Monday, August 10, 2009

Monday Mash

EDITING: Did full final-final-final polish edit of Swapped Fate over the weekend. All 20 chapters and 90,000 words. Rah.

Main things I found and had to fix:

1. Rampant paragraph breaks - for aesthetics, I went through and combined 'paragraphs' as there was no reason for 'them breaks'.

2. Character name abuse - I kept using 'Anne' too much instead of mixing a few pronouns in. Strange, because I usually lecture my critters on the same fault! Egad. Really.

3. Tiny thread breaks, like the 'glowing eyes' thing that never really developed into anything. Also the Wishmaster being a guy or a girl according to the bad guy. At the end I had to come up with a reason for his confusion.

4. Extra dialogue dithering and such - I cut back on 30-100 words every chapter.

5. Got rid of superfluous silly capitalizations.

And that was really it. This full edit was actually relaxing compared to the edits that Marbles has been going through. I loved how clean and easy to read it was. Proof I hadn't wasted my time with all the past edits. Gives me more confidence in the hunt to come. Or it just makes me feel better anyway.

Lesson Learned to go into other projects I work on ater this:

Start at the beginning of the story, not in the past of the story. NSAM is coming up next on the edit cruise. After critters mentioned how confused they were about who/what/when/how of the characters and the world, I decided to go back and add the background and past to the story. Fortunately, I didn't listen to my impulses and query the story right off, because I know NOW that it would not have worked out. I need to stick with the original beginning and just make it less confusing is all.

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NOW:

Two things and not all at once:

1. Edit/Write Marbles. I still love it, but needs work. Am 60,000 words in. 20K more to finish.

2. Write Herbarian for August NANO. I'm 10,000 words in.

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