The Wonders of Editing and Time Gone Past: anarchicq

anarchicq

The Wonders of Editing and Time Gone Past

Sep 10, 2012 10:09

I apparently feel the need to remind readers of this every time I bring it up, but I started NEXT TO GODLINESS in early 2008. I finally finished the first draft recently and after a few weeks to get a fresh perspective, I’m now going through and editing it before I pass it off to my editor because she actually know what she’s doing.

I don’t know if I’ve changed a lot as a writer or just that the flavour of other things I’ve been writing at the same time crept into NEXT TO GODLINESS because the beginning of the story is intentionally heavy and verbose because, hey, gods but the end drops a lot of the flowery pretense and just gets to the point. The characters still speak in a fairly formal fashion, (alliteration!) but the narration is a lot more trimmed than it is in the beginning.

I think this is an effective way to illustrate just how broken their system becomes. I think that if one reads NEXT TO GODLINESS in one sitting the spiral into destruction and helplessness and last resorts will be an apparent but enjoyable ride. At the same time it doesn’t beat you over the head, or at least I hope it doesn’t. One can never really look at their creations objectively. But I like to think I’m on to something.

Originally published at Do Not Tamper With. You can comment here or there.

writing, story: next to godliness