Moving on with the paragraph, the next two sentences got combined into one. Gnarled branches looked like broken fingers reaching for the sky. The sight gave Aimee the uneasy feeling that the trees were writhing in pain. First, I got rid of “looked like” because it’s weak, I removed “reaching for the sky” because I …
Nitpicking, Post 100
For my 100th post, I’m going to go over some editing. Woo Hoo! The first sentences of my changes in Post 99 went like this: “It’s so beautiful.” Aimee managed to tear her gaze away from the sight. My first change was to get rid of the word “beautiful”. That reason requires context, I had …
A Snip Here and a Snip There
I’m working on cutting for the most part right now. Turning paragraphs like this: “It’s so beautiful.” Aimee managed to tear her gaze away from the sight. For the first time, she really noticed the trees around them. The trunks looked as though some giant hand had twisted them horribly, as if trying to wring …
Updated
I’ve updated the chapter 1 evolution with version 2. It lost about a quarter of its words in the process of evolving from version 1.5, which tells me I’m awfully wordy. This is a microcosm of what I’m doing with the entire book right now. I feel a bit stalled out at the moment, but …
Cutting
I’m in the midst of cutting now. I’ve got about 5,000 words already gone, and there will be plenty more. At the same time, I need to make some changes and figure out how to make everything link up to them. In spare moments I’m doing a lot of thinking about how these changes will …
Editing!
The time has come to edit. I closed up a hole left by a major cut early in the story. In a sure sign of a good cut, it already seems natural to no longer have the discarded prose. There are a couple of other major cuts to deal with, but for now I’ve decided …
Progress and Doubt
I’ve rewritten the current revision’s Chapter 3 to change the POV. I had switched away from the main character with the first revision and I think that was a mistake. It’s back to the main character again. I’ve also made a new chapter 4 which combines chapters 5 and 26 from the first revision. So …
I’m Done! Time to start, again.
My first revision is finished! Unfortunately, a lot of work remains, but this is still a huge milestone. Almost every word was rewritten with this revision, so to some extent I have a new rough draft. Now the time has come to pull out the knives and start cutting away the dead wood while making …
Book Report: Killing Floor
Hey, it’s not fantasy this time. My latest audiobook was Killing Floor by Lee Child It was a good read with a few niggles. He maintains a good level of tension in the story by keeping some mystery and danger going through the whole book. The main character is pretty good, the author delivers some …