Intensive Editing Week Needed!

I need an intensive week of editing but since I'm doing overtime for the next two weeks I can’t see it happening. It turns out there’s a little bug in the script that I want to fix sooner rather than later. But rather than summing it up I'll let you see the feedback I was given that led me to this obvious conclusion.
(I pasted this straight in with only colour edits just for that authentic msn touch, so excuse the rambling and spelling errors etc.) 

Harlin says:

by the way i wanted to ask

Harlin says:

what did you think of what you read last night?

Zoe says:

its iiiinteresting ill tell you why

you know how i said you write really dramatic scenes and keep me on edge

Harlin says:

yeah

Zoe says:

and then you said you where worried that you rambed on and where boring or something..

Zoe says:

i cant remember exactly?

Harlin says:

worried that i ramble and drag it out in a really unexciting boring way

i remember saying that

Zoe says:

yeah. drag out.  well some scenes, where i dont know what is going to happpen, like the execution, thats where its super intense and heart racey

Zoe says:

and all dialoge is great.

Zoe says:

but when someone starts monoologuing a plan, or over explaining the sotry or whats going on and whats happened as we where with the l.joe gang, that can drag on a bit, but its not too bad with explainations like that,

Zoe says:

but when i already know the plan.. like say i know laythans going to walk through the sewers, has to get to a cetain place.. has to avoid ths that and the other of getting caught

Zoe says:

there is a lot, and i meen a lot, of scenes like that.  indevidual tasks and missions that they go on.  becuase its all so complex , the story

Zoe says:

and its fun when the characters are interacting and theres good dialogue and jokes and inventive stuff like rock slop  and the desciption of the sewers was great. really came alive.. i remember when i read that part ages ago you said bo felt sick from it

Zoe says:

so sometimes it really works

but other times it can be a bit same old same old when its laythen telling us what hes doing, where hes going and why hes doing it.

Zoe says:

so really, its show and not tell that needs to be embraced

Harlin says:

yeah thats what i was worried was happening

Zoe says:

it ups your word count. and it tells us things we dont know and explains things we might not be 100% sure of, and its all well written. great sentence structure. flows really well. theres nothing uncomfortable or tricky about the way you write...

Zoe says:

but it isnt neccessary for the story

Harlin says:

but its not as fun to read as the rest?

Zoe says:

i want to cut to the action action action characters characters

Zoe says:

yes.

Zoe says:

its like the scenes in a film they would cut in the edditing room

Harlin says:

yeah

Zoe says:

laythan thinks like you.  weve said before

and its very level headed,

and constantly analysing and processing whats happening in a methodical way

Zoe says:

it reminded me a lot of the 3rd book in the hunger games

thats all about a group of rebbels with a project to incite a rebeliion and bring down the Capitol (its even called capitol like yours is the capital. sorrryyy) 

Zoe says:

and it has cool invetive weapons like your world has

Harlin says:

arrrrrrrrrrrgh

wish these proffessionals would stop stealing my ideas lol

Zoe says:

and different armies and weird mutant creachers (like magnus bull apes) chasing them etc AND theres a lot of escaping/ambushing though the sewer system.

Harlin says:

argh what?!?!?

thats not fair!

Zoe says:

but its done very very well. and i really think youd benefit from reading it, to see how the action is paced out and what is put between the scenes to ballance it.

Zoe says:

 i know. im sorry. 

So...

It looks like I should read the Hunger Games. I've been avoiding those books since I started reading the first and hated the main character. She’s a bit too whiny and weak for my liking, personally. I like women to be machines and leave the boys to be the sensitive creatures with feelings. I know its backwards but that’s just what sits right with me. So I might give it a miss and see if I can work it out my own way.


I think Zoe is right about some of the scenes not cutting to the action quick enough and going into too much description. Much of the place description will be edited out once the artwork is completed anyway so I'll loose a good few thousand words right away. But that won’t change the fact that I've gotten into the habit of over explaining the characters situation and stating the obvious. I think I got in to the mindset that my audience are idiots... I don’t know how it happened but it’s not good! So I'll have to purge the scripts of these paragraphs of unnecessary explanation because they aren’t increasing the quality and it would be better to have character interaction in place. I also think that I need to stop having Laythan explaining a plan and just let it unfold so the reader finds out as he goes.


But if that’s the only criticism for the script then I'm doing great! After all, it’s not difficult to fix, it’s just a bit time consuming because of the amount of words I'll have to read through. I'm really excited about fine-combing it into something resembling perfection because that means it’s nearly done! Just need to finish writing the peak and after that Laythan's path is complete!


(P.S. Anyone curious about this dubious "Zoe" character can see her amazing artwork www.zoecox.tumblr.com because she’s wonderful!)