Editing My Novels for a Decade, Part 1

I have been editing nine novels for ten years. 

When I’m not writing a new novel, I edit my past novels.

I do this every year. I reread my past novels. I edit them.

I’m on my own as an editor of my own work.

I write a novel. Time passes. The world of the novel falls from my mind, retreats to a pit of darkness, awaiting my return. When I return, I’m more detached from the work, and I’m more able to pretend to be a neutral reader and let the writing build the world of the novel in my head. 

It’s not really possible for the novelist to be a neutral reader of their own work. I have the world of the novel in my mind. Rereading the novel reanimates the world. When I read a novel I wrote ten years ago, I can still summon the world I’ve built for that novel in my imagination. 

The novel’s been dormant, its wings folded while it sleeps in a sulcus of my brain, but it’s always there, nestled in a pit of darkness. 

Yes, my words hit me in a fresh way as I revisit them. But no, I’m not a neutral, detached reader. I can’t really judge if my words are sufficient to build the novel’s world in the mind of a new reader.

But it’s the best I can do. I wait. I let the novel sleep. A year passes. I revisit the novel. I wake it up. It unfolds its wings.

I do rely on a few readers of my work: family and friends. I appreciate their reactions as readers. 

But sometimes I get defensive. 

Sometimes.

Artists know that impulse: someone insulted your baby, and you have to defend your baby. 

I try to control that reflex as much as I can, but I can’t, not really. I have to let myself feel defensive—it’s an emotion; I can’t help it—while I work to repress the urge to react. 

I let myself feel defensive, but I try not to act defensively. 

I grit my teeth and say, “Thank you.”

Time helps with that, too. I let time go by. I reread my work with reader reactions in mind. I check to see if they’re right. Are they onto something? Can I make this scene better? Should I delete this section? Does all the dialogue sound the same? Is this character really that flat?

When you first write something, you identify with it. You are close to it. You labored over time on a task, and the outcome of your labor is this thing, this product, this artwork: a novel. 

It lives! 

It’s an electric connection: you conceived, you created, you conquered. 

You don’t want anyone to judge your baby in the delivery room. You’re going to feel like they’re judging you as a parent (even though eight times out of ten, your readers are just trying to help).

Fair enough. You don’t want to be judged as a novelist. You want your work to be judged on its own so you can improve it. To do that, you need distance from your work, and that means time.

So let your novel sit. Reread it many times. Let it sit some more. Reread, edit, repeat.

This is what I tell myself. I tell myself it’s part of the editorial process to incubate a novel for five, six, seven years.

And that raises the question.

How long do you do this?

I’ve been doing this for ten years on nine manuscripts.

This fall, I wasn’t writing a new novel, so I gave myself the task of rereading all my past novels.

I didn’t read them in the order I wrote them. I read them in the order I thought they were the most finished. I take notes about what I’ve changed each time I reread them: “minor corrections,” “some proofreading catches,” “minor sentence changes,” and so on.

I wrote Smarthome Rebel in 2015. I’d reread it a hundred times until around 2020 when I knew it needed more work. I set it aside. 

By 2024, I hadn’t reread it for over three years. I knew it needed a totally new first chapter. I just didn’t feel like digging into it.

I knew why it needed a new first chapter. I’d moved the reader too abruptly into its high-tech, futuristic world. The first scene was a staccato lurch into a dizzying funhouse. I needed to ease the reader into this world. 

It’s a lesson that took me ten years to apply to Smarthome. I’ve applied it in my other novels, even in my most recent one. 

And the lesson is this.

Just because I can imagine the world of my novel, it doesn’t mean the reader can. I’ve spent years imagining this world, creating the characters, moving around in the environment, and plotting scenes and beats, revelations and reversals. The reader needs time to build that world from scratch.

And this is especially true in novels that use elements of fantasy or science fiction.

You’ve spent years living in the world of the novel. You’re a longtime resident. Your reader, however, is setting foot in the world of this novel for the first time. They’re a tourist, and they just got here.

Ease your readers into your fictional world. Introduce them to the elements of fantasy. Guide them through the elements of science fiction. 

I’ve done this by dramatizing characters treating the elements in conventional ways first, before revealing any unconventional ways.

It’s easy, as a novelist, to grow bored with the conventions of your world and want to add twists, flips, sizzle, and splash. But those only work when you know the conventions. It’s like a sport. You need to know the rules and strategies of basketball in order to appreciate the artistry of exceptional athletes. 

I made this error in Smarthome. 

I wanted an opening scene with two reversals in it. I was thinking cinematically. I could see it. I assumed the reader could, too. 

In a movie, though, the audience sees the world depicted literally on screen, so you can get away with moving faster than you can in a novel. 

In a movie, the audience only has to see to believe. In a novel, the reader has to imagine, and that takes more time and effort.

In the first chapter of Smarthome, I’d moved the reader too quickly into a futuristic world. I’d messed with the reader’s perception of the smarthome before I’d established for the reader what the smarthome was. 

I was dunking the ball before I told them what sport I was playing.

I’d shown them the rabbit before showing them the hat.

My smarthome was not a typical home. Everything was different. The materials were different. This wasn’t a house with remote controls or voice-activated lights. This was a smarthome created fifty to a hundred years in the future. I hadn’t established that. I needed to.

So I rewrote the first chapter nine years after my first draft. 

Talk about time being your editor.

And yes, I could have made the improvement a lot faster if I’d had an outside editor responding to my work. They might have said, “Slow down. You’re going too fast. I don’t know what the hell is going on.” And I would have made that change years ago.

But at least I made it now. As the one who cares most about my work, I reread it the most, and I edit it the most. I don’t give up on it. It’s my baby. And so I made the change. I rewrote the chapter. I improved the novel. 

And the thing with improvements of any kind—large or small, proofreading catches or rewritten chapters—is that no matter how defensive or resistant I may be in the beginning, I never want to go back to the earlier draft. I always feel better with the change.

I always applaud when the novel rises from the pit and soars across the sky.

I accept the edits that improve the novel, even if it takes me ten years to make them.

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