Editing… What Does It Mean?

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As some of you might know, I frequent a board that has a lot of new and young writers. It can be interesting to see some of the same questions I had as a new writer coming up, time and time again. It’s a reminder of what it felt like to be new and hungry, looking for that first toehold. It’s also a reminder that I’ve come a long way in the past 5 years.

One recent questioning trend on the boards has been editing. It seems like such a basic thing… write it and edit it… but what is editing, really? There’s more to it than fixing typos and cleaning up grammar, but what?

The good news is, it’s not as scary as you think it might be. the bad news is, I can’t tell you exactly how to do it. Editing, like writing, is a very individual thing. There are a lot of tips and tricks, but when it comes down to it, each writer must determine what works and doesn’t work for her, and build her own method.

Luckily, there are some universal points, and they are pretty basic. Some people can do all these things in just a couple of passes. Others will need to focus and do an editing round for each item. Finding out what works will likely be a matter of trial and error.

Content

I believe in starting with the big jobs, and when it comes to editing, content is the biggest thing on the page. This focuses strictly on the nuts and bolts of the storyline. Is the plot believable and is it complete? It’s important to note that by believable, I don’t mean realistic. I mean the major plot points need to make sense. Every scene needs to build toward the climactic black moment. Every love scene needs to make sense in that moment and every step in the character’s relationship should go toward making that black moment bigger.

Wait… too much information, right? Lots of talk and no instruction. Let me break it down.

Look for:

Are there any dead ends in your story? – Weed out any unused hints or clues and don’t leave the reader with questions about, “what happened to…” It’s the base principal of Chekhov’s gun, which basically stated that if you show a loaded gun in the first act of the play, the gun needs to be fired in a later scene. If it’s not fired, it’s not important to the plot and needs to be removed.

Are there bits of plot or subplot that don’t go anywhere? This has the same idea as Chekhov’s gun, only it’s dealing with story concepts rather than items. If the hero and heroine are working on, say, a missing child case together, then by the end of the story, the reader needs to know the fate of the child, good or bad.

Is back story woven in? This is another tricky point. we give our characters rich backstory because it’s important. It tells us who they are and why they act this way or that way. But the reader doesn’t need to know the details of these past events. Past events are not the story. Take out that info dump about the third grade school play wardrobe malfunction that left the character with stage fright and just allude to it in the moment when she’s overwhelmed. Maybe she can tell the hero she was a piece of pizza and some strategically placed pepperoni fell off and she doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s enough.

Are all the elements needed at the climax introduced earlier in the story? In a way, this goes back to Chekhov, only in reverse. If that gun will be needed, make sure I know about it. If the villain is the hero’s evil twin, we need to know the hero has a twin.

Storytelling

We’ve determined the story makes sense. We’ve added all the elements we need and removed the ones we don’t. The next ‘big thing’ to clean up would be storytelling. The big thing about storytelling is that the reader needs to understand what is going on. We’ve all heard that there are Rules, and The Rules won’t let you do prologues and epilogues, dream sequences or flashbacks. While I’m not a fan of Rules, I will agree that these things often get in the way of storytelling.

Once again, I’ve dumped a bunch of vague information. Here’s a checklist for putting it into action.

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Do your scenes flow together logically? Every story is a journey, and when you’re on a journey, you don’t jump ahead or behind to grab some information, then go back to where you were. The path can wind but it always needs to go from point A, to B to C. make sure everything moves naturally and in order, not just on the scene level, but town to the sentences in a paragraph.

Do you have an appropriate amount of description? This is my nemesis. I like action, but the reader needs to have a working concept of where the characters are and how they move around the space. And description isn’t just physical. The scents, and mood surrounding people and areas play a part in building the story. Too much description or overdone can be a negative thing, too. I don’t need to know about the knotholes dotting the kitchen paneling like spots on a dalmatian, but if you tell me it’s knotty pine, I’ll get the picture.

Is your pacing appropriate? This is one of those things that sounds harder than it is. In every book there are going to be important moments. He’s holding her and realizing he’s in love, for example. That’s a moment you want the reader to hold on to, to savor, so slow it down and go long. Longer sentences, longer paragraphs, longer descriptions about the little things, like the scent of her hair. Other times you want your readers to be flipping pages madly, anxious to see what happens. Here things need to be fast. Short sentences and paragraphs, choppier dialogue and where before the descriptions were about small things, slow realizations, description in action scenes will be sudden, a crunching punch out of nowhere. Forget the details and stick to big things.

