Now that I've recovered from my most recent mini-disaster I've managed to work my way through the remaining 30k of the novel and returned it to the hands of my editor/copyeditor for further butchery in hopes that she will tell me how to carve delicious steaks from its carcass.
The best thing to do instead of nervously biting finger and toenails to the quick while I await the next round of edits, I turned back to some incomplete drafts in hopes that work on them would clarify the issues that impeded their completion.
I pulled one draft out of the pie-oven* to see how it had turned out from the perspective of a few weeks and with my recent near-death editing/rewriting experience, behind me. The draft on this read was barely acceptable and contained more errors and misplaced emphasis than I'd realized. The rewrite was extensive with as many words deleted as changed. In the end I had a decent draft that I thought I could present to my (mostly) short story writers' group without embarrassment.
Although I did not identify members of the group as my target audience, they listened respectfully and then provided a barrage of insightful comments that revealed where more work was needed. Some even suggested changes that might amplify and improve the story's message. This process also revealed that three other writers in the group WERE in my target demographic after all. This shows how naive I was to think what they wrote was what they liked to read.
The story, after a day's work of patching, shifting, adjusting, and rewriting to fix the problems identified, a much improved story is back in the oven where it will sit for another few weeks before my next read-through. Hopefully** that next read will convince me to finally send it out for acceptance.
The best thing to do instead of nervously biting finger and toenails to the quick while I await the next round of edits, I turned back to some incomplete drafts in hopes that work on them would clarify the issues that impeded their completion.
I pulled one draft out of the pie-oven* to see how it had turned out from the perspective of a few weeks and with my recent near-death editing/rewriting experience, behind me. The draft on this read was barely acceptable and contained more errors and misplaced emphasis than I'd realized. The rewrite was extensive with as many words deleted as changed. In the end I had a decent draft that I thought I could present to my (mostly) short story writers' group without embarrassment.
Although I did not identify members of the group as my target audience, they listened respectfully and then provided a barrage of insightful comments that revealed where more work was needed. Some even suggested changes that might amplify and improve the story's message. This process also revealed that three other writers in the group WERE in my target demographic after all. This shows how naive I was to think what they wrote was what they liked to read.
The story, after a day's work of patching, shifting, adjusting, and rewriting to fix the problems identified, a much improved story is back in the oven where it will sit for another few weeks before my next read-through. Hopefully** that next read will convince me to finally send it out for acceptance.
*I learned the pie oven technique
from Michael Swanwick.
**As ever
#SFWApro
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