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Now, I mentioned that I used beta readers for Do I Need to Use a Dragon?, which is kind of rare for me.  After I added their suggestions and fixed up problem areas, I jumped in to do editing on my own.  Probably one of the worst author experiences of my entire, beleaguered life.

There was just something wrong.  I’ve edited my fantasy books all the time and never had this mix of doubt, confusion, and anguish.  It was on such a deep level that I had to take long breaks from continuing.  Nothing felt right or wrong, so I couldn’t be sure of what needed to be tightened up.  Mostly, I went back to the beta reader suggestions and looked for any repeated issues.  I went through fixing all of those and fine-tuning anything that had similar explanations.  It resulted in me jumping around the editing process with no clue when I would be done.  Felt more like I gave up than finished because my head was just spinning.  So, what happened?

The problem for me was that I was still trying to edit like I do with fantasy.  I go through to make sure the character voices are right and that their actions remain within the scope of their personality/beliefs.  That can’t be done in a ‘How To’ because the author is basically the only character.  So, I had to see if this advice still fit with my mentality, which should be a solid yes.  Not when you’re a person who ends up playing devil’s advocate with his own brain.  This comes from a lifetime of people telling you that you’re wrong or questioning everything you say and do.  One ends up doing the mental sabotage on their own to beat others to the punch.  That’s what started happening here.

I wasn’t even trying to make the entries better too.  I found that I was simply trying to mess with everything.  My editing focus turned into one where I was seeing how all of my opinions could be torn apart.  The doubt I usually had was being fed by this new sensation that couldn’t be stopped by saying ‘the character would do it’.  So, I had to keep walking away and rethinking my editing tactics.  This is why a ‘How To’ author needs a ton of confidence in their own beliefs.  Even the smallest amount of doubt can balloon out of control when you go looking for problems to fix.

This was a different experience from editing fantasy or my dystopia books.  As I said, I was looking at those stories through the eyes of the characters.  Consistency was key in terms of actions, voice, and decisions.  There was an unbreakable skeleton in there, which allowed me to edit without junking the whole story.  As long as it worked with the characters and plot, I could at least alter it to fit perfectly.  I had doubts, but they were pushed aside by enough confidence in the characters to keep them minimum.  The editing would be a big focus on plot holes too.  All of this came with a foundation of notes and sometimes previous volumes.

Do I Need to Use a Dragon? didn’t have the benefit of characters and prior volumes, which added to the difficulty.  I had to make sure I was keeping the general belief and idea even if I was changing some things.  Yet, I kept the entries fairly simple and easy to understand, so I was always skirting dangerously close to the core concept.  There was no solid shield to stop me from delving too deep and thinking that I needed to change the whole thing. It was like walking a tightrope over a pit of whirling blades.  Lean too far to one side and I’m chop meat.

Thankfully, I did make it through the editing and I support what I wrote.  It was an exhausting endeavor, but worth it.  I mean, I had to do at least one editing run to be sure of the quality.  Maybe this helps keep it feeling like a collection of blog posts made to be laidback and easily understood too.  Guess we’ll find out as time goes on.

As stated multiple times, Do I Need to Use a Dragon? is available on Amazon as a 99 cent eBook and a $20 paperback.  Enjoy.