’s going to change.

Reviewing the Big Picture

In both cases, the emails that I got back are just “thanks for letting me read this!” and one requisite “YOU MONSTER. How dare you.” So from the emails, I have nothing to address. However, I asked follow-up questions to one of my readers, and I know these are going to need addressed.

My question: the last chapter is more than 15 pages long, when most of my others are in the 7–10-page range, and it comes right after a 3-page chapter. Does it feel long?

Response: I didn’t even notice.

Notes for how to edit: Don’t.

My question: Did Celeste get Bad Enough that we earn her vendetta against her brother? It was a pain to ensure her decisions were justified.

Response: Yes, but I think she’s a spoiled child.

Notes for how to edit: Don’t.

My question: I honestly don’t like that Celeste is written as 17, but I worry if I make her too much older, the backstory I set up won’t work.

Response: Even though she sometimes acts like a child, Celeste, the duke, and Renee all seem older than the age they’re written as.

Me: I feel like Celeste at 21, the duke at 25, and Renee somewhere in between is more where I want them, but Adam has to be 14.

Response: I like that better, and Celeste’s resentment of her brother could come across more when this literal child starts bossing her around. And 21 is not so old as to be removed from being childish at times. Especially when one doesn’t realize how spoiled they are cause they’re too busy looking at how much more spoiled their brother is

Notes for how to edit: Age up everyone except Adam, make sure the math works out with parents’ ages as well, and work hard especially in the Adam/Celeste scenes to show that age difference.

My question: One thing I really want to fix, but find hard to do in single POV, is show the Celeste Renee sees. Why she loves her and keeps giving her chances. But it’s something I find incredibly hard to quantify.

Response: I think if you had R speak more about what is redeemable in C when they talk, it might help? “I know you’re better than this” and “remember your concern for xyz” or whatever.

Notes for how to edit: Do that. It’s a pretty easy fix.

In-Line Comments that Will Require Big Picture Changes — Reader 1

The next step is going to be reading each comment and figuring out what needs addressed somewhere besides where the comment was made. I’m going to do this separately for each reader. Then at the end I can make a master list of changes, organized chronologically. Any that are specific to a chapter (or two or whatever), I can then make my own comments in my combined editing document so I’m sure they’ll be addressed. Any that are global I’ll keep in their own checklist that I’ll review with every chapter.

Setting: Research more about how one’s rooms would be situated in 18th century France, and give Celeste and her mother the lowest possible acceptable situation. Right now they likely have too little between them.

Setting/believability/oh right this character’s personality changed between drafts: The scene in which Celeste’s dress is decided on for the ball doesn’t work on any of the levels listed here. Maybe revert to duke’s sketches and a separate scene for measurements?

Historical Accuracy: A few scenes happen in which a woman enters a (presumably) man’s rooms, which would be very much unallowed. Perhaps just her acknowledgment of how delicious/scary it is to do the thing would work?

Missing Foreshadowing: We have a long stretch in which Celeste doesn’t try magic at all, but later references that she has. We should add back in a scene where she tries. And, as there are also complaints about not enough page time for Renee, it could be a good idea to have her there and build their relationship.

Missing Relationship Building: There is also a (merited) request for more Celeste/Duke page time.

Missing Foreshadowing: Either Catherine ships Bernadette/Adam or she does not. None of this “obviously she wanted them to be together” when there is nothing obvious about it.

Inconsistency: In some places, it’s said a mirror will be framed in Paris; in other places, in the village. These should, uh, be the same. Because it is one mirror framed one time.

Missing Foreshadowing: Celeste says she has a plan a lot, but it’s not on the page — in dialogue or narrative — until far too late in the book. We should have more idea of what her plan is well before the 67% mark when we finally get it. Issues with the plans/lack thereof continue for some time, but probably need to be addressed before the comments are listed.

The Hunting Scene: Has a lot of inconsistencies and issues. Of note: 1. Bernadette and Celeste are implied to have a closer relationship than we’ve technically seen. 2. We haven’t seen Celeste and Renee together in a while, and we should have before then. 3. The way the hunt is described is neither perfectly internally consistent nor perfectly historically accurate.

Missing Foreshadowing: I say there had been moments of conversation between two characters that Celeste just missed. There should maybe, for the sake of the story, actually be snippets of conversation she misses.

