revising notes - the other book

I may have mentioned (or may not) that I was reviewing sequels to a book I'm trying to find a agent for and found them a bit of a mess. I did some preliminary fixes, read them aloud to my sister during a recent trip - the third book is still a sorry mess with many gaps, and noted lots of minor fixes and a couple of major ones for the second book.

Following Context, I'm going through it again, the same paper version in a binder, looking for other specifics including names and descriptions (yellow highlighter) of people, places, and things, so that I can create a listing and to ensure consistency. At the same time, I am drafting small filler bits I noted as needed and deleting lots of sentences that explain the same things repeatedly or explain things that don't need explaining. I do that a lot. Some of it I know I do, especially in early drafts, as reminders to myself, so I know why i did something and don't forget and accidentally delete something will be important to a later scene if not obviously the current one, but in the final draft, they all have to go. It must be left up to the reader to figure it out (if they even notice) as a small mystery, a hint, a forshadowing, or whatever. Otherwise too much of the pleasure of continuing to read (looking for answers) is lost.

I kind of new that and watched for it during my revision, but reading silently to ones self, the repetitive bits are EASY to miss, because they are already in the mind and the second time, its not obvious whether it was in the book already or in the mind, as before. Reading it aloud creates a new memory--the memory of saying the words rather than just the content of them--so even if my audience doesn't recognize the repetition (and usually my sister catches them right away unless they are phrased and focused VERY differently)--I recognize the repetition as I say it and make a quick squiggle in the margin for later revision/deletion (the first occurence doesn't get the squiggle but may be the version that gets deleted when i decide on the revisions). i was kind of aware of the need, but was surprised how much I had done it, and also surprised how often the unneeded explanations were one-liners that I was quite fond of at the end of paragraphs. They always say "kill your darlings" but whenever I've heard it, they were refering to whole scenes that are fun but don't add to the story. in this case, my darlings are a bunch of one liner sentences. Alas. When I put it in the computer, I'll keep it all by saving as a new version and making all the changes there, so it won't be quite as painful, but one way or the other, they have to go, and so do many paragraphs of explanatory narration. Valueable for thinking the subtlties of the story through, but not for the reader.

At Context, one of the teachers who taught the value of planning the plot up front repeated often that it helped avoid writing 150,000 words when you should be aiming for 100,000 or less. But that's definitely not my problem. I'd have to write 150,000 words in order to have a hundred thousand by the time I'm done revising. And its usually the better for being shrunk once all the additions have been made. If I have a complaint about published books, its usually that they didn't get the excess edited out, especially in the later books of any series.