Is your point of view consistent? This is where the infamous head-hopping comes in. to be clear, changing point of view isn’t strictly forbidden, but when that change is made, it needs to be for a reason, and the new character needs to stay in control of the scene. But POV also means little things, like is the character feeling her face get hot instead of seeing her own skin flush. Is he drawing conclusions about what she’s thinking from logical body language instead of reading her mind.

Grammar and Language

Now that all the big things are in place, it’s time to start cleanup. Grammar is a tricky one for a lot of people, especially younger writers, because schools have taken a lot of emphasis off grammar basics. The good news is that there are a lot of resources online that can help. I like the Perdue OWL. But there is also the question of making the language sound natural. Even those of us with strong grammar skills don’t speak with impeccable grammar. There is a balance between what is technically right and what works for the story. there are times you can forget grammar.

So… checklist time.

Are your sentences simple enough to be easily understood? Whoa, what? We’re not making it all sophisticated? Nope. the average book for adults, including romances, need to be on a seventh to eighth grade reading level. Shocker? Maybe. The thing to remember is that sentences need to be understood and absorbed quickly. If a reader has to stop and figure out what this or that means, she’s going to be  yanked out of that moment and the story has lost its momentum.

Are you varying sentence structure? Repetitive structure can read like a game of ping pong. He said, she did , he wanted, she snored, ping, pong. it sets up a predictable rhythm that bored the reader instead of pulling them in. Instead of,  he waited by the door and checked his watch, maybe he stood by the door, checking his watch, or waiting by the door, he checked his watch. it’s a small change but it breaks up the beat and keeps the reader reading.

Is your language natural? It has to fit the character. That hard-nosed biker dude isn’t likely to use whom properly, and is he really going to say, “I burn for you, my love,” or will he say, “You’ve got me so hot, baby.” It’s not just the dialogue, either. That narrative is his POV, too.

Have you checked for homophone errors? Oh those homophones. This is one area where you may need to make sure you have some heavy backup in crits. if you don’t know if it’s pay do respect or pay due respect, you can’t fix it. (It’s due, by the way.) But if you know you have a problem with certain homophones, you need to keep a list of them and when you get to edits, do a search. Never bulk search and replace, but check them individually. Time consuming but prudent.

Do you have pet words and phrases? The answer to this is yes, you do. We all do. And they might vary from day to day, or even page to page. find frequent repeats and reword. Don’t rely on a thesaurus for replacement, either. Think it through and come up with the best wording possible.

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Final Cleanup

I don’t have a fancy checklist here. There are just a few basics to know.

A line edit is not the same as proofreading. One of those facts I recently learned that had me going… huh. One thing a line edit does is check for consistency through the manuscript… Her shirt stays red, a certain word is always capitalized, etc. Another is making sure the right word is used. Sometimes words don’t mean what we think they mean. This is another area where if you don’t know better you can’t fix it, but if you fix what you do know, a good crit partner will have your back on the other stuff.

A manuscript needs to be as clean as possible, but remember we’re all human. Clean up those typos and don’t sweat the ones you miss. because you will miss some. So will your crit partners and beta readers. So will your editors. Readers won’t, though, and you’ll get an email at 3am telling you about that misplaced comma on page 143. It happens. Just do your best.

Take the time to research formatting. Learn how to put in an automatic paragraph indent and lose the tabs. Make sure you have double spaced, one inch margins and an acceptable font. if you’re getting ready to send, make sure you’ve checked websites for any special formatting notices.

Finishing…

So that’s what it means to edit. I find myself lacking a clever sign off here, so I’ll just say that if you’ve hit this point, than you for reading. I hope this helps.

 

Voirey Linger

voireylinger.com

Getting the email… My first sale

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I made my first sale three years ago, February 2010. Some days I remember every detail of that day. Others, the excitement is old news. The rush of getting that email faded, leaving me  little jaded and, I admit, a bit impatient with people who aren’t to that point yet. But I try to hold on to that rush, try to remember what it felt like to send in that book, then to find out that I really was good enough to be an author.

It all started with a niggling idea, years before. I think a lot of books start this way, and idea that just doesn’t go away. I never really considered writing it into a book, but one day I was a call for books about angels and demons and knew this idea would fit in perfectly. I wrote it, fussed over it, begged my friends to fuss over it. Someone told me to cut a chunk of the first chapter and I did. Not without tears and some internal whining, but deep down I knew she was right.

