Halfway Through the Final Edit of A Loving Light

I’m happy to report that I’m just about halfway through the manuscript, having started chapter 15 of 29.

My objective with this pass is threefold. First, I’m picking up any obvious errors. I type very quickly, but not always entirely accurately, so a thorough proofread is essential. I find the combination of Word’s built-in editor, Grammarly and AI tools quite effective. What one misses, the others may well catch.

The AI tools are particularly good at detecting context. I’m using a combination of Gemini Pro, ChatGPT and Claude, and they’ll often flag a sentence fragment while also recognising that it works in context. Grammarly and Word’s editor are more likely to simply underline it as a potential error.

As always, though, I don’t simply accept every suggested correction. Authorial judgement and voice have to take precedence. One example came in chapter 12, where Paul makes a snarky aside about a character’s ‘perfect eyebrows’ and wonders how she got them so perfect. Claude flagged it as disrupting the flow, but it’s exactly the kind of aside Paul always makes. It gives him a voice, so it stays.

The second objective is to look at what needs tightening or extending. This is where the AI tools really come into their own, because they assess the scene as a whole and can suggest whether something is overwritten, or where there may be an opportunity to add a small character reaction that would enhance the moment.

I’ve instructed the chats not to make sweeping changes, but instead to offer suggestions along the lines of:

“The description of jetlag is appropriate, but might go into too much detail about the logistics of the travel. Consider cutting the number of references to the time in the two different zones and concentrating instead on the feeling of disorientation.”

That kind of advice is genuinely useful.

The third thing I’m looking at is narrative and character progression. Does each scene serve a purpose? What is that purpose? Every scene needs either to move the plot forward or develop character—ideally, both. Some bridge scenes are necessary simply to carry the story from one point to another, but even those need to justify their place in the book.

Again, the AI tools are useful here because part of my instruction to them is to analyse exactly that: what a scene is doing, whether it advances the plot, and what it reveals about the characters.

So, in summary, I’m making good progress. I’m still not willing to put a timescale on the release, but the book is moving steadily in the right direction.

As things stand, the release plan is similar to that of A Healing Love. The eBook will come first, then the story will post to Ream Stories for paid subscribers, and finally, it will make its way to SOL.