Deep in the Editing Cave
Writer’s doubts, fine-tuning Birthright, and the beauty of trade-offs.
Hey everyone, it's time for a little writing update!
Since my last check-in, I've dedicated pretty much all my writing time—or at least the part of my life I call my "writer's life"—to Birthright. I'm not just working through the specific feedback from my alpha readers, but I've actually used their insights to revise the entire book. No major plot or structural changes, but I've been weaving in smaller, important details that make the story flow so much better.
And, the biggest editing focus has been style. I naturally lean toward being quite descriptive—someone once said The Human Relief Project almost reads like nonfiction—so I'm putting a lot of effort into tightening things up. Not erasing my descriptive style, as I just love world building and a touch of philosophy too much, but making it more integrated into the story.
To do that, I'm working closely with my personal AI editor (yes, ChatGPT!), which I’ve put a lot of work into fine-tuning in order for it to serve as an invaluable editorial partner. At this stage of the writing process, it is a key tool in helping me evolve my writing, making scenes more immersive and really bringing out Grace's voice (Birthright’s protagonist) in a deeper, more engaging way.
I'm currently editing chapter 17 out of 27. Each chapter takes about four to five hours of careful editing, so I'm progressing at around three to four chapters per week. Some paragraphs I don’t touch at all, in others I spend half an hour purely on a single line. There are days when I absolutely love it—immersing myself in the world, fine-tuning the characters, and seeing the story really come alive. Other days, though, I struggle with the classic writer’s doubt, questioning, "Is this even good enough?"
But I genuinely believe that by the time all this editing is complete, it'll be a really great, enjoyable read. My goal is to have the manuscript in the right shape to start querying agents by the end of May, the latest.
Oh, and a small milestone: Yesterday marked exactly six months since The Human Relief Project came out. Over 225 books sold and audiobooks listened to—and counting. If you have recently finished reading your copy, let me know what you think about it 🙂
Also, it’s been over one and a half years now since I started this amazing novelist journey, and I've already learned a ton along the way. From now on, I'll be including one or two of those insights in each of these updates.
Here's the first one: the beauty of trade-offs
One major insight I've gained—from feedback on The Human Relief Project and now again with Birthright—is how much the structural choices you make at the start impact everything else in your story. Readers might not consciously notice it, but decisions like your story’s timeframe, the number of protagonists, and the depth of your world-building (especially crucial in sci-fi or near-future fiction), massively influence pacing, immersion, and how deeply you can explore character emotions.
As with everything in life, writing involves trade-offs. I mean, sure, you could write a 3,000-page epic that covers it all: exhaustive world-building, numerous deeply-developed characters, and endless moral complexities, but realistically, most readers don't want that. We read books for their edges, for their strengths and weaknesses, for the trade-offs an author has made so we can have a compelling, balanced read. It’s the author’s job to decide which trade-offs will create the kind of novel they seek to put into the world.
Realizing how crucial these structural choices are—and how they also tend to align with my own strengths and weaknesses as a writer—has been eye-opening. The ability to use them to shape the kinds of stories I want to tell, but also to understand how they arise from my author personality, is a key skill I want to develop further in my future novels.
That’s it for today from my writing studio.
Until next time, keep reading (or listening)!
Max
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