Anyone feel up for some editing?

[Ginger Herten]

I was wondering if anyone felt up to doing me a favor and giving my latest story a basic edit. It is a bit much for me to feel like I haven’t missed things, just under 44K words.

I’ve already cut about a thousand word or so, it’s still long. I could definitely use an opinion about where to possibly break it into parts.

I don’t want to impose again on the person who has done it so often already because they’re always willing and reliable.

[klaatu48]

Unfortunately, the next two weeks are really packed for me, but if you are still looking after that, I’ll try to help.

[Ginger Herten]

I’m just going to pop it up, and people reading it can make suggestions.

[klaatu48]

That works, too!

[Ginger Herten]

Klaatu, I realize I didn’t properly thank you for offering before I just found myself impatient.

Sorry about being so suddenly impatient like that. Part of it was that there’s a very casual mention of gay marriage in the story that was written before the threat to the SCOTUS ruling on the subject was explicitly threatened. I’d vaguely considered writing that part out, but had decided not to since the decision hasn’t been over turned yet. Them I was talking about the subject and I suddenly just really felt urgent about getting it up while talking about it casually still felt at least vaguely realistic.

Of course realistically, gay couples are no longer just going to be casual about it. It’s taken on a level of urgency.

[Stan]

Ginger are you still interested in suggestions from the peanut gallery about ways of tightening this story? What I’ve seen that I would edit if it were my story are the occasional redundancy and an over abundance of prepositions. It appears you’re contemplating a deeper level of editing though.
This is a good and I think important story that I hope you don’t abandon. You touch on so many important things from the horrible early life of Michael to the dangers of being connected that I for one would like to see it known to a much wider audience than it has here.

I realise that you probably aren’t too keen on working with someone you don’t know and I won’t be free to do much for a couple of weeks anyway and even then, I’ll have less than one spare week until September.

What I’m trying to get across is that this story is more than just a good read or a fun, sexy, little story.
Stan

[Ginger Herten]

Stan, are you suggesting that I expand this into the gay version of the great american novel? I relly don’t think I’m up for that.

[Stan]

No, not quite that Ginger, but in the wedding segment you have most of the elements to make the story far more topical in relation to the threat to gay marriage. But, it would mean reworking or perhaps fine-tuning other areas of the story along slightly different lines. Of course, if you’re not up to it, then that’s that.

[Ginger Herten]

I wrote the wedding part, including the very casual conversation where they assumed that they could just go Vegas, before that stopped being a safe assumption. I considered going back and reworking it, but I was writing it in the past tense anyway, really in a fairly specific time frame of weddings that had been delayed because of the pandemic happening, so decided let it live in that time period between people feeling we’ve gotten to post-pandemic life but before we entered the post-roe-v-wade era, even though that places it in a pretty narrow time frame. I did imagine a handful of wedding guests still wearing masks, but decided to not mention it.

Stories going forward, will take place with a PRVW mindset, where I no longer take these rights for granted, but it’s also so to let the past stand as history. I do realize that in the grand sense of history, internet kink stories aren’t exactly major references, but in many ways the casual stuff is more real.

[klaatu48]

Don’t worry, Ginger — no offense taken! I know how urgency can over-ride all other impulses at times, especially given the circumstances you mentioned.

Personally, I’m optimistic that things have changed enough where even if the court revisits Obergfell (which I don’t think is a certainty yet, though I’m not sure which lawsuits are working their way through the courts), we might have federal protections in place by the time it does. But I can understand why people are nervous… nothing is for sure anymore.

[Ginger Herten]

Well this conversation ended up inspiring me and I got practically no real work done yesterday.

[Author]

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