3 Lessons from editing a trilogy

Hello once again!

Writing a trilogy was incredibly educational for me, I learned so many lessons I doubt I could have learned any other way. But physically writing is only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to releasing a book, let alone a trilogy. I thought it'd be fun to check out the 3 main lessons I learned through editing my trilogy.

1. No matter how clean you think your first draft is, you still need to edit.

It's no secret that I'm not a plotter, I'm a full-on pantser, and I usually do my best to keep a pretty clean first draft. In truth, I had only edited one of my stories, very lightly, before I started The Shoreline of Memory. I thought I would only need to shift a few commas and change a sentence or two... boy was I wrong.

2. Editing is hard... but rewarding.

As I implied in the point above, editing is a lot of work, but it is one of the most rewarding things I do as a writer. My drafts fairly feel messy, or bad as I'm writing them, but there is nothing in the world to compare to the feeling of turning a draft into a book. It may take plenty of time and effort, but I promise you it is worth it.

3. The trick to editing is knowing when you do, or don't know best. 

This one requires a little explanation, but I swear it's true. In my editing, I use Grammarly, beta readers, and my mom as an alpha reader. While I am grateful for every one of these tools, it's also a lot of feedback to take in. Overall, I typically try to listen to any advice I receive... but that does not mean I take it all. Sometimes being an author means putting what others think is best for the book over my first impressions, but I am still the author, and I need to call it, one way or the other. Always listen, but don't always agree, especially not without thinking it through first.

That's about it for this week! What have you learned about editing?

Have a great day, and keep writing!