'First', revised! · 7:30am Jul 26th, 2014
Yes, it's true! At long last, First is revised after my having taken the time to do a couple good and thorough editing passes through it... Two and a half years later, now that I know how to grammar and such.
Dialogue is cleaned up and, in a few places, shortened a bit. Sentences are less run-on (which I've been horrible about in the past) and often restructured to be much less awkward. Periods have been replaced with commas in places with said tags. The layout of the text itself is adjusted here and there to be more visually consistent and more flowing to read. I did all kinds of good stuff to this thing to fix some of the problems it had.
I came to a realization in the process: man, I totally had no idea what I was doing back then!
Makes me kinda wish I'd just read one the many good style guides available in the first place, instead of insisting on learning grammar by trial and error (mostly error). Oh well.
In terms of subject matter and content, that hasn't changed much. I like what's there. The story has sometimes been criticized for weaknesses it's perceived to have on those grounds, but it is what it's supposed to be and says what I want it to say. I really don't think the investment in giving it major rewrites now is really the best thing to do, versus putting that time into new stories that I really want to tell. There's also the fact that many people who've read it were very moved by it as it is, with a few even telling me it's one of their all-time most liked favorites that moved them to tears, and I feel like it would almost be sort of a betrayal of that to go meddling with it and editing for content and reconning stuff at this point.
So... Those of you who haven't read it yet and decide to, I hope you enjoy. For those of you who have read it, well, now it's just that much better! :)
