All Things Audry: Even an Editor Needs an Editor, Guest Post by Ava Louise

Welcome Ava Louise, author of The Intergalatic Matchmaking Services series!

Today's guest post is a lesson I have learned the hard way, as well. The title says it all:

Even an Editor Needs an Editor

by Ava Louise

For some time before writing my own books, I did proofreading and copyediting from home (and still do). When my friend challenged me to write my first book, to put those chaotic thoughts to paper, I accepted the challenge. Now, I won’t say it was hubris, but it was with a little excessive pride that I also thought I could edit my own work. The decision was driven by money, of course. Many first-time authors struggle to come up with the scratch to contract out work that needs doing by another person.

In today’s technologically advanced world, it is far too easy to click on that Upload button on Amazon, or any other platform for self-publishing. I had a couple of friends read “Maggie’s Story,” so I took their praise as meaning the book was ready to be set free upon the world. Well, you know what they say about hindsight, right?

I had learned an embarrassing lesson…writers can’t edit their own work! Sure, we can use the search tools in our programs to catch misspelled words; we can use the MS Word’s Find feature to catch our “trouble” words (those we habitually overuse or misuse); we can drill down on our vocabulary and catch weak verbs and adjectives.

What we are not good at is catching the stuff a developmental or line editor can point out for us. Is our hook sufficient? Is the ending rushed? Is there a hole in a subplot? Are the plot points where they need to be for pacing? Once we write the story our brain knows what should be there. It knows what we intended to be there. And when we try to edit our own work, we can’t escape what our brain is telling us.

After “Maggie’s Story” and “Shirley’s Story” were written, I then spent the money to have an editor look them over. Because they were already published, there were some things I was unwilling to do to the stories. I didn’t want to have to rewrite the stories, basically. I learned my lesson though, and for the third book, “Penny’s Story,” I sent it off to the editor before publishing. In effect, doing things the right way round!

The first two books were released as second editions after being edited by my editor, Marcy Kennedy. My personal description of them is cozy Sci-Fi/Romance. A new genre perhaps?

The addition of an editor at the beginning of the publishing process may have changed a few things:

I now realize most books in the Sci-Fi/Romance genre have much steamier love scenes. But writing graphic sex scenes just isn’t my thing, so I’m not sure how much hotter I would have made things. I’ve developed many fans who say they like not having to skip through the sex scenes!
An editor would have told me to introduce the Leading Man earlier in the story. I had no clue there was a bit of a “formula” to follow for the romance genre! Did you?
And an editor would have caught the mistake I made in having Oreo, the dog in “Shirley’s Story,” using a tree. I admit…I totally didn’t know female dogs don’t use a tree! *grin* What can I say; I’m mostly a cat person.

I hope you enjoy the books in The Intergalactic Matchmaking Services series. While I may not follow formulas for my stories, I write from the heart and put a bit of myself into each book and my characters. Have you read any of the IMS books? If so, I would love to hear from you.

Thank you to Wow! Women on Writing for providing this stop on Ava Louise's blog tour! For more information and more tour stops, click here.