There was this commercial not too far back where this guy is stuck in his tent in a blizzard writing in his journal. He starts the journal entry with Day 1: Coldest Day Yet. This is supposed to be ironic, of course. It’s also supposed to help sell someone a product; but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what that product was. Bad marketing–they should have stuck with jingles.
I am stuck on Band-Aids, cuz’ Band-Aids stuck on me.
The truth of the matter is that Day 1′s always really suck, and today, the first day working with my editor’s edits was no exception.
The biggest issue I’m dealing with his the thread unraveling problem. Let me give you an example: My editor wants me to remove a seemingly superfluous page and a half of setting detail before my character gets in a car to go somewhere. I happily delete the section. I read on, ready to slash more, and perfectly willing to do so. Then, I hit a section where I mention “The Ranch,” a place that I’d given the setting detail on earlier…
Now, you see, I have a problem here, because calling this place “The Ranch” doesn’t have the same effect now, because I’ve taken out the part that describes “The Ranch” to begin with, so I have two choices: eliminate all mention of “The Ranch” and have nothing take place on it, or leave in the original “The Ranch” mention, trying to foreshorten in such a way that the editor will still be happy with the edits.
Both solutions are fraught with conflict, and both underline the problem that I have with editing in general. You see, when I write, I write with the knowledge of everything that has gone before, just as the reader, when she reads, reads with the knowledge of everything that has gone before.
Editing, then, presents a problem, because you remove some of this knowledge. It’s easy on you, the writer, because you know everything that you wrote before, and so it’s not so obvious how this is problematic. The reader on the other hand, doesn’t have any of this knowledge. When you name drop something like The Ranch, all kinds of flags go up.
It’s really easy to unravel all the logic that was built into your story when you edit, and it’s very hard as a writer to be aware of it. You have to be painstakingly vigilant, and I’m not sure I’m up to the task. There are countless examples of movies where too much has been edited out, leaving a flimsy plot that looks like it was put together by a Ritalin addict. Have you watched the new Star Wars movies? Or the Harry Potter films? Flimsy. Indecipherable.
I’m running into this problem already, and so far all I’ve had to work on is really, really minor stuff.