Archive for Editing Tips

What is the editing process really like?

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A few people have noticed that I’ve been conspicuously absent from both this blog and Twitter. For the last few months, I’ve been busy writing the sequel to TOUCHED. And intermittently, I’ve gone through two rounds of line edits and a round of copy edits on IF I LIE. Before I went through this process, I’d often heard of authors complaining about edits. From my position of (a) having not sold a book yet or (b) waiting, waiting, waiting on tenterhooks for my edits, I wanted to kick those whiners to Siberia. Now that I’m on the other side, my perspective has changed somewhat. I thought I would share what the process is like. Just know this differs for every author.

The Editorial Letter

Even though, I love my editor fiercely, as I waited on my letter, I was secretly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was pretty sure my editor, Annette Pollert, would ask me to cut a character, or to do something I hated. At which point, I would be faced with the dilemma of going with the flow and caving to the desire to be published or making a brilliant stand for my story with guns blazing (like I own a gun that doesn’t use water as ammo). I got antsy every time I thought about this and died inside a little more each time I contemplated how much my editor must want to renovate my book like it was the Extreme Makeover: Novel Edition. As you can see, I worked myself into quite a state, while barely managing to keep the crazy under wraps from Annette.

So the letter arrived in May. I held my breath and clicked on the email, expecting to find the ten-page, single-spaced letter I’d heard so much about from my Apocalypsie friends. I started reading. And then I started crying because Annette opened the letter by saying my novel had made her cry six separate times when she should have been immune from tears by then. Of course, with that opening, any criticism that followed felt like glowing praise. (Well done on you, Annette, you brilliant mastermind.)

Quite frankly, the letter felt completely manageable. Also, I’m ashamed to admit I felt a smidge smug. After all, my editorial letter was ONLY THREE PAGES. Holla. My changes mostly consisted of adding new scenes. I don’t mean to say this was a breeze. I had to reorder the beginning of the book, not an easy thing to do with the structure this novel chose. In the end, though, I had Scrivener and four weeks to make the changes. The scenes really made the book better. A thousand times better. I finally confronted my trust issues and decided I was stupid to doubt Annette. She has my best interests and those of the book’s best interests at heart. We’re a team, damn it.

Line Edits

I go to Italy for school for a couple of weeks in July and some traumatic crap happens back at home, turning my life upside down. I’m basically a wreck when I return. I can’t write. It makes me cry, and I’m tired of crying. I take some time off. I actually look forward to my line edits to ease me back into my work. But my trust issues have raised their bastard head again. A niggling doubt insists that here – in the line edits – is where Annette will have me sacrifice a character on the altar of my writerly ambition. Here is where I will be forced to take a stand with my water gun. I tell the doubt to shut up and stop overreacting. It sticks its tongue out at me.

In August, Annette emails me the marked-up manuscript. I have a little under a month to make the edits and return them. I open the document. And pretty nearly faint. Holy *bleep*! Scrawled notes are on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. I suddenly remember when Annette said that she LOVED line edits more than the edit letter. How could I have forgotten that? So much for my smugness at my short letter. I’m not even sure how to begin to tackle the beast.

So I do what I do best. I get organized. I buy some bitchin’ highlighters, and I take my butt to Starbucks. One page at a time, I tell myself. Except, I look up four hours later and I’ve only conquered 13 pages. And my ego feels battered into the ground and I wonder if my editor really liked my book after all. But, hey, my highlighters got a helluva workout. The pages are practically bleeding pink.

I don’t know what this process is like for others, but I felt a bit bruised. It’s not a reflection on Annette. Dude, the woman worked her pencil to a nub with those edits. She put so much time and heart into them, and I will ever be grateful. But as I was making the changes, my emotions were all over the place. One moment, I was angry that a line I loved had been suggested for deletion or alteration in a way I disliked. The next, I was abashed at things I’d missed. Then, I was euphoric as a change that felt so right. For the mont, I worked on those edits, I was all jagged edges and bitten fingernails (plus jacked up on caffeine).

