Editorial Insights and Reflections on Ravaged Earth

Though I did some layout this morning, the bulk of the day was spent with the eagle eyes of a content editor. This is fundamentally different from a copy editor, as a content editor isn’t necessarily looking for grammar errors (but make correct some of the more grosser errors which arise). He (or she) is looking at the content and making sure it all makes sense, is well organized, and nothing is missing. When you’re writing something, it can sometimes be a weird “can’t see the forest for the trees” scenarios as you get so involved in the minutiae you may not realize you left out gear (or a bit of connective text or any of a million other things). Other eyes help out quite a bit, and I tend to be liberal with the comments as I track changes, and often challenge the writer to dig a bit deeper and improve what he’s got. It’s not necessarily the content editor’s job to rewrite things (though I admit to a heavy hand on some occasions), but to aid the author in maximizing their potential. Ultimately, it means an iron hand in a silk glove. You have to strike a balance to apprise, educate, and improve rather than impede. If you have a good relationship with your writers, it makes it so much the better. Egos have to be set aside as the work is a living, breathing thing and everyone is working towards a common goal of making certain the work’s Kung Fu is strong.

I’m happy to tell you the alien invasion inches ever closer as I spent the day going through the Ravaged Earth: Revised Second Edition materials. Overall, it’s very solid with only one outstanding issue which shall be easily remedied. I looked over the archetypes and I wanted to like them more than I do. We’ve learned a lot and the archetypes need to be kicked up a notch. Not a major issue and shall certainly not keeping the rest of the document for moving forward into edits. Other than that particular bit, I’m really happy and wrestling over the inclusion of some bonus adventures not directly related to the plot point. It’s difficult because the material is good, but we do have some space considerations to keep in mind. As it stands, just a raw word document, this puppy weighs in at over 200 pages. For those doing the math, I believe it makes this document roughly 30% bigger than the original RE was (including the art).

There is a lot to be happy about in here and there are some things I’d love to see for RE which we just can’t fit in these pages, so they’ll likely come out in support products down the road. For example, I’d love to see a Random Martian Generator in here, but it’s outside the scope of the core work, but I can tell all you hungry for some Martian Madness to get ready as the Martians are back and they are very angry. (And a simple cold won’t take them out this time!)

Eric is busy working on support materials, so when the book drops, we’ll have other goodies lined up and ready to roll out soon thereafter.

Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!