Tag: editing

Chapter Length

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This blog post comes by request: “I currently have a chapter that is only about seven sentences. Is that too short? How many words do there need to be to make a chapter a chapter?”

The simple answer to those question would be: “No, that’s not too short” and “One, if that” but let’s dig into that a little further.

When it comes to chapter breaks, there aren’t any true rules. They can be as long or short as you want. In fact, you don’t even have to have chapters if you don’t wish to. It all comes down to what is right for your manuscript.

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In my own writing, I don’t bother with chapter breaks in my first draft. Since I tend to write out of order, it doesn’t make much sense to try to put them in on the first go around. Even if I am writing in order, I know enough will likely change come edits that entire chapters might go after the fact (In my latest novel, Raining Embers, what would have originally been the first three chapters were condensed to one, for example). Because of those overhauls, I personally just put in scene breaks when originally writing. Once I have a somewhat solid draft, I then go in and find scene breaks that work well as chapter breaks each about ten pages from the last.

Personally, I stick to relatively even chapters. Chapters, after all, are there to give readers periodic breaks. How you chose to do place your breaks, however, can affect your manuscripts quite a bit.

  • Steady, even chapters. My personal choice, mostly because even chapters of medium length (generally around 2,000 – 4,000 words or so) tend to draw the least amount of attention to themselves. Readers expect to find chapters, and quickly fall into a rhythm, so tend to read the story without too much thought given to the chapters. If you don’t want much attention drawn to chapter breaks, try this method.
  • Quick chapters. Quick chapters (generally under 2,000 words or so. Sometimes much shorter) are great for keeping pacing up. Thrillers and horror novels often keep their chapters on the shorter side of things to keep readers feeling like they’re flying through the action. Sometimes chapters will drop down to only a couple of pages (or even less) to achieve that goal. When mixed with medium-length or long chapters, they can also be used draw attention to something strange or especially shocking. If you want a sudden impact, a very short chapter in the middle of long and/or steady ones can be very effective. Note: Because it is shocking, however, use with caution. You will be drawing the reader’s attention to the chapter break along with the narrative which can backfire if not done well.
  • Long chapters. Long chapters (over 4,000 words or so. Sometimes much longer) tend to have the opposite effect of short ones. The reader gets a grand, sweeping sensation that often suits grandiose scenes or narratives. When mixed with shorter chapters, long chapters can also give a feel of a “continuous take” camera shot in a movie, where there’s not meant to be any sort of break in the action/visual for thematic reasons. Less shocking than a quick chapter in the middle of longer chapters, it is easier to slip in without drawing large amounts of reader attention, but changing to a long chapter tends to work best when there is tension building or some other sort of scene that should really draw the reader in.

As with all choices when it comes to writing, it really is a matter of what you are attempting to accomplish in your manuscript. It is also possible to try a few ways out and then change them if they don’t seem to be working after the fact. Just always consider what you mean to do when making these sorts of choices for your manuscript to have the best effect.

They’re Really More Like Guidelines

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Happy Day 1 of NaNoWriMo! October just flew by this year. Hopefully everyone had a great Halloween/NaNo’s Eve and are now furiously typing away.

For today’s blog post, there’s really just a quick reminder that seems to be far too often forgotten when people start to argue about “writing rules.” Where there is a ton of really good advice out there about how to make writing better/stronger, but it really is just that: advice.

When people begin to argue whether alternatives to “said” should be avoided or if adverbs are best to be avoided, the go to response tends to be “well, find a book with no adverbs” or similar. That is, of course, taking the arguments to an extreme. Any standard advice you might read is a general guideline that tends to make for stronger writing. It is not an absolute that “you can’t write a good book without taking this as cardinal law.” You don’t need to hold witch hunts for telling, adverbs, or anything else people will generally tell you to avoid. You can even do the exact opposite of the advice if that is what works for you. The important thing, when it comes to creative writing, is you’re allowed to be creative. If you can make something work, then it works. Certain things are just easier to make work than others.

And that is where the advice comes in. Adverbs can be great. Much of the time, they become a crutch for weaker word use. Other tags rather than “said” can work well, as well, but often times they can be distracting.

So, while you’re writing, do what’s best for your story. You are the author and need to decide if an adverb is what is needed or not. Just keep advice in the back of your mind so you don’t fall back on things that are damaging rather than helpful.

Happy NaNo and happy writing!

