April 29, 2021
So. What’s with the focus on details? And why is there so much to say about them?
Well, the fact that there’s a lot to say means that they’re important. Details can make or break your story — the pacing, the worldbuilding, even where the reader puts their energy. You want to make sure you get your details right.
Get them right? Susan, what are you talking about? How can details be wrong?
Let’s start with the issue of focusing your reader on the right stuff. I see this a lot: authors who are trying to do the right thing by setting their scene. So we get lots of details about the scene: the furniture, the surroundings, the clothing the characters are wearing… and that’s all good. It’s important. You want the reader to not just have a feel for the fictional world they are immersed in, but you want them to be able to picture it in their minds. Their own private movie.
The problem enters when you spend a lot of time describing things that don’t matter, things that we only see once in a book and things that aren’t important at all. For example, the amateur sleuth goes to the house of someone who may be able to provide details about the case. The reader gets to see the contact: Ms. Myrna was old, stooped over, wearing a light blue cardigan with a button missing and black orthodpedic shoes. Her skirt was navy and didn’t match either the cardigan or the shoes, and when she smiled, she revealed three missing teeth and deep lines around her eyes, as if she smiled often and enjoyed doing so.
(Can someone help Ms. Myrna? She could use a caretaker.)
But then, here’s where we go off the rails. She invited Genie in, graciously, shuffling three steps out of the way and letting Genie have a glimpse of her home. There was no entry, so they were immediately in the living room, with its worn brown carpet, which was threadbare in spots in front of the old peach-colored three-person sofa. A glass and brass coffee table sat in front of the worn spots, a pair of bright yellow slippers underneath and three magazines — Genie looked at the titles, surprised to see one was the bass pro fisher’s association monthly magazine, one was the Smithsonian magazine, and one was a catalog of geeky gifts. The catalog had a water mark on it, or maybe it was a coffee stain; Genie couldn’t be sure.
The walls were a basic white, the ceilings smooth, the windows framed by curtains in pastel colors that compromised between the peach sofa and the brown carpet. A few paintings hung on the walls along with four photographs. The paintings were all landscapes, sunsets or maybe sunrises, and all done by an amateur hand, and the photographs were of people, but Genie couldn’t figure out a polite way to get close enough to look to see if any of them featured the woman she was looking for. They looked to be full of people who might have been related to Ms. Myrna, although even that was hard to tell because from what she could see, no one had a completely white head of hair. Nor were they wearing fashionable clothes. Or clothes that had been fashionable in the past twenty or even thirty years. Maybe, Genie thought, she ought to Google what fashions had looked like fifty years ago, well before her time. Those pictures were possibly, probably, that old, and that made Genie wonder what had happened to the people in them. Were they still alive? Did they talk to Ms. Myrna? Take care of her? Write her letters? Send her email? Help her figure out the Internet? Did they live nearby or had they dispersed? Why? Why not include this old lady, who so far seemed lovely, in their lives? Why were there no recent pictures on the walls?
Expecting an invitation to sit on the couch–which, as she got closer, she realized was full of stains and even a hole–she resolved not to sit, and to keep it short.
She turned to Ms. Myrna. “I wanted to ask you if you know Grace Gold.”
“Never heard of her. I don’t know anyone named Grace. Now, why don’t you produce your medical bag from wherever you’ve hid it and take my pressure? I ain’t got all day.”
Genie paused. “I’m… I’m not here for that. I’m here to ask if you know Grace Gold.”
“I just told you I don’t know no Graces. Now if you ain’t here to take my pressure, and you ain’t here for any reason other than to ask me about this mystery Grace I ain’t never met, maybe you should go back out through the door and come back when you are ready to take my pressure for real.”
Genie apologized to the old lady but stopped herself from asking if Ms. Myrna was okay. She wasn’t Genie’s responsibility. Then again, maybe that was what her family said, too, as they abandoned her to her old decor and her old pictures and her old lady-ness.
Did you catch it? All that detail about the photographs.
Now, maybe this doesn’t seem so outlandish to you, but what if I tell you that Genie has twenty-four hours to track down Grace Gold? That before this scene, our hearts were in our throats and we were joining Genie in hoping beyond hope that Ms. Myrna would have the answers.
And all that came crashing to a halt as we learned about people in photographs. People who don’t matter, who won’t return to the story at all, even as a fleeting thought in Genie’s day.
Sometimes, it’s good to slow the pace. To get the reader to calm. But it’s usually better to do it in ways that the story can build on.
Often, I’ll find myself commenting to an author, “This is a lot of detail about a teapot. Can you show me something else instead? Something that’ll be a key to the story?” And, as you revise, that’s what you want to think about. Does this advance the story? How does this detail function? What’s its purpose? How does it affect the pace? The reader’s mindset? The character’s arc? The plot? The mood?
A lot to think about.
I’ll be back with more next week.
Remember, if you’d like to have some of my fun comments on your own manuscript, reach out! I’d love to chat about your editing needs.
April 22, 2021
It’s not that I’ve lost the blogging bug, it’s that my clients keep me so busy, I haven’t had time. So, as a result, I’ve got a list of stuff I want to talk about. A very long list. That spans multiple pieces of paper. And is threatening to overwhelm me and get thrown out.
Instead of letting that happen, it’s time to talk to you more often. I do kind of miss it. (So be sure to leave me comments and check back for replies!)
Today is just a quick little observation I’ve been making of late. Two things actually. Are two things enough to make a trend? I think so.
First: Characters listening to jazz. In their cars, at home. Doesn’t matter, but a couple authors have done this across multiple books now, and so jazz seems to be one of the hot musical trends of the moment (I say as Stone Sour pounds on in the background over here). Also, don’t ask me what the other hot musical trends might be. Stone Sour’s not exactly trendy or trending. Or even active at the moment.
Why not check out some jazz? I will the next time I sit down to chill and work on my own writing.
The second observation is an abundance of Physician Assistant (PA) careers held by characters, main and secondary. PAs are showing up in fiction, and I am here for it! I have a lot of respect for PAs; I have a PA friend and saw the PA at my old doctor’s office more than I saw the doctor himself. I’d have followed her when she left the practice, but insurance. You know the game.
