On Editing

[elfhawk]

So I've got 50000 words of text I need to proofread. I took December off because by the end of NaNoWriMo, I basically had the entire thing memorized and couldn't see typos because I knew what the sentence was supposed to say. Carmen happily helped out with a lot of the grammar stuff that I would've spotted during the proofreading, so I changed my

Comments

second read-through (cont'd)

[carmenwoods]

She had moved the seating pews out of the way of the door that led to the great stairwell leading downwards into the depths of the temple catacombs in hopes that when the trolls started fleeing back to the tunnels, they would move as quickly through this room as possible and not notice the single human standing in the center of all the light.
(This wasn't something that Petra had already thought of ahead of time? She was pretty much all over that.)

One veered off and headed in her direction, his eyes narrowed, ... It looked a great deal like a thorn bush given humanoid form. ... an eight-foot troll bulldozing its way through pews towards her. ... hardening the air in front of him ... The troll at her barrier quickly gave up as fire danced towards it from pew to pew.
(Pronoun choice for the troll fluctuates quite a bit here.)

It was uncomfortable, and no one had known how long it would take before they received evidence that their work had gone well. She’d rather the time spent getting in and out of it than an unknown amount of time spent stretching constantly to keep from getting pinched in uncomfortable places.
(Every time I read this, I have to re-realize that Odette had to have been hanging around in the Exultation Chamber for quite a bit, waiting. The passage of time there isn't very evident.)

“We were already going to be careful entering Telubra. There aren't many precautions we can take.
(Many more precautions?)

Them Barens covered it, more like as not. But we could use da help wi’ da crops. Seems lahk da soil jes' dies unner 'em.
(I finally realized why I was hesitant about "lahk". He uses "like" perfectly well just before it. "Lahk" also takes a fair second to parse, maybe it's overkill? Even dialects gots rules to 'em.)

“Galfrid sent us,” Carmen hollered back.
(Hahaha, I love how even though Odette's the usual spokeswoman of the party, she's perfectly happy letting someone else do something as undignified as shout a conversation.)

“Galfrid's kin have agreed to look after the fields for Willard's lands-
“My daughters will work my fields while the boys and I do Willard's.
(Looks like you doubled up on who'd be doing Will's fields. Galfrid and Lucas are doing Lucas' land, Giles is taking care of his own, but both Galfrid's family and Yates and his boys are assigned Willards' fields. Am I misunderstanding? I drew out little diagrams twice to make certain I wasn't imagining things.)

“Indeed. Your wives would be outraged and we would be run out of the village before we finished.”
(This isn't your fault at all, but the very first time I read this line I thought to myself, "Hunh, Yates has multiple wives. Yay for bucking culture norms!" Took me like three more read-throughs before I caught on that she means all the villagers' wives - plural "you". It's an awesome line as-is, don't change it, I was just operating from a weird frame of reference and thought you might get a chuckle. :x)

Tae, see if you can haul Athena up while Odette pretends to help me with Carmen.” As she spoke, she circled back around Carmen and leaned down to grab Carmen’s hands. “Odette, stop staring at it and give Carmen a push when I lift her.”
(Not that I don't love seeing the name, but maybe the third one at least should be pronounified?)

He wasn't acting as if there was anything by idle curiosity behind the question.
(I said what what, in the "but".)

Re: second read-through (cont'd)

[elfhawk]

Petra couldn't actually move furniture. That would be noisy and draw attention to that room. Odette could cast all the silencing spells she liked on the furniture.

You're just as confused as I am about troll genders. No wait, I don't care. And won't finding all the it/he interchanges I did with trolls be fun. Argle barg.

Actually, it wasn't a huge amount of time. Carmen's just bitching because since no one could tell her if they'd be waiting twenty minutes or five hours for Odette, she took off all that gear. (Don't you remember wearing baby climbing gear? I know the kids were in a rush to get out of it as soon as possible.)

Lahk given the boot. (You are not really Southern if you didn't understand it.)

Actually, if you read through that scene again, Odette doesn't do all the talking. Because Carmen and Athena are the ones who will be doing the work and because they speak the language better. But yeah, Carmen is in charge of all shouting.

The name-changing messed that up I think. (Because I totally had a diagram for the work too.) Should be Giles' et al teaching young Lucas how to farm properly with merchant Galfrid et al tending Giles' fields because they know the basics and don't have Lucas' bad habits, and Yates and sons taking care of Willard's because he is a moron. Yates' lady folks will take care of his fields. (He has a lot of girls, btw. Farmers spawn lots of kids to keep care of the fields and because its hard living and most won't make it to adulthood.)

When I wrote that line, I giggled to myself over that perception of the word. I am glad it confuzzled someone else as well. (Who knows, maybe they do?)

Carmen's name kept popping up because my pronouns made the scene look weird, directions-wise. How's this:
"Tae, see if you can haul Athena up while Odette pretends to help me with this lazybones.”  As she spoke, she circled back around Carmen and leaned down to grab her hands. “Odette, stop staring at it and give Carmen a push when I lift her.”

Do I even want to google what you're talking about there?

Re: second read-through (cont'd)

[carmenwoods]

I think that was the only place you had the pronouns mixed together - the fight scene was consistently "it".

Yeah, that tidies up the Carmens nicely imo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGkxcY7YFU