Oy and also oy; writing = hard.
Apr. 3rd, 2008 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficIn a perfect world, not only would cops have better things to do than wait around for people to drive at five miles over the speed limit and give them fines that cost a significant portion of a week's wages, but once you're done with a story, you'd be done with it. Not only would that save writers a great deal of hassle, but it'd spare us Greedo shooting first.
I'm ignoring there that Tolkien actually went back and retconned The Hobbit to fit Gollum and the One Ring into LOTR canon (srsly), but you get my drift. I was preparing the next few chapters of The Other Wife for publication, marveling at the glaring typos I missed, when I noted that one of the chapters is a little over ten thousand words along. And it's an important chapter, not just sex and sexiness (though check and check!). It contrasts Dick's relationship with Barbara to Kory's relationship with Donna with bitter irony, outlines the problems all four of them face (from a different perspective, in Dick/Babs' case), and the treatment of one provides some foreshadowing for the other.
I can't just split it in two like I did for the December chapter, not unless the second chapter is going to be "of frostbite. 'But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying.'" So I'm going through it, zapping adjectives ("a Hitchcockian exercise in paranoia" is no longer Hitchcockian) and really wishing I were one of those authors who didn't have to bother with headers. Just name of the story, LJ-cut, and a summary? Hey, why don't you summarize it to me, after you read it?
"Tiny balls of useless, impotent anger" are no longer impotent. I'm sure that'll make Mrs. Tiny Balls very happy.
I'm ignoring there that Tolkien actually went back and retconned The Hobbit to fit Gollum and the One Ring into LOTR canon (srsly), but you get my drift. I was preparing the next few chapters of The Other Wife for publication, marveling at the glaring typos I missed, when I noted that one of the chapters is a little over ten thousand words along. And it's an important chapter, not just sex and sexiness (though check and check!). It contrasts Dick's relationship with Barbara to Kory's relationship with Donna with bitter irony, outlines the problems all four of them face (from a different perspective, in Dick/Babs' case), and the treatment of one provides some foreshadowing for the other.
I can't just split it in two like I did for the December chapter, not unless the second chapter is going to be "of frostbite. 'But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying.'" So I'm going through it, zapping adjectives ("a Hitchcockian exercise in paranoia" is no longer Hitchcockian) and really wishing I were one of those authors who didn't have to bother with headers. Just name of the story, LJ-cut, and a summary? Hey, why don't you summarize it to me, after you read it?
"Tiny balls of useless, impotent anger" are no longer impotent. I'm sure that'll make Mrs. Tiny Balls very happy.