So there you go. Two observations that may or may not be trends. Noticed any? Tell me about them!
And, of course, tell me what music you’re jamming to. I’m always game to explore something new.
As a note, if you need an edit, get in the queue now for May! June’s looking a bit tight and like the $200 rush fee will be applied again, as it currently is for any emerging April needs. Drop me a note ASAP, and never ever be afraid of money. We can work it out.
July 21, 2020
It’s been awhile since I’ve made the time to have things to say!
But it’s the weekend as I’m writing this, and it’s something I thought of as I am working — yes, working on a weekend, but hey, it’s ninety degrees outside and what else is there to do and don’t say clean my house — and thought I’d share right now.
For those of you who write scenes set in a med bay, usually within a fantasy setting, take a second and think. Do ALL of the illnesses your characters come down with require them to be in a bed? Have you ever had an illness or injury that could be dealt with while sitting… in a chair? On a table?
So often, we see hospital wards — and I’m still talking fantasy, primarily — that only have beds. A person gets sick, they’re taken to the med bay, they’re tucked into a bed. You assume the diagnosis is done there, as is anything invasive, and then any and all recovery needs to happen in bed, as well. But… does it need to?
Oh, I’m not pointing a finger at writers who will shrug and say, “That’s how it’s always done. It’s a fixture of fantasy.” To be honest, for all the fantasy I’ve read and edited over my lifetime — and it’s a lot, as it’s a genre I love — I’ve never thought about it until now, mostly because the sick character who triggered this thought doesn’t really need to be tucked into a bed.
As I think about the tradition of med bays and beds, it makes sense that we don’t think about chairs or tables to sit on and that we do think of beds. Most illnesses confine a person to bed, especially before the age of modern medicine. How often do you deal with a migraine by going to bed? And then think about how you feel when your body’s busy fighting off a virus. Pretty lousy and exhausted, and you only want to be in bed. And for things like stitches in your leg, I found out last year that hanging out in bed instead of on the couch… well, it would have kept those stitches from pulling.
Beds in the med bay make perfect sense. I don’t fault a single writer who creates a med bay with only beds in it, especially when that med bay is somewhere with limited space, like on a spaceship.
But then I think about being confined to a hospital room after I had my kids, and how I wanted to sit pretty much anywhere other than the bed. I wanted a chair! Thankfully, I was in a hospital that let me have both a private room and a chair (and that only expressed surprise when I ordered takeout for all my meals; I ate well, especially after the birth of my oldest). I could sit in my chair! And I did! I have the cutest picture of me, my son, and his day-old sister seated in that ugly, wide chair in my hospital room. No, you can’t see it. It’s not digitized, for one, and for another, the kids haven’t given me their permission to post it.
Just something to think about as you work on your worldbuilding. Does your med bay need only beds, or is there room and purpose for a chair or two?
Yes, I’ve got room for new clients! If you’d like to work with me, drop me a line, tell me about your project, and let’s see if we’re a good fit for each other.
April 2, 2020
Ever been reading along, happy as anything, and suddenly A knock sounded at the door?
Ugh. I can’t tell you how badly I hate that phrase.
First, it’s not even a word, sounded. Not really. Sure, if you go over to Webster’s and search for it, you’ll be taken over to the word sound, which includes it as a form under its verb forms. But notice something? There are no examples of it in use. This is because while they recognize that people use it, all the examples are problematic. There’s no good way to showcase this word, sounded. Maybe She sounded scared — but that’s an entirely different use of the word, isn’t it?
Here are some to look at. The first one is the perfect example of today’s rant. The others are legit uses of the word.
And here’s why I hate it so badly. The knock sounded at the door is passive as anything. Like… super-duper passive.
Because knocks don’t just happen. In the example I linked to, alarms won’t just magically be sounded. You’re not just sitting there and bam, a knock appears out of the blue or an alarm magically goes off. Oh, maybe that’s how it sounds since you’re on the other side of the door and all you hear is the knock. But something, someONE makes that knock happen. SomeONE sets that alarm. It’s an active, planned action, not a passive one. In order for your character to hear that sound, a series of events had to take place. That’s all action. It may happen off the page, but it still happens.
And how many of you have been taught to use the active voice, not passive, when writing?
Yeah. Do that here.
No more knocks, explosions, voices sounded. Take the time. Write in active voice.
Your mastery of craft will thank you.
Remember, I’m always taking new clients. First-time authors, please have gone though a critique group or partner before a round of beta reads. Learn as much as you can about your craft; this lets your editing budget stretch further and benefit you more deeply.
October 24, 2019
As a line editor, over the years, I’ve developed a real love for two dialogue tags: asked and said. They are sneakily powerful, serving a variety of functions. And they aren’t narcissistic words, either, like some dialogue tags can be. You know: dialogue tags other than said.
I hadn’t really thought about dialogue tags other than said or asked much. I’d been too focused on the job said and asked do. But one day recently, I had a client – we’ll call her Stevie – and she used a crazy amount of dialogue tags other than said. I’m talking… well, about 99.5% of the tags were other than said.
And I realized something. Something important.
She was using words like commanded, appealed, soothed, admonished, challenged, criticized, questioned, countered, chided, contested. And many, many more (I actually wrote almost all of them down!)
And okay, a lot of them start with the letter C. A lot of them start with S, as well: scoffed, smirked, scolded, shot back, stated, sympathized, and more.
That’s not what I noticed. Nope.
I noticed that many of these words are aggressive words. They are words of verbal warfare, of one-upmanship, of hostility and anger.
And beyond that, I noticed two other things:
1. They were making me very very angry and I had to take frequent breaks and actually leave my office for a few minutes, until my blood stopped pounding in my ears and the black cloud over my head broke itself up.
2. No matter how calm the characters were supposed to be, those aggressive words made them seem as if they, too, were arguing and had a contentious relationship. And you know what? When you’re trying to write two people coming together and maybe having feelings for each other, that doesn’t work so well.
