One of the reasons editing a novel can sometimes feel like the insurmountable Mt. Never Gonna Get There is because you don’t have a clear path forward. Facing a big edit–with lots of feedback from various sources–is like facing down the mopping up after a hurricane. You’ve got the manpower and the know-how. But first you have to figure out how to put them to use. After all, you can’t move forward until you know the first step.
Reader Megan LaCroix emailed me recently with this fabulously pertinent question:
I’ve been collecting feedback I’ve received from agents, and I’ve also sent my manuscript out to a few betas to get even more feedback. My question is this: What is the best method for organizing multiple sets of feedback?
If your eyes are crossing at just the mention of multiple streams of feedback coming in at once, you’re not alone. Fortunately, organizing anything is my favorite subject! Today, I’m going to show you how to organize your novel’s edits in six simple steps.
But, first…
SHOULD YOU TRY TO SIMULTANEOUSLY HANDLE MULTIPLE
SOURCES OF FEEDBACK?
In a perfect world, you would have all the time you wanted to send your manuscript to one beta reader, ingest his suggestions, make your edits, then send it out to another beta reader.
However, since perfection has yet to be achieved, you will undoubtedly face the challenge of figuring out how to organize your novel’s edits in the light of multiple suggestion streams. There are any number of reasons this might be so, but the main one is probably a simple time crunch.
For example, my novels get three years from first draft to publication. During that time, I need to get as many as ten sets of eyes on the book. Most beta readers need at least a couple months to thoughtfully peruse a manuscript–which means those three years get eaten up fast. There isn’t time enough to give the manuscript to one reader at a time. Just as aptly, there isn’t enough time for me to do a major edit for every single reader.
Read more here.