Writing Tips – Editing
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JournalStone Publishing is pleased to feature this discussion on What it might take to be published, at least with us?
In that context, we are beginning a series of posts on the following topics that might interest you – a great story, surprises, consistency, good editing, an understanding of criticism and a willingness to act on suggestions. For the record, we will not necessarily be reviewing these important topics in that particular order.
We will begin with the obvious and least favorite for all authors – good editing.
Without question – you must edit your text. Many authors realize after they query their work or self-publish it that their book still has errors hidden in the text. (JournalStone takes great care to do expert editing with your novel, if we sign you; but for this discussion, we are talking about editing before your manuscript is ever submitted to a publishing company or agent.)
The wonderful technology that we all enjoy today has unfortunately not made us better writers. It has only made us faster. If you happen to be like me, you may have most of your Word spelling & grammar tools turned off. The colored underlines can be distracting to our creative muse. It is often difficult understanding why a whole sentence was underlined in a document to begin with, because the paragraph seemed just perfect. Therein lies the mistake made most often when writing; if the Word file looks clean, an author is content.
Good editing is a more involved task than just pleasing technology. It is about pleasing the reader. The author's proofreads are not the final step in the process and many authors submitting work believe they have done a thorough job. A second set of eyes however, as well as a third and a fourth…are imperative. In fact, your book cannot be proofread too many times. (We all know the horror stories – in our friend's book or maybe in that famous best-seller last year that was a terrible grammatical read.)
The best editing…is editing you hire. Hire a third party who edits professionally – a person who has the credentials to support their opinions of your text. Those editors will find the flaws in your narrative that Word could never point out. And, sometimes to your dismay, they will find the flaws that your friends and family have overlooked as well. Proofreading is not editing.
Here are some common narrative flaws which will pass by a lot of proofreaders – and Word.
Repetition in the text: You may never see that you have used the character's name six times in a paragraph of five sentences. Repetition will become distracting, even if the reader does not recognize it right away. It is a sure guess that any book with a little of this…may really have a lot of it and it bogs down the reader's experience. Think of repetition like this: it is the cricket under your window at night which will not stop chirping. You will eventually go after the bug spray.
Favorite words or phrases: Most often seen as the overuse of clichés, this can also be the overuse of the word 'very' or 'that'. There is a difference between repetition and overuse. Once a professional editor points out such patterns in your text, you will hopefully be sensitive to them and put an end to the habit. Your writing will greatly improve as a result. But, let's also make one important point about those clichés. If we recognize your favorite TV shows or movies, because of the constant references in your text – you have only filled the page with words that date your book. Narratives need to be fresh and last season's catch phrase by 'that guy on TV' really only belongs on the television. Sorry about that.
Tense: There are so many forms of the word tense but narrative tense – or narrative time – governs the grammatical tense of your sentences. Past, present, and future. They are too easily mixed and readers will hit their reading brakes when they encounter these problems. When tenses are confused, the reader becomes confused. Editors, who love editing, will not let these little gems get past them but their presence in your writing will indicate that a lot of editing is necessary. And, an author who habitually confuses word tense needs the lessons that a good edit will provide.
Subject confusion: Let's look at the most common example of this writing habit. Four characters; all involved in the same conversation. At some point in the dialogue readers cannot tell which character is speaking. Perhaps the author did not want to repeat names but gave us only the personal pronouns he-she or him-her, and did that too many times without some clarification. This can happen at any time when several characters enter the same scene. There is an art to keeping a reader's focus and it takes skill to identify every character with clarity. Sometimes an author is just 'too close' to the characters to notice the confusion they have written into a scene.
The grand theme of this post is: good editing will help improve the language in your narrative. Slick technology only cheats at the task. Editing is so much more than finding typos or a misused they're, there or their. A good editor will experience your story as you intended and become your best reader. They will help ensure the next reader runs back for your second book.
JournalStone would like to be your next reader. Our process for reviewing your manuscript is more involved than you may realize and we do provide in-depth comments to stories we really like. However, our first reading is not another proof read. We notice the quality of writing and editing, just as your readers will. We might point out some of the typos and punctuation oversights that we observe but JournalStone judges a manuscript by how much editing is necessary to move the book forward in our publishing process. If your Word document is filled with spelling & grammatical flags, we have to wonder why they are still there. They usually indicate the author was rushing the final steps to produce their book. This is why we stress the importance of finding your professional editor and making improvements before you begin offering the book to the world. Editing time will be the most valuable time you spend on your text.
In closing, we have to address the loudest cry that follows this subject everywhere. Cost. There are several levels of editing scope. The most thorough is called book doctoring. Authors and editors need to begin their work with a very strong understanding of how deeply to edit the text and how expensive it may become.
Admit this, please: your book is worth it. Admit this too, please: you can be creative in your negotiations with your editor. If they are qualified, they can still be your friend, your relative or your spouse. If the two of you agree that your book has now become their job and they approach the task with all their professional skill…then you have made a very worthy choice. The cost of good editing will never harm a book; it is a true investment which might set your book apart from many others. It will definitely help you in your efforts to be published, not only with us but with anyone you submit the manuscript to.
Remember, if you are an author and you are signed by JournalStone, we will edit your submission but we, just like all other publishers and agents, expect you to have submitted your best work. If you can't take the time to clean it up to the best of your ability, what does that say about you and about something you cherish as much as your own writing?