In short, no. But use them sparingly. A lot of them tell what the dialogue shows. Questioned, for example. Stop and think. Can the reader tell that the character is questioning the other? Does the content of a character’s speech show us that they are sharing a secret? Then there’s no need to use confided.
But sometimes, you need that extra oomph. Sometimes, using he countered in a spot helps the reader understand the dynamic between the two characters. Maybe that helps the reader understand that a negotiation is happening. That’s a valuable spot in which to use a dialogue tag other than said.
So my takeaway for you today is to take a good hard look at your dialogue tags. Look at the tags used in the book you’re reading—because of course you’re reading, right?
Take a step back. Change that tag to another word. See how it affects the reader, the characters, the tension in the scene, the dynamics between the characters who are speaking.
And never, ever, be afraid to use said. Or asked. They are good little words.
Check out this older post, about a time when I encountered tags other than said in a published book.
Or this one, which came about because one of you had a question about that post.
And then you gotta wonder about the difference between asked and said, right?
Another reader question about asked and said, and here’s a bit more in-depth answer to that question.
This is the spot where I’m supposed to link to a bunch of other posts that reinforce this idea. But most of them… I don’t like. They are either too elementary (What is a dialogue tag?) or kinda insulting to those of us who believe that you can use both types of tags – said/asked and the fancy stuff – just with caution and an eye toward good craft. You, my reader, are savvy enough to toe this line. You really are.
So here’s one good one about the subject. It’s from Litreactor, which is a new-to-me site, so expect me to poke around there some more and see what they’re all about.
Look out for sites like this. It’s Reedsy, and yes, I’ve got a profile there and you can see it and hire me through it (but why when I’m right here and you’re right here?). But this… isn’t good advice for a young writer. The implication is that you only want to use dialogue tags other than said, and we know that’s not how this works. SAID. ASKED. These are magic words. Use ’em.
July 1, 2019
I had picked up a book while it was on sale. No big deal; I do it all the time when the book sounds good. As a single parent who runs a microbusiness and has a mortgage and one college tuition staring her in the face, plus needs a second car and to fund a second college tuition, these sales — and I’ll admit it, the freebies — are a gift.
Yes, I leave reviews to say thanks. I suggest the really good ones to my friends, too. Why do you ask?
But this isn’t about the debate over free and sale books, and it’s not about the need to leave reviews. It’s about the responsibility of the author and/or publisher to respect the reader.
Now, this book had a number of big red flags. In the first four percent, we learned twice, in depth, about the main character’s need for anonymous sex. We spent a couple pages of info dump about the other main characters. And there was no clear opening to the book; I could have sliced off the entire four percent and the book would have been better for it.
So… already, it’s suffering from poor editing. Not a good sign.
And then, the grammar. And there’s a difference between uneducated — lots of him and me went together to that place — and sloppy.
I get that lie/lay is a hard construction. I still struggle with it, and I’ve been editing for HOW many years now? (The answer: about as long as my son’s ultimate coach has been alive.) But I’ve learned, because that’s what an editor does. She learns and grows and gets better at her craft.
Just like writers are supposed to.
So we had rough grammar, which didn’t completely complement the author’s voice and stuck out and made me wince. We had grammatical errors.
Clearly, no professional editor worth their salt was involved with this book.
But when I got to the place where a zero was used in place of the letter O, I was done. Now you’ve crossed the line from ignorance, which can be fixed, to a refusal to respect the reader.
Respect your reader.
At this point, it’s not even about editing. It’s about respect. It really is. Because if you can’t be bothered to at least run spell check to make sure something this massive hasn’t crept in, what else can’t you be bothered to do? Learn the craft of writing? Put your best effort on the page? Care about your project, your consumer, your future career?
It’s about respect. Respect the reader. Bring your best. Every chapter, every scene, every paragraph, every sentence, every word. Even if you can’t afford a professional editor, you owe it to yourself and your reader to run spell check and make absolutely certain that you’re not going to leave in an error that shows you don’t care about the product you are selling. There’s a difference between him and me stood there and stared and thr23 people approached. What does that last even say? How many people are involved in this approach?
If you can’t respect the reader, maybe you shouldn’t be publishing.
May 22, 2019
Been doing a ton of samples lately. Prospective clients. Summer approaches.
Noticed a trend. Big one.
Sending a lot of samples back with message: “I can work on this now, but I think your money’s more wisely spent if you take some time and fix these sentence fragments. If you’re stuck and need help, let’s talk about a pricing structure and coaching sessions that’ll help you improve this area of your craft.”
I don’t know where this trend is coming from, what’s fueling it. If authors are in such a rush that they aren’t paying attention to the simple formation of a sentence (and really, there’s rarely anything truly simple about a sentence). If their beta readers or critique groups or partners aren’t calling them out on this, whether from expediency or because they think it’s not their job (it is), or from simple ignorance of what constitutes good writing.
I can come up with a million reasons for why this is happening.
Ultimately, I don’t care what those reasons are, to be honest.
I want to see good writing crossing my desk. The kind that the author has worked on, paid close attention to, done his/her/their absolute best by, and then they’ve taken the time to learn some more, rolled their sleeves back up, and went deep yet again.
It’s not because I’m a snob. That I only want to work with the best. That’s not it at all.
Far from it. Some of my favorite clients are the ones who bring me a rough manuscript and then, as we work together, their craft improves. They do the hard work, and their pages reflect that, and the story reflects that, and then their readership reflects it, too.
Do you see the key? Have you picked up on what I’m stressing here?
Doing the hard work. Learning the craft. Doing the hard work.
Doing.
The.
Hard.
Work.
That means writing in full sentences. Sentences are powerful things, but if you cut them off at the knees, if you truncate them, you’re taking their power away. And in a novel, sentences are all you’ve got. They are the everything. The only thing more important are the words, themselves, that make up those sentences.
