I'm rather upset with past me.
Finally dove into editing the novel this week. Stopped procrastinating and worrying about the right way to do it, and just started doing it. Figured I'd look for inconsistencies, and touch up language or dialog along the way.
And at first it worked! I chugged along, making small changes, trimming sentences here and there, for four whole chapters.
But then I noticed something: The chapters I'd written (and edited, now for the third time) were all too short.
I'd left out physical descriptions of the characters, so the reader had no guidance on what they looked like.
I'd left out descriptions of the locations they were moving through, so the reader had no way to orient themselves in space.
And I'd left out any discussion of how the characters should react to a crisis, so the reader had no idea of the alternatives, or how bad the crisis really was.
I could tell all this, for the first time, because the reader was me.
I don't mean that I was literally lost in my own novel. Thank goodness, no, I still knew where everything was, and what everything looks like.
But I'd had enough time off from the book to approach it like a reader. And I've recently read some books that had a quick pace and an interesting plot but never gave me enough time to get oriented in the world, so I always felt a little confused.
Both things that let me recognize it when it started happening in my own book.
So this editing pass -- draft number three, for those keeping score at home -- is turning out to be a "filling in the gaps" pass. Expanding conversations so each character's whole train of thought is present (or at least enough for the reader to make the tiny leaps required). Spending more time in a space before the plot pushes us out of it, so I can give the reader something to visualize.
Thankfully I've been thinking about all of these things for two years now (or three? is it three years?) so I can fill in the gaps when I spot them. But even as I fill in the gaps, I know I'm creating more work for myself. Because each of those filled gaps is now a first draft, and will need to be revised again (and again) before it's ready to go out.
So thanks, past me. You keep the plot humming along, but you forgot to lay down all the sign posts along the way.
