I'm about 60% done with this markup pass on "Goodbye Grammarian". So far, it's in better shape than I thought it would be. I've been so close to it that I haven't had a chance to just READ the thing from start to finish. Once the copy is marked up with red circles, cross-outs and scribbled notes, I'll go in and start fixing the actual text.
There are fewer little prose bumps to smooth that I feared. Scene transitions are too abrupt in a couple of cases, which means I need to to re-frame the transition or shift things around in time to make them work better.
So far, there has been only one time when something was seriously out of whack. I moved a scene forward in the book to balance out how much time a certain supporting character got. However, this scene is driven by action and information that doesn't happen until later. So, I'm going to move it backwards and use it to improve one of the scene transitions I mentioned above. I'll write a new scene to take its place in the first third of the book, which will probably do a better job of introducing this character anyway.
This is why we edit.
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There are fewer little prose bumps to smooth that I feared. Scene transitions are too abrupt in a couple of cases, which means I need to to re-frame the transition or shift things around in time to make them work better.
So far, there has been only one time when something was seriously out of whack. I moved a scene forward in the book to balance out how much time a certain supporting character got. However, this scene is driven by action and information that doesn't happen until later. So, I'm going to move it backwards and use it to improve one of the scene transitions I mentioned above. I'll write a new scene to take its place in the first third of the book, which will probably do a better job of introducing this character anyway.
This is why we edit.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Congrats on hitting the 60% mark!
ReplyDeleteSo you print out, mark up, and then edit in yWriter from the marked up hard copy? Interesting. I always like hearing about different editing methods.
I look forward to the final version!
It certainly sounds like you're feeling a lot more positive about it!
ReplyDelete