I can see issues with something I was sent right off the bat:
- Formatting
- Dialogue tags
- Varying tags too much
- No tags were needed
- Topic jumping
- Stilted dialogue
- Scenes/Bits that seem to do nothing for the story
But. I like to help. I really do. I'm just having a little trouble finding a balance between 'this is wrong, this doesn't work, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...' and 'Oh, it was wonderful, Darling.'
I don't want to come off as 'I'm better than you and these are all the reasons why you suck' but I really want to tear this thing to ribbons when I was only supposed to do light editing.
There are a lot of comments that I've made in the margins.
So.
I think I'm going to get through the couple pages I was asked to do as a kind of trial run and then pass it off to a friend to see if I'm being too harsh right off the bat. There's a lot I could pick up on but I don't want to throw it back to them dripping red ink. People get indignant when you do that.
Maybe stick to light editing for now and then just mention that there are things I'd like to work with him on and clean up? I don't even know right now...
I'll figure it out when everyone gets up in the morning. (That's one of the issues with being nocturnal - if you have a problem, you're either waking people up or waiting until sun-up. #vampireproblems)
Anyway. I'm gonna go and eat cold macaroni and cheese while I slog through the dialogue and try to figure out what to say about it other than 'fix this'. Am I a real artist yet?