I’m baring myself here to tell you I did not have the best attitude at all times. It’s really hard to let go of your ego, and see the bigger picture. When your book sells, it is no longer yours alone. When you start working with an editor, your book becomes a collaborative project. You may have final say, but another person is making decisions and directing you in ways that you may not want to go at first. That seems like an obvious statement, but day-um, it’s a difficult realization.

But when the light bulb went off, I wondered why I’d been fighting it. My freaking trust issues had raised their heads again. I tackled my chaotic emotions the best way I could – WITH A HIGHLIGHTING SYSTEM and a SENSE OF HUMOR. My code: pink for changes I’d made; orange for compliments (because Annette did make loads of fun comments, thereby keeping me from falling apart); and yellow, for things I might not want to change. I even sent a picture of one of my pages, bleeding in pink, to Annette for a laugh and we shared our deep and abiding love for office supplies.

To salve my ego, I allowed myself to save favorite lines in brilliant yellow. Except, I decided that when I finished the edits, when I felt less battered by all the changes, I would look at those yellow lines again. I wanted to ensure I wasn’t being too precious about things, but I needed to be in a mental/emotional space where I could accept the change a bit more graciously.

In the end, my wondrous editor, asked to see my edits before they were finished. I sent over the draft and had to explain my highlighting system. And do you know what she did? She helped me work on those yellowed lines, to fine tune them so that I didn’t have to sacrifice them. She really did get it.

In my defense, I will say I hid my skyrocketing emotions during this time, except from close friends and family. I want so bad to be one of those authors who works for the best of the book and doesn’t let ego get in the way. I believe I accomplished this. I think Annette would agree. But I’d be lying if I said it felt good all the time. Oh, but how wondrous it feels to be on the other side! When I read my book, I’m blown away by how tight it is now. Annette challenged me, I stretched myself, and I’ve grown as a writer.

Growth hurts so good.

Copy Edits

On Friday I received my copy edits, and last night I finished them. A whole week early. I intend to do another read through because this is my last chance to make any big changes. This is the version that will become the galley. And now is the time when I have to turn in the dedication and acknowledgments. Compared to line edits, copy edits are like chewing gum – a total snap. I’m still learning. I have some tics that I’m aware of now and will work on.

There were two big surprises in this pass, though. First, I saw my copyright page. I wasn’t prepared for how it filled me with pride. I did it. I worked hard and created something from nothing. Awesome. Even better, though, is that I’m perfectly content with the story. I don’t have that anxious need to keep perfecting, to edit one more thing. Annette really is amazing. It may have felt overwhelming at the time, but those line edits tightened the story up so much, that it feels whole and complete to me.

See, I’m still learning to trust, but I made a huge leap in this round. I am in great hands at Simon Pulse. This is the best version of the book that it could be, and I can’t wait for you all to read it. For you writers, I hope you are lucky enough to work with an editor like Annette and the team at Pulse. I will forever bleed pink for them. The editing process can be completely brutal. It may break you a little, but only to build you back up as a better writer.

Battle of the Betas

The lovely and brave Sarah Enni offered herself up as a guinea pig for a little beta experiment. Six writers will take on beta reading a single page of her work “The Flute” so readers can compare and contrast beta styles.  Below is her text with my line edits inserted in brackets and italics. I also included summary notes at the bottom as I normally would with a beta. My notes are a little lengthier than they would normally be for a single page, but the idea was to let you see my beta style.

So without further ado!

If Hana Larkhill had her way, her father’s body would be in a sailboat, rope and a flute in his hands, and she would watch him embark one last time toward the unknown at the eternal curve of the earth

[Initial reaction to death is usually at a gut level. First we feel and then we think and rationalize. This passage sounds very intellectualized as if Hana is distant from the emotions she is feeling].