Do the Twist

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A great twist can make a story (think, would The Sixth Sense have been nearly as popular without people loving its?) but a poorly done twist can just as easily sink one (think every other M. Night Shyamalan movie that has been panned in the years since Sixth Sense).

The general advice I have when it comes to twists is only use them when it flows naturally in your story rather than being a planned gimmick. If you are trying to force your story to conform to a plan just for a twist, don’t do it. Ninety-nine percent of the time the damage you’ll do to your story will not be redeemed no matter how mind blowing the final twist is. Some gimmicks work, but more often than not a well-written story will beat out a mediocre but unique gimmick.

If you are planning part of your plot around a twist, however, some more specific things to keep in mind:

1. Make sure the story supports it. This is one of the major stumbling blocks that get many “twist-based” stories stuck. When the author starts becoming hyperfocused on their great twist, it often opens up the story to other plot holes. Sure, you can hand wave a lot of things in fiction if necessary, but when you start having readers question the very premise of your story (why would the aliens even want a planet that’s mostly water if they’re allergic to it?) you’re going to have a problem. If there’s no reason for the story to progress in the first place once you learn there was someone controlling it the entire time or it turns out a character is a turncoat, the twist isn’t going to protect you from criticism from readers left scratching their heads. Likewise, if your twist relies on other characters keeping information from one another, make sure they have a reason for keeping that information to themselves outside of “because the author said to” otherwise the rest of the plot can stop making sense.

2. Don’t make you characters seem like idiots. There is an ongoing joke that characters in Superman comics aren’t able to see that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person past a pair of glasses. At this point, it has simply become an accepted part of the storytelling along with the fact that no one ever really stays dead in comics. Unfortunately for those writing outside of the DC or Marvel universes, that level of suspension of disbelief doesn’t carry over to most other forms of prose. Where the people of Gotham may still not get that Bruce Wayne is Batman even though Batman for some reason disappeared at the same time as Bruce Wayne and he always seems suspiciously “away” when Batman’s out and about, readers are going to start getting a little annoyed when your character hasn’t put something together that it seems any reasonable person would have. You definitely want to have some sort of foreshadowing when it comes to a twist, but don’t offer enough so the reader has figured out the twist so far ahead of the character that the character seems dim for having missed the myriad of clues.

3. Foreshadow properly. As stated above, you don’t want twists to entirely come out of nowhere. If there has been absolutely no sign of anything nefarious happening, a twist that turns everything on its head can be just as annoying as a twist that was signposted way too early. Readers don’t tend to like being blindsided. Make sure there are some clues that foreshadow the ending. Just make sure they’re subtle enough so it make sense that your character has missed them without needing to throw in some sort of explanation about why they were uncharacteristically nearsighted when it came to an obvious twist. If some of your readers figure the twist out, that’s fine. You don’t need to try to trick every single reader. Readers like feeling smart, especially when it comes to figuring out where something is going before it’s revealed. You just have to make it difficult enough to figure out that 1) your character wouldn’t figure it out and 2) your reader doesn’t feel bored by the time they reach the twist because they figured it out ten pages in. So how do you foreshadow properly? It varies from story to story, of course, but some general tips to tread that line between blindsiding and boring:

