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I have many projects in the works for 2021. Projects which require my utmost attention to detail. Let’s look at grammar for instance. I am completing an art book as a freelance project for an artist who wants to self-publish on Amazon. He uses the double space after a period. 

I have argued back and forth about this particular piece of grammar. Is it correct? Yes. Is it necessary? No. However, if you choose to use a double space at the end of a sentence than you must keep this grammatical choice during the entire written part of the manuscript.  

I use the little button on Word which shows me all the spacing a lot. I tend to leave it on when I edit. It shows me more than I want to see and during the course of editing. In a recent manuscript, I left it on the entire time. The author chose to use double spacing at the start but then it became an intermittent thing.

I don’t blame the author. He was deep into the work as he went along. Such details are often left to the editing process where it belongs. When you write – write. However, when you edit then get your hands dirty and look for the pesky, out of place details such as single spacing where double spacing was once used.

When you edit for conversion to eBooks, details become even more important in the formatting. Do you use Headers such as Header 1 or 2. I do. It is so important to the flow of the eBook if there are no Headers to separate chapters and sections. 

How you space the work is equally important. A small detail that will haunt you if you refuse to accept the fact you will go through a manuscript word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, and chapter by chapter until all the details have been worked out. Then you do it again and again until each detail, each bit of spacing, spelling, formatting, structure and punctuation is correct.

That doesn’t cover the story’s composition nor the details in the story that need to be covered. Are the details such as time, location, names, characters, and their idiosyncratic actions all covered? Do they match as the story progresses?  

The details are even more important in a series. One of my favorite characters in recent times has been Aria in The Game of Thrones. Such a nightmare to keep all the details correct in this monster of a series. Not just creating a map and a new world but the smaller details that are so important. The way Aria changes over time but still stays the same. Her transformation and the way she treats her family, peers, and enemies. George R. R. Martin kept the small details correct and they matched the bigger story beautifully.

I create charts and timelines and character assessments. I make lists that sync with other lists to keep the details correct across the series of books. It doesn’t do if the main character’s birthday changes all of a sudden or their height or the names of their family and who they are and what they do does not stay consistent. It is so easy to get the details, the smaller, important details wrong. 

Especially when you are working on multiple series at once along with one off books, anthologies, short story competitions and other works. I have several series in the works:

The Cheyenne Dances in Moonbeams Series

The Gargoyle Series

The Gigolo Series

The Pan’s Naughty Flute Series

And introducing the upcoming:

Fanny Mae Bergstrom - Psychic Detective Series.

This leaves me with too many details to keep straight so you see where all my lists come into play. You don’t want the FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair) to enter into the manuscripts all the way to publication.

This is why I look over all the details multiple times, then set the work aside, do something else then come back to it. A fresh mind is always a better way to edit. Then I send it out to beta Readers who tear the work apart. Second looks by eyes other than your own is a God send. 

When you write – write. When you finish writing and want to edit then be prepared to go through your work with a butcher’s knife. You will remove words, sentences, paragraphs and often chapters. You will cut and paste so often you will need the original to ensure you didn’t lose the stories purpose.

  

Now comes the hard part. Once you think you have it all done, you have to do one more thing. You have to ask yourself the question “Is this needed?” You have to ask that about every word, sentence, paragraph chapter and the ending. 

It is a suck ass question. It makes you look at each and every detail like a butcher. This question allows you to trim the fat off the meat of the story. This question allows you to “kill your babies.” Killing your babies is an expression I stole from Stephen King. 

It means you have a piece of beautiful writing that must be removed because it contributes little to nothing to the actual flow of the story. In some ways it is often the best piece of writing inside the manuscript, but it takes the story off on a tangent or creates a plot hole or? Well, it simply needs to be exorcised from the work. It is a hard thing to do when it is such a good writing but do it you must. Ask the question until the only answer you get it YES.

I’m Ross, The Editor-in-Chief at The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.