Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Silhouette edit diary.

The previous post was, for the most part, entirely unedited. I wanted to get some feedback on a rough of it prior to making any changes. I'm now starting the process of doing it now.

If you look at the piece now, you'll see some bolded and blockquote parts, each with a corresponding date. The blockquote areas mean either a new paragraph, or a major change to a previous paragraph. The bolded parts are simply edits to single sentences or thoughts. The following will contain all of my edits, including the original rough work, and my changes. Please feel free to comment on the changes, and suggest certain areas you think I should work on.

Original: His motions were fluid and almost poetic, a complex sentence of macabre, punctuated by loud blasts.

Edit: His motions were poetic; a stanza of macabre punctuated by gunshots.

2.7.06

I have a particular fondness for that sentence, but I felt it was spruced up for no good reason. On top of that, by saying his motions were fluid it brings pre-meditation to mind. Not to say that he didn't come here with murder on his mind, but that he's done it before, or practiced. I didn't want that, so I made the change. There's also something wrong with "almost poetic", especially when concluded with the rest of the sentence. So the changes were made.

Original: His thoughts were in another place altogether. Places far from the concrete jungle. Happier times, happier times he shared with her. She had a beautiful smile and a way of making him laugh. Her eyes saw right through him. He could confide his most personal thoughts to her. It wasn't perfect, it never was, but his mind wouldn't accept that at the present moment.

Edit: Like a shattered mirror, his thoughts ran in shards of varying length and accuracy; each sliver of reflective glass distorting each shape and colour to a writhing conviction. Everything that he'd experienced with her, good and bad, was falling into place; he organized each thought and emotion in an order that allowed for logic to justify his motive.

2.7.06
Re-reading that part made me think that the paragraph lacked in... everything. The edit isn't going to stand alone, I'm going to elaborate on it, or more importantly his state of mind, a little before and after that part in the story. Right now I'm kind of using that as a stepping stone to find my place and give me something to use to remind me of how to work on it at a later point. I think the broken mirror is a perfect metaphor for distortion.

Original:

It wasn't out of the ordinary to get a hobo looking for shelter to come in, which was easy enough to handle: throw him out. This character didn't look like a hobo.

Edit: It wasn't out of the ordinary to get shelterless riff-raff bumming around for a place to keep dry. This character didn't look like the average destitute scrub.

2.7.06

The "easy enough to handle" bit was removed because it was weak and diluted the the though. I changed the language because whenever I see the word hobo I associate it with cute. Weird, I know, but true. It's a cartoon word. Regardless of where I hear it I can't take it seriously. Riff-raff, on the other hand, reminds me of garbage. It's a step down on the scale of attractiveness. Exactly what I wanted. Oh, and in all honesty, I've been looking for a reason to use destitute ALL DAY.



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