  • Place “big” clues early on. The earlier on you are in the story, and the less your reader yet knows about the characters/plot, the simpler it will be to slip something in the reader will likely forget about until it becomes important later. If your reader mentions he has a sister working at [company] before [company] ever becomes important, it is more likely for the reader to take the fact and move on than if they just learned last chapter that [company] is doing something strange. If the sister is brought up following some suspicion being thrown on the company she works for, the reader is more likely to assume the sister is playing a larger role than we yet know about.
  • Spread foreshadowing out. Similar to utilizing dropping clues long before the reader has a reason to pay attention to them, it’s smart to not pile too many clues right on top of each other. If your readers just learned one piece to the puzzle, give it a little time before you give them another. This is especially true if the pieces don’t necessarily seem to connect. The farther apart you keep them, the less likely readers are to make the jump that X and Y must be related (or else why would they both be right here?)
  • Keep your characters from trying to purposefully mislead the reader (repeatedly). While it’s perfectly fine to have your character make an assumption that turns out to be wrong, don’t try to “trick” the reader by bringing up the wrong assumption repeatedly or you can quickly find yourself in a “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” situation. The more you bring up how obviously this means that, the more time the reader has to focus on that plot point and realize there must be more than meets the eye.
  • Determine how common your “twist” is. A twist doesn’t always need to be unique. There is a saying that there are no new plots, and in a way that is true. You can write something that is a fresh idea, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any tropes in it. And the more well known a trope is (especially in your genre) the more likely it will be that readers will be able to figure out the “twist.” For example, if it turns out that the “big bad” is a relative of your protagonist, that twist is well enough known that you likely will be able to get away with just a few clues before people start catching on (because they’ve likely seen Star Wars and a number of other stories with that same twist). There is nothing wrong with using the trope all the same, just keep in mind what readers might be expecting when choosing how much to foreshadowing. Also keep in mind, if you intend to subvert a trope, you can also use these assumptions to your advantage. By letting the reader believe you’re following a common trope, it’s possible to sneak in other clues to what the real twist is while readers are distracted by what they believe will be the twist.
  • Look for “throw away” lines. Especially if your twist is on the more common side, less is often more when it comes to foreshadowing. Readers are trained to expect that everything they read is important–after all, to keep up pacing, authors don’t tend to write in scenes that don’t matter to the plot. Because of that, if you put something in past the early “the reader doesn’t know what to look for” stage of a story that has a lot of attention drawn to it, the reader is likely to assume it is very important for some reason and take note. Look for ways to work in clues that are buried under other more obviously important information or in phrases that are nearly clichés. For example if someone says “what planet are you from?” when the twist is the character is an alien, the reader is likely to pass by the familiar saying less critically than something that sticks out as purposefully planted there (added bonus, the saying is also so easy to breeze over if you aren’t already thinking “aliens” that readers who have figured the twist out already will feel smart having caught it).

As with everything else, what exactly works for your story will be different from project to project. What is too much foreshadowing in one novel will be too little in another. When in doubt, look for beta readers who will be able to tell you if they figured your twist out too early or felt too blindsided at the end to have it be enjoyable. And then just keep on working at it.

Tense Slips

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When it comes to narration, there are several choices to make based on what tone you’d like for your book. The one people tend to most talk about is if the narrator speaks in first or third person, but with present tense becoming more popular, Narrative Tense is becoming a hot topic.

(source: verbix.com)

(source: verbix.com)

For the most part, past tense has been the standard in story telling (“She walked down the street and looked around). With the popularity of present tense novels like The Hunger Games, however, the present tense is becoming more common (if not yet the standard). There are plenty of pros and cons to writing in either (some people find present tense more engaging, others find it distracting…) but the main writing rule when it comes to narrative voice is to be consistent.

One more than one occasion, I have been asked what to do in past tense narratives for facts that are still true after the telling of the story. For example:

My sister was named Sally.

Unless Sally is now dead, she is very possibly still named Sally. Wouldn’t you then want to say, “My sister is named Sally”?

Not unless you have a present tense framing device.

For, you see, the fact that you are using past tense in a story doesn’t mean that everything written is only true in the past. It is simply the narrative tense you are using to tell your story. As a coworker of mine once described it, “If I were describing my trip ten years ago to Germany, I might say, ‘It was beautiful. There were all these tiny streets and medieval buildings.’ It’s likely it’s still beautiful with tiny streets and medieval buildings. I just happen to be describing what it was like in the moment I was there. That is my narrative tense.”

For example Hirschhorn, Germany (Source: journey-to-germany.com)

For example, Hirschhorn, Germany (Source: journey-to-germany.com)

Similarly, unless you have a present tense narrator who is covering things in the past as a clear framing device (“I didn’t know it at the time, but…”) it is important to stay in a consistent narrative voice, even if that means you’re saying “John was a tall man” when John might still be a tall man after the story.

Similarly with present tense, everything in the story should be in present tense, unless you are actually describing something happening in the past (these would be sections that would be in past perfect in a past tense novel). For example:

In present tense:

I walk down the street, looking at the spot Jack and I went on our first date.

“I walk” is in present tense, meaning everything happening in-story should be in present tense  (e.g. you shouldn’t have something like “I walk into the building and looked around” but “I walk into the building and look around”) but as the narrator and Jack’s first date happened in the past, that verb is properly in past tense.

In past tense:

I walked down the street, looking and the spot Jack and I had gone on our first date.

Here, the narrative is already in past tense (“I walked”) meaning everything happening in-story is related in past tense. To show something happening before the story, you then switch to past perfect (“had gone”).

Once you have decided the narrative voice of your story, you should stay consistent in either using present for in-story and past for the past, or past for in-story (including things that remain true after the story) and past perfect for the past. Slipping between tenses once one has been established can at best be jarring, and worst look like sloppy writing.

