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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Her shoes, which were worn on her feet for both protection and style, had a polka dot design. Polka dots are a selection of dots which have a different color from the background.

This post is not actually about shoes. But I do love the shoes in the pic. Alternative titles for this post included:
  • Thank You, Captain Obvious
  • For the Stupid People
  • Redundancies and Redundancies
Now, for the actual post --

You wear these on your feet, in case you didn't know.
Whenever I read a book where the author recaps what just happened, I imagine an asterisk at the start of that section with a footnote indicating that part is for the stupid people.  This is more prevalent in sequels where they try to summarize the previous books just in case a reader decided to start on book three.  I hate the redundancies.

And yet my writing is full of redundancies and explanations of things that could easily be understood in context. As I go through edits, trying to "tighten up" my story, I am increasingly embarrassed that I made the mistakes in the first place.

The editor requested I cut my word count significantly and I was initially worried that I would be losing content.  Nope. I'm just losing the stuff that insulted the reader's intelligence. Seriously

When you edit, have you ever been embarrassed by yourself?



4 comments:

Unknown said...

Most definately. Though I imagine I would be more embarrassed if I didn't edit. *The reason I would be more embarrased is that the mistakes would still be there when I showed it to people.

*this part is for the cognitively challenged

Stephanie said...

LOL!!! Been there!!!! But i did run into trouble with my sequel...wondering how much to kinda recap, and if it was necessary at all.

Kathleen said...

I just finished the 2nd romance in a series. It was a very interesting idea because both love stories happen simultaneously for two sisters. The subplot (any non-romance "plot" in a romance novel is subordinate to the romance) entails an involved, madcap murder mystery. In many parts, the dialogue was the same. Although it was interesting, I read the books back to back and ended up skimming great chunks of book 2 because of redundancies...too much rerun! Anyway, if you're interested in this "hook", the books are by Lyndsay Sands..."The Heiress" and "The Countess."

Susan Kane said...

Oh, yes, totally. And it comes with, "Did I really write that??"

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