Over at “Loose Change” (Inside Epublishing), a blog I just stumbled across, there’s a post called “Inside E-Publishing 101” which–although yes, the majority of the post is about Epublishing, and I know next to nothing about Epublishing, nonetheless had a few elements that totally rang true.

Writing the book’s the fun part. Now comes the work.

True facts. For Havemercy, which took us a relatively short time to write, the editing process–and there were multiple rounds–took three or four times as long as actually writing the first draft.

Your book will go through a couple of stages. In the editing phase you get to cut all those long pieces of back story you so lovingly crafted that no one but you cares a whit about. (I say this with all confidence, because I used to write 30K or so of this stuff at the front end of a novel.)

Interestingly enough, with Havemercy, we ended up writing more backstory. Though we did cut a lot, by the time we handed the manuscript back to our editor, it was fifty pages longer than it had been.

Once the drek’s been cut, you get to fix sentence structure, eliminate 172 exclamation points, remove 76 uses of the word SUDDENLY, or whatever your favorite word was for this book

This, however, is exceedingly true. In Havemercy, we edited out approximately twenty million instances of improper usage of the “–”. Also, I remember one point (not in Havemercy) where we edited out about five solid pages’ worth–I do not joke here; it was a serious offense–of instances of “sort of” and “kind of.” Granted, the narrator had a certain tone we were going for. But still…

Anyway, I just thought it was a fun comparison. With every round of edits, you learn something new. Like how you abuse “sort of.” Or how you have no idea how the “–” works in dialogue. Or how, when people are talking on page, it doesn’t matter if that’s how they’d really say it. Just say “no” to stuttering and repetition!

-Jaida