Not A Dev Editor Fun

In march I shoved my rough and incomplete book—right up to the big reveal—into Not a Developmental Editor. Every note jived with me. Many I had for myself already. And since it agreed with me I decided to like it.

It identified specific intentional tonal things, and some of my actual influences. I have a bit in the book talking about the Japanese art of repairing teacups and other things using gold to highlight the fractures. It mistook that as related to the theme. I leaned into it, finding ways to reference it later. Example (referring to kids whose parent had been killed): Would their cracks be repaired with gold? Or something blacker?

I asked it to guess who the murderer was. It guessed wrong in the way I hope readers would. I then asked it to make the best case for other potential killers. It listed each character with pros and cons, and its own conclusion on whether they seemed likely. It ranked the real killer as the third most likely candidate.

I just fed the book through again before doing the final pass for beta readers. It gave surprisingly few notes. I agreed with all of them, and again they matched many of my own notes.

The book is a near flunk for the zeitgeist tool, though. It’s film noir meets fantasy so I’m not surprised.