Where does editing start?

Where does the editing of a book start?  In the past, before I started mapping out my books with detailed chapter plans, I'd have said that editing starts after I'd finished writing the first draft of the story. Now I no longer think that's true.

Part of that change is because I'm aiming to get my work mainstream published, and so what I write needs to fit market requirements.  But part of it is because I no longer want to write myself into a corner.

In the days when I first started writing novels I'd get an idea and just write around it, see where it took me.  And for a commercial genre SF writer that's not a smart move.  What publishers want is series.  And if your series features the same set of characters over several years you have to be sure you have their back stories straight.

So when I came to write Combined Cognition, itself the rewrite of a fifteen year old novel, I started to edit things out at the first draft stage that would block me writing about those characters in future.  I edited some character back stories to give me options for future novels.  And I've gone even further in my planning for the next book in the series.

Spaceforce Cyborg is the story of Brett Dorado.  I was inspired by Becky Chambers' A Closed and Common Orbit, which tells the stories of two characters through one past and one present timeline that run together at the end of the book.

I decided I wanted to tell Brett's story in past and present timelines.  Which is where editing before writing comes in.  There's a certain place in the present timeline where Brett tells Jian about something he did in the past.  But I wanted to show that scene in all its darkness in the past timeline. And that meant I had to tell the story in that past timeline before Brett talks about it in the present one.

I had to edit my chapter plan to make that work.  I needed to push Brett's discussion in the present timeline back four or five chapters in order to get the reveal in first in the past timeline.

So this time I've edited before writing a word.  But I now know the plan will work and I'm free to get on with the writing without worrying about timelines.  That's the value of editing before writing.