Editing

[Bob the Mercenary]

I'm happy to say I finally placed my order for Nuklear Age yesterday after months of procrastination. After I ordered it I started reading the reviews listed near the bottom of the page (which is kind of backwards now that I think of it) and one in particular caught my eye.

I cannot stress this enough, the book is hysterical but seriously needs an editor. I don't know if iUniverse provides one but is just fantastically poor at editing or what, but this book needs an editor the way most people need air to breathe.

There are a number of reasons for this:

1. An editor would have taken out all the jokes that were outright stolen from the Simpsons. ("Who did what with the what now?")

2. An editor would have taken out Mr. Clevinger's excessive colons that are all across this book. Everything is a Danger: Living Room, or Scientific: Calculator or Evil: Crosshairs. None of those things should have colons in them. Not one. They're EVERYWHERE in the book.

3. An editor would have suggested recycling fewer jokes. Mr. Clevinger is hysterical. I love 8bt, but this book is differently funny with different jokes and I love them. But any joke you enjoyed (except, thus far, the best joke of them all from the very first encounter in the book) will wind up being used again... and again ad infinitum in the book.

4. An editor might have suggested splitting the book up. Dunno if it would have been for the best, but this thing really rambles. It has a caveat explaining the episodic nature of the book, and that's cool, but tv shows are episodic and comic books are episodic, but neither of those come in one humongous shot like this. The only other episodic thing I can think of that comes in one massive tome are epic poems, which this bares no resemblance to. There are whole storylines in this book that complete by page 300. Multiple books were good enough for Douglas Adams, (an obvious influence on Clevinger, and rightly so.) so why not Brian Clevinger?

4. Gr@mmar Mistekas. Evary pAge. and Mori then Just 1ne. It is the most jarring thing in the world. I'm talking thousands of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes in the book, and I'm not exaggerating.

5. An editor would have written the following note to Mr. Clevinger. "The midget samurai is racist. We should take him out entirely." I don't know if anything would have come of it, but the note needed to be written.

6. It just needs to be trimmed, man! I mean, there are dead sections with no funny for pages. They're MORE than made up for by the impending funny, of course, but it's dead weight in an already obese tome.

Either way, the book is amazing. I think it's funny and original and I love it. The above flaws are flaws with his publisher more than anything else, and I don't intend to penalize the book too much because of it.

I hope this book is a huge success for him, but that he uses that success to get published by a real publisher, next time, rather that using the success to insist that POD internet publishers are the way to go.

I'm just interested in what Brian would say to this. I'd also like some readers' opinions. The guy seems pretty honest in his review, plus he gave the book 4/5 stars.

[PraetorZorak]

I think this reviewer is a bit out of his gourd.

Sure, there were some spelling and grammar issues, but, as we all know, Brian had something of a problem with editors because his kept dying. Really.

He obviously missed out on the whole labelmaker issue.

Funny things don't just originate with the simpsons. I have watched very few episodes myself, so I didn't find anything in the book to have stolen from the simpsons. Also, the Simpsons also just take things that are already funny and just add them to the show. "Who did what with the what now?" Hell, I've said that myself. Prior to reading this, I never knew it was on the simpsons, and I still find my self not caring. People have been saying things like this for far longer than the simsons have been around.

Part of what makes the book so funny is the recycled jokes, in mockery of modern humor, and how they show up in certain situations. I'm quite sure this was on purpose. And I get the joke there, too.

Split the book up? Are you nuts?

The book is amazing. It's the most original, unpredictable work I've read in a very long time.

Racist? No. Does it spoof traditional stereotypes? Yes!

[Kurosen]

1. There's, like, 2 in 660 pages. I make more references to Star Wars alone than the Simpsons.

2. I think he misunderstood the colons. One of the running gags is that Nuklear Man got a label maker and he labels everything. To emulate the all pervasive nature of this in the book, things in Nuke's home are often referred to as Danger: Couch instead of couch. Other people have Scientific: Equipment or what have you. It's left up to the reader to decide if Nuke put those labels there or if their owners were influenced by him.

3. Not sure what he's talking about here. Running gags are a staple of 8BT and I honed that in Nuklear Age.

4. Splitting up the book is problematic. Also, comics and television shows do come in "large chunks". They are called Trade Paperbacks and DVDs respectively. I'm not sure how it's my fault that this guy couldn't be bothered to read the book the way it suggests on the first page.

