Post-NaNo: Seeds of Blood editing update

~ crossovercreativechaos

Up through about 22 of 210 rough pages. This swath involves a lot of little word cuts, for one. “All words are good words” for NaNo; which works, because sometimes you need to pound out a lot of words on the keyboard before your brain finally coughs up the idea you’re trying to get at. But once you have the knotty, gnarled, ungainly lump of prose that is your rough… then you need to do some cutting.

*Insert vroom of chainsaw.*

Over the last 5 pages I cut at least 60-odd words here, there, and everywhere; not to mention changed word choices to eliminate redundancy and hopefully produce clearer mental images of the scene. Over the past 22 pages I’ve added at least a page and a half of additional explanation, foreshadowing, and giving a bit character some better lines and motivation.

*Blows off smoke.*

The sequence of events so far in the plot still works. Yay!

(No, seriously, yay! Things can go badly off the rails very quickly if your original plot idea wasn’t solid.)

Going to be getting into a few of the major plot twists soon, though, so I’ll have to see what spins out as loose ends that need tidying up before the story ends!

 

 

6 thoughts on “Post-NaNo: Seeds of Blood editing update”

  1. First pass is usually major hiccups and stuff that immediately jumps out at you as incorrect or missing. The mowing the lawn level of editing.

    Or if you prefer, those mistakes are crowd of monsters between the hero and their precious people. (Apt if you consider just how much red ink is spread over your rough draft after that first edit)

    Later editing rounds are more . . . targeted and precise. Later editing is bonsai. Or the single monster menacing your team/pack/family.

    Long piece, short piece – doesn’t matter. Both of them require editing and defeating the editing final boss to get the end product.

    That metaphor got peculiar . . .

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  2. Still doing better than me – I’m still stuck on trying to get the first two pages to where I don’t want to punch myself for writing them! Best of luck on your editing! 😀

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    1. Totally understood, I’ve been dealing with a six page draft I can’t continue even though I know the next bit because of work and health. The current month of painkillers certainly doesn’t help with such.

      Admittedly, I like editing, it’s fun for the same part of my brain that enjoys counting things. I do it for irl friends occasionally.

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