Editing: The Writer’s Seven-Layer Salad

By Kait Carson

Seven-Layer Salad

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tsps apple cider vinegar

1 cup frozen peas, defrosted and drained

1 head chopped iceberg lettuce

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup cooked and chopped thick-cut center-cut bacon

3 or 4 hard-cooked eggs, cut in quarters lengthwise

1 cup halved grape tomatoes

¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese

¼ cup snipped scallion tops

Stir together mayonnaise, sour cream, and apple cider vinegar to make the dressing.

Evenly layer lettuce, cheddar cheese, peas, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, and Parmesan in a pretty glass salad bowl. Top with scallion tops.

Serve unmixed with the dressing on the side.

Don’t like something? No worries, change it up to your taste.

Those of you who follow me know I’ve been in edit mode with my novel, No Return, for the past year. Yep, not a typo. I think Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in less time. Not really, rumor has it that Tolstoy took six years to write and edit his book, and some say it went through fifteen revisions. Not much over the course of six years, but when you stop to realize every iteration needed to be handwritten…well. My hand hurts. So does my head, but I understand Tolstoy’s handwriting was just as illegible as mine, which makes me feel a little better.

What took so long, you might ask? Last August I submitted the manuscript to a traditional publisher who rejected the novel in October with a lovely critique and offered to reconsider the book after editing. Yes, rejection stings, but this rejection offered a ray of hope. Besides, when I considered the suggestions, I realized the editor was one hundred percent correct, and thus began the editing saga.

Somewhere around the six-month timeframe, it occurred to me that editing is very like constructing a seven-layer salad:

•  First layer, outline if you are so inclined, or sit, stay, and write if you’re not.
•  Second layer, let the story marinate, and take a day or two and read the manuscript in its entirety. Any longer and you risk losing sight of the sequence of events and might miss the ever dreaded plot holes.
• Third layer, annotate every chapter, note if it needs to stay, move, undergo revision, or, heaven forbid, deletion. Because I write mysteries, while I’m in this phase, I list red herrings, the characters they affect, clues, the chapter each is resolved, and which suspect the clue or red herring clears or condemns. This is also where I add, delete, or combine characters. 
• Fourth layer, make the necessary revisions, construct a solution timeline. 
• Fifth Layer, reread the manuscript for continuity.
• Sixth layer, find and resolve overused words and phrases.
• Seventh layer, read one last time, make any necessary changes.
• Crunch topping, Submit.

I’m finishing up the seventh layer now and anticipate moving to the crunchy topping this week. I’ll let you know if we get to crack open that champagne bottle in my wine cooler, or open a bottle of Writer’s Tears when I hear. Wish me luck!

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries, set in the Fabulous Florida Keys, and is at work on a new mystery series set in her adopted state of Maine. Her short fiction has been nationally published in the True Confessions magazines and in Woman’s World. Kait’s short story, “Gutted, Filleted, and Fried”, appeared in the Silver Falchion Award-nominated Guppy Anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker. Her nonfiction essay was included in the Agatha Award-winning book Writing the Cozy Mystery. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and a current member of Sisters in Crime and Guppies. Check out her webpage at www.kaitcarson.com and while you’re there, sign up for her monthly newsletter.