4a. My first editor died before I ever got the finished product, thus delaying the release of Nuklear Age by a year. The second editor got bone cancer while not even half way through and delayed it some more. I gave up on killing people and decided to do my best to edit it myself. That's when the hurricanes hit and deprived me of power, internet access, and phone lines for several months. What little editing I finished didn't really make it to the publishers who, not having heard otherwise from me because there was no way to contact them, forged ahead with the largely unedited edition. To make matters worse, they somehow introduced a ton of errors of their own when they formatted the text.

5. The samurai is racist. So is the Scotsman and to a lesser extent the Irishman. The French are made fun of but never depicted. Also, there's a scene in a gay bar that ought to be offensive to homosexuals. The point of all these outlandish characters, as ought to be obvious to anyone, is that stereotypes are inherently ridiculous. That this guy focused only on Shiro confuses me. The "racist" thing about Shiro is that he speaks in gibberish. It's making fun of poorly subtitled bootleg anime and fansubbers who are crap. It's explicitly state in the book that Shiro learned English by watching American movies with Japanese subtitles that were translated from the English script to French subtitles, then to Chinese, then back to French, and then into Japanese. Neither his speech nor Shiro himself are depicted as stupid or subhuman for this, it's just a joke. In fact, Shiro tends to be in the top three of favorite characters because he's so charming and heroic.

6. Again, not sure what's going on. Everything that happens either sets up something else that's big and important or gives you flavor/information about one or more characters or their world.

[Kairamek]

At the risk of sounding like a typical banal "modern artist" who thinks the high point of artistry in the last five years was a guy who pissed in a jar and dropped a crusafix in it (no joking), I don't think he got it. Seriously, everything he said besides the grammer problems was part of the great big joke that was the book.

Noting the Shiro thing specifically, EVERYONE was a stereotype. Nuke was the "big dumb egocentric jock." Atomic Lad was the Joe Everyman who we are to identify with despite the obvious fact we can't (I don't know about you but I don't recall accidently killing my parents over eating peas. Angus was a raging drunk Scotsman. Shamus was a happy friendly drunk Irishman. Normal was a black proffesional athlete. Rachel was the gamer-girl-who-can-beat-any-male-that-lays-a-hand-on-a-control stereotype that has become so popular in "Me Too" gamer written webcomics. Dr. Menace is a mix of the sexy supervillianess, mad eastern European genius bent on world dominations, and the villian who may be more than she appears. Dr. Genius is the brilliant scientist who's only true passion research, and God help anyone who catches her Scientific: Eye. Shiro is a samuri/anime/bad engrish hybrid. And so on. I thought that was part of the point of the book, blatent over use of stereotypes setting the reader up to expect a stereotypical victory-against-all-odds-with-only-property-damage at the end so the curve ball really catches you off guard.

Basically this guy's review tells us what would have happened to the book in the mainstream media and reminds us to be thankful Brian didn't have to sacrifice quality for sellability.

[Skyshot]

I'm talking thousands of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes in the book, and I'm not exaggerating.
No, there are not thousands. Trust me. I have a slightly above-par (for my age level) grasp of spelling and grammar. While there were a lot of mistakes, there weren't nearly thousands. Therefore, you are exaggerating.

And I like well-done recycled gags. That's what made them funny, in a way: they were re-used. Danger: Computer Lady being shorted out by Nuke was made funnier by the fact he had already done so to Mechanikill.

And Moron needs to grasp that the colons are, themselves, a joke. Jerkface.

Regarding #5, you can bet whinyliberals (space intentionally left out) will complain about Shiro. Even if he is one of the most charming and heroic, they'll just see what they want to see, sans reasoning. That's because they're idiots. If I were to recommend taking him out (and I'm not), it would be to stop the liberal idiots from getting you shut down, rather than because I was offended. And I am offended by deliberate racism.

Anyway, most of the "racist" jokes were made acceptable by Angus calling himself a cultural stereotype. Saying it's a stereotype means "hey, I know it's not always the case!"

Conclusion: Weenie should write his own book before whining about someone else's.

You know, for a while I've been considering going through [the] book, finding all the errors, and e-mailing them to Brian. Wonder if he'd be up to that. It wouldn't take me long, it only took me three days to read the whole thing the first time. And I'm much cheaper (read: free) and less whiny than a pro editor.

[Kurosen]

The re-edit is already in the works by someone in good health.

[PraetorZorak]

...for now.

[Viper Daimao]

may God have mercy on their soul. Amen.

[Napoleon98]

Whoever wrote that review is 'special.' Obviously he has a warped sense of time seeing as apparently all humor originates from the Simpsons, this the Simpsons came first and all that they say is good and holy...Ok, I love the Simpsons, but God knows that every other line in just a re-used joke, or a (possibly)original parody of a current situation... All I gotta sy is great book! Who cares if there's a few editorial errors? For the most part it didn't take away from the experience the book gave.
And yes, I fear that if this editor does not pull through than Nuklear Age and/or Brian will become the plague of the editorial world :X

[Skyshot]

The re-edit is already in the works by someone in good health.

