Michael swallowed. It was all he could do to hold back tears of his own I'm about 2/3 the way through the publisher's edits now and should be done no later than the middle of this week. I underestimated somewhat the extent of their changes and the amount of effort it was going to require from me--there are after all more than 600 pages, with at least something altered on almost every one. But my initial assessment remains valid that nothing fundamental is involved and the vast majority of it is barely noticeable stylistic tweaks. Most the "on every page" comes from alterations like inserting a space before ellipses or converting the "M-dash" style I used to the one the publisher prefers.
They are having me make a small number of substantive revisions, and I thought you might like a practical example. Below is the most significant change I've made so far (just three paragraphs long). They felt that Michael's reunion with his childhood pet Alex, the Siamese cat who becomes a powerful panther in the Afterlife, needed some emotional foundation. So I have added this little subsection into the scene in Chapter 8 where Michael ends up paying for a stranger's pet bird to have surgery. "Beaker" is the little parrot involved. "Michael swallowed. It was all he could do to hold back tears of his own. His comprehension of the man's suffering went beyond empathy. It evoked acute memories of a tightly bonded pet in his own life, an atypically warm and placid Siamese cat named Alex that had been rescued by his mother when a co-worker moved to an apartment that forbade animals. Like Beaker, Alex had been a family pet not intended specifically for Michael or his brother, both in grade school at the time. And like Beaker, the cat had nonetheless of its own accord, and for reasons that defied discovery, adhered with obvious preference to one person in particular: Michael. It had matured into a joyous, life-affirming symbiosis. Wherever Michael went the cat could be found, perfectly content as long as it could be near him. Alex had established ingenious habits to manifest his affection in ways unobtrusive yet intimate, nesting himself in Michael's lap while he watched TV, squeezing into the gap between the chair and the small of Michael's back at homework time, draping himself on Michael's pillow each night like a set of warm, hypnotically breathing earmuffs around his master's head. Then, when the boys were in high school, Alex had developed lesions. A patch of skin on his left hindquarter had erupted in a bloody sore the size of a quarter, which gradually grew into an obviously agonizing malignancy affecting the entire limb. By that time the cat could only drag the leg around dysfunctionally. Nothing could be done, and at last Michael's near-hysteria at the thought of life without his companion was overtaken by a resolve to end his misery. Michael had insisted on accompanying his friend to that terminal appointment with the vet, and as it turned out, when the day came only Michael was able to go. Alone in the parking lot afterward, Michael had collapsed onto the asphalt in a seizure of anguish, his keys hanging from the car door, such a forlorn spectacle that the receptionist had abandoned her desk to come out and hold him reassuringly until he regained enough composure to drive." It's great after such a long emotional relationship with the book to be experiencing this tangible evidence that it really is going to be published. The work that remains is taxing, but it's a good kind of work to have. :) - Mark
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Once upon
|