Language Barriers

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Today’s post, Language Barriers, is being hosted by Kate Warren from katewarren.com:

Authors are pretty lucky when it comes to choosing what language they can write their story in. Just like suspension of disbelief will let readers believe there are really ghosts in a book, it will let readers believe that someone living in Ancient Rome or on a distant planet speaks fluent English—or at least the book is a “translation” of whatever language they would be speaking. The problem, therefore, becomes what to do when a character is bilingual. Many times that raises issues of both needing to show a switch between languages while not confusing readers who very likely don’t speak both languages. After all, you can’t exactly run subtitles under the dialogue like you would in a movie.

In both of my most recent Broken Line books (novella, The Copper Rebellion, and Book 3, The Paper Masque) I came up against just this problem. While Books 1 and 2 take place in their version of England, The Copper Rebellion finds protagonist, Adela, abroad in a version of France and the protagonist of The Paper Masque, Elsie, finds herself dealing with a number of Irish Gaelic speakers throughout her story. While some readers might speak either of those languages, requiring all readers be trilingual to finish the series seemed like a tall order.

So what to do then, when your characters speak more than one language? There are a few different methods, all of which depend on your Point of View (POV) character.

POV Character is Bilingual

 

If your POV Character in a scene understands whatever the language being spoken is, the easiest method is to use tags like “in French” at the end of dialogue to show that the characters are now speaking another language. For example, in The Copper Rebellion we find:

“Bonjour, madame…” The tallest stopped in front of her, Adela’s mind taking a moment to click over into [French]. “…how may we help you?”

Adela gave a pretty smile, silently thanking her grandmother’s insistence on learning the language. “Good day. I am Adela Wembley, and I have come to call on his majesty, King Charles, if he is in?”

The reader has been filled in that they are now speaking in another language, and dialogue can continue on in English.

Note: To add credence to the switch, you can use a few words here and there of the language you’re switching from. Just try to make sure that they are either words that the reader would likely know (such as Bonjour) or words that are not important to the meaning of the sentence (so that the reader hasn’t missed anything if they don’t understand that word).

You will likely notice that I have used italics throughout the sample above after the language switch. If your character will be staying in one language more often than not, italics are not necessary (you can simply add “in French”/“in German”/etc. Italics, however, can be handy if you’re going to be switching in and out of a language quickly. For example:

“There is a messenger here for you, madame,” the servant continued.

Adela recovered enough to smile. “Mr. Fletcher. What a surprise.”

Antony seemed to take everything in, bowed as his gaze began to linger too long. “Your majesty.”

Louis turned to her. “A friend of yours?”

“Monsieur le duc, this is Antony Fletcher. He was a painter at my late husband’s court.” She looked back at Antony, flipped to [English]. “Mr. Fletcher, Louis Delone, Duke of Parnulle and brother to the king.”

Since Adela is speaking to Antony and Louis in two separate languages, it became simplest to establish that italics=French, no italics=English and remove “in English” and “in French” from appearing over and over again. You can determine if italics are necessary for clarity’s sake in your own writing.

POV Character is not Bilingual

If your POV character does not speak the second language being used in a scene, things get a little trickier. You see, since the character doesn’t know what is being said, there is no way for them to relate what is being said.

The easiest way to get around this problem is to have another character translate. For example:

Stringing a rope along the ceiling, Úna continued to speak to Laurence as she worked.

“She’s dividing up the room,” Laurence translated. “She says we aren’t married so we can’t sleep in the same room together.”

By having a character who speaks the second language translate, you can get a summary of what is being said across without the POV character needing to understand it word for word.

If the POV character doesn’t have someone to translate for them, try to stick to things the reader doesn’t need to understand, put in enough so that the reader can follow along, or have the POV character make guesses as to the content. For example:

Colm continued to rant in [Gaelic], switching as he turned to Gordon, “Though, like you really understand what we’re even saying,eachtrannach.”

“Díul mó bhad,” Gordon returned, Elsie entirely willing to believe it was an insult just by the tone.

If someone speaks Irish Gaelic, they won’t need to be told that what Gordon says is an insult, but the rest of the audience has been told enough to pass over the phrase with the knowledge that Gordon says something insulting.