So yes. I’m trying to give these authors choices. I’m trying to save them some money — editing isn’t cheap, and I am a not cheap editor within the field. If you want to work together in a coaching situation, I’m more than glad to. Not because it’s lucrative for me, but because it’s important that you learn these skills, especially the basic ones. And because as you master them, your money is better spent when my editor’s eye can turn from the basics of writing to the more nuanced use of words and other elements of fiction: Plot. Setting. Pacing. Characterization. And the detail work, the timeline, the grammar, the echo words, your character’s eye color, the unusual spelling of your main character’s father’s name…
Slow down. Take your time. Don’t rush to publication; that never goes well.
Do the hard work. Work on your craft.
But if you need help, ask for THAT. Don’t pay me for an edit in which I have to call out 75% of your manuscript because the sentence fragments don’t work, even stylisticly. It’s a poor use of your money and a poor use of my time.
Do the hard work.
If you need help understanding how/why sentence fragments are a problem, ask. I’ll answer. I’m glad to work with you and teach you how to spot them, how to remove them, how to write better prose that readers will love.
Do the hard work.
Good luck.
April 16, 2019
So here’s the scenario, ripped right out of my own life.
Student goes to the head chef at dining services. Asks if the dining staff will be making Kosher for Passover food next week.
He says no.
Doesn’t say anything else.
The student is, not surprisingly, upset. How can the dining hall not honor one of the major religion’s major holidays?
It’s a valid question. And a lot of people, especially the parents, quickly become upset.
But a little bit of digging reveals the answer: the chefs won’t be cooking Kosher for Passover food because the university is having it catered off-campus and brought in.
The chefs had been truthful. But they’d only had part of the truth.
So what’s this got to do with fiction?
Think about it. Think about how characters routinely ever learn only part of the whole picture. This is what fuels Big Secret plots, for instance, where part of the obstacles facing the characters’ relationship is what isn’t said.
Think about how withholding part of the truth can influence the direction a mystery takes.
You with me?
Take a look at your WIP. Are your characters being TOO forthcoming? Are they holding too much back? How does what each character chooses to say — or NOT say — influence and affect the plot?
It seems simple, but… it’s not. We authors often have impulses to tell what we’ve shown, and sometimes, we let that spill into the words that tumble out of our characters’ mouths. On the flip side, we think our characters are being oh, so clever when we have them withhold certain stuff. But are we doing justice to our fiction when we do either?
February 6, 2019
So I’m reading a book. It’s a good book. It’s a crazy book, actually, full of slapstick comedy and subtle humor and there’s a LOT to like about this book. It turns out to have been the third in a four-book series, and you bet I’m going to go back and find the first two, and then probably the fourth.
It is not a book I edited. It’s one of the approximately 35 I’m going to so-called leisure read. But when you’re wired the way I am, leisure is an odd choice of words.
And that’s the problem with this book. I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. I would. I have been, in the few days since I finished it.
But… I’m wired the way I am.
And in this book, Satan’s a character. And Hell is that place for immortal souls and suffering and all that.
Hell is a place. An actual place.
Now, Disneyland. That’s a place. Mars. That’s a place. Paris. Pittsburgh. Carnegie Music Hall. Buckingham Palace. The Louvre. Miami University of Ohio. Costco.
See anything about all these words? Notice anything at all?
That’s right. You use capital letters at the start of each of them. They are what we call proper nouns. They identify a specific place.
In this novel I was reading, Hell was a specific place.
But not once was Hell capitalized.
Drove me up the freaking wall. Three hundred pages of Hell being an important location in this novel, and never once was it accorded the dignity and propriety it deserves.
Hell is a place. In this use, it’s a proper noun. Give it a capital letter.
December 6, 2018
I was reading an article the other day. It said that triceps dips were an exercise no one should do because they aren’t a move replicated in real life, and therefore aren’t functional fitness. And if it ain’t functional fitness, don’t waste your time doing it.
That’s like telling a writer not to write in first person if everything they’ve ever written and published is in third person.
And… I don’t agree with that advice.
First off, I kinda like doing triceps dips. When you do them right, your whole body is being propelled up and down by these three skinny little muscles in your arms, and that’s pretty damn amazing to think about. And when you do them right, they are hard. Really hard.
I don’t know about you, but I like them just for the pure fact of the challenge.
Same for writing. Rise to the challenge. Don’t focus on the outcome.
Push yourself. Try new things. Stretch yourself — physically, mentally, and creatively.
Because when you focus only on the outcome, you limit yourself. You focus on the destination, not the journey. You never get to sit back and smile and tell yourself you’re amazing; that you’ve just done something you’ve never done before, and dammit, you CAN.
Maybe triceps dips really aren’t your thing. That’s okay. Try them anyway. See where the journey takes you.
Same for your writing. Maybe this isn’t directly going to get you published.
What you’re seeking is the indirect.
Go for it.
December 1, 2018
If you’re a writer, today, the first of December, means one of a few things:
1. Nothing special
2. Something special that has nothing to do with writing
3. A return to social media of a lot of writers you follow
4. A win
5. A loss
If it’s that last one, let’s talk about why it’s a loss.
Did you show up on November 1, intending to write 50,000 words last month? Are you kicking yourself for being a failure because you didn’t hit that 50k mark? Now that it’s December first, is all hope of winning gone?
Be kinder to yourself. You tried.
Yeah, sounds lame to me, too. So let’s talk about the REAL value of National Novel Writing Month — showing up to the page.
Kudos to you if you showed up for thirty days straight. Even if you wrote one word on a few of those days, you showed up. That’s what forms the basis of habits, and now that it’s December, just a generic month in the writing world, you shouldn’t stop. Keep that habit going.
Maybe you burned yourself out during November, struggling for those 50,000 words. You’re probably glad it’s December. If that’s the case, take some time off to recover and come back as soon as you can. Your fictional friends need you.
I remember when NaNo started and they’d tell you to go ahead and write garbage words, include stage directions for yourself – whatever it took to hit that 50,000-word mark. The intent was to show yourself what it would take to write a short novel.
But then NaNo changed, as everything does, and it became about being the month in which you’d draft a book you intended to publish. Hopefully you learned all about the art of revision.
