L&M 2 edits

[julesjones]

Just finished going through the first round of edits on Lord and Master 2. Not a huge amount needed, but it shows very clearly why having a fresh pair of eyes is A Good Thing. Raven caught several places where it would be either confusing or outright off-putting for an American reader, and pointed out the places where it needed some more tightening and some repetition removed. I *knew* it still had a bit of waffle where I'd said the same thing one or two times too many, but I was too close to the story to see where cutting was needed and which one should be cut. As for the tightening -- I may flinch as I do it, but I follow my editor's advice and murder my darlings [sigh]. If she makes me cut the curtain scene any further, I will put the original version in a friends-locked post for the amusement of my fanfic friends, who can then roundly mock me for my curtainfic.

Job to do over the next couple of weeks, when I get time -- self-edit on the piece that will be going up on my website as a giveaway.

Comments

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

Man, at 40k this is going to be short anyway, why would they want you to cut it further? I can see removing redundancies, but tightening? It's gonna squeak it will be so tight!

[julesjones]

It's not very much tightening. Just taking a sentence or two out from half a dozen passages that dragged slightly. A couple of spots were even ones that I'd thought about myself, but wasn't sure if what was going on would be clear enough if I tightened.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I think the midsection of a trilogy is often a place where tightening can be most needed - even with an internal story arc of its own, a part 2 can often seem to have an element of marking time...

[julesjones]

This one was planned as a sequel rather than middle part of a trilogy -- the damn thing just keeps throwing new story ideas at me, even though I only ever intended to write one novel, not a series. Of course, *this* book started out as a trilogy of novelettes/novellas, and had the first part summarily chopped by Da Management for failing to have any action...