My final editing phase is almost checked off!
Do you recognize this turtle? I remember reading the Franklin books to my boys when they were young. I never thought I’d be writing a book of my own someday, with the author of several Franklin books as my editor! Sharon Jennings is the main editor for Miriam Laundry Publishing and her insight has been incredibly helpful. The editing process takes time and patience and involves some challenging growing pains, especially for a new author.
The publishing program provides three edits. The first is a story analysis, where the editor looks at a story as a whole and provides feedback on what’s working and what isn’t in terms of plot, tension logic, etc. It is extremely valuable to receive constructive feedback from an experienced author and editor, though it is difficult to let go of one’s creation and hear the criticism, positive or not! I let my editor’s feedback email sit unopened for a couple of days before gathering the courage to look at what she suggested. It was a stressful moment, but ended up being great advice that I built into the story, making it a more compelling narrative.
The second edit is known as a structural edit, which basically looks at a story’s details line-by-line. This edit was not as stressful as the first and I was able to turn it around and send the draft back to Miriam Laundry Publishing for the last edit, which is the copy edit. At this stage, the editor looks at a manuscript to make sure the spelling, grammar, etc. are all correct.
Once the copy edit is complete, I’ll move on to the next stage, which is signing up with an illustrator to provide the artwork for my book.