Now, I think the value of NaNo is that it establishes (or RE-establishes) the habit. That practice of showing up every day, of staring at a blank page, of thinking about your characters, their struggles, their growth, the consequences they face.
And if you sat down on November 1, intending to write every day, but you found that because you’re a child, a parent, a friend, a lover, a boss, an employee, a coach, a mentor… a WHATEVER, you can only write on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays… that’s great, too! Make sure you show up on those days. Sit down. Stare at the page. Write at least one word. Two’s better. Ten’s an improvement. So’s eleven.
You get the idea.
Just because it’s December doesn’t mean you need to stop writing for the next eleven months.
Winning, in terms of being a writer, isn’t getting 50,000 verified words written on a page. Winning is showing up and doing the hard work of writing. It’s making a habit of working on your craft.
That said, though, while December tends to be a slow month for editing projects for me, don’t send me your NaNo attempt this year if you haven’t revised it extensively yet. Always send your editor your best work, so that s/he (I!) can give you the best feedback possible. The idea is to get yourself as far along the path as you can, and then bring in the big guns.
Good editing ain’t cheap. Remember that.
But maintaining your writing schedule? Rolling through the bumps that invariably pop up, interrupting your sacred writing time?
That costs you nothing — but will pay off down the road.
Keep writing. THAT is what makes you a winner. Not some random word count that is, to be honest, short for a good novel.
November 27, 2018
You guys know I love Rock Fiction.
But lately… I have found myself disillusioned. Disgusted. Annoyed. Frustrated.
Because the authors aren’t bothering to do their research. There’s a HUGE difference between a band manager and a tour manager. Massive headlining tours don’t come together in days or weeks. And for crying out loud, know the difference between poetry and the structure of song lyrics. My favorite was the band who slept in their dressing rooms in the arena — umm… WHAT?
There really isn’t any excuse for this lack of research. And sorry, but, “I copied what someone else did,” or “I asked someone on Facebook” isn’t doing research. You need to talk to people who’ve worked in the industry, people with hands-on experience, people who’ve been there and seen it. Make sure what you want to have happen is plausible. If your star is the darling of the moment, can he REALLY take off to the beach and have a bonfire? Won’t there be security issues? No one notices and posts it to social media? He’s not too tired from all the touring, which is hard, exhausting work? If his alcohol problem is really truly that bad, can he spend that time without a bottle or can at hand?
Notice how my issues of authenticity begin to sway away from only the details of the music world.
That’s because, having found a string of errors, the author has broken the contract between us. I can’t trust what the author is presenting.
And therein lies a bigger problem, doesn’t it?
If you, as the author, can’t be authentic and therefore credible in your writing, why should I, as the reader, spend time with your book?
Think about it. A few small details is one thing. But the bigger issues… that’s undermining yourself. Your career. And, unfortunately, it hurts the entire genre or category, too.
If you love something, don’t hurt it. Build it up. Take the time. Do the research yourself. Check the facts. Build your authenticity. Get firsthand knowledge, even if firsthand knowledge means watching YouTube videos that established bands post of their tour busses or finding articles that describe busses that strain believability before you network your way to the people who can confirm and/or deny what you’re seeing.
Put the time in. Because if you don’t, why should I, as a reader, put the time into your book?
Increasingly, that’s the question I’ve been asking myself.
June 22, 2018
If you’ve followed me for these past 12 years, or if you’ve ever taken the time to wander through my archives, you may get an inkling of one thing about me that I don’t overly try to hide: I live life large. I’ve done all sorts of crazy and not-so-crazy things in my life. Of course, that leaves me with a lot of scars, a lot of painful memories I don’t talk about. Most, I don’t like to revisit. I’ll be honest about that.
Sometimes, something comes out of the buried ether to torture me, amuse me, or give me perspective.
What happened recently was the latter: all about perspective, baby.
It was right after I’d graduated from Pitt with my BA. I was taking graduate-level classes, trying to figure out if grad school was what I wanted or where else I might turn my face to a new path. We were meeting in the professor’s house because, hey, we were grad students and this is what we did. (Come to think of it, all these years later, that was the only time I had class at my professor’s house, which was quite a shame) We were a small group. Diverse, but not in the way you might think. One of Chuck’s favorite students had paid for her undergrad degree as a phone sex worker. Her writing never met my expectations, which was that I wanted to see that she’d lived life large.
Anyway, we were sitting around one night, and I’d put up a few chapters of a novel I was working on. It… got panned. Like really bad. That was the day that Chuck told me he wanted a German satellite to drop on my main character. And as much as it stung, I had to jab my tongue into my cheek — I still remember this moment clearly — and nod and agree. “When you put it like that, so do I,” I told him.
And then Simon spoke up. Simon was a Brit, he was a few years older than most of us, he had long brown hair, and I can’t remember if he had bangs or not. He was both scruffy — a ton of razor stubble, but not in the sexy way men wear it now — and polished. He would sit cross-legged on the floor and when he wanted to speak, he’d straighten out of his slouch and somehow rock on his crossed knees, raising himself up a good six inches. It always reminded me of a cobra, uncoiling from the basket the charmer kept him in. He’d tuck his hair behind his ears. His eyes would sparkle, and he’d weave his torso, purse his lips, move his hands (when they weren’t tucking his hair, which he’d do repeatedly while he waited for a break in the conversation) until he got to speak. We always liked it when Simon spoke; he was smart as hell. I bet if I could remember his last name (which I maybe never even knew, so maybe there’s nothing to remember), I’d discover he’s got a backlist of publications that puts my 15 to shame and he’s probably got some awards on top of all that.
Needless to say, I respected Simon. I was a little scared of him, but I respected him. When he spoke up in workshop, he tended to be right on.
“I believe,” he started cautiously, and I steeled myself, “that all of us writers need to write a million words of crap before we find our writer souls. You’re clearly talented, Susan, but…”
I winced.
“I believe this is part of your million words of crap.”
Ouch. And, like always, he was right.
