Don't blame the author!

by Carola

I'm in the middle of checking the galleys (known these days as First Pass Pages) for the third of my Daisy Dalrymple mysteries, Requiem for a Mezzo. It's going to be reissued with new artwork next January.

The process involves re-typesetting the text. I'm very glad I've been given a chance to go over it. You wouldn't believe how many fresh errors have crept in. There are letters missing from the middle of words; letters replaced with a different one; transpositions; and even one four-word phrase printed twice consecutively.

Last week I was checking the first pass pages of Buried in the Country, my fourth Cornish mystery, due out in December.

The manuscript went through my own final edit before sending it off, my editor's reading, the copyeditor's reading, my reading and editing of the copyeditor's corrections and suggestions, and then typesetting. The result was--not unexpectedly--considerably worse than Requiem's. Besides a few things all the editing eyes had missed, I found the horrid results of the typesetter's trying to make sense of my red-pencil changes to the copyeditor's brown-pencil changes. But as well as those, there were several introduced errors such as missing letters (as for was, offical for official), a name not capitalized, and oddest of all, scotch for splotch!

I hope I caught everything, but I wouldn't swear to it. Nor can I be certain that my corrections will make it correctly into print.


It's a complicated business going from a .doc file to a book. If the end result isn't perfect, don't blame the author!

Word Filtering and Muscular Verbs

by Jean Henry Mead


I first learned about word filtering when I sold one of my previously published books to a small press. My manuscript returned with the notation: "I found 27 'she knew', 14 'he realized,' and 12 'they noticed.' You need to rewrite."

I looked through several bestselling novels and found quite a few 'she knew,' 'realized' and 'noticed.' Maybe not as many as in my book, but what's the big deal? The deal, my editor explained, is that those words weaken a sentence. I wondered why the book was published in the first place and why I couldn't leave in just a few 'she knew' or "he realized'?

Gritting my teeth I went to work replacing all the words in question, grudgingly admitting that my prose had improved. Instead of writing: She knew that Billy was lying, I replaced the sentence with: Billy's downcast eyes told her he was lying. And, She noticed a large man entering her room was rewritten as: A wide shadow fell across her bed when someone entered the room. Not Pulitizer-winning phrasing, but better.

I then addressed passive versus active verbs. Muscular verbs are necessary to strengthen a sentence and weak verbs need to be replaced. A. B. Guthrie, Jr. once told me during an interview that: "The adjective is the enemy of the noun, and the adverb is the enemy of damn near everything else. The guts of the language are nouns and verbs, and writers use too many descriptive words."

Amen.

Is It Soup Yet?

By Mark W. Danielson

Remember the commercial where the kids keep asking if the soup is done?  The answer is never clear, but at some point their mom announces, “It’s soup!”  In writing, the same principle applies.  People keep asking when your next book will be out and then one day you announce it’s done.  Of course, how cooks, authors and publishers determine “when” will forever remain a mystery.

My latest novel was just released a week ago, so by chef’s standards, Spectral Gallows must be done.  I’m proud of the story.  It's a perfect blend of reality and fiction with a little help from the netherworld.  Of course, each reader will have to decide if the recipe suits their taste.

But let’s put Spectral Gallows aside for a moment and return to the writing process.  For most authors, it takes at least a year to write, edit, submit, review, edit, review, correct, and then resubmit a story.  By the time their book is released, the author has read so many times they are blind.  And it seems that no matter how many times proof readers have gone through the manuscript, someone always seems to find another typo.  Holding that thought, let’s compare this to picking mushrooms from a lasagna serving.  (Okay, I admit it.  I hate mushrooms.)  A person can spend an entire meal trying to pick those little suckers out, but inevitably one will end up in their mouth.  At that point you have two choices – swallow it or make a scene.  In writing, you either swallow your pride and accept a potential error or risk your career by ignoring your deadlines.  It isn’t until your reviews come in that you realize most people accept typos, so long as the story is good.  That’s why positive reviews validate your writing and warm the heart.  

