Well, as of 2:05 today, I’ve gotten through the entire manuscript on the one-pass revision. I would estimate the whole thing took about twenty hours of work. At this point, I’m not convinced I did it with complete fidelity, as the second half seemed to go fairly quickly. And to be fair, it’s not really a one pass revision considering I now have to go back to the computer and type in all my edits, giving me another chance to make changes.

Some things I discovered…

• As always, I’m wordy. I repeat myself and use too many words. I’m redundant. (See what I did there? :)) An example…

But you didn’t have to be psychic to pick up what Anna felt. A complete idiot would have been able to read her. It was written all over her, in the downturned eyes, the sad droop to her lips, and the slump of her shoulders under the heavy weight of so much despair.

The sentence in red is entirely unnecessary. I tend to make a statement, explain it, and then sometimes say it AGAIN like I’m writing an English paper. That’s one of the things I’ve had to really learn to watch for when I write.

• I had a couple of plot holes that weren’t huge but hadn’t even registered to me when I did the first draft.
• I have some phrases I tend to use over and over. After a character says something weird, another character “looks at me like I have fourteen heads.” (The number of heads is variable.) Shocked characters “recoil like they’ve been slapped.” Good challenge to me to figure out better ways to describe those reactions so I’m not repeating myself.
• I always write a “prologue” chapter. It’s not actually the dreaded prologue, but it’s an intro before the story actually starts. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, but I’ve seen it in two of my books now.

So now it’s time to start typing it all back in. And after that…the beloved query process! (I need my sarcasm sign for that one. :))

by