I went through all kinds of nervous flutters when I was putting the submission packet together. I couldn’t say how many times I checked and rechecked everything for typos. Finally I submitted, then chewed my nails until I got a reply email… with a form rejection.

Well, crud. I guess my angel story wasn’t perfect for the anthology after all.

But I had heard enough advice about submissions to know that the best thing to do was get that story right back out there. A quick tweak to my query letter, and it was off to a new publisher.

And I got another rejection, this one telling me that this was a romance publisher and they weren’t interested in general fiction.

I knew I had screwed something up big time. This was a romance, but my query letter and synopsis didn’t show the love story. I think I had taken it for granted they would understand there was a love story in there, and had concentrated my synopsis on the action plot.

I was lucky, though. One of my friends who is with the publisher intervened and I was granted permission to resend the story, with a corrected synopsis. I consider this my lucky break in this business, and a favor I will never forget.

My corrected synopsis made it past the slush reader and into the hands of an editor, and she emailed to ask me if I would be interested in a contract. (Um… yes please?) It took me four read throughs and having about a dozen friends read it to confirm I really had done it. I’d sold my first story.

Those days when I’m I’m feeling impatient, when I see the same question I answered last week being asked by someone new this week, I try to step back and remember that first sale. I bumbled my way through it thanks to the hand-holding and guidance of people who were probably answering the same questions for me that they’d answered the week before for someone else.

This is a business where friends are invaluable. knowing people with the knowledge and experience to guide you through those hard firsts can make the difference between getting an offer or getting another form rejection. So yeah, I get tired and impatient sometimes, but in the end, I want to be one of those friends who holds hands and helps people along.

Shut up and Write!

Okay, so it’s not the most professional lead in. But yeah, I said it.

I peruse several writer forums and on all of them, I see people looking for excuses not to write. They say they are writers, claim their book is the best idea ever. But they don’t write. Their posts are full of excuses as to why they don’t have a chance, despite their book being the next greatest story ever told. They angst over formatting, word counts, about the idea that they are so spectacular that agents and editors can’t handle them.

The easiest thing in the world is to sit back, write sometimes, and never finish your book. You can have the fun of being a writer but not have to worry about actually sending off submissions and queries. Never have to deal with the nasty grunt-work of the writing business.

Never have to listen to someone say, “Sorry, but we just aren’t that into you.”

In the end, isn’t that what all the dithering and dilly-dallying is all about? Fear of rejection. if you don’t get to the point of querying, then you can’t be rejected, right?

But here’s the catch… If you don’t let yourself get in the position to hear a no, you can’t hear a yes, either.

So, to all you ditherers out there, to all of you who have dilly-dallied safely out of rejection’s path, I say get your booty in gear. Failure may always be an option, but so is success, and you can’t achieve one without braving the other.

Shut up and write.

It’s Not Personal

“It’s not personal.” Don’t you love the saying? I’ll bet you do. About as much as you like a slap in the face. Inevitably, this phrase comes on the heels of some sort of criticism. Whether the opinion is engineered to help or hurt, it seldom gives a rosy flutter in your heart.

They say, “It’s not personal.” You reply, “But I am a person!” A person who has taken time and effort to create a masterpiece. A person who has lost sleep, skipped meals, missed out on fun to get the story out. A person who has poured their heart and soul into a project, laid it bare, to have it ripped to shreds.

It is personal. It is also going to help you, your story, and most of all your future writing.

Critiques.

They are often hard to hear or read. Your masterpiece is left singed and tattered. Yet, out of the ashes rises the story you can sell. The story you meant your masterpiece to be.

You write in seclusion your magical tale. But you are just one, not all powerful or all knowing, and are often too close to the words to see the flaws. When you shine light onto your work in the form of a critique it is improved.

So, how do you find a critique group? Here are some places to start your search: Writing Groups by State, Online Critique Groups, Roses Colored Glasses.

Above all, remember: 1) It helps. 2) You are not alone. 3) You will succeed.

Some other good links: Becky Levine’s Critique Comments Advice, Nathan Bransford Writing Advice.

Happy Writing and Critiquing!!

