As authors, we walk an interesting, fascinating line: that between emotionally engaged and not. We need to emotionally engage in order to write the heart-wrenching stuff that our readers demand. We also need to be emotionally engaged enough to be able to create an emotionally appropriate, fully-rounded character. Because believe me, if the author doesn’t care about his or her characters, neither will the reader.

But we also need to be detached from the emotional games that go along with emotional involvement. And that’s because we are both the puppet and the puppet master. (No. Wrong Master of Puppets!)

When we’re wearing our author or editor (or beta or crit partner) hats, it’s easier to disengage. It really is. We have the space we need, physically and emotionally. We can put the book or manuscript down and walk away and think.

Our characters usually can’t. And often, they shouldn’t have this distance. Sometimes, your character needs to be playing the bad guy’s emotion game. Your character probably needs to be more emotionally vested than you are, especially if your character is going up against a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath. This is because until the character — the victim, the target — knows what s/he is dealing with, the emotion game is impossible to avoid.

What’s it look like?

Shock. Disbelief. An inability to wrap your head around a consistent set of actions. A refusal to accept the reality you’re faced with — and not necessarily the reality you’re living (that gets into the whole area of gaslighting) but the reality that this is how the bad guy behaves over and over again and isn’t going to change that. The character self-righteously claims they are refusing to normalize abnormal behavior.

Yet their shock and disbelief and anger continue to play the exact role the bad guy is feeding to them. And the bad guy wins.

Let’s take a step back.

Shock, disbelief, anger — these are emotions. Emotions have good points and bad points and advantages and disadvantages. (kind of like everything else in life!)

If you retain nothing else from this post, remember this: When your character is caught up in the cycle of expressing emotion, your character is not able to gain the upper hand on his or her enemy, something that requires emotional distance and clarity to achieve. And so long as your character is emotional, they are off-balance. Off-balance means easier to manipulate.

Bad guy wins.

Yes, it IS that simple.

So, as authors, it’s your job to, to an extent, get caught up in this emotional cycle — insofar as the character needs you to, in order to create an authentic experience for the reader.

BUT as authors, you also need to know how to rise above that emotion, how to break the cycle. There are many ways to do this, of course; what works for one person or character may not work for the next. Method isn’t nearly as important and being able to sever that emotional reaction. Once your character can get past the emotion game, your character comes out the winner.

Sounds simple, right? But look around you in your own life. Take a good, cold, hard look. Notice how many people are caught up in the drama of the emotion game. Because, hey, it’s drama! Friends respond to drama (at least until you tip the scales into the land of the drama queen). They hear you better when you are passionate!

Except… guess what? You are also too emotionally invested, and you can’t think clearly and critically. You are unconsciously holding yourself down in a position of weakness under the narcissist/sociopath/psychopath/asshole who is using your emotions to manipulate you and keep you under his/her thumb.

Yes, you are allowing yourself to be abused.

You.

Are.

Allowing.

Yourself.

To.

Be.

Abused.

In fiction, we expect the abused to be able to rise above, end the emotion game, and triumph in the end. We cheer the main character as they embrace their agency, find their strength, and defeat the agents of evil.

So why aren’t we doing it in real life?

Take a deep breath. And a step back. What do you respond emotionally to? Are you playing someone else’s emotion game in the name of resisting the abuse?

Is your character?

Is that where you want to be? Is that what you want your character to be doing?

Think about it. Think hard.

And here we go! I’m auctioning off up to 100 pages of line edits as part of The Romance For Reproductive Justice movement.

I’m not going to get all political about the hows and whys. You know the stories, you know where you stand. This is where I stand, and I’m making myself available to one author who wants to work on their craft and up their game.

Please spread the word, bid, send your friends. If you’ve been wanting to work with me and can’t afford to, now’s possibly your chance to do so! And if you do work with me and want to support the cause, feel free to browse the other offerings. Or hang out and run the bids up. I won’t say no. It goes to a good cause, and it’s a chance to work with ME.

Really. How can you resist?

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.