Recently, I learned that several people were talking my book up and as a result I have a pending radio interview so I must be doing something right.  If you enjoy murder mysteries involving the paranormal and quantum theory, give Spectral Gallows a look, then settle into a nice bowl of soup.  Both are pretty cozy on a cool fall night.          

My Guest: SHELLY FROME

Posted by Earl Staggs

I’m pleased to host Shelly Frome. Read his impressive bio and you’ll see he’s well-qualified to talk about any phase of writing. He’s chosen Storytelling and Editing today and I’m sure you’ll find it interesting. Leave a comment and let us know if your MO is different from his.

Here’s Shelly. 

 

Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, a writer of mysteries, books on theater and film, and articles on the performing arts appearing in a number of periodicals in the U.S. and the U.K. He is also a film critic and frequent contributor to writers’ blogs. His fiction includes Tinseltown Riff, Lilac Moon, Sun Dance for Andy Horn and the trans-Atlantic cozy The Twinning Murders. Among his works of non-fiction are the acclaimed The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage. His latest novel is Twilight of the Drifter, a southern gothic crime-and-blues odyssey. He lives in Litchfield , Connecticut . 

 

Storytelling and Editing: navigating the tricky waters 

by Shelly Frome 

            Years ago, in order to earn some extra credit, I took a course in creative writing at a little college in Miami. There I discovered women who were working on a novel and  had signed up for the same course over and over again. Not only that, but they were still working on their first chapter. As encouragement, the instructor and fellow classmates would make comments like, “I see so much improvement. Those hibiscus bushes are becoming more and more vivid with each draft.” At that juncture I promised myself if I myself ever tackled a novel, I would never get stuck in the hibiscus bushes. Nor would I try to please a group of very pleasant well-wishers. I wasn’t sure I’d try to please any group at all.

 

            But even on your own, there’s the left part of the brain that monitors and judges and the right hemisphere that just wants to carry on and be given free rein. Moreover, how on earth do you bridge the gap between what you think or hope you’re creating and the needs and responses of the publishing world? 

            And so, on my first pass, I tried my darndest to cram in as much information as possible so the reader would see there’s really a lot going on here. Scott Meredith, the noted New York agent, told me you can’t do that. No reader could possibly take it all in. Later on, I read the advice of the late novelist and college instructor John Gardner. He noted that you should always think of it as carefully feeding a hammer mill. At the same time, a popular author wrote a guide revealing his secret: you spring forward and then fall back to gradually let the reader in on what’s going on. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott claims you should keep going until the very end. Accept the fact you’re going to wind up with a lousy first draft which the editor inside you can tackle and fix. One best selling writer believes it’s like taking a car trip in the dark: using the headlights, knowing more or less where you’re headed but allowing yourself to turn off at any time to find what’s really out there.

            There are, of course, no hard and fast rules. For what it’s worth, I myself use a variation. Though I more or less know where I’m going, I can’t seem to take another step until I’ve polished the chapter I’m on. All the while I leave myself open to discover things—what this character’s really like, some twist in direction I wasn’t expecting that’ll  necessitate major or minor adjustments. Then I’ll go back and read, say, all the beginning chapters to see if the story really hangs together with a compelling through-line.

            In any case, I try not to get stuck in the hibiscus bushes, self-editing so much that I’ll never finish the journey. Never self-edit to the point where I’ll avoid diving into some dicey scene and allowing it to “catch fire” as the playwright Tennessee Williams used to say.

When you’ve done your very best, you can send it out there and hopefully find a match with an agent or publisher. Or, just to make doubly sure, you can latch on to a reputable, professional editor who has a track record handling your particular material. After he or she gives you the green light, then you send it out. Once you’ve finally placed it, more editing will be asked of you.

However, if nothing pans out, you can still look into a decent e-publisher or one who does both hard copies and e-versions, safe in the conviction you have something worthwhile to offer.

