Back to the Drawing Board - literally

A Wordcloud interpretation of The Cauliflower Ear Club tacked to my whiteboard

I thought that The Cauliflower Ear Club was as finished a novel as I could make it after almost three years. Yet I couldn't lose that nagging feeling that something was missing, even after revisions based on five wonderful beta readers.  So I took yet another step and hired a professional editor. He returned the MS last month with many valid points, small and large. 

One criticism involved the large number of characters in the wrestling lineup, which proved confusing. My task now is to amalgamate a couple of them and focus on fewer characters while still making the wrestling lineup interesting. The other big rewrite is about my journalistic style of writing. The editor explained how that doesn't work as well in fiction, and I need to move closer to the main character. I need to change the voice of the narrator and engage in more dialogue to move the story forward. That's going to be a big challenge.

I have some choices: keep the book as it is now or do another deep dive, committing more time and energy, to see if I can make it that much better. Looking at what I have just written, I see there really is no choice for me: back to the drawing board I go. If any of you have gone through this process, I would love to hear from you at ellenwrites.ca. You will have to wait to meet the wrestlers in the novel a little longer. Wish me luck.