“You are young,” he continued. “Get your million words of crap out of you. Write as much as you can. All of you,” he said, eyeing the room. “We all need to write as much as we can. Make sure those million words of crap are out of you. I know mine are.”
That was many years ago. I am not sure I believe that all writers have a million words of crap in them. I’ve met too many really good writers who knock it out of the park on their first attempt. (I’ve edited a number of them, too.) And while I agree that the project I was working on at the time was a mere seventy thousand of my million words, I’m not sure I ever hit a million. (Although, of course, there are some who’ll gleefully disagree.)
That memory got dredged up a few weeks ago, and hasn’t left me yet. I was working with a new author who didn’t take kindly to the realities of the editorial process.
But even now, all these years later, Simon’s words and assessment were right on. Even when I’m not consciously aware of it, his words are the basis for my belief that authors have to give ourselves permission to write utter crap for our first draft. Feel out the work. Get to know the characters, the setting, the message. Embrace the million words.
Not everyone can do that. It’s hard to embrace crap. I learned that day in Chuck’s house, sitting one person over from him and with Simon about five more to Chuck’s left. Because the comment about the German satellite, and Simon’s comment about the million words — they weren’t meant to be mean. They were meant to tell a writer to cut her losses and move on to something better. That if I could admit this was bad — which I did, right there, because everyone who’d spoken up had made great points about how and why it was crap — I could let go of the emotional attachment I had to the work and move on to something better.
I know I did, although I don’t remember what that was. It, too, wound up being trashed, stuck on a floppy disc somewhere, maybe a hard copy stuffed away in the cabinets here in my office. (I think I have the one that was so roundly trashed, too.)
The point is that it’s okay to write a million words of crap. It’s okay to write a million words of not crap.
But be a big enough person to realize that writing is a craft and it’s not a waste of an editor’s time to hire him/her/me and ask for help — but you gotta take that help that you’re given. Even when it hurts. Give it time. Go write something else. Live a little bit larger than you had been. And then come back to the page and make it better.
That’s the beauty of writing: for every million words of crap, there’s ten million of good stuff.
May 31, 2018
Are you a righty or a lefty? And why does it matter when you write fiction?
I just realized this, as I’m communicating with a client. The sentence was something along the lines of The blast came from one side, causing him to fall over to the other side. (Wow, is that a horrible interpretation of what’s on the page, but you get the idea. I hope.)
Now, yeah, it’d help if we knew which side things came from. Maybe this isn’t an issue of righty or lefty in terms of which is your dominant hand, but maybe it’s an issue of righty or lefty in terms of which side you skew toward. Maybe handedness and eye dominance plays a role. I’m not sure!
So. On the page, I’m envisioning that the blast comes at the character from the left, and s/he falls to the right. I’m also envisioning that the character is right handed.
The question I have for you is twofold:
1. Do you envision it the same way I do?
2. Are you a righty or lefty — both handedness and eye dominance?
Let’s see how this shapes up.
In the meantime, when you’re writing action scenes and things are coming at the characters from the sides, maybe throwing in a left or a right every now and then isn’t a bad idea.
Make note of the every now and then in the above sentence. That’s important, because if you overdo it, you wind up in the realm of information that’s important for you as the author but not so important for us as the reader.
Getting back to Steve, my client whose character got hit from one side, I suggested he change it up to let us know which way the character falls. Thinking more about it, I’d like to know how that fall affects her, too. If she falls toward one side or the other, does it change her reaction, both physical and mental? Does it change the flow of the action scene? The outcome? Would it be different if she were a righty or lefty? And most importantly, how does knowing these few simple details — which is her dominant hand, and which way did she fall — affect how the reader interacts and absorbs what’s happening here? Does it recast their mental picture of the scene? Or does it shore up what they’d envisioned up until they got to that word?
Lots to mine in here, huh?
That’s what you guys pay me the big bucks for. To sit and think these things through, so I can help you enrich your fiction and help paint those mental pictures that readers need.
As always, I’m here when you need me, so never be afraid to speak up.
May 29, 2018
Do your hands hurt? Are your wrists too sore to type? Thinking of switching over to a speech to text program?
I have a number of clients who use it now. Personally, I imagine them standing behind a desk, narrating away, pacing as they do and occasionally stopping to frown at the screen. “That wasn’t what I said!” I can hear them thinking. Or saying… as it prints on the screen.
Yes, you can tell I haven’t yet played with speech to text as a writing method. I’m curious about it, though. I’ll admit that.
That’s not what this post is about. Nope. It’s about the need for those of you who do use these programs — and most of you seem to use Dragon, so I’ll just come out and name them, but feel free to leave a comment if you use another one — to make sure you go over your manuscripts carefully. Like all computer programs, it’s not perfect. It’s not great with nuance.
And if I don’t know you’re using it, I’m going to assume — as I did last week — that you’re simply being sloppy and not respectful of either yourself or me. This is never a good thing, for obvious reasons.
I know… you may not always have the time or energy to sit and make sure past didn’t come out as passed. Or that the names in your fantasy novel were interpreted wrong. Or that “excuse me while I kiss the sky” didn’t come out as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.”
But believe me, while I’m willing to go an extra mile when I know you’re using Dragon (or whatever program you prefer), even I have limits. I don’t want to be paid to correct a machine’s inadequacies. I want to help you be a better writer, and there’s a big difference in those two actions.
That said, there was one day where a character’s name was misinterpreted so badly that the text made ZERO sense and I stood at my desk and scratched my head and read the bizarre phrase out loud until I got it. And yes, there are times when I fix a Dragon mistake and laugh at how absurd the interpretation was. Those are my favorite times, to be honest.
But I need to know going in that you’re using it. So, you know, I don’t think you’re being sloppy and disrespectful. Because then I get cranky and let me tell you, my kids hate it when I’m cranky. So do I, although now it’s summer and I can jump on my bike and take a ride to chill out, albeit a shorter ride than I’d like.
