Inside the Editing Process

A quick look into how AyDee revised two rounds

The below post is a personal account AyDee’s editing process, in her own words

---

I have to admit that it was really interesting typing that title. To be honest, I haven’t really had one for a very long time. When I published my two YA novels back in the early 2000s, my process was waiting a week between the first and second draft.

And utilizing Wordperfect spell check. 🤪 Don’t judge.

When I got back into writing in late 2024 and I was serializing what I call slice-of-romance stories (1200K words max), I only waited a few days before going back to edit. This is my first time having a professional editor go over my words and it wasn’t as daunting (yet?) as I’d thought it would be.

When I turned the first draft over to KaeJae a second time, I didn’t see it again for two months.

Should I have started working on Book Two? Probably. But my brain is a one-project-at-a-time kind of brain. I wouldn’t have been able to focus with Book One still hanging in the shadows (pardon the pun). So, during that two-month span, I became a little anxietal and focused on other things, including searching for a unique place to host a book release party (another post for another time).

I got Shadowmarked back the first week of December. My editorial letter¹ was six pages long. Halfway through page one, I stopped reading and called my sister, crying happy tears, to thank her for undying support, for talking me down off metaphorical ledges, for giving me that extra time when I had to come up with an additional 11k words in two weeks (without KaeJae)

That letter was… everything.

It was validation.

It was a middle finger to Imposter Bitch

Vesper (aka Imposter Bitch). A look so judgy I wanna smack it off her face!

who was pretty much sitting next to me the whole time I was writing this book, fluffing her ‘fro, slurping Stella Rosa Spritzers, and laughing maniacally under her breath.

I’m not going to share the letter, but I can tell you the one line about Nyra and Beck that made feel like I was doing The Thang:

… and when I say their dynamic reminded me somewhat of Buffy and Angel, I

hope you’ll know what a compliment that is. 😄

I mentioned this before, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel were two of many of my favorite shows back in the day, so to have her compare Nyra and Beck’s relationship to two characters from my fav shows? Yes, Molly, I will sure as fuck take that as a compliment. After drying my tears of happiness, wiping the snot from my nose, and reading the rest of the letter, here’s how I got down to work:

1. Create edit checklist. The things I needed to work on were in letter format. I’m a visual learner, so in order to make sure I covered everything, I created a checklist. When I met Molly, the editor, via Zoom, I went over the list to make sure I got everything. Based on her letter, there were twelve areas I needed to work on.

2. Print out a hard copy of the novel. As I mentioned, I’m a visual learner, so I printed out all 200+ pages so I could see the Track changes.

3. Do a read-through. Not gonna lie, when I had to add 11k more words, I was just throwing shit in there. I had guidance on what I needed to add, but I really was just throwing shit in there. By the time I was done, I was done—my brain was toast and I just wanted to send it the fuck back to Molly. So, before I even tackled the checklist, I read through it. The two month break was FABBITY-FAB and it was nice to come back and see it with fresh eyes. I was reading and editing at the same time and not only found myself slashing whole paragraphs and pages, but introducing the FMC for Book Three, bringing the Crescent Coin (the one that used to be on the cover) full circle, and adding a whole new chapter! It started out with only 23 chapters, a Prologue, and an Epilogue. At the end of the read-through, I now have 24 chapters, a Prologue, and an Epilogue.

4. Tackle the checklist. I tackled the easy stuff first—“find/replace”—and then worked on the stuff that would take a little longer—adding scenes. During the two rounds, Molly called me out on my overuse of verbs. In particular, the word “pulse” (pulsed, pulsing, etc): 32 times. The word “flare”? 30 times. When I did that fiind/replace thing, I was like WHAT THE WHAT?! 😬😳 Yeah, just call her The Verbinator: She Doesn’t Just Kill… She Overkills <said in my best movie announcer voice> Guaranteed, Molly was thinking “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Again?” based on the number of times her Track Changes comments said, “What else?” “What else?” “What else?” [read: Find. Another. Word. Imogen. Pleaseandthankyou] I guess it could’ve been worse. Everything could’ve been throbbing all over the place.

5. Run it through PerfectIt and ProWritingAid. I used these proofreading tools when I had my proofreading business, so I thought it would behoove me to keep up the subscriptions. Especially PerfectIt since it now has CMOS (but you’ll need an online subscription to CMOS to connect it). Was this overkill running it through both of them? Sure. But it doesn’t hurt to have more than one set of techy 👀-balls eye-banging your words.

6. Slap the hand when trying to fix formatting. KaeJae and I met via Zoom every other Sunday for 4 months straight. When we would go through what I’d written, she would skim-read and adjust the format at the same time. I found myself doing that in the most unhealthy way. How many spaces did I put between the scene break asterisks? How many spaces did I put in the chapter headings? Did I use the same font size? Do I indent the first paragraph after a scene change? Wait, why does this dialogue block look so indented it’s practically centered? Finally, I just pulled an “Elsa” and let it go. They got typesetters for that shit.

7. Include a note about language. And no, I’m not talking about cussing. I found this reel on IG

and it made me laugh. So. Hard. Because it’s true. This has happened to me before and I know I’m not the only one. I sent it to my sister and said, “This will not happen when you read my book.” I know that epic fantasy writers tend to include glossaries, maps, family trees, etc, in the back (or front) of their books and I wanted to do the same. Nyra is descended from an Egyptian goddess, so there are few Arabic words and phrases in the book. Mireille is French-Algerian and I have her speaking a word or two in French. The little glossary I created not only shows the pronounciation of Nyra’s and Mireille’s names, but I list the foreign words and phrases used and how you they’re pronounced. I sent it off to Molly, so I’m hoping it’ll be included in the final version.

So yes, there were pulses.

And flares.

And an editor who very kindly did not turn my manuscript into a drinking game….that I know of. 😏

There was also a six-page letter that reminded me why I write in the first place, and why editing isn’t about erasing yourself, but refining your signal. The heart of the book didn’t disappear under revision. If anything, it sharpened (which Molly seemed happy about).

This is the first book where I didn’t just survive revision (I may need to make a shirt)—I trusted it.

And honestly? That feels like the biggest edit of all.

---

Midlife badass incoming on 5/12/26. Available for pre-order now!

---

1. An editorial letter (sometimes called an edit letter or revision letter) is a written overview from an editor that addresses the big-picture strengths and weaknesses of a manuscript: structure, character, pacing, theme, voice, and narrative logic.