editing

The Four Essential Stages of Writing

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This post by Ali Luke originally appeared on her Aliventures site on 2/12/14.

In last week’s post, 7 Habits of Serious Writers, I mentioned the importance of actually writing, plus the need to redraft. I thought it’d be worth putting those stages into context – because they’re not all you need for an effective piece.

Every finished piece of writing passes through four stages:

Planning
Drafting
Redrafting
Editing

Sure, you can publish a blog post without doing any planning, or any rewriting and editing. Unless you’re very lucky, though (or writing something extremely short), you’ll be lacking a clear focus, the structure won’t quite work, and there’ll be clumsy sentences all over the place.

I wouldn’t call that “finished”, myself. I’d call it a draft.

The four stages don’t always have to be tackled in order. Sometimes, you’ll find that they can be combined – rewriting and editing, for instance. They don’t even have to be carried out by the same person. (I’ve written blog posts to other people’s plans, and I’ve had my work edited by others.)

But it’s crucial to be clear about what each stage involves. If you’re struggling with a particular piece of writing, there’s a good chance that you’ve skipped a step somewhere – or that you’ve tried to do everything at once.

 

Stage #1: Planning

 

Read the full post on Aliventures.

 

Editors’ Post-NaNo Tips for Revising Your Novel

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This post by Corina Koch MacLeod and Carla Douglas originally appeared on Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer on 11/19/14.

It’s National Novel Writing Month, and if you’re participating in the festivities, you’re chained to your computer in an effort to blast out a 50,000-word first draft. Thanks for coming up for air to read this post!

When your draft is completed, you’ll need to revise it. And how you revise your writing will depend on

– your prewriting and planning style
– the kind of book you’re writing

But first, an explanation of what we mean by revise.

 

What is Revising?

The prefix “re” means again. To revise is to re-vision—to look at your writing again, hopefully from the perspective of a reader. To bring something new to your writing, you need to give it time to breathe. Revision involves waiting.

In How to Make a Living as a Writer, James Scott Bell recommends airing your writing for three weeks. That means sticking your NaNo draft in a drawer on November 30, and vowing not to look at it again until the winter solstice. If you take Stephen King’s advice, you’ll be pulling out that first draft on Valentine’s Day.

After the recommended period of rest, you’re ready to work on your first draft.

 

What’s Involved in Revising

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

Just the Right Word is Only a Click Away!

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This post by Jodie Renner originally appeared on The Kill Zone on 11/17/14.

How are your word usage and spelling skills? Try this quiz to find out.

Would you say, “Please join Kerry and me” or “Please join Kerry and I”? Do you lay down or lie down for a nap? Should you rein in or reign in your impulses? Did chaos rein or reign in the classroom for the student teacher? The homicide detective arrived at the scene of the grizzly (or is it grisly) murder. How did that effect (or is it affect) you? What was the effect/affect of that show on your kids?

Did the elicit or the illicit lovers have a discrete or discreet rendezvous? Do you insure, ensure, or assure that your seat belt is fastened? Do you hone in or home in on a problem? Do you say “He got his just desserts” or “He got his just deserts”?

Which is correct, “between you and me” or “between you and I”? Do you peak at a mountain peek or vice-versa? And do those juicy bits of gossip peak your curiosity or pique your curiosity? Do you pore over or pour over the details of a document? Did the singer damage her vocal chords or vocal cords? What’s the difference between continual and continuous? allusion and illusion? aural and oral? idyllic and ideal? further and farther? a gourmet and a gourmand? fictional, fictitious, and fictive? jibe and gibe? e.g. and i.e.? bizarre and bazaar?

What are the main differences between American and British spelling? Do Canadians use British or American, spelling, words and expressions? And what the heck is “codswallop”?

And for you fiction writers, what are the word length guidelines for flash fiction, short short stories, short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels? What’s the difference between an antagonist and an antihero? What’s a crucible in fiction? How about dramatic irony? How is a metaphor different from a simile? What’s a McGuffin?

 

Read the full post, which includes answers to these and more usage questions, on The Kill Zone.

 

What You Need To Know About Your Second Draft

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 10/8/14. Note that it contains strong language.

Writing is when we make the words.
Editing is when we make the words not shitty.

The poor sad widdle second draft.

I’m in the midst of one of these right now, and while you see a lot of attention given to the first draft and to the overall editing process, you don’t see quite so much attention given to the second draft specifically. But there should be! The second draft is a peculiar animal. Interstitial. Imperfect. It’s frequently the growing pains draft, where two limbs grow and two limbs shrink and by the end of its hormonal transformation it’s the same creature as before but also, entirely different. The second draft is the teenager of manuscripts. Awkward, pimply, full of faux confidence and bravado, and something-something pubic hair.

Okay, maybe not that last part?

Anyway. Let’s talk a little bit about the second draft.

 

Psst! You Didn’t Write The First Draft

Yeah, no, I know you actually did write the first draft, but shh, shhh, we’re trying to be tricksy hobbitses here. By the time you get to the second draft, your best way forward is to somehow convince yourself that Some Other Asshole wrote this book. Because you can be cold, clinical, dispassionate when you’re attacking the draft if you think it’s not yours. It’s like having children — you can look at other people’s kids and be all like LOOK AT THOSE SAVAGES HANGING FROM THE CEILING FANS, but then you see your own kid drinking out of the toilet like a dog and you’re like, awww, he’s pretending to be a puppy — he’s gifted.

You’ve gotta treat this book like it’s some rando’s kid. Baby Rando.

Rando II: First Blood.

Whatever.

 

Read the full post on terribleminds.

 

What’s Up With That: Why It’s So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos

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This post by Nick Stockton originally appeared on Wired on 8/12/14.

You have finally finished writing your article. You’ve sweat over your choice of words and agonized about the best way to arrange them to effectively get your point across. You comb for errors, and by the time you publish you are absolutely certain that not a single typo survived. But, the first thing your readers notice isn’t your carefully crafted message, it’s the misspelled word in the fourth sentence.

Typos suck. They are saboteurs, undermining your intent, causing your resume to land in the “pass” pile, or providing sustenance for an army of pedantic critics. Frustratingly, they are usually words you know how to spell, but somehow skimmed over in your rounds of editing. If we are our own harshest critics, why do we miss those annoying little details?

The reason typos get through isn’t because we’re stupid or careless, it’s because what we’re doing is actually very smart, explains psychologist Tom Stafford, who studies typos of the University of Sheffield in the UK. “When you’re writing, you’re trying to convey meaning. It’s a very high level task,” he said.

 

Click here to read the full post on Wired.

 

David Farland’s Kick in the Pants—The High Cost of an Honest Critique

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This post by Kami M. McArthur originally appeared on David Farland’s site on 6/2/14.

Before you send out a manuscript for any kind of an edit, you need to consider whether you are willing to pay the true costs of an edit.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been asked to edit several novels. For those of you who don’t know, I sometimes will edit novels for others (for a price) and try to help authors prepare them before querying agents or making a wide release.

My goal of course is to help the author become a bestseller and perhaps win awards. This means that I have to study the novel and maybe try to figure out how to broaden the audience, ramp up the tension or wonder, tweak characters, boost plot lines, make protagonists more likeable, and so on. It also requires me to give advice on how to bolster weak prose, tighten pacing, and do a host of other things.

I always approach this with a bit of trepidation. When you take on an editing job, you never quite know what you’re getting yourself into. You may have a novel that sounds great when it is summarized, but has major weaknesses.

Problems can be fixed, of course, but authors sometimes can’t be. Occasionally the author is dead-set on doing something wrong, or is hoping only for praise, not for real constructive criticism.

 

Click here to read the full post on David Farland’s site.

 

Writing: How to Self-Edit Your Novel

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This post by Jessica Bell originally appeared on the ALLi blog on 6/26/14.

Professional editor Jessica Bell, an Australian author and poet living in Athens, Greece, shares her top tips for polishing your fiction writing. Her advice will help you make your book the best it can be, prior to publication. This post complements Derek Murphy’s recent article about employing editors.

Ugh. It’s time to edit your novel. What a drag, right? It doesn’t have to be.

If you take a systematic approach, you can make sure you catch as many mistakes and writing pitfalls as possible without feeling overwhelmed by it all.

I’ve been an editor for more than ten years, and there is the one rule I live by which gets excellent results every time: edit piece by piece.

Sound ambiguous? Let me explain.

 

The Editing Process

When we read a manuscript from beginning to end, we aren’t able to concentrate on every detail at once.

For example, let’s say you’ve read through the first chapter of your manuscript and the only error you notice is the word cafe lacking the accent on the e. Easy. You fix it. And you make a mental note to catch that as you go along.

 

Click here to read the full post on the ALLi blog.

 

10 Words That You've Probably Been Misusing

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This post by Tyler Vendetti originally appeared on Hello Giggles on 7/21/13.

There are so many words in the English language that it’s not surprising that the definitions for some of them have gotten mixed up over the years. It’s possible that you’ve gone your entire life without realizing your mistakes. I’m sure people have noticed. One day, you were probably walking down the street, casually chatting with an old friend, and one of these words slipped out of your mouth. Before you can move on to your story about how Mufasa would actually make a very attractive human, your friend stops to correct your error, and suddenly, your whole life starts to feel like one giant lie. How long have you been using that word incorrectly, you wonder? How many angry Facebook rants have you ruined with your improper grammar? While I can’t give you an answer to those questions, I can at least provide you with a list of other tricky words so that you may never have to suffer from this embarrassment ever again:

 

1) Travesty

What you may think it means: a tragedy, an unfortunate event

What it actually means: a mockery; a parody

This one, I’ll admit, is my own personal error. For the longest time, I equated travesty with tragedy, mostly because in passing, they sound like the same word. It’s stupid, I know, but if you knew how many times I confused fetal position with beetle position, you wouldn’t be laughing. It’s a serious problem.

 

Click here to read the full post on Hello Giggles.

 

While You Are Out…

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This post by John E. McIntyre originally appeared on The Baltimore Sun on 5/23/14.

The holiday weekend has started, and many of you are undoubtedly trapped in slow-moving traffic on your way to the beach or the mountains. And because it’s a holiday weekend, those of you who are not trapped on the road won’t be reading anyhow, but enjoying summery drinks on the verandah.

That makes it more the pity that you will be missing these links to some choice pieces of writing about language by my friends and colleagues. Check them out when you get back.

Item: So you think you know something about grammar? Prove it by taking the Stroppy Editor’s grammar quiz.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes links to four more items of interest on the topic of language, on The Baltimore Sun.

 

Book Editors Really Do Edit Books. Really! They’ll Tell You So Themselves!

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This post by Chris Meadows originally appeared on Teleread on 3/30/14.

What does it say about what people think of you if you have to write a lengthy editorial insisting that, no, really, you actually do do your job?

That’s how a piece by book editor Barry Harbaugh in The New Yorker comes off. Entitled, “Yes, Book Editors Edit,” it insists that, despite Amazon claiming otherwise, book editors at major publishers actually do edit books. The fact that this piece had to be written in the first place possibly says more than does the entire piece itself.

Especially since there are just a few problems with it.

First of all, it’s hard to imagine where Mr. Harbaugh got the impression Amazon was claiming that editors don’t edit. The people who’ve been complaining about editors not editing have by and large been the authors of the works that were supposed to be coming in for editing—but weren’t. For example, look at some of the discussion from when the head of Kensington Publishing responded to writers’ complaints about their experience with the press. Many of those complaints involved the failure to receive any actual editing.

 

Click here to read the full post on Teleread.

 

10 Creative Ways to Challenge and Improve Your Writing

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This post by David Eagle originally appeared as a guest post on Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen’s Quips and Tips For Successful Writers site on 7/6/13.

My writing skills improved dramatically when I freelanced for Reader’s Digest, because the editor would go over every sentence with me. She’d call me up and we’d analyze my articles – and I’d learn what Reader’s Digest readers were looking for, what editors want from writers, and even how to pitch future articles.

Most editors don’t have the time to do this – I was one lucky writer! Though it was painful at times, I have to admit.

Anyway — in this article, you’ll learn several ways to improve your writing skills. It’s written by David Eagle, on behalf of the GKBC Writing Academy.

Here’s the one very important thing I’d add to his tips: EDIT your writing. Don’t just write stuff and file it away. Find someone who writes better than you – better yet, find an editor – and get him or her to tear apart your writing.

10 Ways to Improve Your Writing

Guest Post ~ David Eagle

I work as a freelance writer, creating content for various clients. I also have a blog on my website that I’ve been writing since 2009, which allows me to experiment and develop as a writer in a more unstructured environment.