POV Character is Learning

For the most part, I don’t suggest taking the “subtitle” route, where you give lines in whatever foreign language a character is speaking and then add the translation verbatim after it. This is primarily because it can become clunky/disrupt the flow of the scene. Readers who don’t know the original language will have to skip over to find the translation meaning more “clutter” in the scene which often leads to slower pacing. It can be effective, however, if used for small stretches. I primarily use this strategy when it comes to a character learning the other language. For example:

“Mon père est un soldat, comme mes frères,” Antony pieced the sentence together, doing his best to explain his family—the martial proclivity he hadn’t seemed to inherit with the rest of his brothers.

“Vous ne voulez pas être un soldat?” Henriette asked quickly.

You did not want to be a soldier? Antony pieced the words together with just a little delay, answered, “Non. Not at all.”

“You really are not bad.” Henriette switched back to [English].

The extra wordiness in these instances can work well since it forces in the lull it takes the character to think of what the other characters are saying. The POV character is likely a step behind and so the “clunky” feel to the wording will suit for pacing.

All in all, when in doubt, understandability should be the goal when it comes to using two languages in your writing. You don’t want your readers to miss an important plot point just because they don’t speak as many languages as your character—or worse, to get so frustrated, they put your book down. Err on the side of caution and, when in doubt, call in a beta reader or two and see if it makes sense to readers who don’t speak a second language.

Dialogue-Strong vs. Narrative-Strong

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As far as art forms go, creative writing is a bit of an interesting one. Just like painting or sculpting it can take a while to become skilled at it, but not everyone seems to expect that. I can’t say I have looked into any psychological studies about it, but what I am always reminded of is one school trip I made to a arts/theater festival in high school. While at dinner that night, I was complaining to a friend that I didn’t seem to be as good at acting as some of the other classmates we had come with, and at 15, I had determined that obviously I wasn’t “naturally” as talented as they were. A teacher nearby asked how long I had been practicing–not just my scene, but acting in general stating, “You wouldn’t expect to pick up a brush for the first time and be a brilliant painter, would you? Why would you expect to be a brilliant actor?”

It didn’t fully make sense to me at the time (what was acting, really? Standing in front of people and talking! I talked in front of people all the time!) but it always stuck with me. And it’s true. Art forms, even ones that seem easy in their simplest form (talking to people, writing words down) still require a certain skill set to progress from novice to professional.

As I hinted to above, writing is very similar. With most people learning to write in some way or another by first grade, putting words on paper isn’t difficult. We are taught how to form letters, go through spelling tests, and are forced to write hundreds of school papers by the time we graduate high school or college. Therefore, many people think of writing creatively as just another part of that progression. They could write good papers in high school so this is just doing that but while also telling an awesome story. At its heart, the skills that seem necessary to write a novel don’t seem very hard at all.

Of course, if writing (or writing well) were as simple as that, I wouldn’t have this blog. There really wouldn’t be much to discuss. You’d think of a story idea, write it down in your native language, and move on with your life. After over a decade of writing, and editing, and learning it as a craft, however, I’ve realized it isn’t quite that simple. Different people have different levels of natural talent when it comes to any art form. There might be someone who has never held a pen before who can draw or write at professional levels straight off the bat. There are Mozarts of every generation. If that doesn’t happen to be you, however, that doesn’t mean that you will never write or draw (or act) at the same level as them. It just means that you need to practice. Because for all the ways you could learn to go from being an okay writer to a great writer, the best is to read and write as much as possible.

The other part to going from okay to great is to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are as a writer.

If you don’t happen to be a literary Mozart who comes to the table with all your writing skills sharply developed (I know I wasn’t) I find that writers tend to start out as either dialogue-strong or narrative-strong. It’s generally pretty simple to pick this out looking over your writing based on what you end up writing the most of in your first novel, but as a general outline:

Dialogue-Strong Authors tend to:

  • Prefer “discussion” scenes to “movement/action” scenes
  • Have long stretches of conversation, often either without tags or with very short tags (he said, he nodded, he asked, etc.)
  • Introduce characters with very little or no description but have well-developed “voices”
  • “get into a flow” when writing dialogue/not have to think too much as to how characters would naturally respond to each other

Narrative-Strong Authors tend to:

  • Prefer “movement/action” scenes to “discussion” scenes
  • May have long stretches of description without any dialogue or summaries of dialogue rather than actual discussion.
  • Provide great descriptions of characters but not feel comfortable with unique “voices”
  • “get into a flow” when writing narrative/develop brilliant action, but struggle to make conversations sound “natural”

These lists aren’t exact or all inclusive, of course, but they at least give a quick snapshot if you aren’t sure what your strength might be. If you still aren’t sure, look over whatever you’re writing and see if you are defaulting to one or the other.

