I’ve been reading over The Rise of Renegade X, so I can read it back to back with The Trials of Renegade X, something I’ve never done so far, at least not since Trials was actually finished.  Besides reading them for fun (because, OMG, I have a series, or at least if two books counts as a series, which it might not, but saying OMG, I have a … couplet? doesn’t have the same ring to it), I’m looking for style and spelling consistency while I do it, to make sure everything matches between books.

It’s interesting because as I read through it, I’m noticing that even though my voice hasn’t changed in the six years since I wrote this, my punctuation style has.  I’m looking back at the first one and seeing that I used semi-colons.  Seriously?  I never use semi-colons, or at least not anymore.  And I can see why I ended up using them then, but I just don’t structure my sentences the same way.

I’m also pretty sure I use a lot more italics these days, though that might be partly because I realized, while listening to the Harper Madigan audiobook, that no one will read the words as if they’re italicized unless I, you know, actually italicize them.

And since I’m republishing The Rise of Renegade X (someday, hopefully in the not-too-far future), it’s so tempting to think, “Well, I could just edit out those semi-colons, to make it match my style now.”  But that is a big fat can of worms right there, and Chelsea’s first rule of revision is change as little as possible.  That goes double for books that are already done, published, and have been being read and enjoyed by readers for years.

So I will just suck it up and face the facts that sometimes things change, and that’s okay.  Also, I really doubt you guys are going to be reading the sequel, going, “WTF? There are NO semi-colons in this book!  Where’s the smattering of properly used semi-colons I’ve come to expect from this series?!?!?!”  (Though if you did, I suppose you’d be even more upset if I went and took them out of the first book.  Best to just leave things as they are and let sleeping semi-colons lie.)