big picture edits
Finished up the reading exercise, and am onto possibly the last edits before handing the book over to other readers. And, I am so glad I took the time to just read and enjoy the story without editing page by page.
Because, something that's been difficult for me throughout all of this is looking at the book as a whole and editing for that big picture. Going page by page, it's easy to get caught up in the small stuff, and forget about all the stuff that actually matters: plot, pacing, character development.
After this read, I have a list of questions to ponder for myself and for other readers about how the whole book flows. But I'm not really sure I have better answers on how to get out of page edits and into big picture edits. A few thoughts in regards to that:
A running list of big picture questions is a great thing to start keeping pretty early on. That way, once you are happy with the smaller edits, you can move onto some of the more interesting ones, like WHAT IS IN THE BOOK BRITT GIVES LUNA.
I wrote out what I wanted the beginning, middle and end to accomplish. And, after this read through, I feel better equipped to make sure each section is meeting its goals.
PACING is still throwing me. The whole story happens in such a short time period, but I'm not sure how exactly to change that without some serious re-working. Reading the whole book through, the pacing didn't feel weird, to me. But I also am far too close to the story now, and am looking forward to feedback on how to handle pacing issues that may arise for other non-me readers. Also possible that I'm way overthinking it.
I definitely noticed some places where I hoped to tie a little tidbit in, but never really got there. Finally feel like I can either say goodbye to those that don't belong or put more effort into MAKING sure they tie into the story in an interesting way.
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