In my own case, I spend so much time striving for a solid foundation and trying  to satisfy both parts of my brain, more often than not, my own independent publisher will accept the final draft. At that point, he’ll assign an editor who will make further suggestions. Only after all this will my final draft be as final as it’s going to be and ready to reach readers’ hands. Or again, in Tennessee Williams’ words, ready to “rely on the kindness of strangers.”         

With Age Comes Wisdom

By Mark W. Danielson

The reason we say “with age comes wisdom” is so when we get older, we can look back and realize how fortunate we have been.  Between bad judgment, disease, accidents, and war, it’s amazing this many of us live past twenty.  The problem is we don’t realize our good fortune when we are twenty, nor do we celebrate our elders’ wisdom until much later in life.

I have survived over forty-seven years of piloting airplanes and thirty-five as a published author.  During this time my thought processes have gone through many stages from “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, to “Maybe I should give this another look.”  In laymen’s terms, I’m saying that wisdom can only be achieved through survival and perseverance.  Although writing is more forgiving than flying, in both cases we learn from our mistakes and move forward.  Rejection has always made me stronger and more determined, although I’m not sure publishing houses had that in mind when they sent their canned responses.

In the day of instant gratification, we sometimes forget that time is our friend.  Yes, some authors can crank out stories at alarming rates, but it’s usually evident when they didn’t allow their words to ferment.  If deadlines are not an issue, the best thing we can do is hide our “finished” work and move on to something else.  Months later, when you remove your manuscript from its hiding place, it’s like reading someone else’s work, except here you are empowered to edit.   It’s amazing how different your masterful writing looks after you’ve given it an extended break. 

Now that anything can be published on the web, it’s more critical than ever that our writing be meaningful.  For the sake of the industry, never publish substandard or inaccurate material.  If you think of its permanence as a reflection on yourself, you’ll see it’s worth the wait.  This advice comes from an old man – a survivor who has gained wisdom with age, and hopes to gain much more before his final chapter is written.  Take it with a bucket of salt.  I’m still scratching the surface of what I hope to accomplish, but I have reached the stage where I realize that learning never ceases. 

Butchering Your Darling

By Jaden Terrell

I recently had to do some edits for the publisher who is doing the German translation of my first two Jared McKean mysteries. The edits were for the first book (which had already been fairly extensively edited) and involved a subplot that I felt was integral to the development of my character and also for laying the groundwork for the second book. At first, it sounded like they wanted the entire sub-plot cut. Awhile later, thank goodness, I got the email laying out several options, none of which were as draconian as I had first feared. They all, however, involved cutting out some things I'd grown pretty fond of.

Who was it who said that, when editing, you have to kill your darlings? Anybody? That author was talking about those sections that seem like "especially fine writing." Here, I'm talking about the book itself. So what do you do when your editor asks you to butcher your darling?For me, there's a process not entirely unlike the seven stages of grief.

First Stage: Panic and Resistance, Cleverly Concealed

You don't want to come across to your publisher as someone who is belligerent, difficult to work with, and who thinks his or her every word is plated in platinum, so you speak calmly and ask reasonable questions designed to discover the extent of the butchery required and see if the darling seems likely to survive it. How extensive is this change expected to be? What exactly is expected? The mind is racing. What can I salvage? How can I do this if I lose that? Aloud you say, "Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. Let me see what I can do...Of course, of course. I'll work on it and get back to you. By when, did you say?"

Second Stage: Panic and Resistance, Shared with Trusted Friends and Advisers.

In some circles, this might be known as whining. Keep it good-natured and don't go overboard with it, and your writer friends will give you the sympathy you deserve ("What? Are they crazy? That was my favorite part!") followed by some constructive suggestions about how to perform the butchery with the least amount of heartache. My go-to people were my critique group (thank you, Chester) and my agent (thank you, Jill), who asked me the question that saved the day: "What is absolutely no-compromise? What are the things you absolutely can't live without?"

Third Stage: Eat Chocolate.

Everyone knows a writer about to engage in plot butchery needs sustenance and comfort. If chocolate doesn't do it for you (what's wrong with you?!), try macaroni and cheese--or putting glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, or covering the wall behind your computer with glittery stickers of unicorns or racing cars. Whatever makes you happy.