What I noticed about dialogue tags other than said

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.

Are dialogue tags other than said bad?

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.

This is one of my favorite subjects!

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.

Don’t believe me?

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.

One caveat:

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.

The King Trevor cover because Lex did the ShapeShifter logo for my many years ago.

Have you gotten your rights back to a book that was previously published?

I’ve got a deal for you.

My friend Lex Valentine is offering a cover art package that can’t be beat. Lex is… an amazing writer, great graphic artist, and an awesome woman all around. She’s offering a great package on cover art for books whose rights have reverted to their authors. Why let your book sit on your computer? Put it out there! Visit her at Winterheart.com and be sure to tell her I sent you.

Of course, you can’t have a spiffy cover art package and a lot of typos inside. So if you send me proof you’re working with Lex on your cover art, I’ll give you a steeper discount than I usually do on a copy edit for a rights reversion. AND since right now the $100 rush fee is in place, I’ll waive, that, too, if time is of the essence.

That’s right. As a matter of course, I offer discounts now if you want to re-publish your book and put it on the self-publication market. BUT if you work with Lex, I’ll offer a steeper discount than I usually do. Even though it means I’m losing money, and with an expected announcement next month of college tuition hikes, that’s not real comfortable.

But these are the things we do for our friends, and I’ve no regrets about that.

Use Winterheart for your graphics. Get a discount from me.

Can’t lose… and hopefully, the royalties will roll in and you’ll actually win — new readers, nice royalty checks.

Seriously. What have you got to lose?

It’s been just over a year since my short story “Undaunted” appeared in this juried anthology. This call for submissions could have you bragging about your own inclusion in a juried anthology.

This one isn’t for short stories, though, unless you can tell an entire story in up to 125 words. I know some of you are very good at that.

What author Jaleta Clegg is looking for, mostly, is an abundance of silliness and weirdness. She wants happy and silly and hopeful, not dark or scary or disturbing.

Well, she says, maybe a little disturbing.

The idea is that it’ll fit on a page of funky fonts and cool formatting. And be silly and weird and happy and silly and hopeful and a little bit disturbing.

Got it?

Here’s another selling point: she’s paying a whopping $5 for each piece she selects. It’s not much, but it’s enough that you can say, “Hey, not only was it a juried anthology, it was a PAID juried anthology.”

Bragging points, indeed.

BUT that’s still not all. Nope. She’s also letting you tack one more thing onto that line you get to brag: Proceeds will go to Heifer International, so this is a charity initiative.

Got all that? Juried. Paid. Charity.

125 words. Silly, weird, hopeful, happy, and slightly disturbing, probably in its absurdity.

Need that link again, so you can check it out yourself? Here it is. Nice and long, so it’s easy to see and easier to click.

Good luck! You have until the end of May, thereabouts, because weird and silly and slightly disturbing… there are no real deadlines for THAT kind of fun.

As always, if you make the cut, come back and brag about yourself and use this space to help promote yourself and your anthology!

I thought this cover would compliment the post, even though it has nothing to do with… well, anything other than the theme. In my mind. Let me know if I nailed it.

Local-to-me Parsec, Inc has put out a call for submissions for their literary magazine, Triangulation.

The theme is Dark Skies.

What does that mean?

From their site:

Triangulation: Dark Skies will be a celebration of the dark. This year, we are joining forces with the International Dark-Sky Association to raise awareness of the dangers of light pollution—to human health, to animals and plants in the nighttime ecosystem, and to the future of astronomical research on our planet. We’d like to see proactive characters experiencing firsthand the dangers and consequences of a world without darkness, but even more than that, we want stories celebrating our place in the universe, and our ability, as sentient beings, to see into the depths of space. Give us past, present, and future accounts. Cautionary tales. Secondary worlds and altered timelines. The effects of light pollution are many and varied—feel free to explore any aspects, from neurobiological studies, to life in an alien star system, to legends out of time.

Do you love it? I love it. I can feel some creative juices flowing already.

