writing

The Editing Challenge Of Forever

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I’ve been busy editing A Bridge To The Quiet Planet lately.  And it struck me that editing is a strange thing as it’s never truly done.

First, you have mistakes you may want to catch.  Those are easy to find with modern tools, but finding all of them takes a great deal of effort.  You can worry over and over you may have missed something.

Secondly, you have those non-mistakes but choices you question.  This word or that?  This style or that?  Is this take a bit archaic?  These aren’t mistakes, but are questions of best choices.

Third, you just have all those things you could tweak.  Cut this scene?  Different opening? Is this still timely?

Editing is never done.  Ever, because you can always find new ways to do things, find new problems, miss something and look for it.  Worse, if you make some edits, you might have made new mistakes to worry about!

It’s a lot like coding, only your book runs in the brains of your readers, and each reader is different.

At some point you just have to stop editing.  At some point you have to declare done.  At some point you have to move on, or you’ll go crazy.  You have to stop editing.

I found the best way to do this is to set a standard for yourself.  Do X readthroughs.  Run a grammar/spell check at particular times.  Then, go on.

Go on, edit, but give yourself a break.

BONUS: An idea I got from Serdar is that, when you’re done, do a bounty on mistakes in your book.  Not only is that a great idea to get people to participate, it gives you a way to relax a bit . . .

 

Steven Savage

Insensitivity Readers

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

There’s a great concept I hope most authors have heard of – the sensitivity reader.  Someone who can help bring to light places you’re insensitive to people, suggest ways to better portray people not like yourself, and so on.  My own experiences have taught me how important that was (co-writing a book about Sailor Moon and being the only man involved was educational).

But I’d also like to suggest you may need Insensitivity Readers – people who will call you on your own bullshit and who don’t think like you do.

I found this out while working on “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet,” where some of the best feedback were people calling me on certain takes, stylistic choices, etc.  The contribution was invaluable.

I think there are times that we accept certain stylistic choices, writing patterns, and so on because other people do them.  I’ve noticed that if you have a kind of Pratchett/Adams take, people will sort of accept it’s good.  I’ve also noticed people will accept certain overembellished styles if they’re a bit winking at themselves – kind of retro-Victorian bodice ripper styles.  You get the idea.

There are also concepts people just accept, tropes and archetypes.  We just accept them.

So someone has to tell you – your choices may suck.  Some people need to be your Insensitivity Readers.

This is a difficult thing to deal with, as I found.  Sometimes your beloved ideas kinda may not work.  Sometimes you didn’t so much fail, but didn’t reach.

So someone calls you on it.

In my case, the person who called me on some stylistic choices, who was unimpressed with the way I did certain things, made my novel a hell of a lot better.

Sometimes you need sensitivity.

Sometimes you don’t.

Steven Savage

Fandom At A Different Level

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

After my post on the dangers of “Gray Goo” Media, serdar had his own detailed response. His response is worth reading – he also has some alternate ideas to my wishes worth considering – and he then notes it’s important to explore why and how we like things over specifics. He then proposes a most interesting exercise.

Sometimes I imagine we can cultivate this by way of exercises. Get together a slew of people who have divergent and vibrant interests, sit in a circle, start with one person, and have that person talk about some specific aspect of a specific thing that gets their attention. (“The reason I like Emma: A Victorian Romance is the attention to detail.”) Then the next person picks up from that thread. (“Something I like that has attention to detail… but here’s what else I like about it, the fact that it is a deeply humane story.”) And on to the next person. (“The thing I like that has a humane element…”)

This idea intrigues me enough that I’m thinking of using it under various circumstances, and suggesting it to other groups like a local book club, cons, etc. I also find it illustrates an important point about sharing media.

A lot of what we like about media can get very specific. I relate to this character, I like this specific story element. The become, intentional or not, exclusionary. If someone does not take to a given element or character, people have trouble connecting to you – indeed, a passionately stated enthusiasm can seem to be exclusionary. We don’t want to offend someone saying “not for me.”

Instead this method is about the commonality of how we relate, not what we relate to specifically. We discover our shared interests not in media specifically, but what we are interested in and how we share that. A group of people can each be passionate about good worldbuilding, and discuss how they love it, while completely not being interested in everyone else’s choices.

This may not save the world, but it gives us a lot to think about. Maybe it’s a method that can lead we passionate people to help others bridge gaps and find common grounds, which we could certainly use more of.

Steven Savage