4 ms·
Relevant is an observation from his editor for this piece, who was in the audience for his Fall, or Dodge in Hell talk at The Long Now Foundation, responding to
by EdwardCoffin 5y ago
Relevant is an observation from his editor for this piece, who was in the audience for his Fall, or Dodge in Hell talk at The Long Now Foundation, responding to an earlier questioner about his editing process [1]:
I just wanted one quick comment, then
a question, but when you ask this
question about his writing style I will
tell you: I was working under Kevin at
Wired when Neil did a story of following
the fiber-optic cable around the world,
and it was a forty five thousand word
piece, and I will say when you brought
the copy in I could not improve it. As an
editor his was the cleanest copy I'd ever
worked with, ever, with any other writer,
and I actually worked with a lot of
writers. So I will say you have something going
on there about your first drafts that
are uneditable.
[1] https://youtu.be/bkxuzwCps70?t=2042 https://youtu.be/bkxuzwCps70?t=2042
- jpm_sd 5y agoThat's funny, because Fall desperately needed an editor. I barely managed to finish it. The "real life" plot lines were mostly enjoyable, the "virtual world" stuff was just interminably tedious
- EdwardCoffin 5y agoDe gustibus non est disputandum. I liked the virtual world stuff.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jillesvangurp 5y agoIt gets better on subsequent reads but it's not the easiest thing to get into indeed. The first time I read it, I found the virtual world stuff annoying and hard to understand. But it grew on me on the re-read since I knew what he was trying to do and because with Neal Stephenson it's always about the details and little side plots and not about moving the main plot forward. I had the same experience with the Baroque cycle on first read. I've since re-read that many times and I'm already looking forward to picking up Fall and Termination Shock for more re-reads in a few years.