Submissions open December 1 and close on the last day of February, and should be made through my favorite submissions site, Submittable.

And they are a paying market! So be sure to check out the guidelines (aka rules) and follow them. Don’t set yourself up for failure. You are better than that.

As always, if you want my fine editor’s eye to look over your piece before you send it in, drop me an e-mail. I give discounts on editing when you say your intended market is one you first saw here. (HINT)

Good luck, and also as always, if your story makes the cut, come back and let us know. Do a Featured New Book Spotlight! Brag about it! Send us buy links so we can read it and brag about you, too.

Some SFF for you to consider, although this is already published and not a novella, so it doesn’t fit the current call for submissions.

We’re in that time again. It’s happening.

No, not Mercury Retrograde, although that’s happening, too.

Tor is open for unagented novella submissions. They’re looking for between 20,000 and 40,000 words, and encourage you to take a close look at their current list to see the sorts of things they publish. (This means they’ll consider works that are different from what they currently publish, but not so far from their mainstream that they can’t comprehend. They are, after all, a for-profit publisher and are trying to maximize profits first and break new literary ground second. So be wise with your expectations.)

Now, to jump on the bandwagon, they are “actively” requesting submissions from writers “from underrepresented populations.”

I’ll leave that there and let you read the PC decisions behind that. It’s sad that a SFF publisher even has to say this when so many of the SFF greats of history have fallen into that “underrepresented populations” category.

Sigh.

But anyway, move FAST because this window is only open for a very short time — until August 13, to be exact.

If you’re not ready now, don’t fret. They last held an open call like this in May — and haven’t finished sorting through the submissions — and so are likely to do it again. Focus on making the best book possible.

And, as always, read the guidelines. Make sure you conform to them because no, they’re not going to make an exception for YOU. That’s narcissistic thinking and it’s wrong and it’s stupid and don’t go there, okay? Follow the damn guidelines. Here they are again, so you have zero excuse.

On the off chance that you start writing and your finished product doesn’t fit the stated guidelines? Check Submittable! There’s always good opportunities over there. (Just beware of the tool charging $85 for a manuscript evaluation. What the fuck?)

This is the spot in the post where I offer a last-minute go-over before you submit, at a steep discount. But… it’s summer and you can tell by my lack of regular posting that I’m swamped. Unusually so, even for summer. If you need me, drop me a note and we’ll talk and see what we can work out. You know I’m always glad to have your back and help make your words sparkle.

For a long time, I thought the reason summer was my busy season was because you all wanted me to edit while you’re on vacation. Really, you guys deserve longer breaks from your work in progress for more than a week, but I’m indulgent like that. (I slept until 8:30 this morning — well, the morning I’m writing this — and that’s extremely rare for me.)

But lately, I’ve found a way to quantify my stress and I noticed that as soon as the kids were out of school and my oldest now a graduate, my stress levels… plummeted. That’s coincided with my sitting on the couch, working on my own fiction. (and probably sleeping until 8:30, but that’s another story.)

Coincidence?

Not on your life.

Whatever the reason, I’m glad to say this summer is shaping up for me like almost every other: busy. Which means that if you need me (and why don’t you???), better get in the queue now. I still work on a first come, first served basis and I’ll do my best to hold a date if you’re a deadline person, but know I’m not going to sit idle for a few days while I wait for you. I have a college tuition to pay starting in August!

Right now, I’m not so busy that the Rush fee is active. That could — and probably will — change at any point, so if you’re working on something that you think or know will be ready for an edit soon, well, do NOT rush it. Not for my sake. Remember you always want to send your editor your very best (unless you’re stuck and you need my expert eye, at which point holler and I’ll help. Of course!).

So what do you do?

Contact me. Tell me you know it’s the busy season, and you want to make sure I’m on your radar. If you’re an existing client, will it make a difference? Quite possibly; I take care of my people.

But if you and I haven’t worked together yet, don’t despair. You won’t be thrown to the back of the queue time and again. Nope. You’re my people now, at least temporarily, and I take care of my people.

