As covered previously, editor is synonymous with asshole and this is a historical relationship enjoyed by, well, every writer who ever lived.
Onward to my nephew's book and it's an open edit because there's no personal aspect to it ... well ... except I would not do it for anyone else.
Source paragraph:
Some were terrified that the world would end in 2012 because some ancient calendar by a long dead civilization ended in that year. Some found it amusing that people believed a prophecy by a civilization that had died out centuries before it said the world would end. It turns out that, that long ago civilization, the Mayans, were not very far off, they missed the end of the world by just eight years. In 2020 tensions in North Korea had finally snapped. For years prior to things finally blowing up North Korea and South Korea had spats back and forth. Early in January, North Korea steam rolled through South Korea with a military machine no one expected. The U.N. mobilized its forces as did the U.S.A. and Japan in defense of South Korea. North Korea stated that if even a single foreign vessel entered their territories it would have no choice but to defend itself to its fullest ability. In short they threatened to use nuclear force against anyone who attempted to take their South Korean territory. Japan called North Korea’s bluff, and sent in their navy. The USA followed suit and sent their Pacific Fleet into Korean waters while the U.N. began emergency protocols to send aid to South Korea. Unfortunately North Korea had not been bluffing.
Recommendation:
Some were terrified that the world would end in 2012 because some ancient calendar by a long dead civilization ended in that year. Some found it amusing that people believed a prophecy by a civilization which had died out centuries before said the world would end.
It turns out that, that long ago civilization, the Mayans, were not very far off, they missed the end of the world by just eight years. In 2020, tensions in North Korea finally snapped. For years prior to things finally blowing up, North Korea and South Korea had spats back and forth. Early in January, North Korea steamrolled through South Korea with a military machine no one expected.
The U.N. mobilized its forces as did the U.S.A. and Japan in defense of South Korea. North Korea stated that if even a single foreign vessel entered their territories it would have no choice but to defend itself to its fullest ability. In short they threatened to use nuclear force against anyone who attempted to take their South Korean territory.
Japan called North Korea’s bluff, and sent in their navy. The USA followed suit and sent their Pacific Fleet into Korean waters while the U.N. began emergency protocols to send aid to South Korea. Unfortunately North Korea had not been bluffing.
As with the initial comment, spacing is crucial for readability and use as much of it as you need to be sure your reader can follow the stream of thoughts. The source paragraph contains a great deal of information and the writer has the task of balancing between telling the narrative and writing something of a reference text in history. It's the purpose of this segment of the book to tell the history but that means being extremely careful not to make a textbook out of it.
That's the general thinking on paragraphs. Don't be cheap with them because they help so much to keep your thoughts clear and presentable.
Constructing sentences:
Source sentence:
It turns out that, that long ago civilization, the Mayans, were not very far off, they missed the end of the world by just eight years.
Recommendation:
The long ago civilization of the Mayans was not far off since they missed the end of the world by just eight years.
Various words operate as enemy sappers trying to put demolition charges in your writing. 'That' is such a word and a double 'that, that' will take the whole bridge down. 'Very' is another and it comes into play because it's easy. Slap 'very' onto anything and it becomes, you know, bigger, you know. Well, no, I really don't know. How much bigger did it get. Maybe it's a little bit bigger or maybe it's a lot bigger but 'very' doesn't tell me too much either way.
If you want to describe something then describe it well but otherwise minimal is better. Throw out 'very' almost every time it occurs to you to use it.
Lazy words and expressions are death to your writing except when it's your specific purpose to characterize someone. It may be worthwhile to paint a character who uses such lazy expressions to demonstrate something about the person's nature for the purpose of telling your story.
The strongest recommendation out of this review is first understand it's not a review. We need to get past fundamental edits to be able to review the book because only after the edits are complete will we have a full view of the sense of the story, the writing, etc.
The next is to understand the edit coming out of this will likely take quite some time because of the need to pore over the manuscript, sentence by sentence, looking for ways to open it up to let it breathe. The spacing is the oxygen and your readers will appreciate it too.
