Keeby's editor notes

Hello everyone! It’s Keeby the editor otter here – edotter if you will – with an update. Blakenfen asked me to outline my work so far and what my editing entails so you know what to expect.

Several weeks ago, I commenced editing EfV from the beginning onwards. Though my time is somewhat limited, I will still comfortably be able to outpace the rate of new chapter releases. At some point, I will converge with the brand-new chapters being released, and they will have already endured the harsh gaze and red pen of an editor.

So far, I have revised the Prologue and Chapter 1, and edited half of Chapter 2 (all in close collaboration with Blakenfen). You will see my work gradually integrated into updates on an ongoing basis. Of course, you can imagine that this is a tremendous amount of work for Blakenfen, who needs to rewrite the code for almost every line in the game (and many new lines as well), so this may take some time.

It is worth giving you an idea of what you can expect in these edit-updates. No doubt those of you who have continued to support us (thank you) are quite attached to the story and its characters, so I want to reassure you that the plot remains the same. Marie has not turned into a gator, Gwin is not suddenly a bad chess player, etc. Rather, my focus has been on improving the pacing, impact, and flow of the story. I have also mixed up the sentence structure so there is less subject verb object with the aim of making every scene interesting to read.

Additionally, there should now be very few typographical and grammatical errors in the text as well. Blakenfen is not a native English speaker (although he has done an astonishing effort at writing this novel in English!), whereas I have the advantage of being a native speaker. Note, however, that I write in UK/AUS English, rather than US English, so you may notice minor differences in spelling and punctuation accordingly.

As an interesting aside, an unexpected side effect of the editing process has been, quite simply, a greater amount of content. The Prologue is now about 20% larger in terms of raw content, while Chapter 1 is 40% bigger. There were some scenes and actions, particularly in Chapter 1, that I felt needed more justification behind them in order to make sense. I have spent greater time (and words) taking you into the mind of Gwin so you can really understand why he is driven to take certain actions. My current progress on Chapter 2 also suggests that the second chapter will be about 40% bigger. As noted above, trust that Blakenfen and I worked closely together to ensure that everything added was consistent with the lore and characters. To put it plainly, there is now more story for readers to enjoy, and it is designed in a way that smooths out some of the spikier and bumpier parts of the pacing.

I won’t bore you with any further details – the best way to see the changes, of course, is to play through the chapters after they have been revised. I am sure that the inclusion of edited chapters will be included in the update announcements where applicable, so you will know when they are there.

On behalf of the team, thank you for continuing to support us, and I hope you enjoy what we have in store for in in the future.

Bouncily,

Keeby