Have you ever had an edit that seemed to be taking forever? Don't feel discouraged. This happens to a lot of writers before and after being published. I'm going through it right now lol.

That is why its always a good idea to have someone read your entire manuscript before sending it out. An English teacher who has plenty of time on his/her hands would be a good choice but at the same time, you need someone who can be objective and look at the piece, not as a reader but as someone who can pick out trouble sentences and improve on them. You will need someone who can say, hey wouldn't this work better if.......If you have a great story to begin with but there is something missing that could make the story even better, wouldn't you want someone who could suggest it before you send it out for publishers? I bet you would.

Once the book is in a professional editor's hands, you must wait for them to read the book and then make their own suggestions. It does take time because this editor is going to read through the story slowly. There will be some major changes and some minor changes. A sentence may be deleted and then another may be added. Sometimes the editor will suggest to insert a new beginning or a new ending or ask you to reword it so it sounds more clear because they don't understand it.

All stories have the big question. Will he get the girl? Will she ever find her lost love? Will the parents ever get back together so the family can be as one again? If this question isn't asked in the beginning, your editor may suggest you to work on the beginning so the reader will be asking this question and force them to keep reading to find out. This is a question that you promise the readers an answer at the end. You can't just go out and ask this question but you must write in a way that the reader won't help but ask as he or she reads and it will compell them to read on.

You also have to make sure the reader will care if she gets her love at the end. They must care if the parents get back together again. You have to make your characters have problems. He was abused. Readers can relate to someone who has been abused. Now someone may ask, so what. What is it about this character that makes him special to make the reader want to care about him. He was abused and the person who abused him also adopted him but so what. Now you can add, and his twin brother was raised by his birth mother. U-ha! Why would a mother give up one child and not the other? The one who was given away was abused because of this while the other child was raised in a good home and ended up having a wonderful life marrying a beautiful model and had three children who love him. Now the reader can care. This was taken out of my book, Stolen Identity!

Editing may take a while because there are so many things to look at in the story. Please, be patient and work with your editors. Understand that they have other books that need to be edited as well as yours so they must do more than one task at the same time. Edit your book the best you can and ask someone to edit too so when your book is published, the editing process with them doesn't seem to be never ending for you! Keep writing and have fun!

Remember, dreams really do come true so don't give up!

Amber Rigby Grosjean