Zoë Marriott's Blog, page 43
January 6, 2012
LESSONS FROM A CLUB SANDWICH
Hello, my Lovely Readers! Somehow it's Friday again, and I hope you've all had a great week.
Today's post is just a little glimmer of inspiration about writing that I thought I would share before it slipped away. And yes, as the title suggests, this inspiration comes to you courtesy of a club sandwich.
Yesterday was my dad's birthday and, as is my tradition, I dragged him out for a birthday lunch. He's a tiny bit of a hermit, my father (probably where I get it from) and so getting him to eat out is challenging. But he usually enjoys it when I manage it, and that ensures I keep up the effort. He's a simple guy at heart, though. Even when I do shoehorn him from the house he never wants to eat anything fancy or indulge himself, not even on his birthday. Despite my taking him to a posh bistro with all kinds of interesting things on the menu and offering him free rein, the man ordered a simple chicken and bacon club sandwich.
However, because it WAS a very nice bistro, I was pleasantly surprised when my dad's lunch arrived. It looked pretty spectacular - there must have been half a roast chicken in there, along with about five slices of bacon, and he also had an amazing salad garnish and curly fries. They'd stuffed so much into the sandwich that they'd been forced to put those little wooden cocktail sticks through it just to keep the toasted bread together. I was sort of wishing I'd ordered the same thing when I realised that my dad was not making pleased sounds. He was sighing.
Restraining my instinct to interrogate him (no one likes being interrogated by me, least of all on their birthday) by way of eating my own lunch, I watched as my dad tried to pick up half the sandwich in three or four different ways without causing it to disintegrate. When he finally managed to get the thing off the plate he had just as much of a struggle taking a bite out of it, as it was twice as wide as his mouth. Eventually he ended up just using a knife and fork to dismantle the thing. He ate about two thirds of it, and most of the curly fries, and then sat back and poured himself a cup of tea.
My good intentions evaporated. "Is something wrong with it?" I asked him anxiously. "I mean, it looked nice, but if it wasn't..."
"It was fine," he assured me. "It was all really good. There was just...too much of it."
"Too much? But it's all your favourite things! How can there be too much?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, flower. I mean, I like chicken and I like bacon, and I like both in sandwiches. But the amount of filling stuffed into this was overwhelming. It felt less like eating a sandwich and more like trying to eat a two course meal slapped between slices of toast. After the third bit of bacon or whathaveyou, you're just struggling on. But it was still good!" he added hastily, seeing my crestfallen expression.
Now, this may not seem to have anything to do with writing. In fact, it doesn't. But my brain, as we all know, is hardwired to try and turn pretty much anything that happens in life into a writing related metaphor. So later on, I found myself thinking about this, and deciding that there's a lesson about plotting to be learned from these lunchtime shenanigans.
When you first come up with an idea for a story, it can often be vague. You know, to bring the metaphor into it, that it's a club sandwich, but what KIND of club sandwich is another thing entirely. You've got a beginning or an ending or both in mind if you're lucky (like slices of toast on either side of the plot, holding it together). Maybe some blurry ideas for one or two developments in the middle, or some characters you really want to get to know better (that's the chicken and the bacon). You might have an idea for the feel of the thing (mayonnaise or ketchup or barbecue sauce? White bread or granary? Extra salad in the sandwich?).
What you don't have is an actual club sandwich. All you've got is scattered pieces.
And so the temptation, like the temptation given into by the chef at the bistro, is to quickly throw all the ingredients together in the traditional way (quick, quick - no time to consider trying different things or experimenting) and if it looks a bit thin, just grab some extra bits of bacon or chicken (plot twists you've seen in other books or half-developed echoes of characters that you have in the back of your head) and stuff those in. In fact, the more the merrier! Chicken and bacon are good, right? So if you add more, it can only make the sandwich better. When you finish the whole thing seems a bit shaky and like it might fall apart, but no big deal. Get out your cocktail sticks (maybe a stock romance that you've seen a hundred times before, or some other plot element that always seems to work for other writers) and pin it all together that way. Then add some garnishes (some pasted on descriptions that leap to the top of your head) to pretty things up, and off it goes, looking amazing! Job well done!
The problem is that this sandwich hasn't been put together with any thought of the person who is going to be eating it on the other end. How is this person supposed to pick up such a towering confection, or even take a bite out of it? This thing isn't even a sandwich anymore! For the reader, this book may be stuffed to bursting with cool and interesting things, but it's hard for them to appreciate any of it because the writer's not taking due care with what they present. It's a jumble. It's all too much. It's not a story; it's a mishmash.
Have you ever read a book like that? Where brilliant ideas were almost falling out of the sky, where there were dozens of interesting characters, and yet the whole thing just didn't work? It felt less like a story and more like an endless series of events and people, with nothing was properly explored? I come across these all the time and it exasperates me, because I know that if the writer had just waited a bit, considered a bit more calmly and carefully, they could have selected one or two of those plot elements and characters - the ones they truly loved and were interested in - and made them amazing. They could have allowed the fineness of the ingredients to shine through, like a lovely sandwich with just the right amount of filling. Instead of which, you're forced to slog through seemingly endless amounts of filler until it all begins to taste the same.
I think the lesson to be learned is that less can quite often be more. Sometimes a few morsels of delicious, succulent chicken and a couple of pieces of crispy bacon, beautifully cooked and carefully arranged between the toast is enough. Concentrate on making what you've got to hand the best it can possibly be and putting it together with love and care. Don't fill your story with dozens of extraneous elements. Take the time to construct something the reader can pick up easily and sink their teeth into, instead of trying to wow them with a gigantic plate that looks exciting at first glance.
(And BTW - I'm making this up to my dad by taking him out for a fish and chip supper over the weekend. He likes the fish and chip place better than fancy bistros anyway. *Shrugs*)
Today's post is just a little glimmer of inspiration about writing that I thought I would share before it slipped away. And yes, as the title suggests, this inspiration comes to you courtesy of a club sandwich.Yesterday was my dad's birthday and, as is my tradition, I dragged him out for a birthday lunch. He's a tiny bit of a hermit, my father (probably where I get it from) and so getting him to eat out is challenging. But he usually enjoys it when I manage it, and that ensures I keep up the effort. He's a simple guy at heart, though. Even when I do shoehorn him from the house he never wants to eat anything fancy or indulge himself, not even on his birthday. Despite my taking him to a posh bistro with all kinds of interesting things on the menu and offering him free rein, the man ordered a simple chicken and bacon club sandwich.
However, because it WAS a very nice bistro, I was pleasantly surprised when my dad's lunch arrived. It looked pretty spectacular - there must have been half a roast chicken in there, along with about five slices of bacon, and he also had an amazing salad garnish and curly fries. They'd stuffed so much into the sandwich that they'd been forced to put those little wooden cocktail sticks through it just to keep the toasted bread together. I was sort of wishing I'd ordered the same thing when I realised that my dad was not making pleased sounds. He was sighing.
Restraining my instinct to interrogate him (no one likes being interrogated by me, least of all on their birthday) by way of eating my own lunch, I watched as my dad tried to pick up half the sandwich in three or four different ways without causing it to disintegrate. When he finally managed to get the thing off the plate he had just as much of a struggle taking a bite out of it, as it was twice as wide as his mouth. Eventually he ended up just using a knife and fork to dismantle the thing. He ate about two thirds of it, and most of the curly fries, and then sat back and poured himself a cup of tea.
My good intentions evaporated. "Is something wrong with it?" I asked him anxiously. "I mean, it looked nice, but if it wasn't...""It was fine," he assured me. "It was all really good. There was just...too much of it."
"Too much? But it's all your favourite things! How can there be too much?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, flower. I mean, I like chicken and I like bacon, and I like both in sandwiches. But the amount of filling stuffed into this was overwhelming. It felt less like eating a sandwich and more like trying to eat a two course meal slapped between slices of toast. After the third bit of bacon or whathaveyou, you're just struggling on. But it was still good!" he added hastily, seeing my crestfallen expression.
Now, this may not seem to have anything to do with writing. In fact, it doesn't. But my brain, as we all know, is hardwired to try and turn pretty much anything that happens in life into a writing related metaphor. So later on, I found myself thinking about this, and deciding that there's a lesson about plotting to be learned from these lunchtime shenanigans.
When you first come up with an idea for a story, it can often be vague. You know, to bring the metaphor into it, that it's a club sandwich, but what KIND of club sandwich is another thing entirely. You've got a beginning or an ending or both in mind if you're lucky (like slices of toast on either side of the plot, holding it together). Maybe some blurry ideas for one or two developments in the middle, or some characters you really want to get to know better (that's the chicken and the bacon). You might have an idea for the feel of the thing (mayonnaise or ketchup or barbecue sauce? White bread or granary? Extra salad in the sandwich?).
What you don't have is an actual club sandwich. All you've got is scattered pieces.And so the temptation, like the temptation given into by the chef at the bistro, is to quickly throw all the ingredients together in the traditional way (quick, quick - no time to consider trying different things or experimenting) and if it looks a bit thin, just grab some extra bits of bacon or chicken (plot twists you've seen in other books or half-developed echoes of characters that you have in the back of your head) and stuff those in. In fact, the more the merrier! Chicken and bacon are good, right? So if you add more, it can only make the sandwich better. When you finish the whole thing seems a bit shaky and like it might fall apart, but no big deal. Get out your cocktail sticks (maybe a stock romance that you've seen a hundred times before, or some other plot element that always seems to work for other writers) and pin it all together that way. Then add some garnishes (some pasted on descriptions that leap to the top of your head) to pretty things up, and off it goes, looking amazing! Job well done!
The problem is that this sandwich hasn't been put together with any thought of the person who is going to be eating it on the other end. How is this person supposed to pick up such a towering confection, or even take a bite out of it? This thing isn't even a sandwich anymore! For the reader, this book may be stuffed to bursting with cool and interesting things, but it's hard for them to appreciate any of it because the writer's not taking due care with what they present. It's a jumble. It's all too much. It's not a story; it's a mishmash.
Have you ever read a book like that? Where brilliant ideas were almost falling out of the sky, where there were dozens of interesting characters, and yet the whole thing just didn't work? It felt less like a story and more like an endless series of events and people, with nothing was properly explored? I come across these all the time and it exasperates me, because I know that if the writer had just waited a bit, considered a bit more calmly and carefully, they could have selected one or two of those plot elements and characters - the ones they truly loved and were interested in - and made them amazing. They could have allowed the fineness of the ingredients to shine through, like a lovely sandwich with just the right amount of filling. Instead of which, you're forced to slog through seemingly endless amounts of filler until it all begins to taste the same.
