Editing On

Hurrah! 

I just received the edit for The Winter Kill from my editor. I'm very pleased with how this novel is working out - finally. It was a tough one. Mysteries are harder than they look. I'll work on the edit for the next week and then it goes for a final proofread. So it looks on schedule for the July 25th release date!

It is now available on preorder on Amazon for only $2.99!

Editing a Novel -- The How of the Thing

Editing, how to do it and do it effectively? That is a good question. I'll give you my opinion. I won't keep saying in every sentence that it is. Some people will disagree. That's fine. This is how I feel it should be done.

A lot of people will tell you to set aside a novel for six months or some insane (to me) amount of time so that you can look at it with "fresh eyes". Well, this doesn't work. Believe me. You will never ever have truly fresh eyes for your own work. It will always be yours. It's like saying if you haven't seen your own child for a few months, they won't be your child. Setting it aside for a short time isn't a bad idea, but don't think that will make you truly see it as though you haven't seen it before. You wrote the sucker. Let's be real here.

However, there are a few tricks that help you really see it. Assuming you write on a computer, first change your font and font size and then print it out. Just looking at it in a new medium with a new appearance helps it seem different. In fact, it helps a lot, well worth the expense of all that ink.

For the first edit, try not to worry about typos. Ok, correct them when you notice them, but there is no point in concentrating on typos that might be edited out anyway, because what you need to concentrate on first is a story-level edit.

Doing this there are several things you need to look at, and I look at them all in the same edit rather than going over the novel once for each issure.

1. Conflict. Does at least some conflict start in the first chapter. It doesn't have to be the main conflict, but just telling a reader how cute and charming the main character is or telling their life story from first grade won't likely keep them reading. So present some problem, even a minor one. And bring in at least part of the main conflict soon. And I happen to agree with some people that even in chapters where the conflict is not the main point, the conflict should never be far away. If there is no conflict, what is the story doing? Never lose sight of your conflict.
   
2. Pacing. This is a very tough one for an author to judge because you're probably interested in the most mundane things your character does, but if the story drags the reader is going to notice. Does the conflict get repetitive, for example, with the character solving very similar problems over and over? Does the same situation drag out too long? Or is it too rushed? Oh, this is hard to judge, but an author has to try to see it. (And pacing is one of the reasons I think an editor is essential)
   
3. Character development. Some types of novels and genres tend towards more character development than others, but if your character doesn't change and grow in the course of your story, then you have a problem--a serious one. Many readers will forgive a lot if you have good character development. If your character doesn't develop at all, try to think of them as a real person who needs a little prodding to grow up.
4. Point of view. Make sure it is consistent. Keep an eye out for inadvertent head-hops where you suddenly tell what someone is thinking when your PoV character couldn't possibly know.

Once you have the story level edit done, I suggest another read for a copyedit. For this, I read it out loud. That way I have to look at every word. I do this on the computer screen rather than a print copy, so I can immediately make corrections. Once again, I change font and font size to alter the appearance.

I look at this stage for inadvertently repeated words. I tend to suddenly decide to use a certain word several times in a couple of paragraphs. I look for awkward phrasing. Obviously, I look for typos and misspellings.

I don't think that editing over and over is productive use of one's time, and I know a lot of writers who do this. I suspect most authors who do this (my opinion) don't really know at what point they stop making improvements and start changing for the sake of changing something. I'm also not sure they know at what point they start editing out their own voice. Of course, I also edit as I go, so perhaps I cheat a bit. My own opinion is that after you've done the kind of edit I describe, you really need someone else to look at it for you.

Once I've done the editing I described, I send it to an editor. It is extremely difficult for an author to see everything in their own work, and I think a professional set of eyes is required. However, this kind of editing process will send you a long way along the road to a finished manuscript.

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Please check out my historical novel, Freedom's Sword, available on Amazon and Smashwords.

Guest Post by Jennifer Hudock

Today I have my first Guest Post, and it's from my friend from the Kindleboards, Jennifer Hudock, author of The Goblin Market. I'll let Jennifer tell her own story and pop in for comments at the end. Here's Jennifer:

The Control Freak
By Jennifer Hudock

I'm a control freak. There, I said it. I'm sure they have twelve-step programs for freaks like me, but when it comes to my writing, I don't want to compromise. Okay, I guess that's not entirely true. I'll gladly compromise with my editor on elements of my stories that might not gel well with my reading audience, but there are things I will not sacrifice.