Onward to my nephew's book and it's an open edit because there's no personal aspect to it ... well ... except I would not do it for anyone else.
Source paragraph:
Some were terrified that the world would end in 2012 because some ancient calendar by a long dead civilization ended in that year. Some found it amusing that people believed a prophecy by a civilization that had died out centuries before it said the world would end. It turns out that, that long ago civilization, the Mayans, were not very far off, they missed the end of the world by just eight years. In 2020 tensions in North Korea had finally snapped. For years prior to things finally blowing up North Korea and South Korea had spats back and forth. Early in January, North Korea steam rolled through South Korea with a military machine no one expected. The U.N. mobilized its forces as did the U.S.A. and Japan in defense of South Korea. North Korea stated that if even a single foreign vessel entered their territories it would have no choice but to defend itself to its fullest ability. In short they threatened to use nuclear force against anyone who attempted to take their South Korean territory. Japan called North Korea’s bluff, and sent in their navy. The USA followed suit and sent their Pacific Fleet into Korean waters while the U.N. began emergency protocols to send aid to South Korea. Unfortunately North Korea had not been bluffing.
Recommendation:
Some were terrified that the world would end in 2012 because some ancient calendar by a long dead civilization ended in that year. Some found it amusing that people believed a prophecy by a civilization which had died out centuries before said the world would end.
It turns out that, that long ago civilization, the Mayans, were not very far off, they missed the end of the world by just eight years. In 2020, tensions in North Korea finally snapped. For years prior to things finally blowing up, North Korea and South Korea had spats back and forth. Early in January, North Korea steamrolled through South Korea with a military machine no one expected.
The U.N. mobilized its forces as did the U.S.A. and Japan in defense of South Korea. North Korea stated that if even a single foreign vessel entered their territories it would have no choice but to defend itself to its fullest ability. In short they threatened to use nuclear force against anyone who attempted to take their South Korean territory.
Japan called North Korea’s bluff, and sent in their navy. The USA followed suit and sent their Pacific Fleet into Korean waters while the U.N. began emergency protocols to send aid to South Korea. Unfortunately North Korea had not been bluffing.
As with the initial comment, spacing is crucial for readability and use as much of it as you need to be sure your reader can follow the stream of thoughts. The source paragraph contains a great deal of information and the writer has the task of balancing between telling the narrative and writing something of a reference text in history. It's the purpose of this segment of the book to tell the history but that means being extremely careful not to make a textbook out of it.
That's the general thinking on paragraphs. Don't be cheap with them because they help so much to keep your thoughts clear and presentable.
Constructing sentences:
Source sentence:
It turns out that, that long ago civilization, the Mayans, were not very far off, they missed the end of the world by just eight years.
Recommendation:
The long ago civilization of the Mayans was not far off since they missed the end of the world by just eight years.
Various words operate as enemy sappers trying to put demolition charges in your writing. 'That' is such a word and a double 'that, that' will take the whole bridge down. 'Very' is another and it comes into play because it's easy. Slap 'very' onto anything and it becomes, you know, bigger, you know. Well, no, I really don't know. How much bigger did it get. Maybe it's a little bit bigger or maybe it's a lot bigger but 'very' doesn't tell me too much either way.
If you want to describe something then describe it well but otherwise minimal is better. Throw out 'very' almost every time it occurs to you to use it.
Lazy words and expressions are death to your writing except when it's your specific purpose to characterize someone. It may be worthwhile to paint a character who uses such lazy expressions to demonstrate something about the person's nature for the purpose of telling your story.
The strongest recommendation out of this review is first understand it's not a review. We need to get past fundamental edits to be able to review the book because only after the edits are complete will we have a full view of the sense of the story, the writing, etc.
The next is to understand the edit coming out of this will likely take quite some time because of the need to pore over the manuscript, sentence by sentence, looking for ways to open it up to let it breathe. The spacing is the oxygen and your readers will appreciate it too.
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