What does that mean? It means I’m not too busy to communicate with you (generally) about where you are in the queue and when I’ll get to you. It means you’ll get 100% of my attention and be the only project I work on until it’s done. (Not all editors, I’ve learned, work this way.) It means you potentially get to make me so busy, I impose the rush fee.

Got it?

Now, get busy on your fiction. Summer’s here (unless you’re Down Under, but that’s a logistic we can work out another time). Hopefully your stress levels plummeted as much as mine have. Hopefully you’re busy writing, and you’ll need me before you start shopping for school supplies or (eep!) dorm room linens. Be in touch, let me know you’ll me.

In the meantime, I’ll be over here. Busy.

Anthologies are great ways to get published and meet fellow authors who’ll help get your name out.

Whoa, this could be some heavy stuff, for you who are into it. Or it could be uplifting; it’s all in how you interpret the prompt, right?

Less Than Three Press is looking for submissions for their anthology titled Life After All. Here’s what they say:

Life After All — an apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic/pastoral apocalyptic LGBTQIA+ anthology — The end of the world is a dark, bleak place. Life is full of grit, misery, and barely scraping by. But if humans excel at anything, it’s making the best of a bad situation, and the end of the world would be no different.

Less Than Three Press invites you to submit stories about life after the end of the world being far from bleak and hopeless. We want to see stories of hardened apocalypse survivors building new lives and homes with their found families; gentle robots terraforming the ruined remains of the Earth; your post-Earth space settlers slice-of-life.

I hope you have more than I do, ’cause I got nothing. I just can’t force my tender little brain to go there.

There are a few things you’ll need to know before you start to write:
1. Stories need to be between 8k and 15k. Yes, that’s a minimum of eight thousand words. And yes, fifteen thousand is verging on novella territory, but just think of what an awesomely meaty story you can create! Some of you see that word count as a luxury. Others are freaking out, I’m sure. Stop that. You can do it.

A few of you are going to wind up with a novel, too. Go for that, as well.

2. Stories need a Happily Ever After, or a Happily For Now (my preferred ending). No compromise on this one! BUT at the same time, you’re not locked into writing a romance, if that’s what got triggered in your brain when you saw the HEA or HFN just now.

3. They pay a LOT. Like, wowsies.

4. Deadline is July 31.

5. Be sure to check out the Less Than Three Press website for full details, including instructions on how to submit.

As always, if you’ve written something for a prompt I’ve posted about and you’d like my experienced eye on it, holler. I’m glad to work on this for you, and at a discounted rate, too. (I’ll even waive the rush fee, if it’s on, like it currently is.)

So get writing, and good luck! If you get accepted, be sure to stop back and let all of us know so we can celebrate you and pick up a copy of an anthology with one of us in it.

Yes, it’s a novel and this is a call for stories — flash at that — but hey, it’s the same genre. So deal with it and get writing.

I found out about this one from my friends at Littsburgh, who were spotlighting the Alchemist because they (The Alchemist) are a Pittsburgh-based literary magazine and because Littsburgh is about all things literary. #LiteraryYinzers for the win, my friends.

And because they are located here, near-ish to me, in the hometown that refused to let me reject it (yeah, not nearly as dramatic as “adopted hometown” but certainly a lot more contentious a relationship — and certainly, the deeper my love for it all), I wanted to bring it to your attention, so you know what’s going on and can help support it both by reading it and by submitting to it.

Submissions are fairly easy… yet they’re not. That’s because the first requirement is that they want SFF pieces (including subgenres like horror) ONLY if they are under a thousand words. And the world your story is set in can’t be borrowed from someone else, or shared with other published writers.

Did I mention they pay? They do! And it’s a sweet $50 per story, too.

They also need your support and are accepting subscriptions over at their Patreon page. So if you love SFF (as much as or more than I do), jump on board and help out. Every little bit helps.

You can read the rest on their submissions page.

Have at it, and if you sell them a story, be sure to let us know so we can cheer you on and become donors in your honor.

