July 2025 …
I recently finished the fifth editing round of my novel Trials of Henry. Given that the novel is about 100,000 words in length, the editing is no trivial exercise. However, with each cycle the story has become more and more settled.
The initial drafts involved large scale structural changes, breaking long chapters into smaller ones, re-ordering or deleting entire chapters, and writing new ones.
By the third draft the cycle was becoming less about cutting out large swathes of text and switching the focus to creating distinctive characters, to bring out their backstory. I was starting to focus on how a reader might experience reading the text. Doing so still led to structural changes but they were less savage. I deleted the first three chapters because I wasn’t feeling engaged with the story – even though they were the first chapters I had written for the first draft! I wrote an entirely new opening chapter implementing strategies I have been learning about helping readers engage with the story quickly – to ensure the story creates resonance with the reader and that they quickly develop empathy for the main character.
But as I removed words in one place, I found I added them in other places; recognising plot holes, missing descriptions, or characters that were too polite, passive or bland. Each cycle allowed me to understand the characters more deeply and gave me more opportunity to reveal them as unique individuals.
The fourth editing cycle focussed on consistency of dialogue and evolving changes in the main characters, while the fifth cycle became a copy-editing process – checking for grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes.
And so, I have gotten to a point where I need to share the draft with trusted friends and mentors, not to merely read it and say ‘Well done’ but to give insightful feedback about their reader experience. A course I undertook with the Australian Society of Authors defined a ‘completed manuscript’ as being at the point where you feel that you have written the story you want to tell. But it still doesn’t really mean the manuscript is complete.
The reactions of the early readers will shape this book. Now however, the shaping is no longer the result of my effort alone. The people who read these raw versions will help to polish it – they will be invested to make my work shine as brightly as possible. It will be a time of great nervousness for me – the sense of vulnerability is daunting. It is a necessary step and feedback will be invited that is constructive and that aims to give it every chance to be widely read.
However, if, or when, it gets published, it will no longer my story – it becomes a live story in the reader’s imagination. I don’t get to choose who reads it. I won’t be able to sit with them to ask questions about what aspects they did or didn’t enjoy or relate to, to see if they ‘got’ the themes I tried to write. Rather, the story becomes their interpretation of my work.
For now, I can continue to mold this one story according to my vision but at some point I will relinquish control of its shape and themes, and a thousand future readers will develop it into a thousand versions that have meaning for them.
That is the role of an author.