–

Megan Mitcham, Author

Fierce Wild, Wild at Heart Anthology

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Out of the Zone

I’m a bit of a creature of habit. Sometimes this is a good thing. I rarely worry about what to have for breakfast because I eat the same thing five days a week:

Every morning and every night I kiss the same hunky guy:

[photo redacted because Fodder refuses to be fodder for my online life]

I sit in the same chair each night:

 

I try to clock the same minimum word count each night:

*whistles*

But all this is about to change. I’ll be traveling a great deal for the day job in the next six months. At the moment, it’s looking like I will be away from home 1-2 full weeks per month.

Eep!

I’m susceptible to distraction. There will be business dinners and hotel cable with channels we refuse to spring for at home. I’ll be flirting with that cute guy via Face Time and living out of this:

I’ve never been particularly good about writing on the road, but now there are deadlines and commitments. Distraction is not acceptable. Blank documents and scattered edits are not an option.

I know I’m not the only author to wrestle with writing outside of the comfort zone. I sure could use some advice. Anyone have any tips or tricks to keep me in line?

Touchstones

It’s been a really busy writing year for me. It’s not quite September and I’ve already passed the word count goal I set for myself back in January, but I can’t stop now. I have drafts of three more novellas, eight short stories, and a novel to write before the first quarter of 2013 comes to a close. Needless to say, I won’t be prying my butt from the chair anytime soon.

I’m discovering that one of the hazards of writing on successive deadlines is the development of tunnel vision. When I caught myself becoming so wrapped up in getting from the beginning to the end that I forgot to enjoy the ride in between, I knew it was time to fall back. That’s why I’ve been reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass again this week.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this particular novella is going to be ‘The One’ to make me the newest ebook sensation. I just needed to remind myself that every story I write has the potential to be special if I take the proper time and care with it.

There are so many good tips in Writing the Breakout Novel. Things I already know but tend to set aside as I’m trying to work in that fabulous bit of dialogue that popped into my head on the drive home from work. I need to remember these things when I get frustrated with my hero or heroine because they refuse to give in and get naked already.

I think it’s good for any writer to refresh the lessons we learned when we started taking this journey. Even the smallest reminder can tug the chain that turns on the lightbulb. There are a few books and seminars I go back to revisit from time to time. Aside from Mr. Maass’ book, I often refer to the copious notes I took in Debra Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict seminar.

In my experience, revisiting these lessons not only reinforces the skill set we work so hard to master, it also validates the knowledge base we’ve already accumulated. Knowledge is indeed power. I think I just need to remember to unplug my focus from my WIP on occasion and tap into the power of a good lesson learned.

What about you? Have you ever had one of those ‘A-ha!’ moments? Ever caught yourself thinking, ‘Hey! I already do that and I didn’t even know it!’ as you scribble notes in a seminar? What books, classes, or speakers have you found to be most helpful in keeping your writing grounded? Which have inspired you to dig deeper and aim higher?

You Got to Have Friends…

Like The Devine Ms. M sang, “You got to have friends…” For our purposes I’ll say (Definitely, not sing. I value your hearing too much.), “You’ve got to have author friends.” Other friends are important too, but I’m quickly finding there’s nothing like author friends.

Nearly a year ago, I read one of the many Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents books available on the market today. I highlighted and dog eared important points like a good little student. When I got to a sentence that read something like, “When in doubt ask a fellow author for advice.” I set the book on my desk, jarred my computer a little and looked around the room. I looked at the walls, my dogs, the trees and pond past the window and laughed a cynical melody. I lived, at the time and still do, in a quant town in Southern Arkansas. There were no publishing houses across the square and I sure as heck didn’t have author friends in my pocket. I didn’t know anyone who’d published anything. Ever.

But alas, not a year later I have writer friends!

After my cynical bit, I began researching writing groups by genre. There are many that run the gambit: international, local, genre based, and so on. International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America seemed to fit best with my writing. I honed in and found a local chapter of RWA where I could get face to face with published writers and work hands on with a group.

The ladies of The Diamond State Romance Authors are more valuable than gold. They have welcomed me with open arms, encouraged  my writing, answered my numerous newbie questions, and guided me toward tools which improve my craft. Most importantly, we all share a passion for writing. Now, I am thrilled to be a member of the DSRA and would love to welcome new members into the fold.

I must admit, before completing this post I spent fifteen minutes watching Bette Midler videos on YouTube. She’s spectacular!

Happy Writing!

Megan Mitcham, Writer

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