I sent out my manuscript (Draft 6) of book 3 to my editor for the second round of editing. The first round of editing is known as Content edits or Developmental edits. The editor reads the story and sees if it makes sense. They'll look for flawed writing techniques. She'll do a character assessment to see if I have drawn an excellent picture of the character. Did the character stay true to their original splash onto the stage or have they morphed during the story? Sometimes morphing is good, other times it shows the writer isn't paying attention.
I think my editor did a great job. She identified a lot of places where I duplicated content or said the same things over and over. She offered suggestions on how I could improve my characters. The editor read over the complete story and realized that my main characters didn't really do anything on their own.
My Point of View (POV) characters were reaching places in the novel, but when something needed to be done, other people ended up performing the actions and my characters just stood around and watched.
What...???
Yikes. This is a critical malfunction in a story. That's the purpose of the main characters. They are supposed to be having adventures and driving the novel, not acting like lurkers on Social Media. The editor identified sentences that made little sense, areas in the novel where it became slow and boring, and suggested I remove whole lines or even entire chapters.
The novel was 118,000 words before the edit and now it is down to 104,000 words. Yep, I yanked out chapters and reduced external characters involvement and made the book faster and I hope a better read. And yes, my characters are taking an active role in their own lives. If they don't do it, then it doesn't get done.
That might be an excellent strategy for life. If I don't write it, the novel doesn't get written.
The second round of editing has begun and I expect the manuscript to be returned to me in about three weeks. Everything is looking solid for the novel to be completed before the end of the year. Then it’ll be published in early 2023.