Editing Pass Finished!

I just finished what I'll choose to think of as the third pass over Scylla and Charybdis. First pass and a half was making notes in the hard copy and then transferring them; second (and a half) pass was what I've just finished, going through the computer file again, and that extra half pass comes from having the earlier chapters critiqued and extensive revisions.

Next step is to do a pass where I look for continuity issues and whenever I encounter something, scan the whole manuscript for references / lack thereof ... combined with a read-out-loud test, since my brain seems to work such that these two complement each other.

I had the word count down as I approached the final chapters, but adding and expanding the emotional reactions there increased it again. I keep telling myself not to get freakish about added words, but I don't think I'm listening ... ;-) Still, there's no doubt I added a significant amount of necessary fleshing out.

For the curious, word count:

Draft: 161,124
First pass: 153,325
Second (or third, or whatever) pass: 151,784