Like any skill, the more you practise at writing the better you become. I’m going to share with you ten tips that you can use to improve and challenge your writing. These are free, simple and fun things that you can start doing right away…

1. Pick a Word
Open a dictionary at random, take the first word you see and write about it. What feelings and emotions does it evoke in you? This is a great way of inspiring new and original ideas, and adding new words to your vocabulary.

2. Play a Wikipedia Game
Wikipedia has a “random article” feature in the left column of its homepage. Hit the link and let it decide your fate! Try writing about whatever subject it randomly selects. This is another a great way of stepping out of your comfort zone, writing about things you probably know very little about which also helps develop your research skills.

3. Look Around You
Observe and write about what’s going on around you. I get so many ideas just from conversations I’ve overheard in restaurants, on buses or on trains. If you are looking to write fiction then observing situations and characters around you is an excellent exercise. Just don’t get caught staring intensely at people as you write derogatory things about them in your notepad! I am not taking responsibility if you end up in hospital.

 

Click here to read the full post on Quips and Tips For Successful Writers.

 

62 of the Top Writing Articles from 2013 (That Can Help You in 2014)

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This post, by Brian Klems, originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 1/2/14.

Over the past year I posted articles on this blog that covered everything—from grammar to writing better characters to getting published and more. Here’s a cheat sheet linking to what I consider the 62 best articles that can help you reach your writing goals. I broke it down into categories, as you’ll see below. These articles can help you no matter what phase of the writing process you are in. My goal is to help you move your writing career forward, and, by making this easy-to-reference guide, you’ll have a chance to bookmark it and have a one-stop place to help you have a successful year of writing.

Here’s to your best year of writing yet! ~Brian

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Writer’s Digest. It includes links to 62 WD articles on everything from craft to marketing.

 

Not Every Sentence Can Be Great But Every Sentence Must Be Good

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This post, by Cynthia Newberry Martin, originally appeared on Brevity on 1/8/13.

In “Letter from the Pulitzer Fiction Jury: What Really Happened This Year” (The New Yorker online, July 9, 2012), Michael Cunningham, one of the three Pulitzer fiction jurors for 2012, wrote the following about sentences:

– I was the language crank, the one who swooned over sentences. I could forgive much in a book if it was written with force and beauty, if its story was told in a voice unlike anything I’d heard before, if the writer was finding new and mesmerizing ways to employ the same words that have been available to all American writers for hundreds of years. I tended to balk if a book contained some good lines but also some indifferent ones. I insisted that every line should be a good one. I was—and am—a bit fanatical on the subject.

True to his word, during the jury process, Cunningham argued successfully to eliminate a contender because, “although there were plenty of good lines, there were simply too many slack, utilitarian ones.”

Since July I’ve been thinking about Cunningham’s insistence that every sentence should be a good one. I would periodically look for his letter online, and, having forgotten I’d already printed it, print it again. When I was going through a pile of articles in my office recently, I found I had three copies. Then, Pam Houston, when reading my novel-in-progress, marked a sentence with this word: boring. When I took a closer look, she was right. The sentence was boring. And utilitarian. Only there to move the reader from point A to point B.

I don’t read looking for bad sentences, and now I wonder if I read right over them. Or do the best books not contain bad sentences?

Is it possible to write a whole book of sentences that are at least good?

I pulled books from my shelves and searched through them. I ignored sentences I had underlined, and I ignored first sentences—both of books and of chapters. Where would a bad sentence hide? Page one hundred forty-three, I thought. That’s where a bad sentence would hide. So in each of the books, I turned to the first complete sentence (that was not dialogue) on page one hundred forty-three. Here’s what I found, starting with the language crank’s own sentences:

–The Hours: This cake says “Happy Birthday Dan” in elegant white script, uncrowded by the clusters of yellow roses.

–By Nightfall: Rebecca sips contemplatively at her coffee.

–Mourning Diary, by Roland Barthes: M’s fit of anger yesterday evening.

–The Two Kinds of Decay, by Sarah Manguso: This adrenal suppression occurs if prednisone is taken for longer than seven days.

–The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion: She was reaching a point at which she would need once again to be, if she was to recover, on her own.

–Stop-Time, by Frank Conroy: The balcony trembled.

We hear plenty about writing great sentences; what we don’t hear enough about is the bar we don’t want to slip below—the bar each sentence must meet. And that is not the bar of great but the bar of good. These six sentence examples are not great, but I believe each one meets the crank’s requirement of good.

What makes a sentence good?

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Brevity.

 

Faux Controversies and the Singular Plural

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This post, by Rich Adin, originally appeared on An American Editor on 12/23/13.

On another forum it was asked whether authors should “push the grammar envelope” and embrace the singular plural. I think the wrong question is being asked when you ask whether authors should push the grammar envelope for two reasons: First, because it ignores the purpose of grammar, which is to ensure that there is communication between author and reader. Second, because to push the grammar envelope assumes that there are firm rules to be pushed. The first reason far outweighs the second, but neither is ignorable.

Regarding the singular plural, it is neither pushing the envelope to use it nor a violation of a firm rule nor a distraction from communication (in most cases; there are cases in which it is clearly wrong because its use is confusing). In other words, I think that editors, writers, grammarians, usage gurus, etc., make the proverbial mountain out of the molehill when they oppose the singular plural.

Consider what makes a great editor. A great editor is someone who ensures that a reader understands the editor’s author; that is, ensures that the reader does not leave the book thinking the author is in favor of, for example, genocide, when the author intends the contrary. An average editor can cite chapter and verse of why x is not to be done, but cannot explain why doing x makes the author’s point unintelligible. The amateur editor either blindly accepts the singular plural or remembers having been taught that the singular plural is incorrect and thus blindly changes it.

However, if the singular plural is incorrect, it is incorrect because it makes the author’s point unintelligible, not because a group of self-appointed grammarians have written that it is wrong.

English is difficult enough without making it impossible. Editors constantly twist and turn to apply “rules” of grammar in the mistaken belief that there are rules of grammar. What are too often called rules are really current conventions.

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on An American Editor.

 

10 Tips for Attracting a Top-Notch Freelance Editor for Your Novel

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This post, by Jodie Renner, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 12/8/13.

With so many authors self-publishing these days, the best independent editors are in high demand, so if you’re looking for a knowledgeable, experienced professional editor to help you make your fiction manuscript the best it can be – and improve your overall writing skills in the process – be sure to take some care with how you seek out and approach them.

Due to the high volume of requests, sought-after freelance editors turn down many more writer clients than they can accept, so it’s important to make a good first impression.

First, make sure your manuscript isn’t still in rough draft. Try to find time to hone your craft (see my to-the-point editor’s guides to writing compelling fiction), then go over the manuscript a few times to spark up the characters, raise the stakes, add conflict, tension, and intrigue, pick up the pace, and tighten the writing.

Next, do your research and look for editors with good credentials and reviews, who edit mainly fiction and read and edit your specific genre. Google “freelance editors, mysteries” or whatever, or go through an editors’ association like EFA or EAC.

Then read through the editors’ websites to find out about their services, process and requirements. What kinds of problems/issues do they look for? If it’s only grammar and spelling, you can get an English teacher friend to do the same, for a lot less money or even free. To make the most of working with a professional, choose someone who first looks for other, more important possible issues, such as a shaky premise, a boring plot, cardboard characters, confusing viewpoints, stilted dialogue, insufficient tension, inconsistencies, slow pacing, plot holes, info dumps, showing instead of telling, and convoluted or too-formal phrasing.

You need an editor who can ferret out big-picture issues and help you with all the various techniques that, when ignored or botched, can sink a novel, and when flagged and addressed, can turn a mediocre or good novel into a real page-turner that sells and garners great reviews.

Once you’ve determined that the editor is up on current fiction techniques and industry expectations, be sure to read and follow their submission instructions. On my website, for example, I specifically request the following from potential clients: the genre, total word count, first 15-20 pages, 10 pages from somewhere in the middle, a brief synopsis (a few paragraphs to half a page), and a brief description of each of the main characters.

Without this information, I have no idea whether we’d be a good fit and I’d be the best editor for you. I can’t assess the level of work required to bring your manuscript up to industry standards or whether your story would fire my passions so I can give it the zeal and commitment it deserves. Nor can I provide you with an estimate of my fees without doing a sample edit or reading several pages to see what’s involved. The quality of writing and the storytelling skills vary hugely from one manuscript to another, so of course the amount of work (time and effort) – therefore, cost of editing – will also vary hugely.

Here are 10 tips for attracting a top-notch, in-demand editor for your fiction and getting the best possible edit or critique for your manuscript:

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on the Crime Fiction Collective blog.