When I get towards the end of editing, re-editing, and editing again the next novel I’m going to publish, a way of trying to be objective about what I have written and mentally lived with fr so long, is to read them aloud to myself. My husband calls it ‘mumbling in the study; in fact I don’t’ mumble, I try and read it put loud as if to someone else, which helps check on the sense and meaning of what I’ve written and also throws up any errors, missed words, repetitions, or just funny sounding sentences.
It’s important to read it in fairly small chunks, otherwise I either get carried along by the story or carried away with my performance and then miss things which need changing. So I read about 5,000 words, have a break, the read another few thousand and so on. A break doesn’t mean I’m not working, I’m either writing here, or researching, or checking on dates, inconsistencies, continuity etc..
I mentioned a little while ago about a couple of very long books, 800+ pages which I had recently read. I wonder how the authors of such long works edit their work? How do they check as I’m trying to do? Do they have a small army of editors to do it for them?Do they have secretarial or research staff to do all the background work? If they tried to read it aloud as I’m doing it would take them months! I guess I will only find out when I’m famous and have sufficient funds to have an editorial team working for me…. Until then I shall continue to mumble in the study.
Lois Elsden 