I think the lesson to be learned is that less can quite often be more. Sometimes a few morsels of delicious, succulent chicken and a couple of pieces of crispy bacon, beautifully cooked and carefully arranged between the toast is enough. Concentrate on making what you've got to hand the best it can possibly be and putting it together with love and care. Don't fill your story with dozens of extraneous elements. Take the time to construct something the reader can pick up easily and sink their teeth into, instead of trying to wow them with a gigantic plate that looks exciting at first glance.(And BTW - I'm making this up to my dad by taking him out for a fish and chip supper over the weekend. He likes the fish and chip place better than fancy bistros anyway. *Shrugs*)
January 4, 2012
LEEDS BOOK AWARD NOMINATION
Hi everyone! Today I'm sharing some exciting news about
Shadows on the Moon
. I've known about it for a while, but I was asked to keep quiet until after the new year (and you all know how hard it is for me to keep secrets - argh!). So I'm delighted to finally announce this.
Shadows has been shortlisted in the 14-16 category of the Leeds Book Award!
This is the full award shortlist for my category:
Angel's Fury by Bryony PearceWreckers by Julie HearnShadows on the Moon by Zoe MarriottQuarry by Ally KennenDepartment 19 by Will HillFlip by Martyn Bedford
Which I think you'll agree is pretty darn impressive company to be in! I'm absolutely thrilled!
There are also shortlists for 9-11 year olds:
Moon Pie by Simon MasonGold Seekers by Jane JohnsonGravehunger by Harriet GoodwinSky Hawk by Gill LewisMagicalamity by Kate SaundersMuncle Trogg by Janet Foxley
And 11-14 year olds:
My sister lives on the mantelpiece by Annabel PitcherDark Woods by Steve VoakeThe truth about Celia Frost by Paula RawsthorneFifty Fifty by S L PowellSektion 20 by Paul DoswellWereworld: The rise of the wolf by Curtis Jobling
There's a really great mix here of bestsellers, critically acclaimed work, and lesser known books (that last one includes me!) which I always love to see, because it means the awards are aiming for excellence but at the same time are accessible and helping to raise the profile of deserving books which might otherwise be overlooked. My heart always sinks a bit when I see an award list which is made up of the same old 'buzz' books that have been nominated for every other award in the world. I think this wonderful diversity comes about because the shortlists are voted on by the people who really matter - the young adults themselves. Cheers pupils of the Leeds area!
Last year's winner in my category was ANGEL by L. A. Weatherly, which, as you all know, I adored, and which makes me all the more gleeful to see my work nominated. I'd love to win this, but just seeing my name up there surrounded by so many other wonderful authors and knowing the quality of past winners is pretty darn all right by me.
This year's award website isn't up yet, but I'll probably post a link to it when it is, so watch this space for that.
Shadows has been shortlisted in the 14-16 category of the Leeds Book Award!
This is the full award shortlist for my category:
Angel's Fury by Bryony PearceWreckers by Julie HearnShadows on the Moon by Zoe MarriottQuarry by Ally KennenDepartment 19 by Will HillFlip by Martyn Bedford
Which I think you'll agree is pretty darn impressive company to be in! I'm absolutely thrilled!
There are also shortlists for 9-11 year olds:
Moon Pie by Simon MasonGold Seekers by Jane JohnsonGravehunger by Harriet GoodwinSky Hawk by Gill LewisMagicalamity by Kate SaundersMuncle Trogg by Janet Foxley
And 11-14 year olds:
My sister lives on the mantelpiece by Annabel PitcherDark Woods by Steve VoakeThe truth about Celia Frost by Paula RawsthorneFifty Fifty by S L PowellSektion 20 by Paul DoswellWereworld: The rise of the wolf by Curtis Jobling
There's a really great mix here of bestsellers, critically acclaimed work, and lesser known books (that last one includes me!) which I always love to see, because it means the awards are aiming for excellence but at the same time are accessible and helping to raise the profile of deserving books which might otherwise be overlooked. My heart always sinks a bit when I see an award list which is made up of the same old 'buzz' books that have been nominated for every other award in the world. I think this wonderful diversity comes about because the shortlists are voted on by the people who really matter - the young adults themselves. Cheers pupils of the Leeds area!
Last year's winner in my category was ANGEL by L. A. Weatherly, which, as you all know, I adored, and which makes me all the more gleeful to see my work nominated. I'd love to win this, but just seeing my name up there surrounded by so many other wonderful authors and knowing the quality of past winners is pretty darn all right by me.
This year's award website isn't up yet, but I'll probably post a link to it when it is, so watch this space for that.
January 2, 2012
LOOKING FORWARD TO 2012
Happy Monday - and Happy New Year - Dear Readers! And whoa, that's a lot of capitals in one sentence. But you deserve them! And so does this shiny, bright, beautiful new year that we're all just beginning right now.
Today's first order of business is to note that I, like most of Britain, watched the BBC's SHERLOCK last night and adored it to the point where I'm going to have to exercise iron-clad control to hold myself back from some serious fanfic writing. O. M. G. I'm sure a lot of people have far more intelligent comments to make about it, but all I can say is that the exquisite beauty of this episode made my heart ache. It's definitely for the over sixteens, but if that's you and you haven't seen it yet, make sure you do and soon (and if not, maybe plead with your parents because just watching it will probably boost your IQ by a few points and make you do better in your exams. Honestly).
And now onto the non-squeeing part of the programme!
Following the tradition we started last year, I'm going to share some goals that I'd like to aim for in 2012, and then when 2013 cycles around I can present myself for your congratulations, or your pointing/jeering/mocking etc.
2012 GOALS As I mentioned in my last post, in 2011 I had a slight problem with over-working myself. I didn't end up passing out or being rushed to the hospital with heart pains or any of those other melodramatic symptoms that TV characters who over-work always get, but more often than not I'd be in my Writing Cave when eight or nine in the evening rolled around, and I'd end up shoving a microwave meal in and collapsing on the sofa - and then doing the same the next day too. I saw less of friends and family, made less time for healthy outdoor activities and new experiences and reading, and generally turned into a Writing Hermit to match my Cave. So this year, I'd like to prove to myself that I can do my job WITHOUT being a hermit. In 2012, I'd like to stick to a reasonable writing schedule of no more than eight hours of work six days a week, making time for other important stuff as well. The last year has been an amazing one for this blog in every respect. My follower numbers nearly doubled, my unique visitor numbers quadrupled, and I wrote some posts that not only make me feel rather proud in terms of the discussion they generated, but which also brought in astonishing numbers of readers (The original Mary Sue post has had nearly 12,000 hits to date - for realz). Apart from a few early experiments, I've never really gone in for the traditional, accepted methods of driving traffic. I don't usually require people to follow the blog to enter giveaways, I don't take part in memes or post awards. I just write the best stuff I can come up with and try to interact with my readers in a way that shows how much I love and appreciate you - and somehow it's paid off. It's humbling and heartwarming. In 2012, I'd like to carry on posting here three times a week every week (with a few holiday/hiatuses as required) and growing my blog readership through sincerity and the pursuit of excellence. I suppose this next one's fairly predictable, because I didn't manage to get to it in quite the way I wanted last year - instead of writing two completely new books, I ended up writing one new book and completely revising and revamping a book that I'd written the year before. However, it's a bit more urgent now. In order to meet the publishing schedule that's been worked out for me over the next several years, I really do need to write a book and a half in 2012. And if I'm going for a book and a half, why not go the whole hog? So: In 2012, I'd like to finally manage to write two books in twelve months. Last year I made my final goal about promoting Shadows, but this year I'm going for something a bit less fun (and probably less interesting for you - sorry!). I've just had my first full year as a full-time writer, and it's made me acutely aware that my skills as an accountant are horribly lacking. You may wonder what one thing has to do with the other. Well, as a self-employed person, I have to keep records of all my earnings and expenditures, keep receipts, and complete my own tax returns. It's been hard enough up until now, when the largest part of my income was a non-taxable grant. The coming year is going to bring me more income from my writing, which is great, but it's also going to bring me concern over voluntary VAT registration. U.S. tax payer numbers, and pay coding notices. It's vital that I stop dithering and start to really keep on top of my records. Frankly, it makes my stomach churn. In 2012, I'd like to seek out professional help with book-keeping and learn how to run myself as a proper business so that I can stop panicking about this issue all the time. Phew. Well, that's me done. What about you guys? What would you like to aim for this year?
Today's first order of business is to note that I, like most of Britain, watched the BBC's SHERLOCK last night and adored it to the point where I'm going to have to exercise iron-clad control to hold myself back from some serious fanfic writing. O. M. G. I'm sure a lot of people have far more intelligent comments to make about it, but all I can say is that the exquisite beauty of this episode made my heart ache. It's definitely for the over sixteens, but if that's you and you haven't seen it yet, make sure you do and soon (and if not, maybe plead with your parents because just watching it will probably boost your IQ by a few points and make you do better in your exams. Honestly).
And now onto the non-squeeing part of the programme!
Following the tradition we started last year, I'm going to share some goals that I'd like to aim for in 2012, and then when 2013 cycles around I can present myself for your congratulations, or your pointing/jeering/mocking etc.
2012 GOALS As I mentioned in my last post, in 2011 I had a slight problem with over-working myself. I didn't end up passing out or being rushed to the hospital with heart pains or any of those other melodramatic symptoms that TV characters who over-work always get, but more often than not I'd be in my Writing Cave when eight or nine in the evening rolled around, and I'd end up shoving a microwave meal in and collapsing on the sofa - and then doing the same the next day too. I saw less of friends and family, made less time for healthy outdoor activities and new experiences and reading, and generally turned into a Writing Hermit to match my Cave. So this year, I'd like to prove to myself that I can do my job WITHOUT being a hermit. In 2012, I'd like to stick to a reasonable writing schedule of no more than eight hours of work six days a week, making time for other important stuff as well. The last year has been an amazing one for this blog in every respect. My follower numbers nearly doubled, my unique visitor numbers quadrupled, and I wrote some posts that not only make me feel rather proud in terms of the discussion they generated, but which also brought in astonishing numbers of readers (The original Mary Sue post has had nearly 12,000 hits to date - for realz). Apart from a few early experiments, I've never really gone in for the traditional, accepted methods of driving traffic. I don't usually require people to follow the blog to enter giveaways, I don't take part in memes or post awards. I just write the best stuff I can come up with and try to interact with my readers in a way that shows how much I love and appreciate you - and somehow it's paid off. It's humbling and heartwarming. In 2012, I'd like to carry on posting here three times a week every week (with a few holiday/hiatuses as required) and growing my blog readership through sincerity and the pursuit of excellence. I suppose this next one's fairly predictable, because I didn't manage to get to it in quite the way I wanted last year - instead of writing two completely new books, I ended up writing one new book and completely revising and revamping a book that I'd written the year before. However, it's a bit more urgent now. In order to meet the publishing schedule that's been worked out for me over the next several years, I really do need to write a book and a half in 2012. And if I'm going for a book and a half, why not go the whole hog? So: In 2012, I'd like to finally manage to write two books in twelve months. Last year I made my final goal about promoting Shadows, but this year I'm going for something a bit less fun (and probably less interesting for you - sorry!). I've just had my first full year as a full-time writer, and it's made me acutely aware that my skills as an accountant are horribly lacking. You may wonder what one thing has to do with the other. Well, as a self-employed person, I have to keep records of all my earnings and expenditures, keep receipts, and complete my own tax returns. It's been hard enough up until now, when the largest part of my income was a non-taxable grant. The coming year is going to bring me more income from my writing, which is great, but it's also going to bring me concern over voluntary VAT registration. U.S. tax payer numbers, and pay coding notices. It's vital that I stop dithering and start to really keep on top of my records. Frankly, it makes my stomach churn. In 2012, I'd like to seek out professional help with book-keeping and learn how to run myself as a proper business so that I can stop panicking about this issue all the time. Phew. Well, that's me done. What about you guys? What would you like to aim for this year?