Great, I'll get right...on...eh? *Re-reads post*

No...no.

Brian, how could you? All I offer is an act of love, and you reject me! Why? Why?! Am I not good enough? Fine then, I'll show you who's not good enough! I'll show you ALL -

*SMACK!*

Oh, okay. Well, if bad things happen in threes, and something goes wrong with this new editor's health, I should be fine. Offer's still up.

And now, for a gratuitous bad pun...

2. An editor would have taken out Mr. Clevinger's excessive colons that are all across this book. Everything is a Danger: Living Room, or Scientific: Calculator or Evil: Crosshairs. None of those things should have colons in them. Not one. They're EVERYWHERE in the book.


I'd say he is an excessive colon. BARRUMPUMPPUMB!-PSSSSH!

[gizmodude4]

While we are on the subject of editing, I know somebody who is looking for an editor. He has looked on the internet and found many editors, but they will only edit it if he pays between 500-600 dollars. He has a very small budget to work on but wants his work published.

I suggested trying to just give it to traditional publishers and they may have their own editors, but he wants it edited before he sends it.

Anyway, onto my question(s)

1. Does anyone know an editor who will not steal the authors work (he's paranoid) and has a decent rate?

2. Should he go with just trying to send it out to traditional publishers to see if they would edit it for him (like I suggested, but be was being to much of a fat head to listen)?

Thanks in advance for answering my questions if you do.

[Napoleon98]

If he's really that paranoid jsut sit him down and explain that if he has ANY evidence that he wrote it first, they'll loose the impending lawsuit :p I'd say talk to any publishers about his situation, and see if they have their own editors that he could use.. If not, then have him give it to his friends, friends are free :p , though notably less reliable in such situations...

[gizmodude4]

He doesn't trust us to edit because we're not professional and might miss some errors. He also makes the good point that he started writing the book when he was 12, which makes it a bit inconsistant in writing styles and not as smart and witty in others. Since it was written over such a long period of time, he also uses some of the same adjectives too. (He's telling me this over the phone). He wants it to be as consistant and smooth as possible.

"Independent editor to edit it in order make it easier to read and more effective for when I send it into the publishers," he says. "Any help is appreciated!"

Thanks guys.

[Mashirosen]

1. Does anyone know an editor who will not steal the authors work (he's paranoid)

No professional editor is ever going to do this. No offense to your friend, but that attitude is really kind of dumb -- it reminds me of the people who insist that we must be INTARWEB CREDIT PIRATES because their shirts haven't arrived two days after they ordered them. Why would we risk our reputation (and freedom!) just to steal a measly twenty bucks from one person? Why would an editor bother to steal a story idea that may not even be marketable?

Between that and other things you've said, it kinda sounds like your friend doesn't have a very realistic view of writing for publication. He probably ought to pick up some books about the subject before he starts sending off his manuscript -- some of them will be better than others, but most of them are probably going to offer the same basic advice (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/102-7875444-0098518?field-keywords=guide+to+getting+published&mode=blended&tag=mozilla-20&sourceid=Mozilla-search).

[Thought]

Gizomodude, I would also suggest that this friend of yours build a reputation before sending a book into a publisher. Brian was able to get away with publishing a book on his own because he already had a solid base that would buy his book. If your friend tries to independently publish his book it will not do well (unless, like Brian, he controls a wildly popular webcomic of the equivalent). Ah, you say, but he wants to send it to an established publisher. But, says I, established publishers have better things to do than take chances (as Brian's experiences have shown us). You friend would have to have an amazing book, the sort that blows Nuklear Age a way, puts Ender's Game to shame, etc etc etc. Most publishers get a lot of books every year but they only publish so many. Thus, it makes more sense to fill those spots with authors that have a reputation of selling than ones that might not do well. It means they miss out on the Nuklear Ages of the world but they score on most everything else.

How do you gain a reputation? Write short stories and send them into literary magazines (Asimov, Analog, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Bob Magazine-o-Words, etc). They have such a large volume that they are much more willing to publish unknown authors (and, if you look hard enough, you can find some that do nothing but). Additionally, you can make some coin that way, which will then help pay for an editor.

Also, it tends to be assumed that works you submit are copyrighted. If your friend gets it legally copyrighted (through the government), or something of the sort, it shows the would-be-publishers just how green he is.