Not The Editor I Wish To Be

I am by no means a professional editor. All I can do is alter what I’ve written until my eyes see it has something which isn’t a disaster. So, what I do now, don’t just take it with a grain of salt – take it with the whole damn salt farm!

I’ve taken an extract from one my books (unpublished; they’re all unpublished!) – the first in a fantasy epic of six books (oh, how I love to dream), but I’ve only read through this book a couple times, adjusting typos and fixing scenes which may have made no sense when reading them back, as well as adding a few new ones. I feared if I wrote something brand new for this self-critique challenge, I’d purposely write something horrible and easy to amend to make it seem like I know what I’m doing in the editing phase. I’m about half and half on what I'm doing. I know exactly what I want, but to convey that to the reader is an entirely different matter, and to make it an enjoyable read is another problem. All I can do is keep trying and keep learning.

Anyway, this extract is taken from the start - the very first scene after the prologue. The excerpt is as follows:

The baby cried out to the world – the world that comes after. The little one’s lungs mewled dry to the point of silence as the mauve fog swirled around in eddies threatening to swallow the child whole.

He was not alone. A collection of voices joined him, surrounded him, from three different sources, all linked; all one.

“This one is being pulled back.”

“Our hold is weakening,” said another in the same voice, yet starkly different.

“But our power is absolute.”

The baby screeched out to the darkness, the red dripping from its skin an irritation. His hands reached out to a mother that wasn’t there, to a father long forgotten.

“He will return.”

“Everybody returns.”

“There is only one end.”

The baby was gone, and only the darkness in the fog remained.

I don’t think it’s downright terrible. In fact, a part of me likes how I’ve done it because I can see what I was going for (but that’s just me as the creator of the story with knowledge of what's happening and what will happen). Most of the time when I read back my own work, I expect it to be the juice at the bottom of a rubbish bin. I sometimes find it’s a couple steps up from that. But it needs much more.

Now, I can see a few things I’d like to change/remove and add. It being the start of the book - after the prologue, which apparently some people skip past – I need this to be perfect; the hook to make people keep reading, for the rising questions to have people turn the pages, and for fantasy lovers to feel intrigued by this new world.

To make it clearer, I'll edit it in steps. Now, the attempted improvement of the first paragraph:

Through rheumy eyes, the baby boy reached out to the dead and dark world – the world that comes after. His lungs mewled dry to the point of pained silence. The mauve fog clung to his fresh skin, swirling in eddies and threatening to devour the him.

I altered the start - having it appear from the baby's eyes - so it fit in more with the third-person limited style of the rest of the book. The original extract came off as more third-person omnipresent. Merging the two can work (look at the Disc World series), but I don't think that's what I want to do here. I wished to stick to the point of view characters the reader will follow (the baby, in this case, though he isn't a baby later) without adding needless confusion - only purposeful questions. I also referred to him as 'baby boy' so I can follow up with 'his' and 'him' instead of calling him variations of a child on repeat, to help set the point of view while still letting you know he's a baby.

I also added the description "dead and dark world" to set the tone. It's a dark fantasy and I feel it needs to be known from the start what people are getting into. Macabre words help with that. I remember when I first started this story, I opened it with light humour... what was I thinking?

I split the last sentence in two. It sounded okay, but it didn't flow as smoothly as I'd like, feeling like a sudden slog in the text. I think the shorter sentences hit harder, while the new descriptions, like "pained silence" and the mauve fog clinging to his "fresh" skin, give a sense of danger and desperation, as well as adding another sensory description. Tension is important in most scenes, and I've learnt using the senses can really boost descriptions and give vivid images to the reader, though it's hard to get them all across (what does mauve fog taste like?). Finally, I changed "swallow" to "devour" because it sounds more dangerous, more alive, and the word itself ties in to later in the story (shh, top secret stuff).

Second section improvement:

He was not alone. A collection of voices joined him, surrounded him, from three different sources, all linked; all one. Crackling like growing branches of bone, their gaunt forms towered and watched with concealed eyes, their shadows darkening the baby's light.

Now, I think the mystery aspect I was going for was decent but needed expanding. I've given a little hint to these beings through the noises they make when moving as well as the added "concealed eyes", and I've given them shadows in previously established darkness to contrast the "light" of the baby.

The next lines of dialogue:

“The pull on this one is strong.”

“His time is not now.”

“But our power is absolute.”

This bit hit me the hardest of being the weakest part. I've removed the unnecessary dialogue tag and I changed the second line of speech in favour of something a little more substantial. The difference being that the original line of dialogue didn't add anything to what the first line already told us, and I had already mentioned three voices. I changed it to something a bit more cryptic, suggesting they know what will happen to the baby. The original detracted from the eeriness by trying desperately to add something unnecessary. How the reader pictures the voice at this point isn't so important; I've described them as things which aren't human, and the reader's imagination is key.

Penultimate section improvement:

The baby screeched at the darkness, the dripping red over his skin an irritation. He begged for a mother, for a father, for anyone. No one answered his gurgled pleas.

His father isn't "long forgotten" - he doesn't even know who his parents are! I changed this one just so it made a more sense from the point of view of the baby. I changed "reached out" to "begged" simply because I already have him reaching out in the first paragraph. Random repetition isn't as classy as planned repetition. It's something I try and avoid, though it's hard to always spot.

Of course he would want a parent. When they don't answer, he wants anyone. And the loneliness is highlighted by the lack of response. A slight portend to what is to come.

Finally, the last lines:

“He will return.”

“Titles will enter.”

“There is only one end.”

The baby vanished, the doors opening. Only the darkness in the fog remained.

Foreshadowing. Deepening the mystery of what these things are, and hopefully having the reader question several things such as what they mean by "titles". I feel like I didn't need to change it too much; the lines serve the purpose, hopefully without giving too much away. Dialogue is more centralised to these 'characters' as I shall call them for now. Perhaps they're the most important 'characters' in the story. Who knows? (I do...). And I changed the dull "was gone" to "vanished". Word choice is incredibly important, and it's agony trying to find the right ones.

I've learnt a lot through the years. I read over my work, wondering how I could write this or that, be it good or awful. Taking a scene at a time does help focus on that one moment, and while using the knowledge of the characters and what comes next, I can at least strengthen each individual segment. The structure of the whole damn book, however, is harder to edit. How are you supposed to work on the first of six books with the first one reaching 132,000+ words?! Madness, yet here I am with a dream bigger than myself. One day, I hope to have it published. One day…