I, personally, have always been a dialogue-strong writer. My struggle, therefore, has been figuring out how to insert narrative in a way that doesn’t feel clunky in the middle of dialogue. I know several authors who started out narrative-strong and have had to figure out how to make their dialogue sound natural. It doesn’t matter which your strength is, part of going from “okay” to “great” is learning how to do your weakness just as well as your strength. And that means practicing even if those parts seem awful and strained compared to what you’re naturally good at. Furthermore, when reading, pay careful attention to dialogue/narrative that you find well written and critically try to determine what about it works and what doesn’t. By identifying your weaknesses, you can become better as a writer overall, rather than just making what you’re already good at better.

Where to Start

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Happy Halloween, or as it’s known around my house, Happy “Oh god, it’s the day before NaNoWriMo…” Day

For those who don’t know (and possibly have never visited this blog before) NaNoWriMo stands for “National Novel Writing Month” and is a time when writers of all levels come together to try to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

It can be a contested (sometimes loathed) event amongst those in the publishing world (mostly having to do with authors submitting unedited, literally “written in a month” books to agents or publishers December 1st) but for those who use it as motivation, it is a great program. After all, even if you only end up writing 1,000 words over the entire month, it’s 1,000 words you didn’t have in October. NaNoWriMo serves to be the kick in the pants some of us need to put our butts in a chair and start writing.

And, as long as you edit, it’s entirely possible to end up with good stories.

TBC         

All of the above, and my newest fantasy novel contracted with Red Adept Publishing, were partially (or entirely) written during NaNoWriMo.

Of course, with kickoff just around the corner, I have seen many authors asking how or where they’re supposed to start their novels. And it’s understandable. It tends to be much easier to write when you’re already in the flow of things rather than when you’re staring at a blank page.

Short answer: Start writing with whatever scene comes to you. Yes, openings are very important when it comes to publishing (if you don’t catch an agent/publisher/reader within the first 1000 words or so, your odds of them contracting you drastically drops) but as long as you do go back and edit (several times) before sending a manuscript off, it doesn’t matter. Many people end up cutting their first scene or two once they’ve written the full book because they realize they came in too early. Others end up adding a few scenes because they came in too late. It is actually often times easier to see where you need to start after you’ve ended. As long as you start getting words down on the page, it doesn’t matter what your opening sentence, paragraph, or even scene is.

Long answer: For those who want a little more advice when it comes to picking an opening scene, look to your plot structure. While you will tend to have some exposition at the beginning of novels, you generally want to start as close to the inciting incident as possible. You picked the story you are writing for a reason–hopefully because you find it interesting. Don’t waste time with scenes that aren’t involved in the story you want to tell. So, if your story follows a cop chasing a serial killer, it is perfectly fine to start with your characters finding the first body rather than with your cop waking up and going to work one day. Or even your cop going through the police academy, meeting his/her partner, being promoted to detective, and whatever else happened before your story actually starts. As an author, you will always know more about your character’s background than your reader will likely need to know. If it helps you in your rough draft to info dump some of that backstory right at the beginning of your novel, feel free to. You will just generally find the story flows better once you get rid of that come editing time.

But, hey, that’s what editing is for. Don’t stress it.

Write, Edit, Publish: The Best of The Jessica Dall Blog

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June 17th is here once again, and that means one thing. It’s my birthday. And to celebrate, I have a gift for all you readers out there:

WEP

Write, Edit, Publish includes some of this site’s most popular blog posts compiled into a downloadable eBook, covering everything from staring with a blank page to working on getting a manuscript published.

Download for FREE right here: Write, Edit, Publish [PDF]

Or FREE on Smashwords: Write, Edit, Publish

(Soon available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble)

 

Write, Edit, Publish articles include:

Section One: Writing

Getting Started

Writing Prompts

Finding Time to Write

Writing through Writer’s Block

Inner Filters

Character Naming

What’s in a Name?

Historical Naming

Who are you, again?

Plotting

From Premise to Plot

“Accidental Plagiarism”

[X] Types of Plot

Characterization

Making Your Characters Believable

Character Flaws

“Plot Device” Disorders

Just a Pretty Face

Dialogue

You Don’t Say

Floating Dialogue

Narrative

Writing Shakespeare

Head Jumping

 

Section Two: Editing

Editing 101

Plot and Plot Holes

The Ever-Dreaded Plot Holes

A Wizard Did It

That’s Just…Wrong

Language

The Problem with Pronouns

The Unneeded Words

All of a sudden, he was suddenly there

Critique Groups

How to Take a Critique

Crises of Confidence

The Nitty-Gritty

Does Length Matter?

