Questions and Answers

A: Well, thanks to ProWritingAid and a premium Grammarly subscription, proofreading was a breeze as it did everything for me. It also plagiarism-checked everything. Copy-editing, however, needed the human element — it could only do half of the work.

The main issue was that my initial prose had too long sentences and paragraphs. They also used too many adjectives and overly-thick descriptions. I was worried about the vocabulary being too dense. The original readability grade was about 10.5, with a readability ease of 57. Now it is 5.8 and 74 respectively. Thus, that was originally far too inaccessible. Thus, I spent many months toning down the vocabulary, excessive metaphors, shortened sentences and removed redundant descriptions. It was not to repeat the mistakes in the novel “The Eye of Argon.” However, I also had to find a balance — if I toned it down too much, it would be ‘dumbing down.’ Thus, after much editing, I felt I had achieved a readability level that is accessible yet substantial enough. If it is toned down any further, it will lose any of its vital contents. Then I also had to cut down on passive word usage a lot.

The illustration was a pain as I had to illustrate everything, except for the book’s front and back covers.

I do not presume my works to be flawless. I’ve done my best in many months of editing and feel I have done enough. I also did my best to ensure that things are always happening despite the vivid descriptions and psychological reflection scenes. The goal is to ensure flow and interest. The pacing had to be proper, with appropriate alternating scenes for introspection and action. They had to come together in a balanced manner while avoiding inadequacies or excesses.

Next, I had to ensure that my prose is clear enough. Thanks a lot to Grammarly, I was able to streamline my sentences very significantly. The last time I checked, if I am not wrong, Readabler gave my entire novel a “grade A” readability rating. That was before even more significant editing was set in, so it should be even better now. Using ProWritingAid, I pruned out even more redundancies, and now the novels rate very highly on all the software’s writing indicators.

Many problems which I faced, now resolved are: over-description, over-showing, over-elaboration, over-explanation, over-introspection, long dialogues, mono-tones, improper thought and dialogue tags, unusual non-said and non-ask dialogue tags, over-reporting, being either too direct or implicit, over-telling, throat-clearing, info-dumping, lack of balance and flow, redundancies, purple prose, poor starting chapters, inconsistencies, insufficient sentence variety, punctuation issues, formatting errors, structural issues in some arcs, pacing problems, lack of focus and relevance in some parts, excessive formality, too many technicalities, being too theoretical and abstract, over-revealing, over-announcing, lack of character and voice, lack of personality differentiation, jarring battles, too much causal attribution, “feeding” the readers too much, etc. This is not an exhaustive list.

Lastly, I faced a lot of problems regarding the content for Thus Spake Oneness and the deciphering of Ei’lara. Originally, they were way too technical and intellectual. Some parts were also too long. To ensure that my works are more accessible, I pruned them by between 20 to 50%. I also noticed that some internal dialogs were way too over-dramatizing or excessive. Thus, many were pruned.

Since it is such a long work, a single person cannot possibly see to perfection without any help from others. I’ve done my best — that’s all I can say.