In-Line Comments that Will Require Big Picture Changes — Reader 2

This reader left me fewer notes, but far more related to historical accuracy and a sort-of sensitivity read. Like with Reader 1, I’ll list the ones that require changes throughout the book, research, additions, or a complete rewrite. Smaller notes about unclear language, suggestions for in-scene pacing (like paragraph breaks), and typos don’t make this list.

Sensitivity: Watch the language I use with masculine/feminine, especially since I have a character who doesn’t fit perfectly into this binary.

Pacing: Some of the magic scenes go by too quickly and need to be slowed down.

Expert Advice: The hunting scene needs work with the horses to be accurate.

Characterization: Adam’s actions in the hunting scene need more foreshadowing/understanding of his motivation. He acts over-the-top even for himself here.

Missing Foreshadowing: There is a relationship/history reveal near the end that doesn’t have much hinted toward it. There should be at least a question of it sooner. (Slightly more on the page, because I know there are some.)

Pacing: Although there are some markers on the page, the passage of time and the changing weather aren’t on the page quite enough for it to be clear what has happened and when. I can do more with description in this regard.

Creating a Plan Forward

The first thing I’m going to do with these lists is combine them, paying particular attention to things both readers left comments about. Basically, this is what to address. Then we’ll figure out how to address them.

Combined lists

• The hunting scene pretty clearly needs a rewrite. Reader 1 and Reader 2 made different notes about what wasn’t working for them, but neither of them found it to work.
• I definitely have missing scenes in the first half of the book. Both readers wanted a scene in which Celeste tries a location spell, which, incidentally, was one of the scenes I deleted. Both wanted two of the main side characters — the duke and Renee — on the page more.
• The “Celeste caught fragments of conversation between these two other characters but that never happened” comment from Reader 1 and the “the relationship reveal near the end wasn’t foreshadowed clearly enough” comment from Reader 2 point out basically the same problem. So we need either new scenes or partial scene additions where this is better dealt with. As I also have a note about a potential missing scene (where Celeste trains her magic) that could involve this character, another scene is probably my best bet here.
• I need more introspection scattered from about Pinch Point 1 to Plot Point 3 about what Celeste’s plan is at any given time. I beat around the bush so much it looks like I didn’t know what it was.
• I also need more time stamps/notes about the weather.

Everything else feels smaller and like I don’t really need to make a plan for it, just make sure they’re on my checklist so they get addressed.

Updates

From this list of problems, I’m now going to brainstorm how to fix them/what new moments I need, and then see if I can condense them down, because I’m a huge fan of writing scenes that solve multiple problems at once.

• New scene: Celeste is trying her location spell with Renee, and looks for her mother. She finds her — in a place she doesn’t expect. Goes to investigate and hears a snippet of a conversation that makes no sense. We will need to do some Celeste/Renee relationship building here, establish a Before Celeste, and focus on her magic.
• The Celeste-getting-measured-for-ball scene becomes two, one with sketches the duke presents, and one with her ladies-in-waiting afterward. We get more duke/Celeste this way, and remove the duke’s actions that were remnants from an old personality.
• New scene: After the ball and before the hunting scene, I need one more scene with Bernadette, Celeste, and Celeste’s mother. I need to show how these relationships have changed, and figure out what it is Celeste’s mother feels about Bernadette and her potential as a match for Adam.
• The hunting scene needs gutted. One major revision will be showing that Adam is putting on asshole-ish airs because he thinks that is what will impress the duke into thinking that he’s mature and ready to handle his own chateau.

Now that I have my list, I’m going to need to see where they fit best among the scenes I already have, especially as the emotional dominoes will be relevant when I put them in there.

Lessons Learned

I spent 2.5 hours over the course of two days going through comments, making these lists, and deciding how exactly I was going to address them — and that includes the time spent writing this article.

This pre-editing work is probably not only going to save me hours of brainstorming time when I come across these comments in my edit, but also hours revising and rearranging, trying to figure out how to solve the problems on the fly. I also would probably end up with a less streamlined book, because I likely would have tackled problems one by one, rather than finding a solution that handles three major issues over the course of one chapter.

Plus, having a plan means that revision isn’t going to have any big surprises in it. I prepared in advance, and now it has a smaller wall of awful to climb, too, for getting started.

How do you handle addressing comments from readers?