Or Why E-Readers Won’t Catch On

The more revisions I make, the more confusing things get. I’ve made some major changes to the story, and the original is still deeply imbedded in my subconsious. This creates continuity issues. On a computer screen, this means scrolling back and forth. It means remembering on page 13, this character made this statement this way. But wait, did she also make another statement? Does it contradict the first?

On paper, I can read it and seemingly assimilate it differently. Words don’t loose their context and therefore their meaning. What works best for me is a combination of paper and computer. After my initial draft, I printed a hard copy of my novel. From there, I made copious notes in the margins. And on the backs of the page. And in notebooks.

On to the hard editing, I open the initial draft and work from my handwritten notes. This works fine until I get to something that conflicts with a change I’ve made. I find sometimes I can’t remember whether the change has been made, or only thought through in my mind. This is where a hard copy works best for me. I can refer back to the page, see what I’ve actually done and how. Okay, so I’m lo-tech and simply get lost when I have to scroll back and forth repeatedly on a computer screen.