The GLAWS Editing Panel

I was honored to be asked to participate in a panel of editors addressing
the topic “Beyond the First Draft: Editing Your Manuscript for Success”
at the Saturday, May 18, monthly meeting of the
Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (GLAWS), which meets in West L.A.
This is the third or fourth time I’ve sat on a GLAWS editing panel, and
it’s a lot of fun. One of my authors, John Fulford, four of whose books
I’ve edited (so far), came with me.




When I appear before an audience in edit mode (so to speak), I always
wear my T-shirt that says I AM THE GRAMMARIAN ABOUT WHOM YOUR MOTHER WARNED
YOU. The first year I wore it, a dozen people took pictures of it (and
me) with their cell phones. I like to tell a funny story about this T-shirt.
Occasionally a woman will misread it and exclaim, “Oh, I’m a grandmother,
too!” This most often happens at the grocery store, but once it happened
at a GLAWS meeting. (But not this time.) Funny thing, though—no one has
ever commented on the “whom.”




The other editors on the panel were Mike Robinson, Marcia Geffner, Deanna
Brady, and Robin Quinn, who also served as moderator. My guess is that
there was probably a century of collective writing and editing experience
sitting before those microphones. Mike sold his first story at age nineteen.
Deanna says she’s been editing since she was a child. Marcia spent a couple
decades as a real estate writer. What was especially nifty about this panel
is that we five have different editing processes and styles, which means
everyone in the room can find an editor they’d be comfortable working with.
Deanna and Marcia spoke about meeting in person with their authors and
learning about their expectations for editing and what level of edit they
want. Me, I just sort of jump into the deep end of the pool with my authors
and we swim together. I also tend to be fairly…er…directive, as when I
tell an author he’s used up his lifetime supply of semicolons (which got
a laugh from the audience) or issue a little editing fatwahs, like against
“grab” in all its forms because the author uses it in every other sentence
(another laugh). Years and years ago, one of my authors said I’m a subtle
as a Mack truck. I took that as a compliment. Of course, I also endeavor
to practice what my mother taught me: Always say please and thank you.




I took handouts to the meeting. One, “The Editing Process,” explains in
twenty-seven steps what I do with a manuscript. I also took the printed
final draft of a unique book titled
Chocolate Cake and Coffee (which I spent five months editing) to
show the audience that the author, Tammy Sedin, had done the right thing
by printing it and asking someone who’d never seen the book to proofread
it. The other panelists agreed that proofreading is important.




Robin asked questions she’d sent to us via email earlier in the week.
The first one was “Some writers say they do not like to read the competition.
Why is reading widely in and outside your genre important?” The consensus
of the panel was that we read to learn what good writing looks like, how
other authors construct a plot or build characters, and what kinds of books
actually sell. Another question was “what methods of initial composition
are helpful in making a book successful?” Mike talked about outlining,
which we all agreed is very helpful. So, we also agreed, is just sitting
down and starting to write and doing what I call a “mind dump.” Just get
a first draft written, the panel said. Then, using the metaphor I most
often use, start weeding the garden and pruning the trees.




To answer another of Robin’s questions, I had a copy of

The Elements of Style to wave at the audience, plus half a dozen
examples from books I’ve edited of violations of Rule 11, which is that
an introductory phrase or clause has to refer to the grammatical subject
of the sentence. Here’s an example: “Walking back, my hands shake….” (The
hands are walking?) As I read the examples to the audience, they immediately
got it. The problem is that we see stupid violations of Rule 11 all time
in newspapers and magazines and blogs and hear them on TV from people who
are supposed to be smarter than that. Guess not. Rule 11 doesn’t have to
apply in the dialogue we write, of course, because people don’t always
speak gooder English, but it should be correct in the narrative voice because
it helps us avoid ambiguity. (And look illiterate.)

To answer another question about dialogue, Deanna said that people don’t
usually talk about their feelings (they speak with feeling) and that it’s
best to omit the common little conversation openers like “Hi.” I said we
should listen to how people actually speak and notice the rhythms of their
speech. As we talked about dialogue tags (“he said,” “she replied”), Mike
wisely urged the audience to avoid adverbs. “Yeah,” I said, “no
Tom Swifties.”  After Deanna said that the dialogue we write
should be so clear and personal that a reader knows who’s speaking without
dialogue tags, I spoke about stichomythic dialogue (one-liners exchanged
by two people) and explained that it’s really helpful to add the occasional
dialogue tag or stage direction to help readers keep track of who’s talking.
Deanna added that she certainly hadn’t meant to suggest that we should
omit dialogue tags, to which everyone nodded.

When Robin asked about “ensuring the richness of language while keeping
it economical,” one of my co-panelists spoke about searching for good synonyms
so we don’t have to keep repeating the same word, but I said, “Stay out
of the thesaurus.” English has a huge vocabulary because all those synonyms
are not precisely and totally synonymous, which means word choice is important.




Although we four panelists have differing ideas on some topics, for most
of the two hours we sat there nodding as we shared with an audience of
hopeful writers what we know about working with an editor. Basically—pay
attention to what your editor does to and says about your manuscript. You
hired this person to help you. Afterward, John said he’d enjoyed the afternoon
and found it very helpful.




GLAWS is an interesting and useful organization. Here’s something from
their website:




          GLAWS excels in
many areas:


              
An ongoing education by successful authors and industry experts who present
relevant broad-based and genre-specific information at our monthly Special
Speaker Events,


              
Networking with other hundreds of other writers through our bi-annual parties,
social and special hospitality events.


              
Peer-to-peer Critique Groups to improve one's work,


              
Public Outreach and Bookfair Events for published and self-published GLAWS
members to expand their platform, visibly as an author, and sell books.