Big Edit Done!

Finally, after over a month of going over my colonial novel, The Last Cabin, I’ve finished major edits to my 15 chapter story. I cut a good 20,000 words out of my first primary draft and have settled the novel at just under 95,000 words total. It took a good bit of work, but I’m glad it’s done.

To get there I had to go through the story with a markedly different mindset than I did when writing it. I removed as many instances of passive voice as I could, i.e. variants of “to be” verbs. I also cut out as many adverbs as possible, namely those verb modifiers that often end in “ly.” I even took to eliminating plenty of adjectives as well when I felt I used too many in a paragraph.

It may seem silly at first to emphasize such corrections, but it really makes a difference regarding the flow and character of your tale when a reader peruses the text. In addition, I made lots of content alterations as well. But my fight for a perfect novel is far from over. Now I’ve begun work-shopping the novel with a few trusted friends and will branch out from there in order to get as much feedback as possible.