Editing A Novels & Stories

We have to stick to what we filed. “Kali!” Val squealed when she saw me went out of the elevator on our floor. She's having a chat with some of our work mates. Because of it, all heads turned on me. I suddenly felt embarrass because of it because I somehow hate attention. I just forced a smile to cover up the embarrassment. Val ran towards me and hugged me tightly when we’re already close to each other. She let go of the hug immediately and faced me with a wide, teasing smile on her face.

"What do you mean?" "This sentence. I wrote 'groundbreaking research.' Not 'breakthrough research.'" He flipped pages. "And this transition. I had a whole paragraph here. It's gone." "Maybe you edited it and forgot?" "I didn't edit anything. I sent you the final draft. You proofread it." "I didn't change anything. Just read through for typos." He stared at me. "You're sure?" "I'm sure." He looked back at the papers. Ran his hand through his hair. "Maybe I'm losing my mind. Maybe I did edit it and forgot."

“No one is leaving this room until I say so.” Marcus reached out his hand slowly. “Can you zoom in?” His eyes darted to me, and he looked almost crazed. I nodded once before I pulled the photo into an editor. I zoomed in on the wolf that was being dissected on the table. My mind passed over the gore I saw there and focused on making the faces of everyone in the room clearer. I worked on the scientists’ faces first. I selected each person and used a combination of editing and AI to rebuild the person’s face as best as I could.

It didn’t. “I just need to finish editing a few things first,” I added, gesturing vaguely toward the media room as if that explained anything. He nodded once. “I’ll wait.” “You don’t have to.” “I know.” A faint pause, then, “I’ll wait.” There wasn’t anything to argue with, so I nodded and headed back inside, hoping work would settle whatever was buzzing under my skin. It didn’t. I opened the same folder three times and adjusted the exposure on a photo of the team bus until I somehow made it worse. By the time Melissa appeared in the doorway, I was hovering over the undo button like it had personally offended me.

Instead, another name surfaced. Thomas Mercer. His entry appeared ordinary at first glance. Date of appointment. Department. Transfer between households. But until a certain point, the ink changed halfway through the page. A later hand. Someone had amended the record. Beatrice narrowed her eyes. She traced the altered line with the tip of her finger. The original words had been scraped away so carefully that only faint impressions remained beneath the fresh ink. Not damaged. Edited. Deliberately. A chill crept through her despite the warmth of the candles.

“That’s not—” “It is,” she said, not unkindly. “Your last article read more like a love letter than coverage. And maybe no one else picked up on it, but I know you. I’ve edited you for two years. I can tell when you’re bleeding onto the page.” I swallowed hard. “Maya, please—”

She pulled away enough to look me right in the eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s great, and I’m sure he’s polished it like a dream, but that doesn’t make any difference. I know your voice. I know the way you sound, and the way you say it, and that over there on the screen, is you. You’re the one who’s talking.” “That’s because he’s a very good editor. He keeps my voice intact, while getting his polish out. He used a lot of polish, believe me.”

"I've done everything before you think about it, Ms. Fely. I'll d******d it a little bit to make netizens even more heated." "Good job, Nina. I'll talk to Garry to give you an extra bonus. Maybe three or four times your salary will be good. I am satisfied with your work this time." Nina smiled happily. She's done a lot during the incident until now and not only uploads actual photos or videos from the scene, she also edits, adds and exaggerates the actual scenes and removes parts that might benefit or make Lea look good. She paid a video editor to do it and the price is quite expensive. Two or three times the bonus from Fely she will gladly accept.

I replayed the version my mother had shown me in my head. The bruise hadn’t been visible. The wall had been smooth. Cropped. Edited. My breath thinned. I rewound again. Zoomed further. The bruise had been cropped out. The crack in the wall erased. Someone had edited the truth. And my mother had shown me the edited version. The laptop screen went black as the video ended. I stared at my reflection in it. If that had been altered, what else had?

I opened my video editing app and pulled up the short clips I had recorded the whole of yesterday, from the morning until the evening at the estate grounds. Editing was surprisingly smooth, since I had intentionally recorded only aesthetic, clean snippets of the flowers, the sunlight, and Leo playing and a little bit of myself without showing anything private or identifiable, I didn't have to blur or cut out much. I added a warm, clean filter, typed out a simple, engaging caption about quiet days, and selected a soft, trending background instrumental. I gave the final draft one last review, feeling satisfied with how clean and professional it looked, and hit p