The Look of a Draft

Editing within a completed format helps things to stick out more than in the typical manuscript format used by the traditional houses and agents.

The extra spacing on double-spaced pages helps with line edits and copy edits, but I have found putting the text into a book format helps the story feel like something on the way to a final product.

For example, my excerpt post from the second chapter of Crown of the Orphic Queen that I posted last night has a few recent changes that my initial post of the first chapter does not have. I added an ‘E’ to Seph’s last name in two places to feminize it a bit more, and there is a spot where street lights is written instead of streetlights. This compound noun works best as a single word, even if the other is technically correct.

The biggest reason I do this is to see what my widows and orphans look like on the page in a final form. Sometimes words have much better punch if they’re not in an orphaned state by themselves on either extremity. I might need two separate lines, but if the separation occurs on the next page, it doesn’t quite work as well as seeing it in the midst of a page.

This is more of a craft thing, but I care about every aspect of the craft, including whether a line is set off from others for the best punch.

Single words can do so much as well.

Seeing it in 1.3 spacing versus double-spaced manuscript format helps with the vision.

My goal is to get a feel for how a reader will perceive the text far before it is published.

I need to know what the spacing looks like, what the chapter title breaks before the text look like, and the overall aesthetic of the novel.

Many of my samples here are not the last incarnation of the text.

My recent excerpts from Numinous: The Golden Tunists are from my most recent 8.0 revision of the text. I had to rewrite that novel not only for the vision behind it, but for the sake of making sure it’s right for people. If you know, you know. 👀😉