I watched a lot of my author friends go through traditional publishing houses, both small scale press and big six, and the process of getting published was more often than not, excruciating. Some houses had very specific rules about character names—including a long list of "DO NOT NAME" they handed out to their authors in the first stages of communication. If one of your characters had a name on that list, there was no compromise…your character got renamed.

Maybe it's all part of being a control freak, but the naming process for my characters if often very personal, and imagining having to rename them because a publisher doesn't like the name I chose kind of makes my skin crawl.

From the outside looking in, it often feels as if publishers don't look at our creative work in terms of story, unless they're looking for ways to make it sell. They often recommend hacking out important plot points and requesting entire manuscript rewrites that turn your novel into something you would never write. Again, I've got the creepy crawlies under my skin just thinking about it.

As an indie author I need to think about how to sell my story, but first and foremost I need to think about my story and my audience. I tell stories because I love them—the characters, their experiences, adventures and defeats…I feel a connection with the elements of those stories that often runs deeper than the connections I feel to the people in my life.

Maybe I'm just unwilling to compromise my characters and their stories, and that can certainly be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. My stubbornness pushed me to find and work with my own editors before I published my first full-length fantasy novel, The Goblin Market. Feedback between my editors was often conflicting, which helped me examine the scenes they referred and their suggestions with an even more objective eye. Why? Because the editor only had one person to impress with their feedback: me. There was no publisher breathing down their neck, just little old me.

While I can't stress enough how important it is to publish clean, well-edit work because an editorial eye can help us find plot holes and unnecessary scenes that help us clean up our novel, I operate under the wisdom that one editor's trash is another editor's treasure.

J. R. sez: You really can't argue with success since The Goblin Market is doing very well over on Amazon. Jennifer is right, of course, that a clean work is essential. If there is one thing that hurts indie authors, it is a reputation for not giving that, but the cream rises to the top. Authors like Jennifer who do give a clean work and a good story, as she does, are rising--fast.

Jennifer Hudock is an author, podcaster and freelance editor from Pennsylvania. Her first full-length novel, The Goblin Market, is currently available on Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. For more information about Jennifer Hudock, including updates on upcoming fiction, visit her official website: The Inner Bean.

What writing advice has helped most?

I ran into a blog with comments from a lot of famous writers on this subject the other day. I'd point you toward it IF I could remember where I saw it!

But I thought it was an interesting topic and thought I'd throw in my own experience--not that I'm a famous writer, but I can hope. I've received some great advice from some very experienced authors, but truthfully the best advice I ever got was published and is available to every writer out there. It was Heinlein's famous "Five Rules," originally published in his essay that appeared in "Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing."

They are pretty simple:

Rule One: You Must Write

Pretty simple -- but, amazingly, many people who claim to be authors don't write.

Rule Two: Finish What Your Start

Here it really gets tough. Maybe you think the first pages are weak or the characterization isn't that good. It's easy to give up, but if you don't finish then you don't grow. Half finished stories don't do a thing for you.

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order

Now this one gives people fits. Almost everyone modifies it since none of my first drafts come out ready for an editor to read and I doubt that yours do either. But the fact is, beyond a limited point, editing and re-writing is a lost cause.

Let me ask you this: Do you really know what will improve your work? Do your first readers or your critique group really know? Sure. Fix plot holes and obvious errors. But once you have that piece finished, the plot holes filled in, and reading reasonably smoothly -- STOP! Don't work on it for years. (Sadly, I know writers who do.) You're as likely to make it worse as you are to make it better, unless you deliberately wrote it poorly, and I don't believe that.

Instead of working and sweating over that piece, try to make your NEXT one better than the last.

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market

Obvious, but most of us fall down on the job here. I admit it. I have a couple of stories I need to get out. Sometimes rejections or even the fear that you will get a reject makes you stop. So reward yourself -- have a piece of candy or whatever works, but get that work in front of editors who can buy it.

Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Tough! Tough! Five rejections. Ten rejections. You start thinking that the piece must be crap and you should trunk it. But keep putting it out there. I don't think Heinlein's remark that there is a publisher somewhere who is "so desperate that he'll buy the worst old dog you or I or anyone put out" is true any more. But I do know authors who have sold stories on the 70th submission. So just keep trying.

So that's the best advice I ever received and to be honest just about the only writing advice (besides Stephen King's in On Writing and a couple of other books I mention on my website) that I ever bother to follow.