Dear Writer with an Editor

Dear Writer with an Editor,

Working with an editor can be nerve-wracking. You don’t know what they’ll say about your story or ask you to change. It can be especially worrisome if you’re a new writer, inexperienced, or never worked with an editor before.

For any writer planning to work with an editor (or currently working with one), here are some basic do’s and dont’s:

     -       Don’t say you’re broke

If you have no money to pay for an editor, you should wait to talk to one until you do. If you end up broke after paying for your editor, never tell the editor this. For one, there’s nothing they can do about it. Two, it’s not professional. You should only talk about money when you’re discussing prices or a payment plan.

      -       Don’t say you’re not going to publish the project your editor is currently working on.

What you do after your editor is finished with your book is up to you. The editor has no control over it. They could edit your piece and it could take you years to publish it, which is totally fine. Or you may decide not to publish it, which is also okay. But telling your editor that you’ve decided not to publish it at all, while they are working on it, can be a downer.

     -       Don’t bug your editor with publishing questions.

Editors edit. That is their function. Even if they’re published, they may not know about every avenue of publishing. And trying to answer your questions about publishing while they edit your work is tough. It’s your job to write the book, fix it through editing, learn about your publishing options, and do what you have to do to get it published.

     -       Do let your editor know of any concerns you might have.

Editors don’t just cut out cluttering words or fix commas, but point out plot and character issues. When you let them know of something specific you’re concerned about (a character, scene, or certain detail), they can keep an eye out for it.

      -       Do ask questions based on your editor’s edits and suggestions.

If an editor comes across an issue, they usually offer a suggestion to fix it that the writer can take or use as a spin-off to do their own thing. If a writer has a question about a suggestion or the editing process, editors are more than happy to answer.

     -       Do be patient.

Editors have lives. Most editors write their own books, sometimes have their own editors to answer to, and have more clients they are working with. When an editor first accepts your project, they’ll give you a time frame for when you can expect to get your work back. Don’t ask them where they are, if they’re done, or start discussing the next project. Just wait. (Of course, if you don't hear from them at all and the deadline has passed, please email them.)

Bottom Line: Don’t pester your editor. (Unless it’s about editing your book.)

Author of Hurricane Crimes, Seismic Crimes, 30 Seconds, Ghost of Death, and Witch of Death. Blogger. Reader. Auntie. Vegetarian. Cat Lover.

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QUESTIONS: Have you ever worked with an editor? What was your experience? Are you an editor? What do's and dont's can you come up with?

World Building

Charity recently posted about world building, and her post inspired this one.  *Waves at Charity*  There have been times when I’ve come across a manuscript where the world building wasn’t quite what it needed to be.

I once received a submission that was actually a pretty interesting and compelling story.  However, the author needed to go back and flesh out the world a bit more.  The story was set in a future U.S. that had already been through a war.  Certain areas had been nuked.  The survivors had primarily banded together into two groups in two different regions.  Think of how the Mason-Dixon Line is supposed to sort of separate the North from the South, and you have a basic idea of what I mean by two different regions.  Well, one of these groups is composed entirely of females.  There are no males allowed, relationships can only occur between two women.  If a couple wants to have a child, they have to be registered and go to the clinic.  All embryos are female and no male DNA is used in their creation.

The other group is composed of male/female pairings, but it’s in the extreme, because the men are completely in charge.  Women do have jobs and things like that, but in the long run, they don’t have much say in matters.

As I mentioned before, the story itself was interesting, but the world had some issues with being believable.  For one thing, why weren’t there any groups of people who didn’t fall into either of the above categories?  Even though there were the female only communities, why weren’t there any similar communities strictly for men?  Why weren’t there any communities who had male/female pairings, but where women and men had equal rights?  Surely, the war didn’t twist everyone into believing the two extremes.  You find out later that there is a resistance, a group who believes that neither of the two societies is right, but why did they have to be a resistance?  Why weren’t they just a third society?  What made people believe that either of the two extremes was right in the first place?  What made people decide they had to split into those two distinct societies?  The entire U.S. wasn’t laid to waste during the war, so it’s not like there were very few inhabitable places left.  Why didn’t those who disagreed with the two extremes go out and form their own societies?  Why did they have to be underground as a resistance?  This author did receive a rejection, but I was very detailed in the issues I noted in the manuscript.  I explained that this world just wasn’t believable, because there wasn’t enough of a background to give the world plausibility.  While the author didn’t need to drown the readers in the backstory of it, they did need to give some plausible reasons for this world to form.

