First the good news: I “finished” to the logical/plot halfway point. I put it all together. I used the “master document” thing so it’s not copy/paste. 15 chapters. 67K words. 162 pages. That is indeed half a novel. Huzzah!
The bad news: I suck. There is markup on almost every other page. At least for the first half/quarter. I got depressed and decided to start fixing things before I stabbed myself with the editing pen.
There is a tidbit of advice for new writers: Press on. Don’t keep starting at the beginning and editing and editing again before continuing from wherever you left off. The beginning of the book will end up having the life edited out of it.
I did not follow this advice. I did keep it in mind and tried to avoid changing the tone, but I’ve been over the first three or four chapters many times.
Four – FOUR – problems on the first page. The third page is mostly blank due to a forced page break. Three more issues on page four. Etc…
How can I not see this on a screen? I’m going to need to improve, but I have no idea how to make that happen. The upside is that at least I printed it and proofed it before sending the soft copy to anyone thinking it was fine. It’s most definitely not fine.
I discovered three more words to add the “not always wrong, but double-check” list.
- “just” I use it as “only” far too often or it’s [just] superfluous. “I’ll just need to take your word for it” What was I thinking? “I’ll take your word for it“
- “bit” Who knew I used that word so frequently? “A bit further”, “the last bit of”, etc… Maybe in dialog. It shall be stricken from exposition.
- “some” It is not an article. He didn’t pick up some rock. He picked up a rock.
Now I’m worried that I speak this way.
I’m not upset at the laundry list of stupid. Mismatched verb tenses. “he washed his hand” – really, only one? Etc… I expect that sort of thing. I did not expect that it would take printing it out for me to notice.
Same thing with the overly adverb-ed, participle-ed, and clause-ed fight scenes. I’m new at this. It happens – to the point of being annoyingly widespread. But why did it take printing it out? From chapter 4: “Tom leapt, his front paw whacking Luke’s muzzle, who yipped in surprise, circling away.” Really? “Tom leapt. His front paw whacked Luke’s muzzle. Luke yipped in surprise and circled away.“
And a twofer: “Luke just growled in response, rushing in, his head low to the ground.” Gaah! “Luke growled in response. He lowered his head and rushed in.” It’s not as if this is difficult.
To be fair to myself, that may be (“have been”; I’ve re-written it) the first fight scene I wrote. Maybe I’ve gotten better? Or not. One does not ‘get better’. One ‘improves’.
A minor, to me, thing: I’m also ripping out the casual blasphemy. “Dammit” is fine. “God damn it” is not. The hard one to replace is the plea: “Dear God, what now?” “For fuck’s sake, what now?” works, sometimes. “What now?” he sighed for the less intense moments.
Piss, shit, blood, even viscera are fine. Blasphemy is not. A guy’s gotta have standards.
Marked Up 