Saturday, August 6, 2011

Behind locked doors -- from draft five to draft six.

Do not get me wrong. I have gone through this book more than five or six times. But when I finished what I now call my first draft, I decided to create a full pdf, and have the whole thing shipped to me. From that date forward, each consecutive draft has been shipped to me, and I have a personal collection of five draft book copies. I'm now working on the sixth one. Thank you, printtopress.com for the fantastic and speedy services.
photo by Myxi via PhotoRee

These draft copies are clean and unseen by anyone but me still! They are books themselves, each consective edition is a little more polished and unique in it's own way. This whole writing is re-writing thing? It's true, it is. But let's talk specifics. What the hell have I been doing?

"He had a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips." -- Raymond Chanlder

Draft six! Or maybe not so much. I decided on this draft that my shorter sentences, though very prolific and beautiful throughout the entire book, ala my inspiration from Raymond Chandler,
photo by dumbeast via PhotoRee
were slightly unnecessary and overused. Indeed, it was almost stumbling me up some, so I have decided to go with a strategy a little more anti-modern and mixed. After all, this is sci-fi, not detective fiction.

That's the long and short of it.

The other thing I did was managed the adverbs in a way which makes the book sing rather than put you to sleep, hopefully. Instead of explaining how this is done, I'll show you the video I made. This was my first attempt at a Hitler parody video, so I hope you enjoy it.