My Writing Process (part six)- Professional Editing

After that, it was time for the professional edits. My dad found an amazing beta reader on Fiver (thank you, Anne!) who got started on the project quickly and gave me tons of good advice and revisions. She gave me lots of insight a first-time reader would think when going through it, which helped me patch a few minor plot holes. This is why it is so important to get a great beta reader to go through your story because they always catch things you will not be able to. I didn't think this was such an essential part of the process at first, but I can assure you, Moonbound is at least 250% better because of Anne.

Though Anne was my main beta reader, my best friend Kenzie also went through about half of the novel while I was still writing it and gave me tons of feedback. It's fun to go through these things and share them with friends, especially ones who have technical experience in writing and could help me out. I also had my English teacher go through the document, and she got about a hundred pages in. In the future, I now know to reach out to people who are professionals for the job. My main mistake was believing my teacher would be able to juggle reading with being a teacher to three classes of middle schoolers and being a student herself going through another teaching course. Kenzie was never really meant to be a beta reader, but she was truly helpful the entire time! I asked her to edit it as motivation for me, and it worked, because I ended up finishing it thanks to her enthusiastic comments.

My dad also went through the document when it was finished, though he did it mostly to know what kinds of people would help us push it to the best it could be, so he didn't give me any feedback on the actual work. Sorry, Dad, I know it was confusing for a science-math guy!

After Anne, my teacher, and Kenzie edited the document, my dad once again found a great professional editor. He helped me put together the application file to see if this editor and I would be a good fit to work together, and helped me formulate my emails to her and get used to all the back and forth. Melissa agreed to work with me, and we signed a contract and she started on her edits. About a month later, I was able to go through all her revisions and tidy everything up- and in the end, I had a polished, as close to perfect as it could be version of Moonbound.

This was a unique experience for me, because not only did I have to sign my first contract (which seemed very excessive to me, with way too many confidentiality and rights to the document sections for me to not be scared my first time around,) but Melissa also took a copy of the document and worked uninterrupted for a month before handing it back. It was strange to me, as someone who had looked over three beta readings, to get used to not being able to check in on where she had gotten to or what she had said up until the moment everything was done.

In the end, though, this really isn't a skippable step. I might have been okay-confident with my work before Melissa went through it, but after everything was done, there was just a cohesive, strong feeling to the book. It made sense, it sounded good, and it was professionally looked over and approved by someone who was trained specifically in this area. That not only made me more confident, but it felt good, too. The self-doubt that had been eating at me for months slowly faded with each new person who helped me out and supported me.

So here is a huge thanks to every person both listed here and not- speaking about all the friends that cheered me on from the side and helped me out when I complained about the many plot holes I once had. I wouldn't have gotten here without all of you.

And on that note, it's now time to move on to some more technical issues regarding the actual pages themselves- formatting.