Title: Renegades
Author Name: Sara Mason
Editing
& Rewriting
S.A.
Mason
After
you’re done with your first draft, take some time to celebrate what
a huge accomplishment that is! After you take some time off to be
able to look at your manuscript with fresh eyes, it’s time to edit.
This sums up my editing process:
After
a few days or weeks off, I read through the entire manuscript without
stopping to fix every typo. I look at the bigger things like pacing,
scene order, and plot holes. Printing out a hard copy is helpful for
this stage. I’ll flag pages with post-its as I go then I’ll go
back to make changes. Once the larger issues are fixed, I go back and
focus on the little things like typos, grammar, punctuation, and
spelling.
I
like to read through the manuscript several times, focusing on
different aspects each time. For example, I would first read through
the draft focusing on dialogue. It’s important to make sure each of
the characters has a distinct voice. If you remove the speech tags
(he said, she asked, etc.), you should be able to still tell who is
speaking. If the characters are all sounding the same, I would go
back and edit. Next, I would focus on physical descriptions. And I
would just keep going through the manuscript until I looked at
everything.
For
me, the most important part of this process—and the most
annoying—is rewriting. If you’re anything like me, while writing
the first draft, there were multiple scenes that you thought were
absolute crap, but you kept pushing through and writing to keep the
story and finish the draft. Those scenes are the ones that need
rewriting. It’s a necessary evil, but it has to be done.
At
this point, don’t worry about the manuscript being perfect. After
you edit it, you should be sending it to beta readers and your
editor, so there will still be time to make changes!
Author Bio:
Sara
Atherton Mason was raised in Somerville, Massachusetts, with an
amazing immediate and extended family. She attended Wheaton College
in Norton, Massachusetts, graduating with highest honors in
Chemistry. She then graduated from the Florida State University
College of Law with high honors. She lives in the Florida with her
toy poodle, Melvin, and clerks for a United States District Court
Judge. She enjoys coffee, wine, sports, and science fiction
television shows.
Author Links -
Book Genre: Science
fiction
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: October 31,
2013
Buy Link(s):
Book Description:
Elora
Pertin spent her life trying to please her father, an esteemed
General for the Empire.
When he convinced her to leave her quiet life as a scientist to advance a secret project for the Emperor, she had no idea what she was getting into. The seemingly innocent projects she engineered were actually being used to develop a genocidal weapon. After uncovering the Emperor’s plot, Elora had no choice but to act.
Elora finds herself fighting for her life against the Empire she once served, abandoning everything with only a handful of friends and an unlikely ally—the Emperor’s deadliest assassin. Will he prove himself true as her protector, a loyal servant of the Empire, or a romantic distraction? With the law and assassins searching the star system for them, Elora and her team are determined to accomplish their mission . . . or die trying.
When he convinced her to leave her quiet life as a scientist to advance a secret project for the Emperor, she had no idea what she was getting into. The seemingly innocent projects she engineered were actually being used to develop a genocidal weapon. After uncovering the Emperor’s plot, Elora had no choice but to act.
Elora finds herself fighting for her life against the Empire she once served, abandoning everything with only a handful of friends and an unlikely ally—the Emperor’s deadliest assassin. Will he prove himself true as her protector, a loyal servant of the Empire, or a romantic distraction? With the law and assassins searching the star system for them, Elora and her team are determined to accomplish their mission . . . or die trying.
Excerpt One:
Back
in her room, Elora tried to come up with another plan. If her father
couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help,
she had to find someone else. Just finishing and going home was not
an option. She tried to focus on the weapon, but was preoccupied with
thoughts of her father. What was he involved with? How could he
involve her in the development of an illegal weapon? He had been her
rock and best friend since her mom died when she was so young. If she
couldn’t trust her dad, whom could she trust?
She
had just closed her eyes to practice the meditative techniques she
learned on Naruta when she was suddenly pulled out of bed to her
feet. She felt the strong arms of a man on either side of her head.
Instinctively, she tried to jerk his arms away because she was sure
he was about to break her neck. Her head was pulled so far to one
side she could feel the muscles in her neck tearing apart. Then he
stopped.
Elora
could barely see the mirror in her peripheral. The man’s black
monochromatic attire made him hard to see in the dark room, but she
could make him out against her body. He was tall with shaggy dark
hair, slightly curly on the ends. He had a strong jaw, and as she
moved up his face, she saw he was looking at her in the mirror. His
eyes were dark—almost as black as his clothes. Just as suddenly as
he pulled her out of bed, he released her.
