editing

Imagine a story about Melody Baker, an unemployed woman living in New York City. She has a PhD, huge student debt, and no professional job prospects. Deborah Ann Woll speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons). (Picture Debra Ann Woll playing her in the movie version. She’d be perfect in the role.) Out of desperation she applies for a research assistant position upstate—and finds herself smack dab in the middle of a political campaign run by cynical operators, eccentric aristocrats, and absurdly horrible partisans and hangers-on, all scheming to elect an unwilling but convenient old-money recluse who has these quaint ideas about integrity, compassion, and justice....

The story and the telling of the story are two different things. In other words, the narrator and the character in the story are not necessarily the same person. Oh, they have the same name and all that. But the narrator knows the story she is telling, while the character within the story does not. This provides opportunities that few writers explore. I’ll use an old classic movie as an example of what I’m talking about....

They’re two different jobs. I’ve been doing a bit of both this month. On the one hand, NaNoWriMo isn’t really happening for me. On the other hand, I’m helping a novelette get published, and I think it’s pretty good work. So that’s good.