The Dreaditorial Process (Part 2)

Turns out, I'm a man of my word. It's been long awaited (by exactly two of you, I'm sure, for about five days) but this is the first official update on the dreaded editing (get it!?) of both Eve of the Dragonspeaker and Star Rider. At the lovely and talented Friday's suggestion, I've decided to start with a chapter by chapter edit. I like this idea for both pieces for a number of reasons.

Firstly, with Eve, I never actually took any notes. As a consequence, I expect the story to be just littered with issues. Plot holes, continuity problems, all manner of things that are going to collectively kick me right in the testicles. However, the actual set-up of the novel and the way it flows between chapters is excellent. Each chapter, at least for the first dozen or so, is set in a different area. Think of it as instances in World of Warcraft. Each of these locations exists, for the duration of the chapter, as a completely separate entity from the rest of the world. So I can shape that world, Khilanth, as I choose. Likewise, this means I can take notes on both the edits I need to make and some general things like character appearances and geography. I've separated these notes into various categories (and different documents as well as folders) to keep them organized and easily accessible.

Since Eve was written entirely in a single Word Document (rookie mistake), I'm splitting the chapters off one at a time as I go through them. This way, I can quickly reference something that happened in a chapter rather than trying to slough back through hundreds of thousands of words. The documents don't actually take up much of my already limited memory, which is great. Additionally, this leaves me with the original text, the notes on what changes I think should be made, and the text after I made the changes. So for me, being a narcissist and also demanding instant gratification, I can actually see my progress and my swollen ego will continue to bask in its own awesome glory.

Now, before I move onto Star Rider I should note that the best way I find to do this kind of editing is to read the entire chapter before you start making any changes. If you absolutely have to do something, write your notes on the first read-through but don't actually change anything. On the second read, go ahead and make the most glaringly obvious changes, and note them. Then go through with your nit-pickiest comb and make the final touches (on this draft). Just flying through it once might help you with the general structure of the story but, trust me, you're going to miss a ton of seemingly minor issues that will haunt you later like that octogenarian fisherman you hit with your car two summers ago and dumped in the ocean. Little aside- that's how you avoid copyright laws.

I liked the idea of using this method on Star Rider because the guy who wrote it the first time is a douchebag. By douchebag I mean, Star Rider reads like a mixture of screenplay and novella, except it randomly changes verb tense and is 400,000 words long. The traditional chapter structure is missing, is what I mean. So I've had to change my approach somewhat.

To begin with, I'm converting it manually from handwritten on aging yellow notebook paper from the 1970s, to a flashy Word Document. Typing something word-for-word isn't among my strengths. It is tedious and boring and it makes me murderously angry. So as I work with the story, I'm structuring it by chapter, then noting and editing each chapter before moving onto the next. This way, I build it from the ground up and it allows me to more seamlessly blend new ideas into the story, while I fix the old, inherent issues.

Actually, that's most of the reason I went with this method for Star Rider. It made structuring the story much more simple and, although I explored where ideas come from earlier today in this entry I think its relevant here as well, the more I structured it and found where I needed to tweak things the more ideas I was flooded with for how this story can really work regardless of the extra effort it takes to update it.

So, to surmise everything I've just said, I've officially started editing both pieces and the method I chose has made it remarkably smooth. Once I've done the chapter-by-chapter edits, my idea is to do a complete read-through of the novels and then, with luck, hand them off to a few incredible readers for some additional feedback before sending them off for publication. I should take a picture of the sheer number of submission envelopes I own just for that purpose. Maybe I will, for next time.

Yes, there will be a next time. After all, I'm a man of my word.

Dreadfully Yours,
-S.R.