As always, if you see a call for submissions here at West of Mars and decide to go for it but you’d like me to help you get it into the best shape possible, holler and I’ll cut you a deal on my fees and work you in on my schedule.

The Lucky Charms anthology was filled by a call for submissions from the members of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Honestly, I don’t go looking for places that are seeking submissions. They are easy enough to find via Submittable, and that’s a site well worth having an account with. I find all sorts of cool stuff listed there.

But I rarely tell you about them. Rather, I bring to you the calls for submission that I hear my friends and colleagues actively talking about. There’s buzz in my community, and I’m glad to make something buzz a little bit harder and help bring parts of my community together.

Today’s call for submissions, to Delmarva Review, crossed my radar in such a way. And since cool people I know in some form or another (in this case, I believe it was a local writer’s group) are talking about this, it was worth bringing to a wider pool of potential submissions. Because you all LOVE increased competition!

So. Delmarva — that’s a geographical area and while your fiction or poetry doesn’t have to reflect the area, it’s still good to know something about your potential audience. I’ll let you research that and just tell you that they’re looking for fiction of length up to 5k words or flash up to 1k. You may submit two flash pieces, each under that word count.

They don’t pay cash, if that’s your aim. It’s a literary magazine that pays the standard two copies, so this one’s great for exposure and an ever-lengthening list of publications. Don’t discount the value of that list! If you work in short fiction at all, you know how valuable it is.

The deadline is March 31, with publication in October. They hope to get back to everyone by May.

I’ll let you read more about it, like what sort of fiction they’re looking for — and what they’re not.

If you’ve got a piece (or two, if you write flash), go for it! If not, what’s stopping you from creating something? The best part of fiction is that if it doesn’t fit here, it may fit somewhere else.

As always, if you want eyes on it before you submit, drop me a line and I’m glad to help you bring it up to snuff. And as always, if you do submit, let us know. And if you are selected, definitely let us know — not only do we want to cheer you on, we’d love to host you for a Featured New Book Spotlight!

I’m biased. I’ll admit it. But… how can you NOT like the Running Wild Press? They’re new, they’re hungry, and I know a couple of the people behind them, which gives me confidence they’re being run right.

Back at the end of August, I put out a call for submissions to the Running Wild Press short story anthology they were putting together. Did any of you submit? If so, were you chosen?

We’ll be hearing more about this anthology. Much, much more.

And with anthology selections made and the book in progress, it’s time for them to turn their attention to novellas.

Yes, novellas.

You read that right! One of the hardest and least appreciated forms of fiction (and least celebrated, too) is getting its day over at Running Wild. And, because they are Running Wild Press and because fiction right now is all about pushing boundaries and crossing genres and opening up to ideas that should have been celebrated for a lot longer than is currently trendy. I’m grateful we’ve got folks like Running Wild who are willing to turn a trend into a new way of life.

Which means if you’ve got a novella, ship it on over to them! (What’s a novella? The submission guideline says at least 15,000 words)

Got a novella you think you’d like to send over but aren’t sure about? I’ll cut you a deal on an evaluation, and/or a deal on editing it… IF you are going to submit to Running Wild. Drop me a line and we’ll talk so you can make the best submission possible.

Are you tainted?

That’s the question of the day.

Sort of.

I’ve got a writing prompt for you (and yes, you are free to use this as your starter for a pizza horror story) today, so have at it.

As always, you are free to send me your creation privately (although if it’s a novel… well, that’s gonna cost you for a formal edit) and if you publish something from my prompt, you have to tell me so I can mention it here and we can all cheer for you.

Ready?

Here’s your prompt. It’s a line of dialogue.

“You have to mark that as tainted.”

And… GO.

I can just HEAR you guys about my post title here. I totally can. So go and flood my inbox and we’ll do a Beavis and Butt-head chuckle together.

Heh heh.

Anyway, I’m just going to take this verbatim from my notes. I don’t remember what sparked it, only that it wasn’t about a manuscript I was working on. If anything, it was an explanation of why I liked the climax in that particular manuscript so much. So here it is:

Action climaxes shouldn’t be like a fireworks finale, where the air is full of smoke and the techs set off firework on top of firework until you can’t see anything but big flashes of light and a smear of color through the smoke.

