Editing is hard work there’s no two ways about it. You can start off full of enthusiasm and then it quickly fades as you realise you’ve read your novel about five times already and you hate everyone in it and everything about it. But, it is a necessary process.
Editing really begins with a self-edit after the first draft is done and its through this you can identify major structural problems. It might be a massive plot hole, it might be that your character arcs are off, or that your character just hasn’t turned out how you wanted. It might take a couple of tries to get this sorted out but once you have you can move onto the next level of editing.
I personally love this level of editing. When you know you’ve got the story and characters sorted you can concentrate on your work line by line, literally reading each sentence and seeing if you can write it better. Looking at each word and seeing if you can find a better, more emotive, more humorous one.
If it’s accepted by a publisher or agent there’ll be even more edits from a professional eye. These can be hard sometimes. When you’ve worked hard on a novel and you think you’ve done everything you can to make it absolutely amazeballs and then an editor comes back with pages of things they want you to look at. But my advice is, don’t panic and trust the advice! Remember this advice comes from a professional that knows the industry inside out. Plus, they want your book to be the best it can be. If you’re not going to trust them then who will you trust!
Edits might take multiple rounds and at times you’ll feel like you have no idea what you’re doing, but keep going! At the end of it you’ll have a beautifully well-written novel that is ready for the world to see it, and hopefully, love! This is why editing is important and why I love the end, if not all of the process!