proofing

Ending obsession

/ Scott Nagele / 4 Comments

Here we go again. It’s phase three of the A Housefly in Autumn remodel. As I predicted, between rewriting the middle and obsessing over the beginning, I’ve come to that time when I feel compelled to tweak the ending.

The good news is that it’s only the last couple of paragraphs I want to redo. The bad news is that those last two paragraphs contain a mother lode of tone. That’s not bad news in itself; it’s only bad news when you want to change them. It’s like changing whole pages at the beginning or whole chapters in the middle.

For the beginning, the concern is drawing readers in. At the middle, the worry is keeping them. The finale needs to hit just the right note. I think my previous note was a little flat and I’m trying to sharpen it up a bit.

When they are the last two paragraphs, two paragraphs can seem like a mountainous rewrite. It certainly has taken me more time than any two other paragraphs ever have. I’m still not completely satisfied, but at least I’m moving in the right direction.

On the bright side, I don’t have to count this late alteration as a self-induced delay to publication. This time I got smart and started obsessing about something while I was still waiting for my expert proofers to finish reviewing their copies. By the time they are done, this behemoth, two-paragraph rewrite should be complete.

At that point, I can feel good that I’ve given beginning, middle, and end their fair shares of obsessing and overthinking. The book will be as good as I can make it, lacking another 20 years’ worth of wisdom, for which I am not willing to wait.

What I'd look like after 20 more years of wisdom. Looks like I'd have a great story to tell doesn't it? Should we just wait?

What I’d look like after 20 more years of wisdom. Looks like I’d have a great story to tell, doesn’t it? Should we just wait?

It may seem like I’ve been talking about this book for 20 years already, but that’s just not true. I’ve been working on this book for 20 years (probably a mere 18, but who’s counting?). I’ve only been talking about it publicly for, well, far shorter than that.

Even so, I realize it may seem like I’ve been posting about this book for a long time without actually producing something like a book. No one feels this incongruity more keenly than I do. But no one sees the light at the end of the tunnel more clearly than I do. I am two short paragraphs away from concluding that it is what it is. Then all who are so inclined may judge for themselves whether I should have waited for 20 years more wisdom.

At that point, I can turn all my worries toward marketing. Marketing has been known to make me whine like a first grader with liverwurst on pumpernickel in his lunch box. Now that’s something to look forward to. Stay tuned.

Addition by subtraction: ditching the unhelpful words

/ Scott Nagele / 4 Comments

I’m working my way through the third proof copy of A Housefly in Autumn and it’s making me remember why it took me four or five proof copies to get my other books ready.

I’m always searching for a tweak to make it a little better.

I haven’t noticed any embarrassing mistakes so far on this copy. I haven’t even come across anything that I feel is definitely an error. In spite of this, I have plenty of red pen marks on this third copy already, and I’m not half way through.

What am I marking up then?

Mostly, I’m striking words that seemed necessary at one time, but now just seem like extra words. They are not extra words of the James Fenimore Cooper magnitude. They don’t lead down dead end paths into inescapable thickets. At least in my opinion, they don’t. But they don’t add anything to the potential reader’s understanding of the story either.

An extra wordsmith

James Fenimore Cooper, a man of abundant imagination and even more abundant verbiage.

It’s amazing how many of these words pop up in a novel. And it’s amazing how many edits it takes to get most of them out.

I added a very short scene to beginning of the story prior to this proof. It didn’t change the themes of the tale, but it did slightly alter the tone in which it is narrated. This is the other major category of cross-outs this time around. There are some residual statements sprinkled throughout the book that reflect the previous tone too much. These need to be changed or removed. They are pretty easy to spot, but not always simple to fix.

At the end of this proof, I hope to have an efficient story with a smooth, consistent narrative tone from start to finish. Then I can move on to the really nit-picky stuff on proof number four. Maybe I’ll even have the luxury of revisiting issues I previously vacillated over before deciding. You have to flip a lot of coins in self-publishing. Sometimes you want to go back and flip them over again, not because that gives you a better decision, but it might make you feel like you put enough thought into it.

Meanwhile, I’m not giving up on finding errors. By now, I am the least qualified person to find any errors that remain. My jaded eyes have skipped them before, and they’ll skip them again. I’m counting on other pairs of eyes to bring me errors. I hope they do better than I could do right now, because the consequences of hard decisions I can live with; glaring mistakes are harder to stomach.

The saga goes on. It pains me that it takes so long. I’m disappointed to have missed a Christmas release. But if it makes the book a cleaner, better reading experience it will have been worth every dragged-out day of it.