December 30, 2011
LOOKING BACK AT 2011
Heeellooo, Dear Readers! It looks like we've survived Christmas (hopefully - you're still alive, right?) and as we head into the New Year it seems only right to take a look back at everything that's happened over the last twelve months, reflect on events, see what went wrong and why, and be thankful for what went right.
Following the tradition I started last year, I used the Year In Status app on Facebook to take a look at what I've been talking about most in 2011, and it's not a surprise to see that what I've mostly been talking about is writing, writing and more writing. This year was my first full twelve months as a full-time writer. It's been unbelievably wonderful, and there have been a lot of challenges, many of them not the ones I'd have expected if you asked me this time last year.
2011 saw the release of my third book after a gap of over two years, and it was a relief and a joy to get my place in the nation's bookshops back again. That's the main landmark, and that's how I'll probably always think of 2011, the year of
Shadows on the Moon
. Highlights included getting a five star review from Books For Keeps, getting shortlisted for the St Helen's Book Award, and seeing the amazing book trailer for the first time.
But a lot of other stuff happened as well! Too much stuff to go back and list, really. So instead, I decided to go back and have a look at the list of not-quite-resolutions-but-something-like-them for 2011 and see what worked and what fell by the wayside.
Write six days a week, using my notebook. Did I succeed here? For the most part, yes, I did. A lot of this year was taken up with reworking and revising and rewriting, but there were many weeks when I worked seven days, and many days when I worked twelve hours, scribbling away either on my laptop or in my notebook. In fact, this year it was a challenge to hold myself back from turning into a writing hermit, and force myself to take the time to get out and do other things now and then. Write two books in 2011. This was an ambitious one! And in a strange way, I did manage to achieve it - but not in the way I'd hoped. I spent several months completely revising FrostFire and turning it into an entirely new book than the one I'd written in 2010. Then I wrote The Night Itself, the first book of the Katana Trilogy. I'm proud that I managed to get both those things done, and I\m proud of the way both books turned out... I just wish that I'd managed to get FF right the first time. Carry on blogging three times a week, and try to vlog once a month . Well, I managed to do the blogging thing - apart from my one week holiday hiatus and the hiatus over Christmas, which I think were an OK compromise. It wasn't always easy! It's always been rewarding, though, and this year I've seen reader numbers surge, as well as getting fairly widespread attention for my posts on the Mary-Sue issue. But as for the vlogging...ha! That fell by the wayside early on, as I realised that each five minute video I made usually took at least one day to put together. I actually did apply to join the vlogging group The YA Rebels this year, which would have meant vlogging once a week. I didn't get in, and when I realised that instead of disappointed I felt relieved, I realised that I generally MUCH prefer writing my blog posts than talking them out loud! Do all I can to promote Shadows so that it gets into the right hands, gets the right reviews or award nominations, catches the imagination of the people who will enjoy it, and finds its place in the market. Well, I tried my best! At one point this year I felt as if I was almost drowning in reviews and interviews and guest blogs (and thanks so much to all my blogging pals who made it more pleasure than pain) and because the book came out in July I still haven't seen my first royalty statement encompassing this period, so I don't have a concrete idea of how it went. But I do know that the book went into reprint within a week or two of release, and every now and again people still send me pictures of it in their local bookshops, which is unbelievably thrilling. So it didn't vanish without a trace, as I'd half feared :)All in all, it's been a tiring, exciting, happy, slightly scary sort of year. The kind of year that I wouldn't mind having again in 2012. So in my next post I'm going to make some new goals, bearing in mind all I've learned (and I've learned a lot!) in my first twelve months as a full-time writer.
What did you guys achieve in 2011?
Following the tradition I started last year, I used the Year In Status app on Facebook to take a look at what I've been talking about most in 2011, and it's not a surprise to see that what I've mostly been talking about is writing, writing and more writing. This year was my first full twelve months as a full-time writer. It's been unbelievably wonderful, and there have been a lot of challenges, many of them not the ones I'd have expected if you asked me this time last year.
2011 saw the release of my third book after a gap of over two years, and it was a relief and a joy to get my place in the nation's bookshops back again. That's the main landmark, and that's how I'll probably always think of 2011, the year of
Shadows on the Moon
. Highlights included getting a five star review from Books For Keeps, getting shortlisted for the St Helen's Book Award, and seeing the amazing book trailer for the first time. But a lot of other stuff happened as well! Too much stuff to go back and list, really. So instead, I decided to go back and have a look at the list of not-quite-resolutions-but-something-like-them for 2011 and see what worked and what fell by the wayside.
Write six days a week, using my notebook. Did I succeed here? For the most part, yes, I did. A lot of this year was taken up with reworking and revising and rewriting, but there were many weeks when I worked seven days, and many days when I worked twelve hours, scribbling away either on my laptop or in my notebook. In fact, this year it was a challenge to hold myself back from turning into a writing hermit, and force myself to take the time to get out and do other things now and then. Write two books in 2011. This was an ambitious one! And in a strange way, I did manage to achieve it - but not in the way I'd hoped. I spent several months completely revising FrostFire and turning it into an entirely new book than the one I'd written in 2010. Then I wrote The Night Itself, the first book of the Katana Trilogy. I'm proud that I managed to get both those things done, and I\m proud of the way both books turned out... I just wish that I'd managed to get FF right the first time. Carry on blogging three times a week, and try to vlog once a month . Well, I managed to do the blogging thing - apart from my one week holiday hiatus and the hiatus over Christmas, which I think were an OK compromise. It wasn't always easy! It's always been rewarding, though, and this year I've seen reader numbers surge, as well as getting fairly widespread attention for my posts on the Mary-Sue issue. But as for the vlogging...ha! That fell by the wayside early on, as I realised that each five minute video I made usually took at least one day to put together. I actually did apply to join the vlogging group The YA Rebels this year, which would have meant vlogging once a week. I didn't get in, and when I realised that instead of disappointed I felt relieved, I realised that I generally MUCH prefer writing my blog posts than talking them out loud! Do all I can to promote Shadows so that it gets into the right hands, gets the right reviews or award nominations, catches the imagination of the people who will enjoy it, and finds its place in the market. Well, I tried my best! At one point this year I felt as if I was almost drowning in reviews and interviews and guest blogs (and thanks so much to all my blogging pals who made it more pleasure than pain) and because the book came out in July I still haven't seen my first royalty statement encompassing this period, so I don't have a concrete idea of how it went. But I do know that the book went into reprint within a week or two of release, and every now and again people still send me pictures of it in their local bookshops, which is unbelievably thrilling. So it didn't vanish without a trace, as I'd half feared :)All in all, it's been a tiring, exciting, happy, slightly scary sort of year. The kind of year that I wouldn't mind having again in 2012. So in my next post I'm going to make some new goals, bearing in mind all I've learned (and I've learned a lot!) in my first twelve months as a full-time writer.
What did you guys achieve in 2011?
December 27, 2011
CHECKING IN...
Hello, Dear Readers. I hope you all had a marvellous Christmas and Boxing Day. Mine were surprisingly relaxing and happy. Today I'd vaguely planned one of a couple of posts, depending on my mood - one about dialogue tags, the other a run down of my Christmas loot. But today I've woken up to a blinding pain in one eye which signals that looking at my computer (or the TV, or any bright, blinky thing, including Christmas lights) for more than a few minutes is going to trigger a migraine. And I'd really...rather not. So I'll be back on Friday instead. Sorry guys. Use the time to read something awesome, 'kay?
December 20, 2011
DISTANT FUTURE TEASER
Hello all! Did anyone notice the date today? It's the 21st! Only four more sleeps 'til Christmas! How did this happen? *Hugs self with mingled panic and excitement*
In honour of the holiday season, I'm going to be taking a tiny hiatus here, and won't be posting on Friday this week or Monday next week. This is to ensure that the levels of nonsense on the blog remain low, because what with sorting out last minute presents, cooking Christmas dinner and various other baked treats, dealing with relatives (including my brother who only comes home once a year) AND the fact that I just got my edits back for The Night Itself , anything I post is highly unlikely to be thoughtful and good quality. What can I say? I'm good, but I'm not THAT good.
So, as a special treat this Wednesday, I'm going to share a teaser from a book that you won't be seeing on shelves until 2015 (although I will be telling you more about it before then!). It's not one of the Katana Trilogy books. It's a standalone high fantasy, but it's set in Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni (or The Moonlit Lands), the setting I invented for Shadows on the Moon , and like Shadows on the Moon , it is inspired by a fairytale. This book is literally only a few pages and a synopsis at the moment - the literary equivalent of a twinkle in my eye, and that means the sample you're getting is even more subject to change or deletion than normal.
Bearing that in mind... Follow the cut for teasing!
"There is a monster in the forest.
Do not sneer at what I say - and do not protest, for I saw the look in your eye, the flash of pity and doubt. You think me a foolish child. But I am not a child. I am not a fool. I do not speak of some sinister, shadowy figure used to threaten babies to obedience, a half-seen terror dreamed up by drink and superstition. The thing is real. Its slashing fangs and claws, its night-glowing eyes, its hot carrion-stinking breath, are real. I have known this all my life.
Before I was born, it stole my grandmother. By the time I was old enough to walk, my uncle had gone to join her. When I was ten...my older brother was taken.
Oh yes, there is a monster in the forest. And it craves human flesh.
It is a truth we cannot escape, those of us who make a life here on the mountain. Sometimes, at the dark of the moon, men and women are drawn into the trees. No one knows what calls them, what they see or hear that makes them fling aside a lifetime of caution and care. What sings to them so strongly that they will abandon everything they love for the embrace of the darkness under the rustling leaves. We only know that they go. And they do not come back.
All except one.
One returned. But it was already too late for him, so the healer says.
Why do we not leave this place, you ask? Why stay here on the green slopes of Mount Moonview, when the great city, the city of the moon, the jewel of the Moonlit lands, is there less than two week's journey away? Why not pack our things and flee while the sun is high?
Why not run from the thing in the forest?
Perhaps we are too stubborn. Too proud of the ground our great-great-grandparents cut from the hillside with nothing but stone picks and the sweat of their skin. Or maybe too frightened, for among the trees, with no beloved walls to shelter us, no familiar paths to lead us, we might all succumb to the enchantment of the trees, regardless of the shape of the Moon.
