I always knew editing would be hard, but having someone completely objective looking at my work was a new thing.  ‘Show not tell’ had been a constant refrain in creative writing classes I’d been to.  I’d stuck to this, as it can be a very powerful tool to let the reader feel for themselves.However, the editing process taught me that it can be important to ‘tell’ sometimes, if we really want the reader to get to know our characters.  I found this hard, but useful and particularly so perhaps in historical fiction, for example – hitting children – frowned on today, but part of life a hundred years ago.  Having someone look and reflect on the whole document was very useful, as I felt very close to it when I sent it off to the publisher and was not able to think or reflect on it at all.  We worked through the book in stages.  The editor would send me some comments on a section and then I’d work on it and send it back before she sent the next section.  She pointed out that I wrote alot about going to the toilet! And suggested perhaps removing some of the instances when this was mentioned… I hadn’t realised how much of it there was until she pointed it out!! All through the editing process, I was told her comments/thoughts were suggestions and in each case it made me review exactly why I had written each passage and as a result, whether changed or not, the work was improved. Once we’d been through the manuscript once, we took a break for a few weeks.