Step Seventeen: The Cold Read

The Very Last Chance To Make A Change, And Bidding Your Characters Adieu

This is it. I’ve just emailed my responses to the cold read, and LAST SEEN is done.

There are so many steps to the official editorial process, steps that happen after your own personal editorial. The developmental edit, which takes at least one round, sometimes two or even three. Only when the story is completely finished do you move to the copyedit. Then the proofread. Finally, we do what my publisher calls the cold read. Some houses call it the last pass, but that’s a slightly different step, when you get a fully formatted manuscript to take a final run through. I will get one of those soon, but at that point, it’s more for my records. For all intents and purposes, we are done editing. The book is the book is the book, for better or worse.

It’s both my least and most favorite step of the process. My least favorite because I can always—ALWAYS—find more to do in a book. I can tinker forever; letting go is hard. I’m often asked how I know when a book is finished. The truth is, it’s when someone else tells you “That’s it, no more.”

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash