Nicole’s Novel

My friend Nicole (of multiple comment fame) has written a novel.  I’m reading it right now and “helping to edit it”. 

I’m truly enjoying the process.  This is my first opportunity to dialogue with an author before the book is actually published.  I’m able to give my input as a reader, and not just “vote with my feet”.

She’s gonna cry when she sees all my effin edits.  I’m gonna cry when I sit down and try to get them into Microsoft Word.  Nicole’s novel is about 500 pages (double-spaced) in Microsoft Word.  I hate double-spacing and I don’t like carrying around all that paper, so I dumped it into my preferred method of reading:  single-spaced Georgia 10 point in two columns, printed four pages per sheet (two to a side).  My version is 151 pages long, which works out to around 40 sheets of paper (give or take).

Page number-wise, it’s going to be a pain in the ass getting my handwritten notes back into a 500 page double-spaced Word doc (without the whole thing being red and underlined).  If you’ve ever used the editing/reviewing functions of Word, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m about 70 of my pages (160 of hers) into the novel so far.  Nicole’s dialogue is excellent.  I don’t know if the book is really starting to pick up now or if I’m just getting a feel for her style.  Sardonic wit; love it.  I have actually laughed aloud several times while reading her novel.  Take that however you like, but it’s a rare occurrence in my life.  And I read A LOT of novels.

I’ve noticed several time-disconnects in what I’ve read so far.  I have them marked.  By ‘time-disconnect’, I mean places where Nicole flashes to a bit of backstory while in the middle of a scene.  Now, I promised myself (and Sabrina, sort of) that I wouldn’t mess with Nicole’s overall style/voice, and I’m still a little unsure whether this is an indication thereof or not, so I’m a little wary of being hands-on with my suggested changes.

Editing is kind of rough in that way.  As a reader, I would normally just fly through the book and decide along the way whether I like the author’s style or not.  I like Nicole’s style very much, but I’m also reading very closely – so I’m circling the things that don’t make sense to me or make the reading harder for me.  I’m very tempted to rewrite sentences to “the way I would say it”.  So far, I’ve been pretty good about not doing that.  If I hit a spot where I get confused, I’m just highlighting the sentence/paragraph in order to bring it to Nicole’s attention.  After that, it’ll be completely up to her what she does with it.  Wow.  Ego deflation while reading.  Who’d've thought something like that was possible for me?  I’m normally a very critical reader – I think a lot of authors idiots with shitty editors.

The novel is excellent so far.  I was a bit nervous at first that I wouldn’t like it – Nicole’s prose tends to be a bit dense for my liking.  Not so with the novel: I’m identifying with and getting to know her characters as well as any in the best books I’ve read.  It’s really a treat to be involved in the creative process – and I’m doing a pretty good job so far of remembering that it’s Nicole’s creative process, not Ted’s.  I can’t wait till she’s a famous author and I’m footnoted in the acknowledgements – that will be true famousity, as far as I’m concerned.  ;-)

Tagged as: editing, Nicole's novel