Even the climax should advance the story and illustrate characterization. It can’t be mass violence for the sake of mass violence.

I’ll let you think about that. Discuss in the comments, if you’re so inclined.

Ripped from real life!

I am having some remodeling done, and I walked into my powder room and found this (okay, this is a staged version, as the actual stick of Old Spice disappeared with the workmen).

And… go. Let yourself be inspired.

As always, leave a link in the comments or email me a Word file if you’d like direct and private feedback (yes! Free editing! I figure I am telling you to write it so the least I can do is give you constructive feedback on it).

And if you get the piece you write published, by all means, drop in and share the links!

Here’s a writing prompt for you!

It came to me the other morning, as I sat up to put my eyedrops in. (Sigh. Eyedrops.) I must have woken up in a super-creative mood because my thoughts were all over the place, but this one was worth passing along as a writing prompt.

Ready?

It’s the first night your character has spent with his/her lover. Up to now, one or the other has always crawled out of bed and toward their own home, but the relationship has changed. Deepened. The all-night commitment is happening.

Your character wakes in the morning, to be told by his/her lover that s/he snores. Loudly. Like… I got no sleep because of you!

How does your character react to this? What do they say? Do? Does it change the relationship between the two? If so, for better or for worse?

And… go!

Leave anything in the comments, or email me a Word file if you’d like direct and private feedback. Not sure you got what you wanted on the page? Send it along and your favorite editor here will take a look and share her thoughts. Because, you know, I have thoughts. Lots of them.

I’ve been chewing on this one, but hey, let’s go for it, shall we?

Here’s the deal. All Romance eBooks closed shop abruptly at the end of the year. I’ll let you Google and read the story behind it, but for many authors and readers, it wasn’t a good situation.

But some authors were able to get the rights to their books back. Some would like to revise them, have a new edit done, and put them up for sale on the indie market.

If you’re one, or you know of one, send them my way. I’m offering a discount to anyone who wants to reissue their books. If you’re nice but your books weren’t for sale through All Romance, maybe I’ll extend it to you, too. Probably. But you gotta be nice!

Good editing is expensive. That’s because editors like me are worth the money (and keep in mind that a lot of my friends yell at me for not charging enough!). So now I’m offering to work for you, and to help you save some money, too.

Tell your friends. Spread the word.

I belong to a number of editor groups at this point in time. I usually lurk, but wound up following a thread the other day.

…there were other places that seemed homophobic to me, which is not something young people should read

*blink*

not something young people should read

You were hired to EDIT a work of fiction. You were not hired to interpret the content. You were not hired to be the morality police.

You were hired to perform a job. You were not hired to overlay your views, beliefs, and politics over someone else’s work or vision.

If you have a problem with it, yes, bring it to the author or publisher.

But to make a blanket statement about what people should and should not read?

NOT YOUR JOB.

You are not the acquiring editor, who (in this case) has paid the author an advance against royalties for the work. One presumes they have approved the content and have seen this content that is not something young people should read. Clearly, the acquiring editor, on behalf of the publisher, does not agree!

Gah.

I once edited a book, helping get the third book in a trilogy ready for submission to an acquiring editor who had already bought the first two, and the storyline stretched plausibility. I said to the author, “This is problematic to me. I have trouble buying that a person in this profession would act in this way.”

“But this is my life,” she huffed back.

“I get that,” I said. “But sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction and I’m concerned this won’t go over well with your publisher or the audience you’ve built.”

Her publisher refused to publish the book. For the exact reason I’d raised. The trilogy was never completed and remains a two-book series.

So what’s the difference here?

Easy. I won’t make a judgement about what should or should not be read by the public.

This other freelance editor did exactly that. And that bothers me.

She wasn’t hired to be the morality police. She was hired to interact with a text and make it better.