The questionnaire Charity shared during her post is a great place to start.  Sure, it’s detailed, and some of the questions wouldn’t apply to every story, but just reading through the list of questions shows authors the things they need to think about when creating their world.  The author can get away with not explaining some things by having their characters say, “That’s just the way it’s always been.”  However, that will only get you so far.  The author needs to think about whatever’s being questioned in their world and decide if something is insignificant enough to say, “That’s just the way it’s always been”, or if it’s important enough to explore why it’s always been that way.  And if it hasn’t always been the norm, to explore why it became that way.

You need to make your world work, and even if it’s an odd world where social conventions don’t make sense to us, it has to make sense within that world.  Readers have to be able to see the connection.  Even if it’s not something they could ever agree with, they need to be able to see how it was possible for it to become normal for your world and its characters.  The same is true if you have fantasy elements in the modern world.  How does the magic work?  What is the price for using magic?  If there's a prophecy, who made it and why?  Try to look at your world from an outside perspective and make sure things will make sense to your readers.  This is another thing betas are good for catching.

The Editor/Author Relationship

I know some of you have never worked with an editor, and some of you have, but I have a few things to say about the Editor/Author relationship.  Some editors might approach the process as a dictatorship, with the editor being the dictator.  I don’t personally know of any who are this way, unless it’s about certain things, but I’ll get into that in a minute.  My personal approach is something of a partnership.  When I’m editing your work, a little of my own heart and soul becomes entwined with your work.  I come to know and love (or hate if necessary) your characters almost as well and as much as you do.  At the same time, I often see things about your characters or story that you don’t, and I’ve helped authors more fully develop these things or get rid of them if need be.  When I’m editing, I might make suggestions regarding phrasing, but I always let my authors know that while they’re welcome to use my wording exactly, it is only there to serve as an example.  I’ve had authors who rephrased it exactly as I suggested, and I’ve had authors who rephrased it entirely differently, but which still corrected whatever issue I was pointing out.  An editor shouldn’t go in and rewrite your book.  That’s not what we’re for.  While you might say something the same way I would say it, you also might say it differently, so my words are only intended to help you find yours.  I’m not going to change something arbitrarily, or simply because I don’t understand what you mean.  If I’m concerned about it, I’ll leave a comment and ask you about it.

For example, Carol and I had a conversation regarding regionalisms.  There was something she said a certain way (sorry Carol, I can’t remember what this one was specifically) and I was wondering if she was missing a word in the phrasing.  Then I discovered it classified as a regionalism.  This spawned an entire conversation regarding regionalisms and how, when someone asks me if I want a pop, I always think, “No.  I don’t want you to pop me.  What did I do to you?”  Around here, it’s either a soda or a coke.

“Do you want a coke?”

“Sure.”

“What kind?”

“Mountain Dew.”

Once Carol explained the wording, and that it was how she and others around her always said it, it made sense.  I left it in the manuscript because I felt it added authenticity to the scene and “local flavor”.  I’ll even let you get away with using ain’t and git (as in “Git yerself outta here!”) in dialogue, because I’m from the South.  Ain’t is a word here.  However, don’t even think about using it in narration.  Not gonna happen.

For the most part, I work with authors.  If they disagree with me, I expect them to open a dialogue with me and tell me why they disagree.  Sometimes it’s simply misunderstanding the meaning, and an explanation clarifies it, so we’re good to go.  It stays as is.  Sometimes I understand, but it still has to go, so we have to reach a compromise.  And still sometimes it has to go, no matter what.  For example, Carol and I had to reach a compromise regarding “K” as a word.  She wanted Bert to say “K”.  Now, I completely understood her reasoning, (and yes, I have Carol’s permission to share this) but our publisher had a House Style Guideline that absolutely forbade the use of “K” as a word.  They would only allow okay or ’kay (only in dialogue).  For the record, a lot of other publishers have the same guideline.  Carol and I finally compromised on ’kay for Bert’s dialogue, but even if we were in his POV, it had to be okay in narration.