Fourth Stage: Get to work.

In my case, I tried the publisher's first two suggestions (A, cut the subplot completely, B, have another character settle it offstage), but the story didn't feel complete. I worked the story and re-worked it. Keeping my agents question in mind, I cut the parts that I could live without (no matter how much I liked them). I settled on the publisher's third suggestion (keep the subplot but combine scenes and cut as much of it as possible) but was able to incorporate parts of the second into it by having a secondary character do some of the legwork.

Fifth Stage: Acceptance, and--dare I say it?--Pride in the Outcome

Hmm. This is...not bad. It's kind of like realizing your perfect baby has an extra toe you hadn't noticed. And...what's that? A blotchy birthmark you somehow missed. Somehow it feels less like butchery and more like surgery. You look back over it and realize that, while you miss some of the things you cut (after all, that birthmark shaped like the Statue of Liberty was kind of cool, wasn't it?), the book as a whole is much stronger.

I sent the revised version to my agent and to the publisher. Both were pleased with the result, and the best part was that even the suggestions that didn't work on their own helped me find the one that did. I tell myself that next time I'll remember this experience and skip straight Stage 4, but somehow I know where I'll find myself. Right back at Stage 1.

How about the rest of you? Any adventures in editing to share?

Nothing Wasted, Nothing Gained

by Beth Terrell

Last week, my agent called me with the news that she was heading to New York for BEA (Book Expo America) and that a publisher who had been considering my manuscript might be interested. "He loves the first 100 pages," she said, "and he loves from page 266 on, but he'd like you to do some work on the pages in between."

Ever been there? Maybe you're there now, knowing your book needs work but not quite sure where to start.

In my case, "some work" turned out to be cutting 12,000 words from the 166 pages in question. This wasn't an easy feat, since I had already trimmed the manuscript as much as I could figure out how to at the time--some 8,000 words. But he was right; the story dragged in the middle. "There's a lot of back and forth in there," I was told. This gave me the clue I needed to start renovating my novel.

I realized that I'd fallen into the trap of trying to follow my private investigator's progress too realistically. In a real investigation, one interview leads to the next, then to another. Somewhere along the way, an inconsistency is revealed. or a new clue uncovered that leads back to the first person in the chain. Then the detective goes back to confront that person. It's also not unusual for an investigator to ask the same question of several suspects. Subtle differences in their answers may provide illumination or reveal deception. Realistic, yes (at least, I think so), but when I combined all the scenes with the same suspect (as much as possible), it became painfully clear that the result was not realism but repetition that bogged down the plot.

If you've edited a novel before, you know what comes next. The first step was to combine all scenes that could be combined. This involved more than just cutting one scene and slapping it onto the end of another. In one case, Jared (my PI) wants to interview a husband and wife who recently lost a son. He calls the house, and the husband agrees that Jared can come over to talk to them, but believing his wife is in an emotionally vulnerable state, the husband makes sure she isn't home when Jared comes by. In the original version, Jared comes back later to interview the wife while the husband isn't home. I needed to combine the two scenes, but I also needed the husband to want to keep Jared away from the wife. What to do? I finally realized (yes, gentle reader, I'm slow sometimes) that if the wife answered the phone instead of the husband, I could combine the two interviews into a tension-filled scene with the wife trying to be forthcoming and her husband trying to steer her away from painful subjects.

This scene was both challenging and enlightening to write. Often, we think of tension or conflict as arising from two people arguing or fighting. (Think of the traditional romantic formula in which the man and woman seem to despise each other from their first meeting and then spend at least half the book sniping at each other.) But in this scene, two characters who love and want the best for each other have opposing ideas about how that "best" can be achieved.

With each chapter, I asked myself, "What's the key information the reader must get from this chapter?" and "Does this sentence contribute to that?" I ended up with eight fewer chapters than I had when I'd started, and after that, I was able to find some other places to tighten the manuscript. I ended up cutting a few small things that, if a publisher (the one who requested the edits) or another should accept the book, I would make a pitch to put back, but overall, I'm pleased with the results.

