Last time on Writing Rewind we got a kickstart into this bloated disaster of a story as our hero, Heiwa, received a letter imploring him to attend a mysterious meeting. Is he finally about to embark on the adventure he’s always dreamed of and achieve the chance of a lifetime? Probably. I mean, there’s still 200,000+ words to go, so something obviously happens.

To set the scene, since I skipped over some exposition to get to the first selection for this chapter, Heiwa is at the airship base with his new friend, Daisuke, whom he met on the way. Along with several other members of the military who received the same strange letter, they are now waiting for the mysterious meeting to begin…

Without further ado, here we go!

KEY/GUIDE:
Strikethrough = cut out
Highlight = rephrase/reword/awk
Blue highlight = minor additions
DANGER RED HIGHLIGHT= massive cringe

….Lord, I need a drink. We’re getting into character descriptions. This is going to get messy. I wonder how many “tall and muscular” male characters I’ve got in this; I’m sure it’s several.

So, here are my initial scans…

It’s hack n’ slash time!!!

Per usual, all of this can be condensed a considerable amount – there are ideas expressed in 2 to 3 sentences that could have been accomplished in 1. Also, there is a lot that needs to be rephrased for clarity and to fix some clunkiness.

And here is the fixed version:

The three paragraphs have been shaved down to two, and the descriptions – of both the setting and our new character, Kaminari – are much more concise. Not every detail spelled out, but just enough to (hopefully) paint some sort of a picture.

Further along, we have this gem:

I think it is quite obvious that I did not know what I wanted the airship to look like, so I threw some random features into the description and hoped that was enough. Also, “unmei” means “fate” or “destiny” in Japanese… see what I did there? It’s like when they say the title of a movie in the movie!… I’ll see myself out.

So, here are my pinpointed corrections…

Literally cannot believe I used the word “radical” in this context. Daisuke’s dialogue is going to generate a lot more cringe as we go along, because if I remember correctly, he has a “surfer dude” style of speech that comes across as completely terrible.

Also, there’s a lot of trimming to be done here, some punctuation tweaks with the last bit of dialogue, and a few sentence removals to eliminate unnecessary or redundant ideas.

So here’s the fixed version:

A bit clearer; less bogged down. I slimmed down the description of the airship because it does get explained (in painstaking detail) later on, and I’ve chopped out some needless words and sentences, because this entire segment is dragged out wayyyyyy too long. I think this version is still relatively coherent, despite the changes.

Moving on bring us to…

We meet the general again; the fellow from the prologue! It’s all falling into place now! I think he’s a cold, intimidating guy, but not sure what would have given that impression…

We’re getting into the nitty-gritty of the mission (with is super improbable, but whatever) now, but the major issue in this selection is obviously the character description of the general, Matthias – who is a main character, if my deliberate pandering failed to make that clear. He was my favorite character at the time that I wrote this, and that should be obvious by the amount of superfluous detail I provided on his appearance, and my constant mentioning of his “cold” personality and features. There are some other issues to address, like the typical wordiness to eliminate and sentences to rephrase, but the character description is the glaring one.

I’m all for character descriptions in stories, whether they be gradual or spelled out at the start, but I definitely now lean more to the side that they should be as brief as possible if it’s all going to be dumped in one place. Outfits do not needs to be described down to every last button or thread, and hairstyles do not need to be detailed down to every last hair. Simple is best, for most cases.

Here is the fixed version:

I probably could have shaved the character details down even more, but it’s definitely less wordy than the previous version. I’ve described Matthias without going too overboard. I also cut down on some of Dr. Black’s (the mastermind of the mission) speech about the mission. Exposition is still important, but the more to-the-point it is, the better, and it was getting a bit rambly.

Speaking of rambly… there is one more paragraph of description for Matthias…

Wow. That is bad. That is a paragraph straight out of the “what not to do” manual of writing character descriptions; literally an entire paragraph about how cold his eyes are, which was already stated IN HIS PREVIOUS APPEARANCE. Good lord, based on this description his eyes could join the Justice League! This illustrates the very definition of ad nauseam.

So, these are my proposed changes:

It is all cringe-worthy and it all NEEDS TO DIE.

So, there is no fixed version to post, because it was razed entirely. It is gone FOREVER, sliced from existence, and I hope it burns.

Lastly, we have this segment:

Same old, same old – wordy and awkward. Nothing too terribly major, but improvements can definitely be made. It’s time to bring out the axe and the red pen…

“Brown eyes twinkling in the winter sun” probably should have earned a red highlight, but I think the previous selection was enough cringe for today.

Also, a “confidential meeting” of this nature probably shouldn’t have been held outside during the day, where outsiders could possibly hear. Security is tight and the base is well away from the city itself, so it could be plausible, but if I were doing a complete rewrite, I could probably have held the meeting inside the hangar as opposed to the outside.

The edited version is a bit simpler, but still gets the point across. So far, this series has definitely been an exploration in being succinct – or significantly less verbose.

And there we have it; chapter 2 was finished all in one post, though I assure you, there were many more opportunities. Now we know that the mysterious mission is a year-long adventure on an amazing airship, though details are still sparse! Next time, we venture onto chapter 3, where Daisuke attempts to convince Heiwa to go along on the mission, despite his obligations at home. Will he succeed?!? Spoiler alert; he does. Wouldn’t be much of a story is Heiwa stayed home, would it?

Stay tuned for Chapter 3: The Hardest Decision. I have my trusty axe ready to chop, and I’m sure I’ll need it a lot.