Every writer has one. A story that should have been finished months ago, that you’ve read, revised, edited, washed, rinsed, repeated more times than seems reasonable, and that still… still… it isn’t quite done. I have several candidates for the title, if I’m honest, but one in particular stands out as the edit that simply refused to die.

How It Started

This time, it wasn't a single story; it was a whole bunch of them.

For a number of reasons, I had parted company with the publishers of Paranormal City. I was feeling very low about it when Annalisa dusted me down, wiped my tears, and suggested that I revise and rewrite it, turning it from what was effectively an anthology into an episodic novel.

She had found a potential publisher, but they wanted it to be more cohesive than it was at the time.

I got straight down to it, thinking that this would be easy.

I couldn't have been more wrong!

The Annalisa Effect

Actually, it wasn’t Annalisa this time but her assistant writing coach, Brendan Thompson. She specialises more in romance, women’s fiction and literature, whereas he co-exists with me in the insanity known as science fiction, fantasy and horror. I learned, not for the first time, that what I think is finished and what’s actually finished are two very different things. He had a habit of asking one quiet question that would send me straight back to the drawing board, every single time. “How does this help the reader know what’s going on in the protagonist’s mind? How are you showing how events are affecting them?” are the ones that haunted me through this particular edit.

I won’t pretend I enjoyed hearing them. I did, eventually, appreciate them. There’s a difference.

How Many Drafts Is Too Many?

I genuinely lost count on this one. Somewhere past a dozen, certainly. Each pass was smaller than the last — fixing a word here, tightening a paragraph there — which is usually a sign you’re nearly done. Except this story kept finding new things to be unhappy about, like a guest who won’t leave the party even after the lights have come on.

Why It Was Worth It

When it finally settled — and it did, eventually, settle — it was unrecognisably better than that first version. Every extra pass had earned its place, even the ones that felt, at the time, like punishment. That’s the bit nobody tells you about editing: the slog is where the actual craft lives. The Muse hands you the spark. The endless, stubborn revision is what turns it into something worth reading.

Then came the next step: finding comparable books. But that is a story for another post, another time.

Now, well over a year after I began, we are just waiting for a couple of publishers to finally decide whether they’re going to work with me and pull their fingers out. 

I won’t say I’m looking forward to the next edit that refuses to die. But I’ve stopped being surprised when one shows up.