Shame

Even though I promised myself that I would wait until my readers' edits came back to look at The Other Side of Light again, I keep opening the document and looking it over. Partially it's because I'm still very invested in the story, which is good, but partially it's because I'm avoiding editing my play, which is bad.

In any case, as I edit, I am ashamed at the amount of formatting and tiny plot mistakes there are. I can't believe I sent it off like this! It's not completely my fault- I compiled all of the different sections in Scrivener and either it's a fault in the beta or a fault in my brain, but the formatting wasn't perfect. Some lines will be combined with others, a bigger-than-normal space the only indication that I might have meant something different than appears there.

But worse are the moments where I discover the tiny little pieces of an old plot point lurking in a new place in the novel. For example, Lyddie, the main character, goes to a dance at one point because I needed to get her out of the house for other reasons. Until mid-November, Lyddie and her sister had fought before Lyddie left. But once I realised that Lyddie needed another relationship to raise the stakes, the dance served the purpose of not getting her out of the house, but dangling her crush in front of her and yanking him away (she does get together with him later.) I moved the fight scene to much, much later (more than 31, 500 words later) and had her sister willingly offer to do Lyddie's job while Lyddie went to the dance.

It all worked out, plot-wise, but I've been discovering tiny little things that I overlooked. For example, even though Lyddie left the house in good terms with her sister, when her phone rings and it's her sister, Lyddie thinks of how annoyed she still is with her. Oops... And while it might not seem like a huge deal (perhaps it's not), the poor people who are reading this novel are going to be confused. I can just see the comments now: "Where did this plot point come from? Why would she be angry at her sister?" *sigh* It's not the end of the world, but it does disturb my perfectionist's mind. I get embarrassed when I make a mistake in a Facebook status. To make so many in a novel is, to me, tragic.

But then, I'm a bit of a drama queen.