I try to be friendly with my authors and get to know them.  Some aren’t very reciprocal in that regard, but most are.  There are a few that have become friends.  I’ve only had one or two that you could probably describe as prickly, but we still worked together without any major issues.  With other authors, our relationship was strictly limited to edits.

My comments to an author are honest, and I try to use humor, because I know how hard it is to write and then have someone tell you this scene isn’t working, this character is coming across as a doormat, or another character you want readers to like is actually coming across as a huge jerk.  I’ll also tell you if I don’t like a character, even if it’s not yet clear whether or not I’m supposed to dislike them.  One character in a manuscript I’ve recently edited was coming across as a real annoyance.  I wanted to smack her.  Another character in the manuscript was accused of poisoning someone (no, they didn’t), and I told the author I wouldn’t be surprised if the annoying character had actually poisoned the person.  The author got a laugh out of that.

So, if you disagree with your editor about one point or another, open a dialogue.  Keep in mind that their hands might be tied by the publisher’s guidelines, because part of our job is making sure your manuscript adheres to them.  And that (along with grammar) is where most of us will become dictators.  Always remember that we, like you, want your manuscript to be the best it can possibly be, and we want to see it do well.

And for the record, even though Carol said I did, I’ve never told any of my authors they were falling down the stairs like a defunct slinky…at least, not in those exact words.  *grin*

4 Easy Tips to take Your Book from Mediocre to Stunning

I read an article this morning on how a mother goes about telling her 15-year-old daughter she couldn’t write. The premise of this article boiled down to, “You don’t!” Instead, you support her and encourage her to keep working on what she obviously loves. With practice, we all get better.

However, as a book reviewer, I don’t have that luxury. As I do not have a book out there for people to read, I don’t know what it’s like to take and hold my baby in my hands and ask a total stranger to read it and give me their opinion. But I DO remember what it was like to show total strangers my writing for the first time. Let’s just say I was terrified.

Now, I’m the total stranger. Authors come to me asking me for my opinion on their work. I promise to tell people my honest opinion on their work and I contact each and every one of them when I’m done. Nothing is more painful for me than to go back to an author and tell them their work needed well… more work. It is my least favorite part of my job. I much prefer to go yelling from the rooftops that the book I just read was terrific and everyone should read it. 

We have now entered November. During this month, probably more books are created than at any other time of the year. If I had been able to keep up with my reading list, I have no doubt I’d have people climbing all over me in December asking me to read their book. Those weird little novellas penned during what is known as NaNoWriMo. I’ll admit I’m glad at this point my doors are currently shut. Now I have an inkling of how publishers feel every time November rolls around. Do I hate NaNoWriMo? Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I’m participating in it. But I know a few things from being a reviewer and I want to share them with you.

When you think you’re ready to self-publish, consider these 4 simple tips: 

1) Make your cover beautiful. In the world of self-publishing, the marketplace is flooded. We DO judge a book by its cover. There are many talented cover artists out there. Hire someone. If you’re not awesome at graphic design, please don’t try it yourself. It will show.

2) Make sure you EDIT the book when you are done. Nothing is more painful than reading a book that obviously would have benefited from such a service. Does it cost money? Yes. But without it, your book could potentially fail.

3) Get beta readers! These are marvelous friends who love to read and are willing to point out the problems to you. If you have a friend who has issues with punctuation and grammar and goes nuts correcting the errors, for goodness sakes, hang on to them! They’re worth their weight in gold.

4) Get your book proofread! I have returned a lot of books to authors over this minor detail. When I take stars away for every 10 typos in a book, and I end up with a negative number, I have to wonder if you even read your own book. You may very well need to bring in someone who has never seen your book before in order to catch as many as possible. There are professionals out there who do this, but sometimes there’s that good friend who will help.

These are simple steps that easily take a book from mediocre and can polish it to a high shine. A lot of writers are unwilling to go through this process because it takes time. You want to see your book OUT THERE! But trust me. Going through these four little steps pays off in the long run. With everyone doing their part, we can show the world that ‘self-publish’ is not a bad word. And then maybe my “I’m sorry” letters can be purely based on the fact the story line was not my cup of tea. I’d like that.