An Editing Experiment

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Abstract

So over the next forty days, I’m going to be posting an older book of mine that’s currently shelved. There are three reasons I chose this one. First, I remember thinking each individual scene felt polished. I like the voice in it. I’m not embarrassed by people reading it. Second, I haven’t worked on it in about three years. I feel far enough removed to approach it like an editor. Finally, I abandoned it because it’s fundamentally broken on a developmental level.Once it’s here, I can create a manuscript evaluation for it. Work through what isn’t working. Try to get a handle on how to make it fixable. Talk through my ideas about what I might do to update it. I think it’s a great example of what could become “what if we change everything,” and the best way to talk about it is to give people the chance to read it.I’ll post co # Options mmentary separate from the story — maybe as it continues, maybe not until every chapter is uploaded. We will see. But I hope by sharing an entire book, I can dig deep into editing concepts that are otherwise hard to talk about in a few thousand words.I hope you get value out of this experiment, and that it can bring something to the idea of building a novel.<figure id="3525"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*TY4SOgKccg7Je-i-.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>If you like my work and would like to read more of it, consider joining Medium with <a href="https://medium.com/@rochelledeans/membership">my referral link</a> to get full access to every article on Medium. Using my referral link doesn’t cost you anything, but half of the fee goes directly to supporting me each month.</article></body>

Why I’m about to publish an entire novel onto Medium

Explaining how to edit something is difficult, sometimes. I work primarily with other people’s material, other people’s ideas. I can’t exactly point to their books to explain different writing concepts. And as much fun as I’m having discussing my WIPs here, without posting the full text I can get lost in explaining the story enough, and I think the explanations can become convoluted at best.

So over the next forty days, I’m going to be posting an older book of mine that’s currently shelved. There are three reasons I chose this one. First, I remember thinking each individual scene felt polished. I like the voice in it. I’m not embarrassed by people reading it. Second, I haven’t worked on it in about three years. I feel far enough removed to approach it like an editor. Finally, I abandoned it because it’s fundamentally broken on a developmental level.

Once it’s here, I can create a manuscript evaluation for it. Work through what isn’t working. Try to get a handle on how to make it fixable. Talk through my ideas about what I might do to update it. I think it’s a great example of what could become “what if we change everything,” and the best way to talk about it is to give people the chance to read it.

I’ll post commentary separate from the story — maybe as it continues, maybe not until every chapter is uploaded. We will see. But I hope by sharing an entire book, I can dig deep into editing concepts that are otherwise hard to talk about in a few thousand words.

I hope you get value out of this experiment, and that it can bring something to the idea of building a novel.

If you like my work and would like to read more of it, consider joining Medium with my referral link to get full access to every article on Medium. Using my referral link doesn’t cost you anything, but half of the fee goes directly to supporting me each month.