Instead, James Larkhill lay in a sterile metal box at Faraday’s Funeral Home. Someone who did it for a living

[I think you can strike this. Reader would assume.]

had caked his face with makeup. His delicate freckles were powdered out of existence [nice detail]. An old blue suit bound

[would love to see “anchored” instead of “bound” to carry through the seafaring metaphor]

his body; even the strawberry gold of his curls had faded.

Hana’s mother, Noa Larkhill, hasn’t

[change in tense]

fought these depressing conventions.

[makes me wonder who the narrator is. Can’t quite get a sense of it yet.]

But she had insisted on an open casket. James’ face and shoulders were in tact

[one word]

and the suit covered his abdomen. But Hana felt the looming specter of his ruined lower body, smashed into irreparable pieces by an anonymous fender

[specter sounds a little purple especially juxtaposed with fender].

Faraday’s was cold, clean and modern—everything was black or stainless steel. Everything had razor-sharp edges. It was the kind of place that gave Hana the feeling she was being blown through by unseen drafts

[watch state of being verbs like was and were. Try using more active verbs that add color to the narrative].

She longed for home. For his family James had provided a house with a door that shrunk up in the winter and bloated until it wedged in the door frame in the summer, a house with stairs that had predictable creaks and groans, a house that moved around them like a familiar friend.

James’ death three days earlier had crushed Hana underneath deep, prolonged silence

[like the silence compared to the noise in the house before. Maybe into instead of underneath?].

Her mother, whose loudest expression to this point had always been in the strength of her brush strokes on canvas, rocked and wailed. Hana felt like a ghost, alone and unseen, holding her mother’s tiny shaking limbs in a room full of people that, at least today, felt like strangers.

Thanks for sharing this piece, Sarah! I included notes in the text, but here are some gut reactions overall.

Narrator: Right now I’m struggling to get a sense of the narrator. The narrator sounds very distant from the action/emotion right now, which give me little insight into Hana. I think this would be more revealing across more pages, but it’s hard to attach to Hana in this short section.

Language: When in the midst of deep grief, we tend toward more one syllable words. As we intellectualize and gain distance from the emotion, we use more of those multi-syllabic words. Right now, the language is distancing me from the emotions of the characters. That may be okay depending on your longer goal, but I thought I would bring it up.

Marine Metaphor: You brought up a lovely metaphor in that first sentence with the marine imagery. I’d love to see this continued a bit more throughout. Sailing into the horizon is often equated with death in literature, but death also leaves the loved ones still alive feeling unanchored. Could be something to explore.

State of Being Verbs: I bring this up in EVERY beta because I do it. I do a mad search and destroy for them in my manuscripts.

Suggestion: One great advantage of third person POV is the distance. You can start far away and pan in closer to your character. In this scene, you could show us everyone in the room before you closed in on Hana. That gives us a nice basis for discovering who she is. You might check out the opening pages of Anna Karenina to see how Tolstoy does this really effectively.

Check out what the other beta readers had to say!

Kate Hart
Kathleen Peacock
Meredith Primeau
Alicia Gregoire
Windy Aphayrath

Editing, Wordles, and the Color Gray

I am editing.

Pause.

I. AM. EDITING.

If you haven’t written a novel, you have no idea how tedious this process is. On the plus side, my agent’s changes have been minimal. On the also-plus side, I have taken this opportunity to hoover my manuscript. I am tightening up every line, removing unnecessary words and phrases. The times I was lazy and told the reader what my character felt instead of showing it – deleted. This terrible habit I have of overloading my descriptions with a train of adjectives – picked one and made it stick. That little sub-plot that didn’t move the story but amused me – had to go.

Here’s where I congratulate myself.

As my manuscript progressed, I noticed I had to kill less. My writing was cleaner, more concise as the story deepened.

Here’s where I berate myself.

