Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Editing for Content Delivery
Every morning since catching up on “pages” 2-7 of the emailed book Eastern Standard Tribe, I have eagerly read it every day. I feel like I’m really getting the hang of it, and that it takes even less time to keep up with than playing a move on Scrabulous.
I’m really impressed with how they broke the story into “pages.” I do not have a physical copy of the book but would bet the farm that the they don’t break up according to the physical pages of the last print run. What sense would that make anyway? The pieces, as they arrive, are sections of the story, parceled out into neat “scenes.” The segments are never broken up so as to disrupt a conversation, scene, mood, whatever.
Someone with a brain edited this, and I think that’s pretty cool. Have you ever watched a TV show on DVD, and you can see where the old commercial breaks are because the screen goes black and the fight scene is interrupted (Buffy!), that’s an example of content just being ported over and being delivered differently without any consideration for the experience. It’s not so bad, as we’re used to commercial breaks. I can understand why they don’t re-edit and blend the seems, but I wonder what the decision making process is like for books emailed from DailyLit, but I think it’s so far, super good.
Yesterday I got an email inviting me to an event about how OMG XML is totally going to change the way content is delivered. Maybe that email was lost for 10 years before it was delivered? Cuz XML hasn’t been news in as long. Part of me is sad for folks who aren’t as familiar as I am, but hey, they also probably worked at a cool publishing house for the last ten years, so it’s not like i’m bragging that I have the whole inside tip. The point of entry, or maybe convergence (my new fave thing) is the idea of editing with content delivery in mind. Maybe it means more editing jobs?
Another case that had me thinking about content and delivery is the audio story I have quoted all over this website - The Girl Detective by Kelly Link. I downloaded it years ago for free (and have since gone to her readings, bought her books, etc. yay go CC!). I don’t have the print version of this story, but I think the voice that reads the story does this thing where he whispers the italicized section titles or breaks, letting you know it’s a scene change and that this is the subtitle of the section, or the question introducing the segue. Like, on my current lazy about page which is entirely quotes that actually apply truthfully to me for the most part, (like being a natural blond who dyes her hair colors) the questions in bold are whispered by the narrator. I should prolly have italicized them, now that I think of it. heh
One day we’ll all get along, but so far, it seems the non-book version of the book is doing just fine.
OH! Speaking of doing fine, my travel-writing friend Erik Trinidad has won awards for his work. Yay!
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