{"id":43216,"date":"2025-08-07T11:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=43216"},"modified":"2025-08-07T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:33:11","slug":"inside-the-writing-life-snippets-from-the-revision-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2025\/08\/07\/inside-the-writing-life-snippets-from-the-revision-front\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Writing Life: Snippets From The Revision Front"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I did hope for a &#8216;milestone&#8217; post today, but am not quite there, so instead will share a &#8220;moment of eye-roll&#8221; from the revision front.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3444\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3444\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3444\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/WALL2-MS-001-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/WALL2-MS-001-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/WALL2-MS-001-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/WALL2-MS-001-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3444\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doorstop, or revision manuscript?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Very often, revision involves big ticket decisions like <em>&#8220;Does the narrative need this section at all, in order to &#8216;work&#8217;?&#8221;<\/em> or <em>&#8220;Is this part written in the right character&#8217;s point-of-view?&#8221;<\/em> and <em>&#8220;have I gotten all the action in the right, let alone the best<\/em> (as per Coleridge&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/01\/26\/the-best-words-in-their-best-order\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">observation on poetry<\/a>) <em>order.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>By &#8216;right&#8217;, of course, I mean an order that makes logical sense and will stand up to the test of the manuscript as a whole.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7848\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7848\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7848\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Snow-Copyedit-006-300x216.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Snow-Copyedit-006-300x216.jpg 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Snow-Copyedit-006-150x108.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Snow-Copyedit-006-1024x738.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7848\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Knocking off those sections, one by one&#8230;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>These big ticket items can be more hair-tearing exercises than eye-roll territory &#8212; with the latter, and a few grins, coming with the smaller stuff, like typos. Yesterday&#8217;s winner in the typo-and-reflexive-eyeroll-territory was <em>&#8220;representating. <\/em>Now what, I wondered, was I supping with my tea when I typed that?<\/p>\n<p>Although it&#8217;s resolving the big ticket questions that matters in terms of getting the manuscript to <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/your-publication-date-questions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">D&amp;A<\/a> (recently discussed <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/your-publication-date-questions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>), I do like to pick up such typos when I notice them, because despite the best efforts of myself and the team editorial, particularly copy- and proof- editors, they do have a habit of slipping through into the printed book.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14350\" style=\"width: 215px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14350\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14350\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mstar4morningstar_award_helen_lowe_fantasy_david_gemmell-701x1024-205x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mstar4morningstar_award_helen_lowe_fantasy_david_gemmell-701x1024-205x300.jpg 205w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mstar4morningstar_award_helen_lowe_fantasy_david_gemmell-701x1024-102x150.jpg 102w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mstar4morningstar_award_helen_lowe_fantasy_david_gemmell-701x1024.jpg 701w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 205px) 100vw, 205px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-14350\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Printed books &#8211; happy days!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I did hope for a &#8216;milestone&#8217; post today, but am not quite there, so instead will share a &#8220;moment of eye-roll&#8221; from the revision front. Very often, revision involves big ticket decisions like &#8220;Does the narrative need this section at all, in order to &#8216;work&#8217;?&#8221; or &#8220;Is this part written in the right character&#8217;s point-of-view?&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43216"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43222,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43216\/revisions\/43222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}