Both those things might be true, or neither. I only know that this mountain is within me as well as without. The iron-hard rock of the mountain is in my bones, strong and craggy under my skin, and my skin is tanned brown as the earth. The perilous shades of the trees are like the shadow of my hair, and the rushing, thundering song of the leaves the same as the music of blood in my veins. I do not love the mountain. No more than a man loves his right hand, or his eyes. I am the mountain, and I could not live anywhere else. Not if I wished to remain me.
And besides, it is not the mountain that takes loved ones. It is not the mountain that breaks hearts. No. The monster does that. The monster that takes what it wishes and never lets it go. All except once. All except one...
My grief is as sharp and hard as the point of an arrow and I know what I will do. I will go into the forest. I will go, though everyone I know believes I am mad. I will find the monster. I will make sure that it never takes another brother or father from the family that loves them. I will kill the beast with my own two hands.
Even if I die in the doing."
In honour of the holiday season, I'm going to be taking a tiny hiatus here, and won't be posting on Friday this week or Monday next week. This is to ensure that the levels of nonsense on the blog remain low, because what with sorting out last minute presents, cooking Christmas dinner and various other baked treats, dealing with relatives (including my brother who only comes home once a year) AND the fact that I just got my edits back for The Night Itself , anything I post is highly unlikely to be thoughtful and good quality. What can I say? I'm good, but I'm not THAT good.
So, as a special treat this Wednesday, I'm going to share a teaser from a book that you won't be seeing on shelves until 2015 (although I will be telling you more about it before then!). It's not one of the Katana Trilogy books. It's a standalone high fantasy, but it's set in Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni (or The Moonlit Lands), the setting I invented for Shadows on the Moon , and like Shadows on the Moon , it is inspired by a fairytale. This book is literally only a few pages and a synopsis at the moment - the literary equivalent of a twinkle in my eye, and that means the sample you're getting is even more subject to change or deletion than normal.
Bearing that in mind... Follow the cut for teasing!
"There is a monster in the forest.
Do not sneer at what I say - and do not protest, for I saw the look in your eye, the flash of pity and doubt. You think me a foolish child. But I am not a child. I am not a fool. I do not speak of some sinister, shadowy figure used to threaten babies to obedience, a half-seen terror dreamed up by drink and superstition. The thing is real. Its slashing fangs and claws, its night-glowing eyes, its hot carrion-stinking breath, are real. I have known this all my life.
Before I was born, it stole my grandmother. By the time I was old enough to walk, my uncle had gone to join her. When I was ten...my older brother was taken.
Oh yes, there is a monster in the forest. And it craves human flesh.
It is a truth we cannot escape, those of us who make a life here on the mountain. Sometimes, at the dark of the moon, men and women are drawn into the trees. No one knows what calls them, what they see or hear that makes them fling aside a lifetime of caution and care. What sings to them so strongly that they will abandon everything they love for the embrace of the darkness under the rustling leaves. We only know that they go. And they do not come back.
All except one.
One returned. But it was already too late for him, so the healer says.
Why do we not leave this place, you ask? Why stay here on the green slopes of Mount Moonview, when the great city, the city of the moon, the jewel of the Moonlit lands, is there less than two week's journey away? Why not pack our things and flee while the sun is high?
Why not run from the thing in the forest?
Perhaps we are too stubborn. Too proud of the ground our great-great-grandparents cut from the hillside with nothing but stone picks and the sweat of their skin. Or maybe too frightened, for among the trees, with no beloved walls to shelter us, no familiar paths to lead us, we might all succumb to the enchantment of the trees, regardless of the shape of the Moon.
Both those things might be true, or neither. I only know that this mountain is within me as well as without. The iron-hard rock of the mountain is in my bones, strong and craggy under my skin, and my skin is tanned brown as the earth. The perilous shades of the trees are like the shadow of my hair, and the rushing, thundering song of the leaves the same as the music of blood in my veins. I do not love the mountain. No more than a man loves his right hand, or his eyes. I am the mountain, and I could not live anywhere else. Not if I wished to remain me.
And besides, it is not the mountain that takes loved ones. It is not the mountain that breaks hearts. No. The monster does that. The monster that takes what it wishes and never lets it go. All except once. All except one...
My grief is as sharp and hard as the point of an arrow and I know what I will do. I will go into the forest. I will go, though everyone I know believes I am mad. I will find the monster. I will make sure that it never takes another brother or father from the family that loves them. I will kill the beast with my own two hands.
Even if I die in the doing."
December 19, 2011
EARLY REVIEWS & AWARDS
Hi everyone! Once again Monday has dragged its reluctant behind through the door and is slumped, grey and slightly hungover, on the couch of life. So what better way to cheer it up than by looking at some lovely tjings related to
Shadows on the Moon
?
First up - Shadows on the Moon has been shortlisted for the St Helen's Book Award. My publisher let me know that a while ago, but at the time I was so caught up in talking about Katana with them that I forgot to pass the news onto you (bad blogger! No cookie!). There's no info online about the award, but apparently it's linked to the St Helen's school and library district which means it was most likely voted on by teachers, librarians and young people, making it very valuable in my eyes. Whoot!
In addition to this, the lovely Cass of Words on Paper has given Shadows on the Moon her Faves of Twentyeleven Award for Most Original and Imaginative Book, as well as making it a runner-up in the Most Atmospheric and Vivid Setting category. I'm delighted - thank you, Cass!
In early reviews of Shadows from US bloggers, we have:
Sassyreads 4.5/5 Star Review
Colorimetry 4 Star Review
And in just-down-right-cool-stuff:
This review of my books by author R.J. Anderson (who, if you remember, blurbed Shadows on the Moon and whose books I really LOVE).
A lovely review of Shadows on the Moon by the very lovely Y. S. Lee (a fellow Walker Books and Candlewick Press author).
I also found myself on this list of favourite books read in 2011 on the New York Public Library.
Finally, for any readers who are over sixteen or eighteen (or the age of consent in your country! Seriously there's a lot of sex and swearing in this one, don't go there if you're) and who have a liking for both historical novels and gay romances (as I do) a book recommendation: Out of the Blue by Josh Lanyon, a bittersweet, absolutely beautifully written novella about the love between First World War fighter pilots. This made me cry over the weekend, and I shall be seeking out the author's other work post-haste.
First up - Shadows on the Moon has been shortlisted for the St Helen's Book Award. My publisher let me know that a while ago, but at the time I was so caught up in talking about Katana with them that I forgot to pass the news onto you (bad blogger! No cookie!). There's no info online about the award, but apparently it's linked to the St Helen's school and library district which means it was most likely voted on by teachers, librarians and young people, making it very valuable in my eyes. Whoot!
In addition to this, the lovely Cass of Words on Paper has given Shadows on the Moon her Faves of Twentyeleven Award for Most Original and Imaginative Book, as well as making it a runner-up in the Most Atmospheric and Vivid Setting category. I'm delighted - thank you, Cass!
In early reviews of Shadows from US bloggers, we have:
Sassyreads 4.5/5 Star Review
Colorimetry 4 Star Review
And in just-down-right-cool-stuff:
This review of my books by author R.J. Anderson (who, if you remember, blurbed Shadows on the Moon and whose books I really LOVE).
A lovely review of Shadows on the Moon by the very lovely Y. S. Lee (a fellow Walker Books and Candlewick Press author).
I also found myself on this list of favourite books read in 2011 on the New York Public Library.
Finally, for any readers who are over sixteen or eighteen (or the age of consent in your country! Seriously there's a lot of sex and swearing in this one, don't go there if you're) and who have a liking for both historical novels and gay romances (as I do) a book recommendation: Out of the Blue by Josh Lanyon, a bittersweet, absolutely beautifully written novella about the love between First World War fighter pilots. This made me cry over the weekend, and I shall be seeking out the author's other work post-haste.
December 15, 2011
RETROFRIDAY: WRITING ROADBLOCKS
Happy Friday, Dear Readers! We made it to the end of the week - which probably seemed impossible somewhere around the middle of the week - so let's all have a pat on the back. Now the time has come for me to delve deep into the cool, secret shadows of the blog archive, emerge with a dusty old post, give it a quick polish with a damp cloth, then pop it onto the dinner table so that new readers can experience its delicious vintage, and long-time readers can sip of its rich sweetness once more. That's right! It's RetroFriday!
The topic of writing roadblocks was inspired by regular commenter Megha, who asked me a couple of separate questions in various comments, which I've smushed together to make this:
"Do you ever feel that your plot is too... big? Too much? I'm scared of starting my novel. It has been planned and plotted properly, and now I'm too scared to start. It's not writers' block, I know. And I know that all the writers go through this. My planning's done. There's nothing LEFT to plan about. I need to start, but I can't."
This is a writing roadblock.
Megha is right - this does happen to most writers at some time or other, for various reasons. In my case I'm usually scared the story is too SMALL, rather than too big. I worry that not enough happens, that I haven't made the right choices to stretch my characters, that I'll just run out of stuff to write after 30,000 words. I worry that it's all flawed because I've missed some huge, vital conflict that would have made everything worthwhile. Hence this Post-It stuck in the first page of my FF notebook:
But being scared that the story is too big, that it's too ambitious, that you won't do it justice, that it'll be too long...those are crippling fears too (I know, 'cos that's The Scary Place I've posted about here, and which I usually enter at around the 50% mark of my manuscript).
These roadblocks are hard to break through specifically because they don't come from the logical part of your brain. They're not based on anything you can put your finger on. They just appear out of nowhere, causing a nebulous sense of dread that makes us feel we'd do anything, even scrub the bathroom clean with a toothbrush, to avoid actually writing.
This isn't about writer's block in the sense that I think writer's block normally has one of several concrete causes (which you can read about here). This is basically about your own fears, your conscious and unconscious worries about writing, getting all snarled up and taking all the fun out of everything. And there's only one cure. One way to kick that writing roadblock to the curb.
If you've read many of my writing posts before, you probably know what I'm going to say next.
The one way to destroy a writing roadblock is to write.
It will NOT go away on its own. You won't wake up one day and find it's miraculously evaporated. You may wake up on many mornings thinking 'This is the day! Today I will write!' and then find yourself making excuses, procrastinating and pottering until it's midnight and you need to get to bed, but that's obviously not very useful. You will never be able to escape the sense of horrible foreboding until you punch through it and actually write. And the longer you leave it? The harder it gets.
I know it's horrible! Believe me, I know! But taking charge is the only way.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:
Put the plans/notes/story outlines/folders of maps you've made for this story away. At this point you're using these as an excuse to avoid writing. They've become part of the problem. Put them at the bottom of the draw. You are forbidden to look until you actually NEED to check a fact or remind yourself of something.
Leave your normal writing place. If you've been sat in the same room in the same chair, or lying on your bed, or sat at your desk, every day, stewing over his for hours at a time, your brain has now incorporated the location into your sense of dread. Go somewhere else. Somewhere you would never normally associate with writing. A new coffee shop. A corner in the library. A friend's house, if they can be trusted to leave you alone. I find trains very good for this, personally. Anyway, chose a place and go there.
