{"id":1031,"date":"2011-01-31T23:53:21","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T05:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2011-01-31T23:53:21","modified_gmt":"2011-02-01T05:53:21","slug":"shifting-gears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1031","title":{"rendered":"Shifting Gears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shifting gears to working on revisions\/corrections makes Book IV grumpy and me…a bit confused.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did I really write that<\/em>?\u00a0\u00a0 What was I thinking<\/em>?\u00a0\u00a0 Was I thinking, or perhaps indulging in stream of consciousness?<\/p>\n

In addition, while waiting for the pages Editor is sending with her markings on them (75 pages, she told me today…ouch!)\u00a0 I have her notes and the notes and comments of two alpha readers and my agent.\u00a0\u00a0 One alpha reader deserves the honorable title of Nitpicker Extraordinary (and it is honorable, in this instance) and the other is a Characterization Maven who instantly notices a character acting out of character (or not showing the development that other events show must have occurred.)\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Editor is multitalented, of course, so her comments range from deep structure to pacing to surface detail.<\/p>\n

So going from one to the other, I’m having to change gears and deal with the comments at the level where they’re operative.<\/p>\n

“Chapter 10 drags…esp. pp.xx through yy.”<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t clear about why A did B”<\/p>\n

“This period should be a comma.”<\/p>\n

“Move Chapter 22 to the next book–we need to cut length”<\/p>\n

“Character has one name on page y and another on page z.”<\/p>\n

“Need to show specifics of development of [name] from [position] to [position]”<\/p>\n

And many, many more.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Everything moved to Book IV from Book III changes Book IV (and thus makes first-drafting in Book IV harder), and everything changed within Book III forces other changes in Book III.\u00a0 (For instance: Editor said something on page 58 wasn’t clear and why not have [name] say [clarifying bits.]\u00a0\u00a0 But the right place for [name] to say [clarifying bits] wasn’t on page 58…but on page 52.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, I couldn’t just stuff the clarifying bits in there, because it made an ugly lump right there.\u00a0 OK, so the clarifying bits had to be there by<\/em> 52, but could come in bits up to<\/em> 52.\u00a0\u00a0 Take pages\u00a0 40-60 (for example) and shake until the bones rattle and unnecessary bits fall off, then insert clarifying bits where they fit best.<\/p>\n

This is why when an editor says “Oh, just a few simple things; it won’t take you long,” they’re often wrong (though not wrong about what needs fixing…just the length of time it takes to do it.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The surface level nit-fixing is the easiest and fastest.\u00a0\u00a0 Misspelled words–yup, “nside” should be “inside.”\u00a0 Easy.\u00a0\u00a0 Character changes name–pick one version and correct any errors.\u00a0 Easy.<\/p>\n

Find that misplaced period, stick in a comma, you’re done.\u00a0\u00a0 If…if it’s really supposed to be a comma.\u00a0 Maybe it should be a semi-colon.\u00a0 Maybe, on reflection,\u00a0 that whole passage would read better if you re-wrote the whole sentence; the period stays exactly where it is, but the words change.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Or take a “missing” definite article.\u00a0 Sometimes it needs to be there: you wrote “He picked up book” and you meant “…the book” (not “…a book” or “…that book” or “…this book” or “…another book.”)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes it’s not needed, but just a habit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does “during lunch” need to be “during the lunch?”\u00a0\u00a0 Does it change meaning?<\/p>\n

If even nits can require thought and time, the other levels of revision take more.\u00a0\u00a0 Something is unclear…why did the passage fail?\u00a0\u00a0 What’s needed to make it clear?\u00a0\u00a0 Where is the best place to make it clear (often it’s not where the unclarity was first noticed.)<\/p>\n

Analytical editing-brain and creative first-drafting brain feel as if they were physically separate parts of my brain: analytical up front, peering out my forehead, and creative messing about in the back of the store, the stockroom,\u00a0 running up and down to the cellar from time to time,\u00a0 pretty much ignoring anything going on around it.\u00a0 Making them both work on the same day is…interesting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shifting gears to working on revisions\/corrections makes Book IV grumpy and me…a bit confused.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did I really write that?\u00a0\u00a0 What was I thinking?\u00a0\u00a0 Was I thinking, or perhaps indulging in stream of consciousness? In addition, while waiting for the pages Editor is sending with her markings on them (75 pages, she told me today…ouch!)\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,52,5],"tags":[106,62,107],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-editing","category-the-writing-life","tag-contents","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}