Editing Complete
I think I wrote this post before.
Déjà vu’s a real thing, you know. I’ve dreamt entire life scenes I couldn’t even begin to explain, only to see those same events occur weeks, months, even years later. I don’t know why it happens, what it means (though I’ll be experimenting with an explanation in a future story), but this isn’t really that anyway so let’s move on.
So, yeah, I finished editing The Nobodies. Basically. Enough to move on to the next step, that is. Which involves even more editing, but I’ll get into that next post.
Let’s compare the before and after real quick:
Pages in the eBook version released last year (including breaks and front matter): 377
Pages in the current version (including breaks and front matter): 367 (-10)
Ten whole pages’ difference. That kind of seems like a lot. Is it?
Words in the eBook version released last year (including front and back matter): 108,855
Paragraphs in the eBook version released last year (including front and back matter): 4,189
Words in the current version (including front and back matter): 98,672 (-10,183)
Paragraphs in the current version (including front and back matter): 4,339 (+150)
Wow, yeah, I guess it was a lot. More than 10,000 words have been cut. That includes several sections and at least one whole “chapter.” (By the quotes, I hope you know I’m hesitant to even call it that.)
The paragraph bit is interesting, no? I lost a hectare of wordage, but gained 150 new paragraphs. How does that work? I’ll tell you now, it’s because of that style evolution I’ve referenced the last few posts. Part of that is offering chapters and events in fewer chunks, but more hits. I think it just keeps things moving faster. At least, it makes it feel like that.
Okay, let’s do an experiment.
This is going to be completely off the top of my head right now but it should hopefully make sense once all is said in done, or at least I hope so, though I’m sorry in advance if it doesn’t work, because I would like it to or else the point I’m trying to make here might forever be lost to that deep dark void we’ve tried to name confusion but really is just another facet of attention deficit disorder, which I’d say we all have one way or another (after all, how long can you really sit there and stare at someone lecturing you without wanting to go off and do something far more exciting like cliff diving or shopping or even just checking your News Feed, if you know what I mean), and it’s that kind of feeling, that kind of lost, empty, emotionless need to move on to the next best thing that paragraphs like this try to suppress, or at least toy with, with endless sentences, unnecessary commas and contractions, and completely lost points that serve no other ends than losing the reader while trying in vain to convey some higher purpose, some concept only the author and someone with a degree they paid far too much money for will ever truly understand or at least claim to.
…
Did you read that? Did you? Honestly?
Heck, I wrote it and I didn’t read it. It just came out. And I’ve not much of an idea what it said.
But, that’s the point, isn’t it? Who wants to see something like that in this day and age? It’s inaccessible, a wall of text meant to be plowed over, fought through to get to the next morsel of information we can actually actively process. Like this one.
That, that right there, that was the goal, the intent behind the paragraphs and my slightly adjusted style. The Nobodies, after all, far more so than Sanity’s Flaw, is an action book. There’re fights, battles—most of the second half is just one non-stop conflict, really. It can’t be slow. That’s not how fights roll out. Fights are jabs, punches, kicks, pulls, stabs. Slams. Quick, precise hits. And that’s what I aimed for. And I think it works.
I hope, when you finally get your hands on The Nobodies next spring, you’ll agree.
Déjà vu’s a real thing, you know. I’ve dreamt entire life scenes I couldn’t even begin to explain, only to see those same events occur weeks, months, even years later. I don’t know why it happens, what it means (though I’ll be experimenting with an explanation in a future story), but this isn’t really that anyway so let’s move on.
So, yeah, I finished editing The Nobodies. Basically. Enough to move on to the next step, that is. Which involves even more editing, but I’ll get into that next post.
Let’s compare the before and after real quick:
Pages in the eBook version released last year (including breaks and front matter): 377
Pages in the current version (including breaks and front matter): 367 (-10)
Ten whole pages’ difference. That kind of seems like a lot. Is it?
Words in the eBook version released last year (including front and back matter): 108,855
Paragraphs in the eBook version released last year (including front and back matter): 4,189
Words in the current version (including front and back matter): 98,672 (-10,183)
Paragraphs in the current version (including front and back matter): 4,339 (+150)
Wow, yeah, I guess it was a lot. More than 10,000 words have been cut. That includes several sections and at least one whole “chapter.” (By the quotes, I hope you know I’m hesitant to even call it that.)
The paragraph bit is interesting, no? I lost a hectare of wordage, but gained 150 new paragraphs. How does that work? I’ll tell you now, it’s because of that style evolution I’ve referenced the last few posts. Part of that is offering chapters and events in fewer chunks, but more hits. I think it just keeps things moving faster. At least, it makes it feel like that.
Okay, let’s do an experiment.
This is going to be completely off the top of my head right now but it should hopefully make sense once all is said in done, or at least I hope so, though I’m sorry in advance if it doesn’t work, because I would like it to or else the point I’m trying to make here might forever be lost to that deep dark void we’ve tried to name confusion but really is just another facet of attention deficit disorder, which I’d say we all have one way or another (after all, how long can you really sit there and stare at someone lecturing you without wanting to go off and do something far more exciting like cliff diving or shopping or even just checking your News Feed, if you know what I mean), and it’s that kind of feeling, that kind of lost, empty, emotionless need to move on to the next best thing that paragraphs like this try to suppress, or at least toy with, with endless sentences, unnecessary commas and contractions, and completely lost points that serve no other ends than losing the reader while trying in vain to convey some higher purpose, some concept only the author and someone with a degree they paid far too much money for will ever truly understand or at least claim to.
…
Did you read that? Did you? Honestly?
Heck, I wrote it and I didn’t read it. It just came out. And I’ve not much of an idea what it said.
But, that’s the point, isn’t it? Who wants to see something like that in this day and age? It’s inaccessible, a wall of text meant to be plowed over, fought through to get to the next morsel of information we can actually actively process. Like this one.
That, that right there, that was the goal, the intent behind the paragraphs and my slightly adjusted style. The Nobodies, after all, far more so than Sanity’s Flaw, is an action book. There’re fights, battles—most of the second half is just one non-stop conflict, really. It can’t be slow. That’s not how fights roll out. Fights are jabs, punches, kicks, pulls, stabs. Slams. Quick, precise hits. And that’s what I aimed for. And I think it works.
I hope, when you finally get your hands on The Nobodies next spring, you’ll agree.
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