gratefulAmanda was one of the first people ever to get their hands on Rosemary and Rue, in a much earlier form. She's also one of my longest-running proofreaders, having now been involved with every book in the series. Oh, and she's married to Michael, the man that Newsflesh was functionally inspired by. All of which makes her an awesome friend, but not necessarily an awesome proofreader.
Luckily for me, she is an awesome proofreader, and because she's known me -- and been reading for me -- for so long, she's capable of making statements that might be offensive coming from just about anybody else. Right now, she's proofreading Late Eclipses of the Sun (the fourth Toby book), and had this to say:
"Okay, hon. During the Shadowed Hills sequence, they are all still having a major attack of stupid."
Behold the honesty! Being a) an academic, b) a folklore geek, and c) a scientist, she then proceeded to support this argument with fully two pages of 'this is why all your characters are dumb right here.' Seriously, two pages, not of edits or continuity catches, but of detailed and nit-picky textual critique. I'm going to lose my entire weekend to rewrites solely based on this set of notes, and I am overjoyed.
Good writers are made by talent, practice, persistence, luck, and alcoholic muses with sick senses of humor.
Great writers are made by their editors.
August 29 2008, 06:40:54 UTC 8 years ago
Being blunt is fun! I try not to do it too often. Anyway, in addition to the types of geekery you mentioned, my addiction to mystery novels definitely played a role here. It's impossible to eat that many mystery novels (including procedurals) before breakfast and not have it rub off in my editing.
September 1 2008, 17:45:18 UTC 8 years ago