So. If you’re going to switch over to speech to text, let me sum it up again:
1. Look over your manuscript before you send it to your editor.
2. Tell your editor you’re using it so I can blame the program and not you.
3. Be prepared to laugh at some of the stuff I’m about to uncover and reveal. Because let’s face it: some of it is darn funny.
Got it?
Talk to me, not just to your speech to text program. And keep on getting those words on the page, no matter how you have to do it. I keep saying it: I have the best clients ever. You guys keep proving that to be true.
May 18, 2018
It was in an email from a friend: I’m tired. So goddamn tired.
And maybe it was because I know him, or maybe it was because I know the exhaustion he was speaking of, or maybe it was just that word choice, but in those five words, I could hear the deep weariness he was expressing.
That’s the key here: the deep weariness. It came out in that second phrase: so goddamn tired.
It’s all about the word choice.
Because think about it. If he’d said so fucking tired, there’s anger in there. You hit that f-word hard when you speak it. It’s a word of anger or frustration. A hostile word, which is why it gets used as often as it does. It’s meant to affect the listener, to evoke an emotional response that echoes what the speaker is feeling. Yes, even if that intention is subconscious, it’s still there. I mean, there’s a reason we call them f-BOMBS, right?
So enter the softer word choice: goddamn instead of fucking. And it changes the entire dynamic. Gone is the white-hot anger. Because it’s added as a modifier, or as an afterthought, the exhaustion creeps out: it’s too much to say in one sentence. It’s gotta be broken up, so the speaker can stop and breathe. Maybe even work up some courage to admit something. Or find the energy in all that tiredness to express it.
I couldn’t do much to help my friend. He works near me, so I offered up the house if he needed to sneak out of work and take a nap, but beyond that, all I could do was commiserate — because, like I said, I’d been in that particular situation before — and so I did.
But I also wrote a blog post because his word choice was just so spot-on perfect.
Which leaves me with this dare for you: can you replace a convenient f-bomb with something else? Something that conveys a bigger, broader meaning? And even more importantly, can your characters?
March 28, 2018
A good writer’s group can be really hard to find. I say that having been a member of many that weren’t great. There was the guy who took my manuscript one week when it was up for critique and, instead of being helpful, wrote lovelorn poetry to a girl he’d known in college who had shunned him. (I can’t say that I blamed her, but not because the poetry was bad.) Or the man who told me that I was marketing a different work to the wrong audience and should target it toward teenagers.
It was a Young Adult project, and it actually eventually landed me an agent.
So, yeah. I get it. Finding the right critique group or partners can be really hard.
But making the effor to build your own personal writer’s group is so, so worth it. When you have a group of motivated, like-minded people — and by like-minded, I don’t mean you’re all writing in the same genre or category. I mean you’re all interested in learnning as much as you can about craft and how to improve your own writing — you learn more. The group lifts each other and themselves, all at the same time. Maybe one has a great eye for detail and can help the others learn which details in a scene are important or vital, and which aren’t. Maybe one understands pace and tension.
Most groups, though, don’t operate on such a specific basis. They are simply groups of writers who seek the same goal: to improve. And maybe they don’t have the experience or language or desire to talk in technical terms. That’s okay, too, so long as they can say, “I don’t know what you’re referring to here,” or “I don’t believe this character would do this. Back in chapter 3, she did the opposite.”
Anything that makes you think, stretch, grow as a writer is a bonus. Yes, even the guy who talked about the audience for my then-project was helpful because at times, he could identify when the characters would act too adult. (The rest of the time, we’d hand him our cards for free cookies at the local grocery and let him make multiple visits to get multiple cookies because, hey, it was one cookie per visit, and one visit ended when you set foot outside the store.)
These days, it’s both easier and harder to find good groups — easier because there are so many. Start with your local library. Most have writer’s groups, and many have multiple groups, often with differnet areas of interest, but sometimes, they only have different instructors. The library can also help you find amazing writer’s groups. Some, like Romance Writers of America, are national, with local chapters. Some, like Sisters in Crime, are for both writers and readers, which is a good reminder that readers can be part of your own writer’s group. You don’t have to confine yourself only to writers.
And then there are smaller, regional groups. I continue to love and recommend Pennwriters to my clients; their resources are deep and their conferences top-notch. Best of all, when the conference is in Pittsburgh (which happens in odd-numbered years), you might get to hang out in the hospitality room with your favorite editor. Pennwriters isn’t just a local group anymore, by the way. We have members from across the nation.
Groups abound on Facebook. They gather among hashtags on other social media. They form in bookstores.
Get out. Get networking. A writer’s group can be as small as two people who exchange manuscripts and read and critique. They can be as large as the members can manage, with some offering vocal support, others offering critiques, and still others helping market when you have a publication.
There’s no one-size-fits-all, so get out there. Network. Build your writer’s group, and use that group to learn your craft. Let them help you take your manuscript as far as you can; learn as much as you can. Lean on your network to help you learn and develop as a writer.
No, a writer’s group can’t take the place of a really good freelance editor like me. (Even the groups I’m part of don’t get the full benefit of my abilities, much as they try to pry it out of me.) But what a writer’s group WILL do is help you maximize the investment you make into your editor.
After all, why are you paying me to teach you how to punctuate grammar when you can learn that for free? Wouldn’t you rather have your money and my time be spent on the bigger, deeper issues that will lift your manuscript from good to something more?
March 23, 2018
Didja notice?
Yes, noticing things is the topic for the day. I find I’ve been making a lot of comments to my clients of late, asking them why someone notices something right then. What happens to trigger the character’s attention?
I get it: authors often use she noticed as a way of drawing the reader’s attention to something.
But she noticed is telling. It’s reporting what the character does, instead of letting us share her discovery. It could work, when used sparingly — and with reason.
She looked the gorgeous attorney over, head to foot, and noticed a stripe of fur across his shins, about two feet up. Small dog, or a cat? The difference would either increase or decrease his desirability in her eyes. That was a given.
So here, she’s looking him over. There’s your precipitating action, the prompt for her to notice.