Set yourself a time and stick to it. Tell yourself that you will start writing at precisely whatever-o'clock and that you will write for a certain, set amount of time. Make it manageable. It's no good saying you'll get up at 6:00am and write for three hours. You'll fail and feel even worse. Give yourself a reasonable start time, and a reasonable writing period. Half an hour is a good stretch to start.
Remind yourself that you're just scribbling. You're just writing to fill up the blank page at this point. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't even have to be good. I find it useful to use a pencil and paper when doing this, because it looks messy and smudgy and reminds you that it's just scribbling, not actual writing. But if you normally write with pen and paper, maybe you'd want to switch to a laptop, so long as you're okay taking it with you to wherever you've chosen to write.
That's all.
As soon as you've started writing again, as soon as you've defied the dread and the worry and the stressing-out and put pen to paper for fun again, you remember why you actually wanted to do this writing lark to start with.
Don't go too fast - don't put pressure on yourself when you start to feel better. But don't let yourself off the hook either. Keep doing your half-hour scribbling sessions until you get to the point where you're starting to over-run, to not want to stop. Then stretch yourself with forty minutes. Maybe think, 'Today, I'm going to use my forty minutes to play around with opening lines. Opening paragraphs for the first chapter. Hmmm...'
Then one day you'll find you've written for two hours straight and that you've got a first chapter staring at you.
Writing roadblock? Dust.
Right - time for me to get back to my precious. Hope this was helpful everyone - and have a great weekend!
The topic of writing roadblocks was inspired by regular commenter Megha, who asked me a couple of separate questions in various comments, which I've smushed together to make this:
"Do you ever feel that your plot is too... big? Too much? I'm scared of starting my novel. It has been planned and plotted properly, and now I'm too scared to start. It's not writers' block, I know. And I know that all the writers go through this. My planning's done. There's nothing LEFT to plan about. I need to start, but I can't."
This is a writing roadblock.
Megha is right - this does happen to most writers at some time or other, for various reasons. In my case I'm usually scared the story is too SMALL, rather than too big. I worry that not enough happens, that I haven't made the right choices to stretch my characters, that I'll just run out of stuff to write after 30,000 words. I worry that it's all flawed because I've missed some huge, vital conflict that would have made everything worthwhile. Hence this Post-It stuck in the first page of my FF notebook:
But being scared that the story is too big, that it's too ambitious, that you won't do it justice, that it'll be too long...those are crippling fears too (I know, 'cos that's The Scary Place I've posted about here, and which I usually enter at around the 50% mark of my manuscript).
These roadblocks are hard to break through specifically because they don't come from the logical part of your brain. They're not based on anything you can put your finger on. They just appear out of nowhere, causing a nebulous sense of dread that makes us feel we'd do anything, even scrub the bathroom clean with a toothbrush, to avoid actually writing.
This isn't about writer's block in the sense that I think writer's block normally has one of several concrete causes (which you can read about here). This is basically about your own fears, your conscious and unconscious worries about writing, getting all snarled up and taking all the fun out of everything. And there's only one cure. One way to kick that writing roadblock to the curb.
If you've read many of my writing posts before, you probably know what I'm going to say next.
The one way to destroy a writing roadblock is to write.
It will NOT go away on its own. You won't wake up one day and find it's miraculously evaporated. You may wake up on many mornings thinking 'This is the day! Today I will write!' and then find yourself making excuses, procrastinating and pottering until it's midnight and you need to get to bed, but that's obviously not very useful. You will never be able to escape the sense of horrible foreboding until you punch through it and actually write. And the longer you leave it? The harder it gets.
I know it's horrible! Believe me, I know! But taking charge is the only way.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:
Put the plans/notes/story outlines/folders of maps you've made for this story away. At this point you're using these as an excuse to avoid writing. They've become part of the problem. Put them at the bottom of the draw. You are forbidden to look until you actually NEED to check a fact or remind yourself of something.
Leave your normal writing place. If you've been sat in the same room in the same chair, or lying on your bed, or sat at your desk, every day, stewing over his for hours at a time, your brain has now incorporated the location into your sense of dread. Go somewhere else. Somewhere you would never normally associate with writing. A new coffee shop. A corner in the library. A friend's house, if they can be trusted to leave you alone. I find trains very good for this, personally. Anyway, chose a place and go there.
Set yourself a time and stick to it. Tell yourself that you will start writing at precisely whatever-o'clock and that you will write for a certain, set amount of time. Make it manageable. It's no good saying you'll get up at 6:00am and write for three hours. You'll fail and feel even worse. Give yourself a reasonable start time, and a reasonable writing period. Half an hour is a good stretch to start.
Remind yourself that you're just scribbling. You're just writing to fill up the blank page at this point. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't even have to be good. I find it useful to use a pencil and paper when doing this, because it looks messy and smudgy and reminds you that it's just scribbling, not actual writing. But if you normally write with pen and paper, maybe you'd want to switch to a laptop, so long as you're okay taking it with you to wherever you've chosen to write.
That's all.
As soon as you've started writing again, as soon as you've defied the dread and the worry and the stressing-out and put pen to paper for fun again, you remember why you actually wanted to do this writing lark to start with.
Don't go too fast - don't put pressure on yourself when you start to feel better. But don't let yourself off the hook either. Keep doing your half-hour scribbling sessions until you get to the point where you're starting to over-run, to not want to stop. Then stretch yourself with forty minutes. Maybe think, 'Today, I'm going to use my forty minutes to play around with opening lines. Opening paragraphs for the first chapter. Hmmm...'
Then one day you'll find you've written for two hours straight and that you've got a first chapter staring at you.
Writing roadblock? Dust.
Right - time for me to get back to my precious. Hope this was helpful everyone - and have a great weekend!
December 14, 2011
HOW EDITING WORKS: Part Two
Hello, my lovelies! Happy Wednesday to all. Today I'm continuing with the theme of Monday's post - How Editing Works. Which all sounds terribly grand and grown-up, so I'll just add a quick reminder that I'm a relative newbie to working with editors, and that your mileage will of course vary when it comes to this stuff.
Last time I talked about how editing generally falls into a few distinct stages, with each part of the process relating to the improvement of an aspect of the manuscript (major structural edits = big picture issues, line edits = prose, copy edits = everything else, pass pages = final polishing/error catching).
What I'd like to discuss today is the way that authors react to edits, and how you can manage that reaction to help ensure a good working relationship with your editor, not to mention getting the best possible result for your book. Because that's what you need to always, always bear in mind when you're editing. This process isn't about you as a writer, or your feelings or your ego. It's about what is best for the book you've created, and how to make the characters and story shine.
Generally I find that my reaction to the comments my editor makes in her editorial letter and line edits falls into three distinct categories:
The Blinding Epiphany: Saint Paul on a pogo-stick how did I miss this? Argh, this is so embarrassing - but of course she's right, and now that she's put her finger on it I can see just where I went wrong and I know what to do to sort it out! *Rolls up sleeves*
Guilty Avoidance: Oh hell, she noticed. I was so hoping it was a minor issue and no one would pick up on it. But I have no idea how to fix it! That's why I sort of handwaved around it in the first place. Maybe I can get away with ignoring this? Or fudge some stuff around it to make it work? *Hides under duvet*
Frustrated Anger: What? WHAT? That makes no sense! There's no problem there! I can't change that, I won't change that, it's fine as it is, and if she hates the damn book so much why are they publishing it in the first place? *Kicks wall*
What do all these reactions have in common? They're knee-jerk and not entirely reasonable. If you act on any of them right away you will regret it. Dive straight into the manuscript to 'fix' an issue by slapping on the first idea you have like a sticking plaster, and you may mess things up worse than they were. Try to fudge an issue so that you won't have to deal with it, and you definitely will mess things up. And writing an angry email or making an angry phonecall to your editor to tell them how very wrong they are and ask why they're publishing the book if they hate it so much is such a d*ck move that I shouldn't even have to explain why you'll regret it.
The best - probably the only - way to deal with each of these is time.
When I get an edit letter or my line edits, I read through them once, carefully but quickly. And then I walk away. Literally. No matter what my reaction is, how eager I am to get to work or how much I want to curl into the fetal position and commence with soft, pained moans, I force myself to get my dog, put on some waterproof boots and go for a nice long tramp through the fields. Rain or shine, sun or snow, I walk. I'll let everything I've just read marinade in my brain as stomp and mutter, throw biscuits for my dog, and occasionally wave my hands around emphatically. When I finally get home an hour later, shivering or sweating or sodden wet, I will generally feel much calmer and more rational.
But having had my therapeutic stomp, do I THEN dive straight into the manuscript or writing a snotty letter? No, no, and no, Dear Readers. I leave it at least another day before I look at the letter or notes again. I know some authors who leave it a week. You have to give your brain enough time to get over any initial knee-jerk reaction that you had so that when you read those notes or that letter a second time, you see what the editor actually wrote, rather than what your offended ego or eager-to-please nature is telling you is there.
Trust me. When you return and look at your editor's words twenty-four hours (or more) later, you will be stunned to find that somehow they've changed. They're not calling you a talentless hack after all. They're not saying the book is terrible. And all the quick fixes that sprang into your head on the first read now feel a bit hasty, and as if they rather missed the point. Whatever your initial reaction was, you will be profoundly glad you waited before you acted on it.
I'm not saying that walking away from the edits will make it easy to deal with them when you come back. It won't, necessarily. When we worked on Shadows on the Moon should work like that, dammit.
I avoided and fudged around the issue every way that I knew how, but my editor (thank heavens!) didn't let it go. Every time she came back to me she prodded me about it more and more insistently. In response, I got more and more frustrated because I thought she should be able to see how impossible it was to do anything about it. But of course, it wasn't impossible.
Nothing is impossible. A book is words on a page. If you change the words the right way, you can fix anything. And so, on one of my bad-tempered stomping walks by the river, I got a glimmer of an idea. I worked it out as I tramped, and went over it again and again in my head, checking for problems and flaws, and realised that it was the perfect way to fix things. Yes, it would mean doing away with a few things that I liked, but the result would be worth it. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. I got home, scribbled it all down, and within a few days I'd sorted out the issue which had been holding the edit in limbo for weeks.
This was a defining moment for me as a writer. It made me realise that I had the ability fix pretty much any mess I'd made, given the time and space to work it out, and the confidence to accept that sometimes things needed to be changed. I had to let myself believe that needing to change things, even things I'd planned from the beginning, even things that my editor had spotted rather than me, didn't reflect on the book or on my skills, or mean that I was admitting I was a talentless hack.
The object of the edit is to get things right. This grace period, this time spent working on a book with a dedicated, passionate professional editor who won't let you get away with fudging, is a judgement free space. It's a blessing. A gift. A chance to go back and fix your mistakes - a rare thing in life. How to fix them might not always be obvious or simple or easy, but it's always possible, so long as you believe it's possible.
Looking back, I'm so glad that I had this revelation working on Shadows. If I hadn't, I don't think I would have had the determination and confidence to deal with the work that I needed to do on FrostFire. In fact, I know I wouldn't. So that's something else to bear in mind: when you work with your editor on making a book the best it can be, you're also learning. You're learning craftsmanship, and confidence, and you're learning how to make the next book even better.
Now, from time to time you'll get a note from your editor which you actually disagree with. Not a note that makes you guilty or frustrated or angry but a note that, on reflection, you truly believe just isn't right. You can't do what they're asking you to do. Not because it would be difficult or mean admitting you'd made a mistake, but simply because it would be wrong for these characters or this book.
When this happens, you'll find that the relationship you've built up with your editor to this point pays dividends. If you've always been polite and professional, and if you've always been willing to admit that changes need to be made and work through them, then when you come back to your editor here with a problem, they'll be more than willing to listen to what you have to say and you'll be able to work out why there's an issue here.
For example, while I was working on The Swan Kingdom with my U.S. editor, she gave me a note in which she said she felt a certain confrontation in the middle section of the book should be radically changed to play out a different way. At first I felt devastated, because it was the first time that I flat out 100% knew I couldn't make a requested change. I just couldn't do it. What was more, the fact that the editor had asked for that change made me feel as if the book as a whole couldn't be working, because if it had been, the editor would have seen that changing the outcome of that confrontation would completely go against every bit of characterisation up to that point.
Heart in my throat, I politely emailed my U.S. editor and explained that I couldn't do what she'd asked me to do, and why. I braced myself, not sure what the reaction would be. I'd heard so many things about awkward authors who thought their words were golden, and I didn't want to be like that, so the minute I sent the email I wanted to call it back, but no matter how I looked at it, I just knew I couldn't change the story that way.
The editor came back to me within an hour with an apology. She completely saw my point and she realised the note had been wrong. It was fine, and I should ignore it and keep working. Oh, the relief!
I've since learned that this is normally how true disagreements play out between writers and editors. Sometimes you go backwards and forwards about things, and sometimes the author changes their mind and sometimes the editor does, but you can nearly always work it out. As a writer, if you've demonstrated the willingness to work hard to produce the best possible work, and if you've got the courage to argue your case both intelligently and with passion, you will get a lot of respect from your editor when it comes to the changes you're willing to make.
Sometimes these disagreements are an opportunity to improve things in unexpected ways. Going back to Shadows on the Moon , after the initial edit letter, it was clear from my editor's comments that she and I perceived a particular character in very different ways. She pushed me to make changes to his behaviour to make him more vivid and understandable to the reader. But I felt that this would change him so profoundly that he wouldn't be the same character and the story wouldn't work anymore. We debated it over the course of several emails and through a couple of edits. Being forced to defend who this character was against my editor's extremely perceptive and insightful comments made him come into such clear focus for me that although I didn't make the changes my editor wanted, I did make several other changes - and my editor loved them.
It wasn't that she necessarily wanted me to change the character to fit her vision. She had just seen that there was something missing in the way he was characterised, and in prodding me about it, she allowed me to fix it in a way that worked for the story.
Again, I've gone mega, mega long here, so I'll finish by saying this. Editing can be fun. It can also be stressful. And frustrating. Even a little painful. And that's just within one page! But I honestly would not want to be published if I had to share my work in its unedited state. Working with an editor is a chance to learn wonderful things about the craft of writing in general and your own strengths and weaknesses in particular. Having a great editor allows you to take risks, try out crazy stuff that might not work because you know you've got someone in your corner who will lay it on the line for you and tell you if you messed up and how.
It not only makes for vastly improved books. It produces vastly improved writers.
*VIRTUAL GROUP EDITOR HUG*
Last time I talked about how editing generally falls into a few distinct stages, with each part of the process relating to the improvement of an aspect of the manuscript (major structural edits = big picture issues, line edits = prose, copy edits = everything else, pass pages = final polishing/error catching).
What I'd like to discuss today is the way that authors react to edits, and how you can manage that reaction to help ensure a good working relationship with your editor, not to mention getting the best possible result for your book. Because that's what you need to always, always bear in mind when you're editing. This process isn't about you as a writer, or your feelings or your ego. It's about what is best for the book you've created, and how to make the characters and story shine.
Generally I find that my reaction to the comments my editor makes in her editorial letter and line edits falls into three distinct categories:
The Blinding Epiphany: Saint Paul on a pogo-stick how did I miss this? Argh, this is so embarrassing - but of course she's right, and now that she's put her finger on it I can see just where I went wrong and I know what to do to sort it out! *Rolls up sleeves*
Guilty Avoidance: Oh hell, she noticed. I was so hoping it was a minor issue and no one would pick up on it. But I have no idea how to fix it! That's why I sort of handwaved around it in the first place. Maybe I can get away with ignoring this? Or fudge some stuff around it to make it work? *Hides under duvet*
Frustrated Anger: What? WHAT? That makes no sense! There's no problem there! I can't change that, I won't change that, it's fine as it is, and if she hates the damn book so much why are they publishing it in the first place? *Kicks wall*
What do all these reactions have in common? They're knee-jerk and not entirely reasonable. If you act on any of them right away you will regret it. Dive straight into the manuscript to 'fix' an issue by slapping on the first idea you have like a sticking plaster, and you may mess things up worse than they were. Try to fudge an issue so that you won't have to deal with it, and you definitely will mess things up. And writing an angry email or making an angry phonecall to your editor to tell them how very wrong they are and ask why they're publishing the book if they hate it so much is such a d*ck move that I shouldn't even have to explain why you'll regret it.
The best - probably the only - way to deal with each of these is time.
When I get an edit letter or my line edits, I read through them once, carefully but quickly. And then I walk away. Literally. No matter what my reaction is, how eager I am to get to work or how much I want to curl into the fetal position and commence with soft, pained moans, I force myself to get my dog, put on some waterproof boots and go for a nice long tramp through the fields. Rain or shine, sun or snow, I walk. I'll let everything I've just read marinade in my brain as stomp and mutter, throw biscuits for my dog, and occasionally wave my hands around emphatically. When I finally get home an hour later, shivering or sweating or sodden wet, I will generally feel much calmer and more rational.
But having had my therapeutic stomp, do I THEN dive straight into the manuscript or writing a snotty letter? No, no, and no, Dear Readers. I leave it at least another day before I look at the letter or notes again. I know some authors who leave it a week. You have to give your brain enough time to get over any initial knee-jerk reaction that you had so that when you read those notes or that letter a second time, you see what the editor actually wrote, rather than what your offended ego or eager-to-please nature is telling you is there.
Trust me. When you return and look at your editor's words twenty-four hours (or more) later, you will be stunned to find that somehow they've changed. They're not calling you a talentless hack after all. They're not saying the book is terrible. And all the quick fixes that sprang into your head on the first read now feel a bit hasty, and as if they rather missed the point. Whatever your initial reaction was, you will be profoundly glad you waited before you acted on it.
I'm not saying that walking away from the edits will make it easy to deal with them when you come back. It won't, necessarily. When we worked on Shadows on the Moon should work like that, dammit.
I avoided and fudged around the issue every way that I knew how, but my editor (thank heavens!) didn't let it go. Every time she came back to me she prodded me about it more and more insistently. In response, I got more and more frustrated because I thought she should be able to see how impossible it was to do anything about it. But of course, it wasn't impossible.
Nothing is impossible. A book is words on a page. If you change the words the right way, you can fix anything. And so, on one of my bad-tempered stomping walks by the river, I got a glimmer of an idea. I worked it out as I tramped, and went over it again and again in my head, checking for problems and flaws, and realised that it was the perfect way to fix things. Yes, it would mean doing away with a few things that I liked, but the result would be worth it. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. I got home, scribbled it all down, and within a few days I'd sorted out the issue which had been holding the edit in limbo for weeks.
This was a defining moment for me as a writer. It made me realise that I had the ability fix pretty much any mess I'd made, given the time and space to work it out, and the confidence to accept that sometimes things needed to be changed. I had to let myself believe that needing to change things, even things I'd planned from the beginning, even things that my editor had spotted rather than me, didn't reflect on the book or on my skills, or mean that I was admitting I was a talentless hack.
The object of the edit is to get things right. This grace period, this time spent working on a book with a dedicated, passionate professional editor who won't let you get away with fudging, is a judgement free space. It's a blessing. A gift. A chance to go back and fix your mistakes - a rare thing in life. How to fix them might not always be obvious or simple or easy, but it's always possible, so long as you believe it's possible.
Looking back, I'm so glad that I had this revelation working on Shadows. If I hadn't, I don't think I would have had the determination and confidence to deal with the work that I needed to do on FrostFire. In fact, I know I wouldn't. So that's something else to bear in mind: when you work with your editor on making a book the best it can be, you're also learning. You're learning craftsmanship, and confidence, and you're learning how to make the next book even better.
Now, from time to time you'll get a note from your editor which you actually disagree with. Not a note that makes you guilty or frustrated or angry but a note that, on reflection, you truly believe just isn't right. You can't do what they're asking you to do. Not because it would be difficult or mean admitting you'd made a mistake, but simply because it would be wrong for these characters or this book.
When this happens, you'll find that the relationship you've built up with your editor to this point pays dividends. If you've always been polite and professional, and if you've always been willing to admit that changes need to be made and work through them, then when you come back to your editor here with a problem, they'll be more than willing to listen to what you have to say and you'll be able to work out why there's an issue here.
For example, while I was working on The Swan Kingdom with my U.S. editor, she gave me a note in which she said she felt a certain confrontation in the middle section of the book should be radically changed to play out a different way. At first I felt devastated, because it was the first time that I flat out 100% knew I couldn't make a requested change. I just couldn't do it. What was more, the fact that the editor had asked for that change made me feel as if the book as a whole couldn't be working, because if it had been, the editor would have seen that changing the outcome of that confrontation would completely go against every bit of characterisation up to that point.
Heart in my throat, I politely emailed my U.S. editor and explained that I couldn't do what she'd asked me to do, and why. I braced myself, not sure what the reaction would be. I'd heard so many things about awkward authors who thought their words were golden, and I didn't want to be like that, so the minute I sent the email I wanted to call it back, but no matter how I looked at it, I just knew I couldn't change the story that way.
The editor came back to me within an hour with an apology. She completely saw my point and she realised the note had been wrong. It was fine, and I should ignore it and keep working. Oh, the relief!
I've since learned that this is normally how true disagreements play out between writers and editors. Sometimes you go backwards and forwards about things, and sometimes the author changes their mind and sometimes the editor does, but you can nearly always work it out. As a writer, if you've demonstrated the willingness to work hard to produce the best possible work, and if you've got the courage to argue your case both intelligently and with passion, you will get a lot of respect from your editor when it comes to the changes you're willing to make.