I created a supernatural world with two sets of opposing beings, and I did not adhere to the rules I created. Oh, I built Microsoft Word tables to show how A interacts with B, which changes A to X and B to W. Believe me, I had tables that broke this down by chapter. BUT I didn’t stick to them. I let myself fall into gray areas because that’s where my story wanted to go. All I did, though, is create confusion and a headache for myself as I correct this laziness. My editing tip for the decade: Avoid gray areas – they make for bad plot continuity.

Here’s where I took a break from editing to make art out of my manuscript.

Kate introduced me to Wordle, and I decided to try it out to see which words I had abused. I LOVE my Wordle. At least 90% of the words on it should be on it. Character names – check. Relationship names – check. Verbs and nouns inherent in my MC’s world – check. This is a book of self-discovery and creating relationships and making connections. If I take out the innocuous verbs and prepositions (which I ruthlessly will do), I’m left with words that I would use to describe my novel’s theme. That’s a win-win to me.

My Quote for the Week:

The work was like peeling an onion. The outer skin came off with difficulty… but in no time you’d be down to its innards, tears streaming from your eyes as more and more beautiful reductions became possible.

By Edward Blishen

Editing Tip #2: Beginnings (Abusing the Pronoun – Verb Combo)

While laboring away on my manuscript, I obsessed over the passive verb problem. I switched out the “I was” and “She became,” obliterating most of the sleepy “to be” verbs from my novel. Proud of my work, I sent it off into the world to be read by my trusted few. The new comment that came back? Something along the lines of this: “You should really try to vary your sentence structure. Many of your sentences seem to begin with a pronoun-verb combination.” Damn.

So I sat down at my laptop once more and did a close read of a random chapter. Then, I shrugged sheepishly because my reader proved right. See an example of two lines from my current work.

Original Version:

He stared for a moment in disbelief and spoke with a bite of amusement. “When did you run into this…door?”

I sighed. “Four days ago. Are you always this nosy?”

Now that you’ve read this example, you may note one of my biggest criticisms – I have a bad habit of not letting the dialogue speak for itself. Setting that aside for another post, see how simple this problem is to fix.

Revised Version:

“When did you run into this…door?” he asked.

I sighed. “Four days ago. Are you always this nosy?”

I challenge you to scan a few pages of your manuscript. Are you varying the sentence structure enough? Do many of your sentences begin with a noun (your character’s name) or a pronoun in tandem with a verb? Spice things up and move them around. Like most revisions, you’ll find it only gives you some gray hair and will make your work better.

Editing Tip #1: Passive Verbs

Every six weeks I submit a packet of writing to my Spalding MFA professor. She then sends the packet back to me with margin notations and summary notes. Many of my mistakes are common to writers, so I thought I’d call your attention to them in a week of editing tips. Though I try not to censor myself when I’m writing, I find these errors happening a lot less frequently not that I am aware of them. I think that’s half the battle.

Today, let’s talk about was, were, and other variations of the “state of being” verb. “Was” and “were” are my downfalls, my fallback verbs. My professor’s comment was that she felt sleepy reading a series of these on the page. I can’t blame her. If you are using passive verbs, I guarantee you there is a way to have a stronger, more powerful sentence using active verbs. Here are some simple examples.

Passive: I was running from the madman with the knife.

Active: I ran from the madman with knife.

I’d much rather be active than passive when running from a madman.

Passive: The wrought iron fence was decorated with flowers and vines.

Active: Iron flowers and vines suffocated the metal fence.

Take out the passive verb, add in a verb that fits the tone of your story, and suddenly that boring fence comes alive.

Passive: The car is driving down the road.

Active: The tires chew up the road.

That same car that dawdled on the road is now speeding down the road.

Passive: I became overwhelmed by a sea of grief.

Active: A sea of grief overwhelmed me.

A little reordering and an active verb can go a long way.

“To be” verbs:

am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, become, became

Most people won’t notice how much they are abusing the “to be” verb. Try using the Find/Highlight option in Word to check how often you are using them. You may be surprised to see how much better your work is once you rid it of these tired words.