Editing: August

I’ve written a lot about editing the last couple of months. I had two manuscripts out for evaluations, and neither came back with result I had hoped. As I wrote on June 8, The Man Terror Club needs a Japanese woman coauthor to solve its problems. As for August, well, the editor wanted me to change the whole thrust of the novel, its central relationship.

No.

But as I wrote on May 25, it’s important to fix the underlying reason why she said that. So I am going through another edit, making one of the characters a little more three-dimensional. I’m giving her just enough more background to make it obvious that although she’s important (August’s daughter, his only child), August’s relationship with her should not be the core of his character arc. I’m adding other little things as well: more interiority, setting, etc.

I’m fine with making all those changes. They’re coming along very well. But they all involve adding to the text. The book was already too long. I’m going to have to cut again (it went through a particularly brutal cut a year and a half ago), and that’s going to be terribly difficult.

Oh, well, difficult is what authors do.