Eh, it’s not my style

“Intensive Purpose”

 

Section Three: Publishing

Self, Vanity, Traditional Publishing

Shoot the Shaggy Dog

Submissions

How to Get Published

Submissions 101

Wishlists and Trends

Word Counts

Word Limits

Copyrights and Contracts

Contracts

Novel Blogs

Toe Tappin’ Copyrights

Layout

Novel Layout Tips

Editing 101

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As I head into edits for Book 2 of The Broken Line Series (The Porcelain Child, for those who are wondering), I have been asked for some editing tips for when you are taking a stab at going through the several thousand words of a rough draft.

Of course, there are no set rules anyone must follow when it comes to editing your own work. Much like writing, it’s about developing a style that works for you. To help take the first steps, however, I have included the “standard” advice I have heard when it comes to editing and my own thoughts on each.

1. Take a break after you have written it. Whether it’s a day or Stephen King’s suggested six weeks, the first piece of advice most writers hear when it comes to thinking of editing. In my own opinion, this isn’t bad advice, if you start right into editing the moment you write “the end” you will likely still be in writing mode and miss a lot of problems you might otherwise. Of course, if there are still large portions of the story you know you will have to rewrite, taking yourself out of this mindset might be detrimental.

Verdict: If you are ready for straight editing, take a break. Possibly even work on another project that will take your mind off things. If you need large swaths of rewrites/changes, go ahead and start right away. (Personal caveat–if you are writing a series and have a publisher waiting for books 2 and 3, it’s probably best to go right into edits so you can send that off before they yell at you…)

2. Just do a read through. After you have taken a break, the most common advice I’ve heard is to read through the manuscript without making any changes. While this is good if you need to put yourself in another mindset (if you need “editor” brain, rather than “writer” brain) I have never personally followed this advice. I never make big changes on the first read through (unless I was already rewriting a section, as mentioned in Step 1) but reworking wording here and there to fix problems will not make or break how you edit.

Verdict: It is a good idea not to start making sweeping changes on your first go through (otherwise you might find yourself causing more problems than you fix) but, unless you need “editor” brain to work, you can feel free to make changes as you go along on your first read through.

3. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Yes, grammar is important, but it is not the most important thing at the beginning stages of editing. If you realize after your first read through that a character simply isn’t working or there’s a plot hole that needs to be taken care of, deal with that before you work on the exact wording for one sentence and worry about if you should have subjunctive tense or not in another. If you end up reworking entire scenes, you’ll likely find new typos popping up anyway. Don’t worry about those until the big pieces have all fallen into place.

Verdict: Definitely good advice for an early go through. There’s a reason copy edits always come after content edits when working with a publisher. Grammar and spelling are important, but not until everything else is taken care of.

Note, “big pieces” generally include:

  • Plot holes
  • Characterization problems
  • Info dumps rather than interwoven back story
  • Inconsistent tone
  • Unnecessary/repetitive scenes
  • Missing scenes

Along with anything that will perhaps require substantial rewrites and/or added/deleted text.

4. Read it Out Loud. Once you’ve gotten the big things ironed out, one of the best ways to hear if a sentence is off is to read it out loud. I find this especially helps people who have trouble with dialogue. Dialogue is about capturing how people speak, so if seems stiff to say aloud, it’s probably too stiff for the page.

Verdict: If you are still developing your voice as a writer, or have a specific problem with clunky sentences/dialogue, reading aloud is a great way of fixing that. If you are more seasoned/can “hear” how it sounds in your head, it isn’t as necessary, though it can still be helpful.

5. Read it Backwards. Having moved on from the large problems, reading backwards is what I have often heard suggested for catching typos. Not caught up in the story, you are more likely to see that that “the” was supposed to be “they”. Since half of grammar to me is being able to pause over what doesn’t sound correct in a sentence, personally, I don’t find this as helpful a step as others, but the idea holds: Find some way to take yourself away from the story and focus on the words themselves.

Verdict: While the principle holds true, this might be more helpful in finding spelling mistakes than grammar if you “write by ear” like I do. (Personal note, I prefer running my stories through a text-to-speech program. While I may miss a typo, since I know what I meant to say in a sentence, hearing a mechanical voice say “The walked down…” will let you catch the/they just as easily [if not more so] than reading backwards).