When she first gave me my editing assignment, my agent said, "I hate to have you do all this work when another publisher may want it as is."

"If it makes the book better, it won't be wasted," I said. "And if it doesn't make the book better, I'll learn something from it, so it still won't be wasted."

As it turns out, it was both, so whether anything comes of the pitches she's making on my behalf this week, I'm grateful to that publisher for pointing me in a direction that helped me write a better book.

How about you? Care to share a time when you learned something valuable from editing your novel?

Rebuilding is a Chore

By Mark W. Danielson

Many years ago, I built an airplane. Other than the expense, it was a relatively simple task. All it took was following the plans and putting in long hours. Okay; that’s simplifying it a bit, but it wasn’t insurmountable. At the time, I was living in Victorville, California, and every Friday afternoon, I would drive to my hangar in Pomona and work steady until Sunday night. I even slept in the hangar on a roll-away bed. Needless to say, I had no social life, but nothing got done unless I was there doing it.

I completed my bi-plane in July, 1979, and flew it for many years performing air shows and giving passengers their first view of an upside-down world. When I first built this plane, its front cockpit was open with a passenger aboard and covered with a plate for solo flight. After I got married, I thought it would be more comfortable to have a canopy over both cockpits, so I spent a year modifying the plane, building new instrument panels for both cockpits, changing the design of the turtle deck behind the rear cockpit, installing new fuselage fabric, and repainting the airplane. Ironically, my former wife never flew in it after I modified it. I have since sold the airplane and changed wives.

Right now I am in the process of rebuilding a manuscript. I many ways, the course is the same as building and then rebuilding the airplane. My first draft is always the most enjoyable because it’s new and fresh. Then comes the editing, and once I’m finished, my editors have their own take. Thus, the rebuilding phase is nowhere near as enjoyable as scripting it the first time.

One time I got so frustrated building a wing that I stomped around my hangar, desperately searching for something to bash without damaging anything else. I had heard of people destroying their entire projects as a result of a Rube Goldberg chain of events, so I was being careful not to repeat their mistakes. In desperation, I picked up a rubber mallet and slammed it over a sawhorse hoping it would make me feel better. Instead, the head broke off, flipped backwards, and hit another part! Needless to say, my first problem remained unsolved and I created another one because I had lost my temper. Comparing this incident to writing, there are moments when I’ve wanted to delete or shred an entire manuscript, but like my airplane project, I knew that setting it aside and walking away was the better course of action.

Nothing compares to the fulfillment of completing an airplane or manuscript. Both take flight when they are finished, and I’ll always have a sense of satisfaction when looking back. Perseverance is what sees my projects through. As they say, no pain, no gain. I only wish I was good enough to get things right the first time.

Loving Your Inner Editor

By Beth Terrell

November is approaching, and with it comes National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). More than 100,000 people from all over the world will write a 50,000-word first draft of a novel between 12:01 A.M. November 1 and midnight of November 30. The writers range from teenagers to octogenarians. Some are professional authors who will later edit their NaNo novels into something worth publishing. (Sara Gruen's award-winning novel Water for Elephants began as a NaNo novel.) Some will populate their stories with time-traveling ninjas, flying monkeys, and random song lyrics. It's a month-long writing exercise and a month-long celebration of creativity. It's a little bit crazy. And it's a heck of a lot of fun.

Soon the "I Hate NaNoWriMo" blog posts will begin to spring up like mushrooms across the internet. These are generally written by aspiring or little-known authors who believe the flood of dreadful NaNo manuscripts will somehow keep their masterpieces from being published. Successful writers rarely feel this way; Sue Grafton and Neil Gaiman are two of the many well-known authors who provide the pep talks that go out to participants each week of the event.