Sometimes these disagreements are an opportunity to improve things in unexpected ways. Going back to Shadows on the Moon , after the initial edit letter, it was clear from my editor's comments that she and I perceived a particular character in very different ways. She pushed me to make changes to his behaviour to make him more vivid and understandable to the reader. But I felt that this would change him so profoundly that he wouldn't be the same character and the story wouldn't work anymore. We debated it over the course of several emails and through a couple of edits. Being forced to defend who this character was against my editor's extremely perceptive and insightful comments made him come into such clear focus for me that although I didn't make the changes my editor wanted, I did make several other changes - and my editor loved them.
It wasn't that she necessarily wanted me to change the character to fit her vision. She had just seen that there was something missing in the way he was characterised, and in prodding me about it, she allowed me to fix it in a way that worked for the story.
Again, I've gone mega, mega long here, so I'll finish by saying this. Editing can be fun. It can also be stressful. And frustrating. Even a little painful. And that's just within one page! But I honestly would not want to be published if I had to share my work in its unedited state. Working with an editor is a chance to learn wonderful things about the craft of writing in general and your own strengths and weaknesses in particular. Having a great editor allows you to take risks, try out crazy stuff that might not work because you know you've got someone in your corner who will lay it on the line for you and tell you if you messed up and how.
It not only makes for vastly improved books. It produces vastly improved writers.
*VIRTUAL GROUP EDITOR HUG*
December 12, 2011
HOW EDITING WORKS: Part One
Hello, Dear Readers! I realised over the weekend - much to my embarrassment, although not to my surprise - that I promised to do you a post about editing/working with editors last week, and then forgot all about it. Frankly, sometimes I'm amazed that I can tie my own shoelaces. But anyway, here that long-awaited post is, and if anyone has any questions about this or would like any points clarified or gone into in more detail, bring it up in the comments.
In my leisurely roaming of the writing-centric parts of the interwebz, I've noticed a lot of general assumptions and misconceptions about editing - that is, the work that writers do with the professional editors employed by their publisher. Often I see people talking as if its an editor's job merely to fix typos and spelling mistakes (and that this means the writer shouldn't bother about those things) or bemoaning this widespread idea that 'real editing' is dying out because of the heartless paper-pushers in charge of publishers (and this can be proved by all the typos in published books).
Both of those ideas are, in my experience, dead wrong.
I can't claim to be a huge expert on this topic. I'm a relative newbie compared to many authors, and all my books have been published by one publisher (and their international sister companies). But over the course of five YA books (one of which never ended up being published) I've worked with three different editors (two at my UK publisher, one with the US one) and at least four copy-editors, so maybe I do have a bit of insight about the editor/author relationship that could be useful.
First: Fixing grammar, spelling mistakes and typos is only one very small aspect of a huge array of responsibilities that fall under an editor's job description - those things are primarily the author's job. Editors act as a safety net to catch the mistakes which everyone, no matter how careful, makes from time to time. Land in that safety net too often though, and the people in the circus will rightly wonder why you're up there on the high-wire in the first place if you don't know how to do the walk. Any writer who thinks they don't need to worry about those things themselves is operating under a tragic misapprehension.
Second: Editing is not dead. Neither is it a 'lost art'. Editors are not a dying breed; they're not even feeling off-colour, as far as I can tell. All the editors I've worked with have been fiercely intelligent, intimidatingly well-read and PASSIONATE about making the books they've acquired the very, very best they can be. These guys are hardcore; without them, half the books on your shelves would not be on your shelves at all, and the other half would be much the worse. Blaming the editor for a handful of typos which were most likely introduced during typesetting is like blaming the head engineer of a ship for a handful of lose bolts rattling around in the hull of a giant ship. Yes, the rattling is annoying: but if the head engineer weren't around the ship would probably have sunk by now.
So, bearing that stuff in mind, how does working with an editor...work?
Generally, once you've managed to get your foot in the door with a publisher, the editing process breaks down into a few distinct steps. Reading author blogs, you can get the impression that these stages of editing are somehow set in stone, but I've found that it changes not only from editor to editor but from book to book. It's an organic thing. The steps I've listed below can blend into each other, be repeated multiple times, or sometimes be skipped altogether.
There's even rumour of a wondrous thing known as a 'clean' manuscript. This is a draft so perfect, so beautifully formed, so effulgent with divine beauty, that on being submitted by the author it needs no editorial work whatsoever before going off to the printers. Please note - If I ever manage to produce such a thing, you'll probably want to find a sharp implement (a shovel or a woodaxe perhaps) and remove my head immediately, as it will be a sign that I've been taken over by a malevolent alien intelligence and am plotting the end of human civilisation as we know it. *Shudder*
Basically what I'm saying is that this is just a guide, rather than a set of commandments.
HOW IT BREAKS DOWN:
Structural edit/edit letter: Mention edit letters to published authors and you get one of two reactions. Either they groan and hold their head in their hands, or they bounce up and down with feverish excitement. The first reaction probably means they've just received an edit letter. The second kind are waiting for it to arrive.
The structural edit is the first stage of getting a book ready for publication. It's all about the big picture - characterisation, plot, pacing, setting. The things that hold the book together and make it what it is. This is the stage where an editor may request big changes, such as transforming your main character from an elf to a vampire, killing off the erstwhile heroine in chapter four with a poison dart, or moving the whole story from Medieval Florence to the purple rainforests of Gundi'iip Prime in the Taurus Nebula. The edit letter pretty much tells you what the editor thought of the book, which is why writers tend to get very excited and scared about them. It addresses issues the editor has with the book as a whole and offers suggestions on how to fix them.
The edit letter I received (via email) for Shadows on the Moon mentioned that my editor felt two important characters were a little vague - they didn't come fully into focus throughout the book and their motivations were unclear. She also felt that the middle section of the book was too long and contained too many secondary/minor characters, and that the ending was too abrupt and left a major plot thread inadequately resolved. We eventually ended up cutting nearly 30,000 words from my first draft.
However, with FrostFire, I never got a formal edit letter. My editor felt that it would be best for us to have a phone conversation about the book and the extensive changes that would be required. We talked for nearly an hour, going over all the issues that prevented the story and characters from working, and tossing possible solutions at each other.
At the end of that conversation I went away and produced a new, detailed synopsis for what I called FrostFire #2 - an entirely different version of the book in which the plot was turned inside out and most of the characters swapped sex. This served as a kind of backwards edit letter, as my editor read it, and came back to me with detailed notes. I amended the synopsis accordingly. She read the outline again and approved it, and then I revamped the book based on that. FrostFire #2 ended up being around 15,000 words longer than the original version.
Subsequent structural work: After you've done your first run at any major changes and re-writing, you send the manuscript back to the editor. She may love the changes you've made and be happy to accept the book as 'delivered' at this stage. Or she might feel that you've not gone far enough to address the issues she brought up in the edit letter. Or she might now have new concerns caused by the changes you made.
The book can go back and forth between the editor and the writer several times at this stage. With Shadows on the Moon , I think we did about four or five structural passes (one of which included notes from my US editor). I tried to beef up and clarify the motivations of some characters, but in the process I made their actions seem contradictory in some places, so I needed to dig deeper into them and make the reader understand why they acted as they did. I cut some characters from the middle portion of the book and compressed it, but it still felt overly long and crowded. I extended the ending, but one plot element still felt unresolved.
We worked on those issues until each one was fixed. Every pass that we did moved us closer to that Eureka moment when all the elements of the story clicked together and worked - but it took at least six months for that to happen.
With FrostFire, after I finished rewriting the (radically different version of the) story and sent it in, my editor loved it and we moved straight onto the next stage with no further structural work.
Line editing: This is probably my favourite part of the editing process. This is where love of language really comes into play, as the editor and author work together to make sure that every line of the book expresses the author's ideas in the best possible way. We want to make sure that the words on the page are acting as the reader's gateway into the world of the story, rather than a barrier.
Normally at this point, the writer will receive a copy of their manuscript (either as an computer document or printed out) which has been 'marked up'. That is, the editor has taken out their red pen and gone through the whole thing, literally line by line, noting problems with sentence construction, clumsy wording, repeated words, grammar, places where the author's meaning is unclear, where drafting has left inconsistencies in the fabric of the prose or where ideas could be better presented.
Because my first draft of Shadows on the Moon was exceptionally long for a YA novel - 130,000 words - we did a huge amount of trimming during this stage. My editor would take two or three pages of lovingly researched descriptions of clothing or food, or two separate scenes that served a similar purpose, and suggest changes that snipped away extraneous words, clauses, sentences and paragraphs, reducing the length to one page or less, or compressing those scenes down into one. She also made sure that in my efforts to create a convincing fantasy world and weave authentic details into the story I didn't lose track of the important themes I'd introduced early on.
In FrostFire (probably because the book had already undergone a massive overhaul) the line editing was far more focused on polishing the prose and hunting down and murdering any sections where all the cutting, pasting and re-writing I'd done had caused jerky transitions or repetitions, or where characterisation or plot didn't track quite smoothly.
Copy editing: This is where, quite often, someone else will get involved in your work on the book. At my publisher they have dedicated copy editors who provide a fresh pair of eyes to double check everything in the manuscript, since by this point both the editor and the writer will have read it many times (in fact, it's normally at this point that I become convinced the book is utter dreck and start begging my editor to reassure me that they're not just publishing it out of pity). I'm told some publishers contract this stuff out to freelancers, which I think is a shame, as there's enormous potential to develop a friendship with your copy editor. One of mine used to make little pictures in the margins, which always made me smile.
If you thought that your editor was tough, be prepared for this stage to bring tears to your eyes. Every little tic in your writing (words that you've taken a liking to and reused, the tendency to start sentences with But or And, incorrect use of semi colons) is going to get mercilessly highlighted. Every mistake you made (changing a minor character's eyes from brown to hazel without realising it, making the moon gibbous in chapter two when it was cresent in chapter one, having the heroine scratch her head without first showing her letting go of the war-axe she was holding five pages ago) will be noticed.
No matter how much work you've put in up until this point - in fact, sometimes because of the work you've done until this point - this stage will usually drench the manuscript in red. By the mid-point, you will feel like a talentless, careless, moronic hack. You will swear that if you ever have to meet your copy editor, you will grovel at her feet for having forced her to wade through this awful soup of errors, although secretly you will be tempted to tip itching powder into her underwear as well for pointing out every flaw your book has.
During the US copy-edit of Shadows on the Moon , it turned out that the copy-editing manager at Candlewick Press was a haiku scholar and a Japanophile. So along with Americanising the spelling and grammar, we ended up re-writing most of the haiku in the book to reflect a more traditionally Japanese aesthetic, which made the whole process unexpectedly fun.
Pass pages/proof reading: This is the final stage of editing before the book goes off to be printed, and sometimes it sort of blends into the previous one, depending on how long the preceeding steps have dragged on. Basically, this when you get a massive envelope in the post which contains the typeset/formatted manuscript or pass pages. For the first time, you see your book laid out as an actual book, with chapter headings, section pages, page numbers and the correct font. Usually it arrives on very large pieces of paper which show two pages on each side.