Contrast that with
She was thinking about how hot he was, hotter than the coffee she’d bought that morning at Starbucks. She took a drink of her coffee, feeling the flavor spread across her tongue in that way only a good latte could, and was glad she’d taken the few minutes to stop in before the meeting. She noticed that a bird had pooped on the office window.
Umm… huh? Where’s the connection? What prompts her to shift from the hot guy and her coffee, and over to the bird poop? (Because this entirely made up story is going to turn into something akin to Hitchcock’s classic, the poop turns out to be important later on. Just so you know that — because many times, what I’m seeing with these odd, unprovoked instances of noticing, is that they are vital to the story somehow.)
Hey, did you skip over that parenthetical? There’s important stuff in there. The jist of my explanation, in fact: These odd, unprovoked instances of noticing are almost always vital details.
Remember: writing is a craft. Go and let your characters notice things all over the page in the first draft. Absolutely.
But when you revise, make a mental note to revisit all the times you use the word notice and make sure that what’s noticed is an action that’s prompted.
And, as always, holler if you need help.
February 21, 2018
So I’m reading this book. It’s too early to say if it’s a good book, but the author is well celebrated, and I’ve followed her on social media for years. She’s had a hell of a career, the sort that anyone would be envious of and strive to emulate, even when writing in other genres and categories.
But… the second chapter is set in 1999. As in the year 1999. And something I encountered stopped me cold.
I laughed because why not.
What’s wrong with that, you ask. People talk that way all the time.
Except… in 1999, they most certainly did NOT. That construction is much, much newer than 1999. I’d say it’s newer than 2009, even. I’d cautiously put money down on the year 2012. Somewhere in there.
Regardless, pulling your reader out of your story isn’t exactly what you want to be doing if you’re the writer. And you really don’t want them jerking out for something so… small.
I know… most people won’t catch this. Even more won’t think it’s a big deal. You may be among those.
A lot of readers don’t care that certain historical fiction authors aren’t even close to the facts. That doesn’t mean authors can willy-nilly abandon their obligation and the readers’ expectation that their historical fiction is accurate and authentic.
But there are readers who do care. About phrases that were and weren’t used at the end of the Twentieth Century. About the accuracy of historical novels. About authenticity and the trust they put into an author to present the world as it was in whatever year they’re writing about, be it 1999 or 1899.
So who do you cater to? How do you choose?
Well, you do your best. You make sure you’re working with a team who will catch these small things. If you can’t be sure your editor will, do your best to find beta readers who will.
All you can ever do is your best. Sometimes, it’ll bite you. Sometimes, it’ll save you.
Do your best. And yes, stop and think about how people used to talk. You’ll be surprised to see what’s entered our language over the past few years alone.
February 8, 2018
I love that you guys are reading my posts and interacting with me and with them. This one, about dialogue tags, in particular has raised a number of questions and responses.
We’ve already talked about asks versus said.
But, another author asked, what about the Tom Swiftlies? Or maybe she spelled it Tom Swiftlys, which I suppose is actually more accurate, if we pretend that SWIFTLY is Tom’s last name.
At any rate, she’s got a point. When we’re talking dialogue tags and the power of the verb we use — ask, said, demanded, emoted, swore — we should also talk about those pesky little adverbs. You know: He said softly. He yelled loudly. He swore aggressively. He stated belligerently.
Notice how these are all TELLING words. They tell us how the speaker did his verb (said, yelled, swore, stated). But do they show?
Go back to the time-worn canon: show, don’t tell. Now, we all know that by and large, this is a truth of fiction. Show, don’t tell.
But we also know there are times when it’s okay, or even better, to tell, don’t show.
How do you know which is the right thing to do when writing dialogue?
For me, this one’s fairly easy, but it involves a lot of trust in your reader (which is where I think a lot of this breakdown occurs. That, or bad sixth grade teachers who thought adverbs with dialogue were all that and more). Can the reader figure out how something is conveyed if you remove the adverb? Yelling is a loud thing. You can’t yell quietly. (Admit it: you tried.) You can be forceful and strong but quiet, but you can’t yell. Even Webster’s agrees:
Definition of yell
intransitive verb
1 : to utter a loud cry, scream, or shout
2 : to give a cheer usually in unison
transitive verb
: to utter or declare with or as if with a yell : shout
Look at that top definition: to utter a loud cry, scream, or shout — see it? By definition, a yell is loud. There’s no need to tell us!
Sometimes, it’s not that cut and dry. You can state things calmly, quietly, belligerently, aggressively… the list goes on. So how do you still convey your meaning yet remove the adverb?
Two ways, and they don’t have to be exclusive of each other. The first is via word choice. Someone being aggressive is going to use a different set of words than someone who is being calm, or even someone being diplomatic. An aggressive lover versus a persuasive lover — “Come here.” versus “If you come over here, I’ll make it worth your while.”
The second way can be a little more challenging, and that’s by showing your speaker’s body language. “Come here” might be accompanied by a hand on a hip and a finger curling in and out, or pointing at the spot in question. The head might be held a little higher, the chest held upright in perfect posture. Contrast that with someone trying to persuade, where the posture won’t be so assertive: the shoulders might be hunched, the head drawn down on the neck. Instead of pointing at the partner or at the space the speaker desires the listener to occupy, maybe the speaker pats the couch beside him (or her). Maybe s/he is sitting, not standing.
There are a million ways to convey body language, and of course, this is a spot — just like those darn pesky adverbs — that can trip you up. Why? How? Didn’t I just say body language is good?
Yes, but too much of it, or when used at the wrong time, and you’ve undermined yourself.
I know. It’s hard. It’s confusing.
Remember, folks, that writing is a CRAFT. Sometimes, what seems vitally important in the early stages of a manuscript’s development becomes fodder for the delete key later on. And often, the reverse is true as you get to know your characters and the situations they find themselves in.
So give it a try. Take a hard look at your writing. Are you a Tom Swiftly? Do you over-adverb your dialogue tags?
If you need help, you know where and how to reach me. I’m here to help, after all. And in the meantime, keep the questions and good stuff coming!