The NaNoWiMo forums mention muses a lot. How to attract your muse, how to keep your muse happy and busy, the care and feeding of a muse. NaNo is all about the muse, which is as it should be. The exercise is about messy first drafts, raw and unpolished but fresh and genuine. That first draft is to a writer what a block of clay is to a sculptor. You can't make art without it. Yay, Muse!

There was one thread, though, that gave me pause. It was about all the ways in which people might keep their metaphorical inner editors away during November. All I can say is, there's a lot of resentment toward inner editors out there. Most of the suggestions involved stuffing Inner Editor (generally bound with ropes or chains) into a closet or trunk, locking the door or lid, and hiding the key until December 1.

I fully understand the need to keep Inner Editor from interfering during the first draft process, but all this talk of binding and stuffing makes me (and MY inner editor) a little uncomfortable. After all, Inner Editor has valuable skills we're going to need when it's time to make something beautiful from that big lump of first-draft clay. Maybe, instead of gagging her and handcuffing her to a radiator, we could take a different approach.

When Creative Self and I are working on an early draft, Inner Editor leans over our shoulder and mutters, "You call that writing? Hemingway would turn over in his grave," I remind her that her turn will come--Creative Self is busy making a beautiful, flawed first draft for Inner Editor to carve and polish into a thing of beauty. She gets starry-eyed at the prospect, and I give her chocolate and send her away to bask on a beach somewhere until Creative Self proudly calls her back and plops a finished draft into her hands.

Inner Editor can be critical and sarcastic, but when treated gently and reminded that constructive criticism can still be kind, she's a team player. Assured that her turn will come, she's content to let Creative Self play, with only an occasional nudge ("Hey, you just wrote paedcpm. Didn't you mean peacock?"). As she works her magic, she's happy to let Creative Self watch and weave in a little magic of her own. The editing process becomes a dance between the analytical ("This back story is interesting, but does it really move the story?") and the creative ("Wait, I have a better idea!").

In our celebration of the Muse, let's not forget a kind word for the oft-maligned Inner Editor. Come December, we're going to need her.

Blast Away or Write...Edit?

By Chester Campbell


The conventional wisdom, based on how often I run across it, says you should plop down at your computer and dash off your story as fast as possible. Never mind the niceties, like finding the correct word or putting the commas in the right places. Just get the story down in 1s and 0s (that’s binary speak). When you reach the end, you have a first draft. Then you go back and start making a coherent manuscript out of it.

If you’re a detailed plotter or outliner, that would probably do the trick. My mind doesn’t work that way. I write chapters at a time, hopefully more than one. When I return to the computer, I go back over what I wrote last and edit. It has to sound right to me before I can go on.

I guess it’s the way my brain is wired. It doesn’t interrupt the story, since I have no idea where the story is going in the first place. The words stream out as I type, sometimes with a little help from an idea that pops up during my daily walk. Well, almost daily. As daily as circumstances allow.

With the first few chapters, I’ll usually go back to the beginning and start reading. After I get into the book, I’ll start a chapter or two before the point where I stopped writing. Besides eliminating the possibility of writer’s block, this technique engenders a feeling that I’m creating something worthwhile. I may change a word or two, a stronger verb or a more descriptive adjective. Sometimes I’ll delete a sentence or add one that gives a little different slant on things.

Individual chapters get another going-over thanks to my critique group. But we only meet twice a month. I’d better write more than two chapters a month if I’m going to finish this thing. That means only a limited number of chapters will get full scrutiny. I’ll give the completed manuscript to a couple of people who agree to read it.

By the time I get to that point, which most people call a “first draft,” it’s already been edited to a fare-thee-well. I will likely have made a number of significant changes to earlier incidents that need to match what happens later. That makes the final edit important, since I should catch any inconsistencies along the way. The final revision will take into account suggestions made by those who read the full manuscript.

I don’t advocate using this method if you’re comfortable with the way you write. But if you find you’re not happy with how the writing sounds when you take the pause that refreshes (you don’t have to drink a Coke), you might give it a try. It’s guaranteed to prevent writer’s block or your money back. Of course, you’d have to send me some money before I could do that—I take PayPal.