Last time on The Young and the Revision, I cut an unnecessary chunk of a scene and removed a scene break to make that unit of activity more of a speed run. “Speed run” and “still over 3000 words” really aren’t compatible concepts, however.
About halfway through that unit of activity, Heroine briefly observes Hero from afar and muses about his real motivations. That seemed like a good place to relocate the scene in which Hero is musing about his motivations! It has a logical flow from one idea to the next (more so than waiting an extra 1000 words to get back in his head). It breaks her “speed run” into 2 smaller parts that seem speedier. And we can elide some of her not-strictly-necessary-other-than-to-acknowledge-passage-through-space-and-time observations because they occurred while we were with Hero, thereby making the split scenes speedier in truth.
I don’t know if this will hold up throughout the book, but Hero’s previous (and first) POV scene also had an obvious “your turn” cue and was followed by Heroine wrapping up the chapter. Patterns create resonance, so it would be keen if that becomes one. (I won’t force it, though. Happy coincidence? Awesome. Heavy-handed contrivance? Let’s not.)
Then I had to actually, you know, revise that scene, which was new as of the previous revision round and therefore in first-draft condition: 60% incomplete sentences, 40% notes about what should be in it.
On the first day I had time to work on that, I chose website maintenance instead!
On the second day, I made baozi, which takes a long time when your stacked steamer got sacrificed in a move and you have to steam 20 buns 4 at a time!
On the third day, I seized “it doesn’t have to be perfect, only better” with both hands and did the hard job like an adult.
The end of that scene doesn’t quite stick the landing after its first revision pass, but the scene as a whole is adequate for a second draft.
I’ll have to pull Hero’s handful of scenes and look at them together to get his flow, but that will have to wait until after this draft, since there’s not much to several of those scenes presently.
I found myself consistently pronouncing the name of a theater troupe as “soapy” despite intent otherwise. If the person who knows how it’s “supposed to be” pronounced can’t get it right, the rest of you are doomed, so that got changed. (By smashing soapy together with bubble because I’m so good with names.)
There was a minor character named Tirad. The gods are referred to as the Triad. I skimmed past Heroine thinking she didn’t pay much attention to the Triad’s rules but read it as Tirad and couldn’t fathom why anyone would pay any attention to rules made by that tool. Also changed.
(What could go wrong with Replace All in this case? “Tirade” could go wrong. Fortunately, that was the replacement the process stopped on, so I caught it before the context got too cold to figure out.)
“Names,” the writer imprecated direly.
Before: “there was a bit of rust on the blade”
After: “a bit of rust spotted the blade”
Again, it’s not always necessary or desirable to get rid of “there is/was” constructions, but the ones you do leave are less of a fish hook in the eye when they’re not preceded and followed by a thousand others. Therefore, when we see an easy change, we make it. Regardless of whether you think the change has more zing, it reduces repetition of the objectively mediocre “there was” by one.
I’ve been asked what happened to the edit I prematurely sent off to Editor Angie at her request before New Year’s. I distinctly remember typing that saga but apparently deleted it because I sounded like a danger to myself.
Short version: My prose after 2 rounds of revision was in the condition she usually receives for a developmental edit, but the development was thoroughly done, while the prose was far from ready for a line edit. She was at a loss as to how she could be of service at that stage.
On the bright side, now she believes me when I say there’s a 5-draft minimum before my work is fit to be seen by another human being. We’ll do what we can about scheduling when I feel it’s actually ready for editorial attention. If I have to wait in a queue, oh well, it’s not like anyone is clamoring for this book.
