Editing

As if there isn't plenty to learn about writing, then dread strikes when the thought of editing tramps across the bliss of completing the first draft of 'the manuscript.'

There are several different types of editing, named, of course, closely to their actual function.

This is what usually occurs:
Spell check. Done. Off to the best friend or significant other to show off the manuscript, your pride and joy.

The friend likes it, but...

Finally they hesitantly and apologetically mention there are some errors.

Now the serious self-editing begins. The diligent writer reads through the ms on the monitor. He anguishes over the stupid errors he didn't notice before. Then off to another 'sure to rave' friend.

The best use of the writer's time is to print the ms and read it aloud - red pen in hand.

There are some things harder to catch than peek, peak, pique [homonym] goofs and over used words. Because the writer has intimate knowledge of the story and characters, it is easy to miss odd jumps in time, unneeded secondary characters, assumptions the reader knows things that aren't in the story or overly annoying explanations of things anyone would know, a sloppy misuse of literary devices, and a dozen more things that make the ms destined to forever hit the rejection list of the publisher's slush pile.

The solution is simple. It's not your favorite English teacher from school or your super smart friend who knows nothing about writing. The solution is to hire a content editor.

Finally after all the rewrites, and there will be many of them, comes the time for the line editor or proof reader; the final clean up crew.

After spending untold hours writing the ms, don't skip the final polish before sending it and the query letter on its way into the vast world of publishing.

The harsh reality is, regardless of how awesome the story idea is, if it will take too much time to find that gem and polish it into a marketable commodity, most publishers will pass.

There are thousands of mss shopped for publication a year. Yours needs to be competitively written to get the first three chapters read. No one expects perfection from a manuscript, but it really should look like some effort was put into presenting a worthy product.

I thought this was interesting. "Rewriting work under such circumstances more often than not works out to an editing rate of 2 to 3 pages an hour." It really does go at a snail's pace when I "read" a manuscript for content editing. http://www.teleread.com/epublishing/the-changing-face-of-editing

Enough blog reading, get back to writing the next Great American Novel.

Tempus Fugit

Lately there has been more than the usual emails asking if the current work is finished and if I now have time to read xyz ms.

I don't think anyone realizes how many times I go through a ms pending publication. I can almost quote it by the last reading (marking all over it). It is a wonder the author (any author) still emails me after all the times the ms has been sent back for rewrites. On the other hand, not every publisher has the patience for works that require multiple rewrites.

Most of the time it has been a gracious exchange with many patiently withheld frustrations - I'm sure. The ones who won't do rewrites get sent packing.

Here's why: http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/06/learn-the-fking-rules-grammar

More on editing...

I love that Glynis, in Cypress, is only person who dared to comment on the last post. Cheers to you, Glynis!

Being a huge fan of Jacqueline Kennedy, I love that she spent 20 years as an editor. I can imagine her sense of style as she midwife'd a manuscript into a masterpiece of literature.

Read the article below and let me know what you think? Would you let (or have you let) someone take a serious hand in the development of your manuscript-to-book? Please post a comment on what it is like to let go enough to let someone mess with your baby. I know it is difficult.

That midwifery is a given for Cactus Rain Publishing, LLC's books. I'm very fast to send packing any author not willing to take direction, since I do (as it turns out) know a thing or two about this industry. I'll content edit a chapter or two before we mention the word contract. I am way past the hand-holding part of life, and all about business when it comes to producing a book that I will put my [Italian made] logo on the cover.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/where-have-all-the-book-editors-gone/article1894501/page1/

Before Editing

A reminder here, you can hire a line editor - proof reader (I know a good one if anyone needs one). But there is more to being a good fiction writer than grammar and punctuation. A perfect, error free ms isn't necessarily a good read. There are elements of the craft that are more important than the occasional subject/verb out of agreement.

A fiction writer needs to practice the skills of the craft: Character Development (not a two paragraph mini bio that stops the story dead - boring), pacing (sentence structure and context that matches the action of the words), scene (the development of vignettes that drive the story forward and develop the characters, create conflict and resolution), setting (only stand up comedians work on an empty stage - put people in the city scenes and animals in the rural scenes, and a habitat to match the setting), tone (the flavor of the story, the aftertaste), voice (who tells the story, the 'personality' of the storyteller - not the writer), literary devices (personification, foreshadowing, dialogue, backstory, and more), plots, plot arcs, and subplots, tense, point of view (POV) - see the links below for more info.

Notice I did not mention once that to be a good fiction writer you need to know the 48 prepositions or the 8 parts of speech (The basic eight parts of speech in the English language consist of the verb, noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.)

Writing fictioin is like building a house. You need to have electrical, plumbing, structure, design, a roof - the paint and floor covering are last. Novice writers try to paint before the walls are up --they edit prematurely.

I've put together some books on writing on the third page of my amazon store http://nadinelamanbooks.com/astore.html If you buy only one book, buy the script writing book. Read the parts about camera angle and the parts that teach you to write a motion picture in your reader's mind. There are several other books I like, I'll ask Joyce - my web designer - to add them for me.

If you are editing while you write or right after the first draft is finished, it will show, it will not be your best possible work - I read far more mss than I read published books. I can tell at what stage the editing was done and your eventual readers will too, even if they don't know what is lacking. While editing is important, it is far less important than good writing...and that comes with rewrites. Basically, editing for grammar and punctuation is the last step of polishing an ms.

Writing a good story is the first step, that is why I say the elements of producing fiction are these in this order:

First draft - written from beginning to end, straight through, no going back at all - ever.
Rewrites - strengthening the story with literary elements of good story writing, done correctly, this step will be repeated several times - straight through, beginning to end.
Edit - cleaning up grammar and punctuation. And finally, line editing or proof reading.

From there you can query agents, shop your ms, or move into one of the many ways to publish your own book.

The saying goes: "Writers write" not "Writers edit." Don't get off track on what it is you wanted to be when you started writing, you wanted to be a WRITER.

Literary devices:
http://www.ask.com/questions-about/Literary-Devices
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/resources/litdevices/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_technique
http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm
ms = manuscript

Goodness, google 'literary devices' learn the craft, it is far MORE than editing.

Editing links

by Glyn Pope, France, guest blogger

After the first draft of our masterpiece is written comes the time to begin to rewrites and edits. I found this page quite useful for self edit: http://home.earthlink.net/~jdc24/selfEdit.htm

During the blog party, the following links were offered. To make them more easily accessible for a reference to bookmark, I compiled them for this post.

For grammar and writing
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
The Guide to Grammar and Writing is a reference resource I have used for some years now. It makes fascinating browsing too, especially in the so-called Grammarlogs (their Q&A section)
– Nick Daws blogging at: http://www.mywritingblog.com/

I love my friend June Casagrande's Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies (Penguin). It's funny and makes the point about many rules not being "rules" at all. And it's entertaining! Everyone should read one book a month on language, editing and the art of publishing. It's our careers. Even if we aren't writers.
– Carolyn Howard-Johnson blogging at the following:
http://www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com/
http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/
www.budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor
http://www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com/.


It is a holiday weekend in the USA, meet my guest blogger!
Glyn Pope is an author of two published novels, Learning To Wave and To The End Of Love. Glyn blogs at http://glynpope.blogspot.com/