0 words today because I got the novel back from my editor.
The verdict? Way different than I expected.
The average amount of edits I receive per novel is 290 (for my main editor).
Editor #1 found 243 edits.
Editor #2 found 246 edits. WHOA…
That’s a total of 489 edits between both editors.
I THOUGHT that editor 2 might find fewer errors due to my editing engine and editor #1 sweeping the manuscript first, but that’s not what happened.
The editor found MORE errors, and I think it was because they were easier to find since the manuscript was cleaner. It’s also because the editor has a different view of the world too.
I spent most of the day analyzing the edits to find insights. And boy did I find some.
This was important because it will guide me through the 5-5-50,000 challenge.
I was able to feed about 30-40 edits into my editing engine, and I wrote a new macro to help me catch a new kind of error. Overall, I learned a lot.
THE INSIGHTS
Some things were scarily inconsistent between both editor. Also, these insights are unique to me, so I’m not recommending you follow them. But it may help shape how you think about your manuscript as a series of data points:
- Both editors found the most edits in the first and fourth quarter of the manuscript. Does that mean that readers will also have problems there? Hopefully not since I’ve had the book extensively edited, but that potentially tells me if you get past the first few chapters and like it, you’ll be golden til the end, and you’ll either love or hate the ending.
- Approx 13% of the edits were story edits.
- The more sessions I took to write a chapter, the higher the edits were. Every time. In fact, this was the clearest data point that I found. When you have to start and stop a chapter, you create ragged seams that don’t always match what comes before and after. Your mindset shifts every time you have to reset your writing session. That’s a very important insight that confirms a hunch I had.
- Chapters written in “flow” were the chapters with the most edits from my editor. Weird, right? You think it would be the opposite! The existence of flow is a good thing, but it does mean more edits!
- Chapters written where I was at “rough points” also contributed to around 20-30% of all total edits. Therefore, writer’s block may be reliable indicator of edits. That’s kind of a big deal.
- I noticed that chapters introducing an important character drove edits. Therefore, any time I am introducing an important character, I should probably use a cleaner writing method, and I should loop those chapters twice.
- Chapters greater than 2500 words produced the lion’s share of edits. Longer chapters always presage more issues, and intuitively, that makes sense.
5-5-50,000 WILL BEGIN TUESDAY
I am not done accepting my editor’s edits, and I need to do a YouTube and podcast recording for the week to get me through the 10-12 days I’ll need for the challenge, so right now, it looks like I’ll begin the 5-5-50,000 challenge on Tuesday!!!
Anyway, I’ve got some more work to do. Have a good night.
