The Editing and Revision Process: A Dramatization
AUTHOR: Hey! Chapter Six! Get your ass out here for a moment!
CHAPTER SIX: Where are you?
AUTHOR: Out behind the woodshed.
CHAPTER SIX: What do you need me for?
AUTHOR: I need a hand lifting something heavy. Won't take long, honest.
CHAPTER SIX: Okay, I guess. (CHAPTER SIX walks around the corner of the woodshed , and looks around confusedly.) Something heavy? Where? I don't see anyth. . .
(AUTHOR raises a semi-automatic pistol and pulls the trigger twice. There are two loud cracks; CHAPTER SIX is double-tapped in the head and pitches forward, unmoving).
AUTHOR: Hey! Chapter Five and Chapter Seven! Get out here and give me a hand with this!
(CHAPTER FIVE and CHAPTER SEVEN appear around the corner of the woodshed and are aghast to find AUTHOR, smoking gun in hand, standing over the body of CHAPTER SIX.)
CHAPTER FIVE: Oh my god! You killed him!
AUTHOR: He wasn't pulling his own weight any more, boys. Too many redundancies. POV discrepancies. Way too much exposition, not enough action. He had to go.
CHAPTER SEVEN: This will cause some continuity problems! For me, I mean!
AUTHOR: You're being re-written.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Wait! Please, anything but that, can't we at least talk about...
AUTHOR: I said rewritten, you idiot, not removed. Six had to be removed. You just need to be tidied up.
CHAPTER FIVE: So what do we do with what's left of Chapter Six?
AUTHOR: Go through his pockets for loose dialogue and description. We can hide some of the body in Chapter Three. The rest of him gets thrown into a shallow Word file. And forgotten, understood?
CHAPTER SEVEN: Of course, of course.
AUTHOR: When we're done, nobody but the copy-editor will know he ever existed at all. Now get to work.
CHAPTER SIX: Where are you?
AUTHOR: Out behind the woodshed.
CHAPTER SIX: What do you need me for?
AUTHOR: I need a hand lifting something heavy. Won't take long, honest.
CHAPTER SIX: Okay, I guess. (CHAPTER SIX walks around the corner of the woodshed , and looks around confusedly.) Something heavy? Where? I don't see anyth. . .
(AUTHOR raises a semi-automatic pistol and pulls the trigger twice. There are two loud cracks; CHAPTER SIX is double-tapped in the head and pitches forward, unmoving).
AUTHOR: Hey! Chapter Five and Chapter Seven! Get out here and give me a hand with this!
(CHAPTER FIVE and CHAPTER SEVEN appear around the corner of the woodshed and are aghast to find AUTHOR, smoking gun in hand, standing over the body of CHAPTER SIX.)
CHAPTER FIVE: Oh my god! You killed him!
AUTHOR: He wasn't pulling his own weight any more, boys. Too many redundancies. POV discrepancies. Way too much exposition, not enough action. He had to go.
CHAPTER SEVEN: This will cause some continuity problems! For me, I mean!
AUTHOR: You're being re-written.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Wait! Please, anything but that, can't we at least talk about...
AUTHOR: I said rewritten, you idiot, not removed. Six had to be removed. You just need to be tidied up.
CHAPTER FIVE: So what do we do with what's left of Chapter Six?
AUTHOR: Go through his pockets for loose dialogue and description. We can hide some of the body in Chapter Three. The rest of him gets thrown into a shallow Word file. And forgotten, understood?
CHAPTER SEVEN: Of course, of course.
AUTHOR: When we're done, nobody but the copy-editor will know he ever existed at all. Now get to work.