Holly Black's Tumblr

Well, to answer this, allow me to explain what I am doing RIGHT NOW. I had about 70K of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown done as of the beginning of this Spring, but I knew I had made some directional mistakes, so I am currently re-writing all of those words. I went back to the start, read through everything and made changes as I made my way through the book again.

Now, I am part-way through and go to a place where I am totally rewriting chapters — and rethinking my original plan for the end of the book. So, um, if you’re me, you go through your book a lot — when you realize that there’s enough to change that the movement of the story and the characters will be impacted significantly. When you think the emotions are off. At those points, I feel like I have to edit so I can get what happens after right. When something is out of place, it drives me crazy and I get stuck.

I know most people say write until you get to the end, but I find that the end changes the more I change what comes before it. I wish I could be the person who writes the whole book before I change it, but I’ve never managed it and the more intuitive and character-driven the book is, the more times I seem to go back and change big things.

I also have a great critique group and wonderful critique partners who stay on me to make sure that I’m not going too far off course.

After I’m done, then I send the book to my editor and then, of course, I edit it again.  Then, when I get the copyedited ms, I read it out loud and fiddle some more.

But for the big post-editorial letter edit, I have a very specific process. I take the book with my editor’s notes and the editorial letter down to a copyshop and get the whole thing bound up into a big spiral-bound book. (Note coffee cup mark.)

Then I go through it with sticky notes, colored pens and make lots of notes of what I want to do. Some of them are to address comments from my editor (or, if not exactly addressing her comments, then addressing the underlying issues that I think led her to having those comments); some are addressing comments from my critiquers; and some are adding changes that I thought of in the time between handing in the book and getting it back.

After I rough in where the work goes — sometimes in a lot of detail, as you can see — I make a plan to tackle the book, setting goals for each day.

Then I go through the book, sticking to the plan and making all the changes.

So hopefully that makes sense! And now I must go back to trying to finish Chapter 21 — before I switch gears for a couple of days of going through my Doll Bones copyedits.