This is your very last chance to make changes to the book - to catch any typos or errors that have been introduced at any point along the way, or caused by the typesetting. It's very much NOT the time to make radical changes to anything, since cutting a paragraph on page one of a chapter is going to have a knock-on effect of the typesetting of every other page in that chapter and cost the publisher money, but you should still mark anything that you notice, and approve or stet (that is, withhold approval of) any changes which have been made since the last time you saw the manuscript.
Seeing the pass pages for Shadows on the Moon actually made me cry a little bit, as I realised the book had been decorated beautifully throughout with the same sakura that illustrated the cover, and that the final product really would be gorgeous.
Okay guys - this post is already mega, mega long so I'm going to stop here for now. I think we'll come back to this topic on Wednesday, and I'll talk about how writers tend to feel during editing, how you work out disagreements with your editor, and how you ensure your book is the best it can be.
In my leisurely roaming of the writing-centric parts of the interwebz, I've noticed a lot of general assumptions and misconceptions about editing - that is, the work that writers do with the professional editors employed by their publisher. Often I see people talking as if its an editor's job merely to fix typos and spelling mistakes (and that this means the writer shouldn't bother about those things) or bemoaning this widespread idea that 'real editing' is dying out because of the heartless paper-pushers in charge of publishers (and this can be proved by all the typos in published books).
Both of those ideas are, in my experience, dead wrong.
I can't claim to be a huge expert on this topic. I'm a relative newbie compared to many authors, and all my books have been published by one publisher (and their international sister companies). But over the course of five YA books (one of which never ended up being published) I've worked with three different editors (two at my UK publisher, one with the US one) and at least four copy-editors, so maybe I do have a bit of insight about the editor/author relationship that could be useful.
First: Fixing grammar, spelling mistakes and typos is only one very small aspect of a huge array of responsibilities that fall under an editor's job description - those things are primarily the author's job. Editors act as a safety net to catch the mistakes which everyone, no matter how careful, makes from time to time. Land in that safety net too often though, and the people in the circus will rightly wonder why you're up there on the high-wire in the first place if you don't know how to do the walk. Any writer who thinks they don't need to worry about those things themselves is operating under a tragic misapprehension.
Second: Editing is not dead. Neither is it a 'lost art'. Editors are not a dying breed; they're not even feeling off-colour, as far as I can tell. All the editors I've worked with have been fiercely intelligent, intimidatingly well-read and PASSIONATE about making the books they've acquired the very, very best they can be. These guys are hardcore; without them, half the books on your shelves would not be on your shelves at all, and the other half would be much the worse. Blaming the editor for a handful of typos which were most likely introduced during typesetting is like blaming the head engineer of a ship for a handful of lose bolts rattling around in the hull of a giant ship. Yes, the rattling is annoying: but if the head engineer weren't around the ship would probably have sunk by now.
So, bearing that stuff in mind, how does working with an editor...work?
Generally, once you've managed to get your foot in the door with a publisher, the editing process breaks down into a few distinct steps. Reading author blogs, you can get the impression that these stages of editing are somehow set in stone, but I've found that it changes not only from editor to editor but from book to book. It's an organic thing. The steps I've listed below can blend into each other, be repeated multiple times, or sometimes be skipped altogether.
There's even rumour of a wondrous thing known as a 'clean' manuscript. This is a draft so perfect, so beautifully formed, so effulgent with divine beauty, that on being submitted by the author it needs no editorial work whatsoever before going off to the printers. Please note - If I ever manage to produce such a thing, you'll probably want to find a sharp implement (a shovel or a woodaxe perhaps) and remove my head immediately, as it will be a sign that I've been taken over by a malevolent alien intelligence and am plotting the end of human civilisation as we know it. *Shudder*
Basically what I'm saying is that this is just a guide, rather than a set of commandments.
HOW IT BREAKS DOWN:
Structural edit/edit letter: Mention edit letters to published authors and you get one of two reactions. Either they groan and hold their head in their hands, or they bounce up and down with feverish excitement. The first reaction probably means they've just received an edit letter. The second kind are waiting for it to arrive.
The structural edit is the first stage of getting a book ready for publication. It's all about the big picture - characterisation, plot, pacing, setting. The things that hold the book together and make it what it is. This is the stage where an editor may request big changes, such as transforming your main character from an elf to a vampire, killing off the erstwhile heroine in chapter four with a poison dart, or moving the whole story from Medieval Florence to the purple rainforests of Gundi'iip Prime in the Taurus Nebula. The edit letter pretty much tells you what the editor thought of the book, which is why writers tend to get very excited and scared about them. It addresses issues the editor has with the book as a whole and offers suggestions on how to fix them.
The edit letter I received (via email) for Shadows on the Moon mentioned that my editor felt two important characters were a little vague - they didn't come fully into focus throughout the book and their motivations were unclear. She also felt that the middle section of the book was too long and contained too many secondary/minor characters, and that the ending was too abrupt and left a major plot thread inadequately resolved. We eventually ended up cutting nearly 30,000 words from my first draft.
However, with FrostFire, I never got a formal edit letter. My editor felt that it would be best for us to have a phone conversation about the book and the extensive changes that would be required. We talked for nearly an hour, going over all the issues that prevented the story and characters from working, and tossing possible solutions at each other.
At the end of that conversation I went away and produced a new, detailed synopsis for what I called FrostFire #2 - an entirely different version of the book in which the plot was turned inside out and most of the characters swapped sex. This served as a kind of backwards edit letter, as my editor read it, and came back to me with detailed notes. I amended the synopsis accordingly. She read the outline again and approved it, and then I revamped the book based on that. FrostFire #2 ended up being around 15,000 words longer than the original version.
Subsequent structural work: After you've done your first run at any major changes and re-writing, you send the manuscript back to the editor. She may love the changes you've made and be happy to accept the book as 'delivered' at this stage. Or she might feel that you've not gone far enough to address the issues she brought up in the edit letter. Or she might now have new concerns caused by the changes you made.
The book can go back and forth between the editor and the writer several times at this stage. With Shadows on the Moon , I think we did about four or five structural passes (one of which included notes from my US editor). I tried to beef up and clarify the motivations of some characters, but in the process I made their actions seem contradictory in some places, so I needed to dig deeper into them and make the reader understand why they acted as they did. I cut some characters from the middle portion of the book and compressed it, but it still felt overly long and crowded. I extended the ending, but one plot element still felt unresolved.
We worked on those issues until each one was fixed. Every pass that we did moved us closer to that Eureka moment when all the elements of the story clicked together and worked - but it took at least six months for that to happen.
With FrostFire, after I finished rewriting the (radically different version of the) story and sent it in, my editor loved it and we moved straight onto the next stage with no further structural work.
Line editing: This is probably my favourite part of the editing process. This is where love of language really comes into play, as the editor and author work together to make sure that every line of the book expresses the author's ideas in the best possible way. We want to make sure that the words on the page are acting as the reader's gateway into the world of the story, rather than a barrier.
Normally at this point, the writer will receive a copy of their manuscript (either as an computer document or printed out) which has been 'marked up'. That is, the editor has taken out their red pen and gone through the whole thing, literally line by line, noting problems with sentence construction, clumsy wording, repeated words, grammar, places where the author's meaning is unclear, where drafting has left inconsistencies in the fabric of the prose or where ideas could be better presented.
Because my first draft of Shadows on the Moon was exceptionally long for a YA novel - 130,000 words - we did a huge amount of trimming during this stage. My editor would take two or three pages of lovingly researched descriptions of clothing or food, or two separate scenes that served a similar purpose, and suggest changes that snipped away extraneous words, clauses, sentences and paragraphs, reducing the length to one page or less, or compressing those scenes down into one. She also made sure that in my efforts to create a convincing fantasy world and weave authentic details into the story I didn't lose track of the important themes I'd introduced early on.
In FrostFire (probably because the book had already undergone a massive overhaul) the line editing was far more focused on polishing the prose and hunting down and murdering any sections where all the cutting, pasting and re-writing I'd done had caused jerky transitions or repetitions, or where characterisation or plot didn't track quite smoothly.
Copy editing: This is where, quite often, someone else will get involved in your work on the book. At my publisher they have dedicated copy editors who provide a fresh pair of eyes to double check everything in the manuscript, since by this point both the editor and the writer will have read it many times (in fact, it's normally at this point that I become convinced the book is utter dreck and start begging my editor to reassure me that they're not just publishing it out of pity). I'm told some publishers contract this stuff out to freelancers, which I think is a shame, as there's enormous potential to develop a friendship with your copy editor. One of mine used to make little pictures in the margins, which always made me smile.
If you thought that your editor was tough, be prepared for this stage to bring tears to your eyes. Every little tic in your writing (words that you've taken a liking to and reused, the tendency to start sentences with But or And, incorrect use of semi colons) is going to get mercilessly highlighted. Every mistake you made (changing a minor character's eyes from brown to hazel without realising it, making the moon gibbous in chapter two when it was cresent in chapter one, having the heroine scratch her head without first showing her letting go of the war-axe she was holding five pages ago) will be noticed.
No matter how much work you've put in up until this point - in fact, sometimes because of the work you've done until this point - this stage will usually drench the manuscript in red. By the mid-point, you will feel like a talentless, careless, moronic hack. You will swear that if you ever have to meet your copy editor, you will grovel at her feet for having forced her to wade through this awful soup of errors, although secretly you will be tempted to tip itching powder into her underwear as well for pointing out every flaw your book has.
During the US copy-edit of Shadows on the Moon , it turned out that the copy-editing manager at Candlewick Press was a haiku scholar and a Japanophile. So along with Americanising the spelling and grammar, we ended up re-writing most of the haiku in the book to reflect a more traditionally Japanese aesthetic, which made the whole process unexpectedly fun.
Pass pages/proof reading: This is the final stage of editing before the book goes off to be printed, and sometimes it sort of blends into the previous one, depending on how long the preceeding steps have dragged on. Basically, this when you get a massive envelope in the post which contains the typeset/formatted manuscript or pass pages. For the first time, you see your book laid out as an actual book, with chapter headings, section pages, page numbers and the correct font. Usually it arrives on very large pieces of paper which show two pages on each side.
This is your very last chance to make changes to the book - to catch any typos or errors that have been introduced at any point along the way, or caused by the typesetting. It's very much NOT the time to make radical changes to anything, since cutting a paragraph on page one of a chapter is going to have a knock-on effect of the typesetting of every other page in that chapter and cost the publisher money, but you should still mark anything that you notice, and approve or stet (that is, withhold approval of) any changes which have been made since the last time you saw the manuscript.
Seeing the pass pages for Shadows on the Moon actually made me cry a little bit, as I realised the book had been decorated beautifully throughout with the same sakura that illustrated the cover, and that the final product really would be gorgeous.
Okay guys - this post is already mega, mega long so I'm going to stop here for now. I think we'll come back to this topic on Wednesday, and I'll talk about how writers tend to feel during editing, how you work out disagreements with your editor, and how you ensure your book is the best it can be.
