It’s time for news about the first Flight of the Kestrel novel, Intruders.
I wrote back in February that my professional edit had been returned and I had a lot of work to do. The edit was really comprehensive and took three different forms: line edits, comments, and an overall report.
Since then I have been launching my new history book The Magna Carta Story, which has meant I have not spent as much time as I would like on the edit.
There are facilities in modern word processors (like Microsoft Word – I use Libre Office, a free version) to track changes in a document and make comments. It’s a great way of making suggestions for changes that previously would have been scribbled on a paper copy. I wrote a blog post about it, which you can read here.
Line edits
The line edits are done via the track changes facility, and I have been through and accepted or rejected them, and made other changes which they threw up. These suggestions are at a detailed level, and pick up spelling, grammar, awkward sentences etc. They are relatively easy to work on, but time consuming, since the manuscript is about 86,000 words.
Comments
The comments concern higher level things like too much ‘telling’, head-hopping point of view (which I do without realising), detailed plot holes etc. I have been through them and fixed the easier ones. The more complicated ones are things like ‘This scene needs re-writing from X’s point of view’. I have made notes in the manuscript for those.
So, the details are dealt with, now comes the big stuff. I’m thinking about my novel all the time and have ideas I want to incorporate, as well as the things my editor has pointed out. I’m really excited, as the story is growing in depth and detail all the time.
It’s time for a rewrite.
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Ann Marie Thomas is now the author of five medieval history books, a surprisingly cheerful poetry collection about her 2010 stroke, and the science fiction series Flight of the Kestrel, Intruders, Alien Secrets & Crisis of Conscience are out now Follow her at http://eepurl.com/bbOsyz