Once you have gone through a story this far (and are perhaps sick of reading it over and over again) it’s time to call in the beta readers–which means you’re done, until you get all their notes back and have to edit to fix those.

But that’s a post for another time.

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Worth the Wait

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If there is one thing that I wish I could go back and tell my younger self about publishing, it would be ‘take your time’. With my newest book ramping up for release, I have received a number of emails/IMs/Facebook messages from aspiring authors asking questions about how to get published (or If I can help them get published some of the time). While the answer the second question is “I can help tell you about the publishers with whom I have worked, but no, I can’t go and tell them to publish you”, my general advice is to slow down.

As far as answering questions, I am always happy to help just about anyone who asks for it. Far too often I read posts from new writers stating it’s “impossible” to get a book published. Unfortunately, this sentiment is often what has authors fall into the trap of working with a vanity press (a press which charges authors to put their books out). It makes sense why many new writers fall into that trap (and at least enough do to support all the vanity presses around) but being in that much of a rush only leads to problems later down the line.

Recently, I received a question from an author who had published their first book with a vanity press which shall remain nameless and was unhappy with how sales were going. After having paid over a thousand dollars in “start-up costs” (something no reputable publisher will ask for) she hadn’t made even half of it up in sales over the year. She asked if I thought she should now try to find an agent to go with traditional publishing with the hopes that the time/rejection that meant would lead to better sales.

While I would recommend anything over vanity presses (either self-publishing through a platform like Createspace or Lulu) or pursuing traditional publishing (through a large or small press), that ship has sadly most likely sailed. While it is true that some previously self-published books are picked up by traditional publishers later on in their careers, most publishers contract “first publication rights”. What this means is publishers are buying the right to make your book available to the public before anyone else. Once your book as been published (be it through a self-publisher, vanity press, or public novel blog) those rights have been used up and publishers won’t contract the book outside of it being an independent commercial success. The likelihood of them picking it up from a vanity press, especially with the book not selling particularly well, is slim to nil. It’s just not worth their time, effort, or money.

All is not lost for the question asker, of course, she is not forever blacklisted somewhere. Any new book she writes she can either self-publish through a non-vanity press platform or attempt to traditionally publish. This first book is just a bit of a costly mistake.

And so, never be in a rush to publish. Is pursuing traditional publishing confusing sometimes when you’re starting out? Definitely. Does it mean a lot of rejection/effort? More than likely. Is it better than paying someone to publish your book for you? You can bet your socks.

This is not to say that self publishing is also a bad. There are several writers who have found success through self-publishing. Not, however, by rushing. Authors chose to self publish for a number of reasons, amongst them more creative control or writing something that would have a hard time finding a traditional outlet. “I want it published now” should not be the main reason for pursuing self-publishing either, however. Some self-published books are as good, if not better, than traditionally published books with amazing quality. It is up to the author however to make it that way which can take a fair chunk of time and effort, especially when it comes to paying for editors/cover artists/etc. (in self publishing you will be paying upfront for publishing, but namely for freelancers, not a package from a company. Combined with a platform that lets you post books for free, such as the ones mentioned above, this is almost always cheaper than a vanity press without tying yourself to a less-than-reputable company). Self-publishing will likely be a quicker route to publishing than traditional publishing (unless you’re one of the lucky ones who find a publisher on their first query) but to make a quality product it still takes time. You control the release date, but there is no reason taking another six months or a year to make your book the best it can be will make or break the project.

Especially because, as an author, your name is your product. And the internet has a very long memory. If you pay to have a vanity press produce a book (especially a vanity press that doesn’t do a good job editing) people will end up finding that press and book tied to your name even after you’ve moved one to bigger and better things. If you rush a self-published book that just isn’t ready (one with typos and bad cover art) you might later be able to remove it from print, but copies/traces of it online won’t magically disappear.

As an author you will always be improving. Even now, with my third novel just about to come out and over five years of editing under my belt, I don’t pretend I’m a perfect writer. Each new book that comes out will likely be a little better than the last (I would hope) simply because the more you do something the better you tend to get at it. There is no need to chase perfection, but there is also no need to rush. Do your best to only put things out that your future writer self will be proud to have their name on. True, that’s sometimes easier said than done, but truly, there’s no rush. Take your time to make a brilliant product. After all, as an author, your name is your brand.