Shmidiot

So my initial plan for dealing with the hilarity caused by my comment about uploading the next three chapters in six months (my editor did not think it was a joke, let alone a funny one; my IT Guy, on the other hand, laughed, assuming that it’ll eventually be a joke on me) was to upload chapter 4 this week. What I’ve done instead is removed chapter 3 and turned “Small Town Super Nobody” into a five chapter story. Practically the same thing.

Or maybe not. Point of fact: I actually have a good reason for this. I wasn’t as pleased with chapter 3 as I was with the first two chapters, and after a frank discussion with my editor (“I should’ve just waited until you’d uploaded the whole thing before I read it…nothing happened in this last chapter”), I realized why. She’s right: nothing did happen this last chapter. While the background information in the chapter is necessary, the story stagnates until the action in the next chapter, which is a crappy way to write a short story. It’s padding. I added padding to a novelette*.

What I’m going to do is take the background and emotional heart out of chapter three and add it to chapter four, which is going to end up as the official chapter three instead. I lose some things doing this (Greg beaning Rick in the head as hard as he can with a football, for one; the sentence “Jeremiah turned and saw that his dad was leaning back against the water table with his arms casually folded, a pose that could get most women within visual range to perk up and take a second look” for another), but it’ll be a tighter story for it.

A couple of editing notes related to this re-post plan:

  1. I moved the “domo arigato” thing to chapter 2, where I originally had it, and
  2. I added a very small line (a parentheses, in fact) to chapter 1, straight-out admitting that Teddy is basically an impossibly advanced robot. That last one was for my IT Guy, who pointed out that, though I’d heavily implied as such, I only ever said so in my author’s notes. Because it’s fun to make people guess at the framework of my stories.

So, uh…sorry? Hahahah, I’m lucky I only have two watchers.

*weeps a little anyways*


*Apparently a real thing, according to Wikipedia. That I do a lot. Who knew?

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5 Responses to Shmidiot

  1. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

    Now as I continue to read it, I’m going to be super confused because things have changed underneath me! Whatever will I do?

    Keep up the good work either way. 🙂

    • A Schultz says:

      Haha! Don’t I know it. I can get away with crap like this because I know it only affects two people. Sorry, two people :).

  2. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

    Wait a minute… is this going to impact the six month period? Because I don’t know if I can handle uncertainty in a six month window. 😛

    • A Schultz says:

      I’ve spent nearly a month trying to come up with a good reply to this, and that is its own message. Inadvertent, yes, but I always give myself away. Enjoy the next six months.

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