We've finally reached the end of the Rainbow! It's hard to believe that I started writing about this three months ago! Last week, I promised a tally of my own edits to From the Desk of Buster Heywood, and I do try to keep my promises. I used this tally to find the areas of my writing that needed the most work and conscious effort, and hopefully I'll have different results when I start editing the next book, In the Cards. For those of you who aren't interested in this sort of thing? I apologize, and there is already a fantastic anecdotal entry simmering in my brain for next week. So, without further ado, proof of my own imperfection (she said, grinning).
Sophistication (Original Entry)
Show vs. Tell (Original Entry)
Character & P.O.V (Original Entry)
Character, Pacing, and Beats (Original Entry)
Dialogue, Monologue & Sound (Original Entry)
Voice (Original Entry)
I could break these down by chapter, since I did make a list of them, but that would ruin so many surprises. Here are the things a lot of my favorite passages had in common:
Other Edits & Instances of "Kill Your Darlings"
A lot of my generic edits, done in pink ink, involved tightening up sentences, or reordering them so that they read more smoothly on the page. A few places needed a little more "oomph" to ramp up suspense, and others needed extra taken out to speed up the pace. My proverbial darlings, passages that I loved but didn't necessarily need, got highlighted in yellow. The fifteen pages in Chapter 1 I mentioned earlier were a doozy, since that scene was the first glimpse I had of Buster's sister, Dee, and loved her immediately. I also had a few funny lines which were pretty good, but didn't fit Buster quite right. These have been saved and tucked away for later use. One particular darling remains, but in a pared-down and much more subtle form, to help tie the first book to its successors. I won't give it away, but a couple of books from now, it'll be clear as day in a reread.
That officially wraps up my entries on the Rainbow Editing Method! Thank you for sticking through it with me, and I hope that some of what I've had to say over these last few months has been useful ... or at the very least, somewhat entertaining. See you all next Thursday!
Sophistication (Original Entry)
- Starting sentences with action (-ing) verbs: 30
- Adverbs: ... I stopped counting and just started cutting the buggers.
- Abundance of short sentences: 0
- Overuse of italics or exclamation points: 1
- Cliches: 1
- Unnecessary Profanity: 0 (Some people swear like sailors. Jeremiah is one of them.)
- Overuse of mundane detail: 20 (Sadly, most of these were descriptors of office life.)
Show vs. Tell (Original Entry)
- Summaries of big plot events: 0
- Inability to resist the urge to explain: 12
- Repetition of detail: 7
- Overuse of words/plot devices/effects: 5 (These were mostly quirks that I had to find new descriptions of.)
- Redescription of events: 1
Character & P.O.V (Original Entry)
- Telling traits vs. showing them in other ways: 6
- Backstory that only needs to be known, not shown: 5 (One of these was a hefty 15 pages in the first chapter: a flashback that will probably show up as a short piece elsewhere.)
- Real dialogue vs. pure exposition: 3
- Inconsistent P.O.V: 4
- Description inconsistent with emotion: 2
Character, Pacing, and Beats (Original Entry)
- Details the character wouldn't notice: 4
- Character development disproportionate to plot: 0
- Ineffective or absent tangents: 13
- Overabundant hobbies or mentions thereof: 1
- Beats (poorly spaced): 0
- Beats (mundane): 3
- Beats (rhythmically awkward): 5
- Imbalance of passage length: 1
- Imbalance of chapter length: 0
Dialogue, Monologue & Sound (Original Entry)
- Emotion in description instead of dialogue: 2
- Replace verbs with "said": This is another one where I stopped counting and just had at it.
- Unnecessary speaker attribution: I stopped counting these, too..
- Noun before name: 0
- Inconsistent character reference: Tons. 90% of these were Cam vs. Cameron.
- Ellipses for gaps: All present & accounted for.
- Dashes for interruptions: Also all present & accounted for.
- Dialogue without room for misinterpretation: 0
- Awkward dialect: 0
- Unnecessary interior monologue: 9
- Unnatural-sounding or out-of-character dialogue: 9
Voice (Original Entry)
I could break these down by chapter, since I did make a list of them, but that would ruin so many surprises. Here are the things a lot of my favorite passages had in common:
- description of strong emotion
- personified concepts,
- witty banter or funny dialogue
- atmospheric scene setting
- tense conversations
- use of foreshadowing or placing of points
- pulling together any of those foreshadowing instances or points
Other Edits & Instances of "Kill Your Darlings"
A lot of my generic edits, done in pink ink, involved tightening up sentences, or reordering them so that they read more smoothly on the page. A few places needed a little more "oomph" to ramp up suspense, and others needed extra taken out to speed up the pace. My proverbial darlings, passages that I loved but didn't necessarily need, got highlighted in yellow. The fifteen pages in Chapter 1 I mentioned earlier were a doozy, since that scene was the first glimpse I had of Buster's sister, Dee, and loved her immediately. I also had a few funny lines which were pretty good, but didn't fit Buster quite right. These have been saved and tucked away for later use. One particular darling remains, but in a pared-down and much more subtle form, to help tie the first book to its successors. I won't give it away, but a couple of books from now, it'll be clear as day in a reread.
That officially wraps up my entries on the Rainbow Editing Method! Thank you for sticking through it with me, and I hope that some of what I've had to say over these last few months has been useful ... or at the very least, somewhat entertaining. See you all next Thursday!
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