Thank you!
Read that entire Twitter storm. She is not happy with her copyeditor. Not. At. All.
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It is pretty epic.
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It makes me want to be a copyeditor, because I would do a way better job than this one. I understand that my job would be to stay out of the authorâs way.
Then again, there are some types of author with whom I really would not want to work.
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I read things in the order they were written (which isnât necessarily chronological in terms of narrative, as others have described). I donât want to miss subtle references and call-backs to the earlier stories - which, to the point here, are often not fully fleshed-out, just mere references.
Iâm not a huge fan of the dropping-into-a-chase-scene trope - clichĂ© - but it depends. It works for James Bond, because those stories are all about clichĂ© (and the opening scene is unconnected with the main plot). In an average sci-fi story, itâs a signal that itâs, well, just an average sci-fi story.
It wouldnât bother me to not know who Alice is in the context here, but I would expect a fuller introduction relatively soon, or else itâs odd, at best, to bring her up like this.
In fact, this sentence feels to me explicitly like the beginning of an introduction of Alice more than anything else, which may be the real reason readers were dismayed at not getting the rest of the introduction (discounting those who have trouble with anything that isnât completely linear).
It doesnât necessarily have to be in the next few sentences - character-description-as-paragraph-length-aside is something I donât particularly like - but for example the narrator might have interludes in her overall description of the scene over the next several pages with her thoughts about Alice, as they organically pertain to the scene.
Of course that would change the overall meaning and purpose of the scene, and would even change the narratorâs character, indicating that sheâs preoccupied with Alice when sheâs supposed to be concentrating on the task at hand.
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Depends on the program! [quote=âLearnedCoward, post:54, topic:98162â]
Iâm anticipating a nationwide brain drain.
[/quote]
I donât think the rest of the world can absorb the excess, nor are all of us able to just up and leave the country fro greener pastures.
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[quote=âMindysan33, post:66, topic:98162â]
I donât think the rest of the world can absorb the excess[/quote]
I think the rest of the world can, and will, absorb the excess. At a certain level, competition is global, so thatâs already happening. However, if demand starts to grossly outstrip supply anytime soon, it will likely be because jobs are eliminated, and thatâs even worse.
I had no choice but to leave Indiana after graduation. There were no jobs there. I could have just as easily gone to another country as I could have another state. I didnât have to leave the country, but I was seriously preparing to. Not everybody is in that position, but a lot of people understand that they will have to move after graduation, and maybe move far.
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Weâll see.[quote=âLearnedCoward, post:67, topic:98162â]
I had no choice but to leave Indiana after graduation.
[/quote]
Sure. There are plenty of people with the opposite problem, family obligations keeping them put, for example.
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I was musing on books with âprerequisitesâ as I was trying to pick SF books my 14 yo daughter would like, she reads the usual YA dystopias. A lot of modern SF doesnât have a lot of exposition, you seem required to know the basic tropes. William Gibson or Cory is tough if youâre unfamiliar with what theyâre referring to in passing.
Ex: In âNew Rose Hotelâ Gibson mentions things like âcorporate arcologyâ, and âsynthetic beta-endorphinâ but never explains. Neither are critical, but add to the enjoyment knowing what heâs referring to. I found âDown And OutâŠâ similar, he used old tropes as the building blocks of his story and I thought if you were unfamiliar it would be a tough slog. I guess it allows you to write at another level without having to explain basics the way they explained computers, microgravity and vacuum in the 1940âs, but it must be hard for some.
A friend who was denied tenure at Rutgers picked up his family and moved to Sydney! Seemed pretty radical.
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Iâve got three words for the critique group. 
âGood morning, Diane.â (âAgent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks)
I donât need everything up front. I donât even necessarily need everything to be explained eventually.
Sometimes you do have to temporarily accommodate a critique group but your audience might not have the same issues.
On the other hand, itâs a good idea to get the most out of their feedback while you can. The critique group may try to make an issue if theyâre having trouble finding one ⊠or they might say something that sounds off base if they canât figure out whatâs really bothering them or how to express the issue theyâve found. A lot of different possibilities.
Critique is a specialized skill. Even more specialized when itâs for editing purposes than for literary criticism in general.
If your group isnât just throwing their equivalent of Strunk & White at you, it might help to ask them for clarification about what they mean. That might mean helping them figure it out.
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Why would they mean anything by their critiques? Who needs meaning when you have a list of more or less arbitrary guidelines used as hard and fast rules?
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