Blast you, past self and your passive voice!

Project: TFI

Looked at: Chapter 4 and 5

Starting word count: 81,093

Ending word count: 80,915

Gain/Loss: -178

Biggest problem: The most common problem was passive voice. Then again, from here on out, it's all first draft stuff that I'm going over. I have a feeling it's going to get a lot worse.

Favorite line:

"You are to secure this case. If you encounter any wildlife during your stay, you are not to harm said wildlife under any circumstances whatsoever. Failure to do so will result in severe disciplinary action from the board for infringement of the Planetary Restoration Act."

Great. So if a herd of monkeys ambushed them, we're expected to just stand there and wave? After wondering this, Jana tried very hard to stay focused on the mission briefing, but her mind kept turning to thoughts about whether or not a group of monkeys was a herd.

Daily WTF: Today's WTF isn't a specific line. It's my past self's apparent lack of ability to write in active voice.

_______________________________________________________________________

Stupid, stupid passive voice! I was amazed at how wishy-washy it was. So there I was, going through my manuscript mercilessly hacking it to pieces, when I noticed a trend. I am now sufficiently depressed at going through the rest of this. I can already tell it's going to be one hell of a ride. Only, it won't be the good kind. It's gonna be one of those rickety, wooden coasters that I hate. I mean it! Every time I've ever gone on a wood roller coaster, I end up with black and blue marks. I can't help it that I bruise easily.

On another note, I've started to come up with things I need to fix in this (or the next) run through. This is including, but not limited to; Giving more information early on about the military and setup of the government, expanding the relationship between Jana and Aeronth, fleshing out the Earth mission more, and other things that I don't want to give away.

My plans for this edit are just to go through and tighten it up a bit. Change all the passive voice to active, get rid of any clichés, that sort of stuff. I've got someone looking at the first two chapters, and we'll see how that turns out. I've got some great new ideas that I'll play around with for inclusion in the next version. Wish me luck!