Maybe making it better means flagging the material that she finds inappropriate. (But let’s face it: if she was hired to do a straight grammar check, then no, she wasn’t hired to flag material that offends her. She was hired to make sure the grammar is correct. Nothing more.) But more to the point, it means swallowing your sensibilities and approaching the work as a professional would do. Is this in context? Is it realistic that this character thinks/feels/acts this way? Does it advance the storyline? Does it let the reader have a better/different/illuminating glimpse of the character? Does it help shape the way the reader interacts with the text, in the way that the author has indicated via other parts of the text?

That’s what an editor does.

Freelance editors are not here to be the morality police and tell the world what they should and should not read. They are only here to make the work of fiction in front of them shine. Go ahead and challenge the author. “Is this what you mean to say? Do you see how it can be taken the wrong way? Are you prepared if it is?”

Save the blanket statements. Tuck the morality police away.

Do the job you were hired for, which is to make a book shine. Not to judge what a segment of the reading population should and should not be exposed to.

It’s been a whirlwind around here as the clock keeps moving forward. Thirty-six weeks since the accident and I’m still counting.

Therapy’s helping, but slowly. Feeling’s starting to come back to the fingers of my left hand. My strength is coming back even faster — just in time for snow shoveling season!

Being concussed is, quite frankly, a total pain in the ass. I liked it better when I didn’t know I was concussed and was just living my life, full-speed ahead. To go from full speed to a crawl has been the hardest part, although the isolation is hard, too. Remember your chronically ill friends, folks, and try to keep the support coming. Sometimes, the longer things drag out, the more they need you. I’m learning this one through experience.

Since I was cleared almost two months ago to wear contacts, I piggybacked an appointment for my son to have his eyes checked with an appointment of my own for a valid prescription for contacts. The little computer they made me stare at said my prescription has gotten better and the tech asked if my strongest glasses were too strong, but then she had me read the eye chart and yep, the doctors were right when they said the cataract would make my vision worse, not better.

I see the surgeon in another month, and we’ll see what he says. On the one hand, I want my retina as healed as possible before we tackle the cataract. But on the other, I’d like the surgeries behind me. I’m eager to get on with living, not healing.

This surprises no one.

What will probably surprise all of you is that my September editing calendar is now completely booked. Depending on work, therapy (once a week, I have three hours of therapy, between the pinched nerve and the concussion work), kids, and life, it might spill into October, which is hard for impatient clients. But it’s super for me. And it’s not just that dates are booked, either. It’s that manuscripts are here, all files open on my desktop, ready and waiting for me. This is job security, man.

I have missed this. Having manuscripts waiting, being in demand.

This is what happens when you are good at what you do.

So keep it coming. Keep counting with me; I’ll be fully healed one day (maybe) and on to something hopefully with less risk and even more personal fulfillment. If you can consider anything about the past thirty-six weeks to be in any way personally fulfilling.

It’s been awhile since my editor self came out on these pages, but here she is. She’s got a serious case of the warm fuzzies, too.

First came news last week that one of my clients had made the USA Today and New York Times best seller lists for an anthology he’s in. What exciting news! More people who get to share the vision of a West of Mars client. I can’t speak for the rest of the anthology, of course, but this guy deserves the accolades and success.

Yeah, I love hearing those tales. I have a number of clients who routinely make best seller lists, but these two? That’s pretty rare, and it’s so exciting to see. I love it.

The other thing that never gets old is smaller, but it’s an important step on the path to getting the sort of notice that’ll land an author on those best seller lists. Call it a blog tour, call it networking, call it what you will, but I always get a thrill out of seeing books I’ve worked on show up on blogs I read or follow.

It may not feel like it, but writing truly is a community. My readership may overlap with yours, and there may be overlap with authors C, D, E, and beyond. When we can help each other and support each other, the entire community as a whole benefits.

Seeing my authors grow more and more successful is a real thrill. Being able to continue to work on their books and help them produce such good stuff is truly an honor. It really does never get old.

Keep sending your manuscripts may way. Let me help you realize your dreams.