Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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Writing Questions for Josh
Oh, NICE! (I should make some of my attempts that....)
Aleksandr wrote: "Oh, NICE! (I should make some of my attempts that....)"Awww. Actually, I think all writing can be resuscitated. It just may need more than a shock from the defibrillator. Some advanced life support and tender loving care, maybe? :)
Sadly, my neck is to red -- I auto-translate DNR to Dept of Natural Resources. FWIW, my personal scale progresses from DNF to WTF.
Ah thanks - I was trying to work out what technical writing term it could be.I agree with Lou about those authors who don't trust readers to get it so they repeat it.
Then there's the author who is so immersed in the story and the various machinations of the plot that he doesn't bother to make it clear to the reader. I don't mind doing some work to figure things out but there are limits.
Christine - Or a beta who helps me cut its throat. Some projects are so twisted and wrong there's just nothing redeeming about them. Caroline - That's a high art. Not only get it clear in your head but put a clear image in the readers' heads, too. It can take years until the tranfers looks effortless (and is then the result of merciless editing and serious expenditure of craft). So, um, yeah. I love my editors who taught me to put the stuff on the page even if it's clear in my own head. :)
Kari wrote: "Sadly, my neck is to red -- I auto-translate DNR to Dept of Natural Resources. FWIW, my personal scale progresses from DNF to WTF."HA!
I read somewhere that the hardest thing to teach a new writer is subtlety. That has stuck with me as a caution against overstatement.
Lou wrote: "A beta reader who'll tell you when something's not working is priceless."Agreed.
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A beta reader who'll tell you when something's not working is priceless."
Yes! But criticism (favorable and negative) is unique to each reader and their own individual experience and education. Which is why I think you need a variety of readers -- and why I used to get so exasperated with one particular publisher's copy and line editors. These folks had very limited backgrounds beyond anything that wasn't a straight question of grammar and spelling.
When I think how much time I spent in fierce debate over the use of dialog tags with copy and line editors who totally missed all kinds of continuity errors and missing words and typos...ARGH!
Seriously!?
You're fighting with me over whether I can use "he managed" as a dialog tag but totally missing the fact that I changed the villain's name midway through the book or kept changing the number of years the protags knew each other? REALLY???!!!
Not that this still bothers me or anything.
Josh - that's just disgraceful. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. I still bear ill will towards the editors who missed all the pacing issues in several of my books. Granted, pacing IS tricky, but why exactly am I handing over 75% of my money to a publisher? Surely not (just) for a pretty (or not so pretty) cover?
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Content, pacing...to be honest, I never really expected this from my indie editors (so it was a delightful surprise that I had such excellent content editors!) but continuity and typos and missed words? Really?
If they hadn't made a point of arguing about dialog tags (and proving beyond a doubt they knew ZERO about anything that mattered) I wouldn't have found the gaps so infuriating. But the realization that they were more interested in putting me in my place than actually making the book a better book...wow.
Josh wrote: "Not that this still bothers me or anything."*belly laugh*
...Ugh. I have so many thoughts re: this kind of editing, I'm not sure where to begin. I think it's amateurish to nitpick the things that ultimately aren't very important while losing sight of the larger picture, and to take things personally (by getting into debates)... I say this as someone who has done these things. *hides face* Albeit, not as a fiction editor, but grading student papers. My first few batches of students must have hated me. I was a terrible, terrible nitpicker (and the students had terrible, terrible grammar and formatting). At least I recognized my own behavior and grew from the experience. Now I focus most of my attention on teaching students organization and, more importantly, how to develop their ideas.
On a different note: I'm even more thankful for my first fiction editor now. She didn't nitpick, had a lot to teach me about pacing, and repeatedly encouraged me to stand my ground if I felt strongly about an edit she'd made that I didn't like! Taught me not only about writing, but when to stand firm and when to bend. :)
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*belly laugh*
...Ugh. I have so many thoughts re: this kind of editing, I'm not sure where to begin. I think it's amateurish to nitpick t..."
Of course. And we all have our egos and we all want our authority to be respected. And we all pride ourselves to some extent on our "perfectionism." And I won't deny that although I'm largely pretty easy going, once I get my back up I have a tendency to turn into an intractable mule. :-D
In my defense, I'll say it takes quite a while for me to get really, truly pissed off. Unfortunately once that happens, I have trouble climbing down from it. Not one of my more attractive qualities.
Josh wrote: "once I get my back up I have a tendency to turn into an intractable mule. :-D"*grins* Hee-haw!
(Or would that be a donkey??)
Edits, especially line edits...Not worth abusing my blood pressure. If it's not a matter of story or voice, I don't object.
Kari wrote: "Edits, especially line edits...Not worth abusing my blood pressure. If it's not a matter of story or voice, I don't object."I agree. Whenever I open up a newly edited manuscript I take a moment to remind myself to pick my battles and not sweat the small stuff.
Kari wrote: "Edits, especially line edits...Not worth abusing my blood pressure. If it's not a matter of story or voice, I don't object."True. And by the time I get to line edits I'm so familiar with the story I can't see the forest for the trees. If the line editor says it's "jeans pocket" not "jean pocket" I'm not going to argue.
Pender wrote: "True. And by the time I get to line edits I'm so familiar ..."I get married to it. Too attached.
Kari wrote: "Pender wrote: "True. And by the time I get to line edits I'm so familiar ..."I get married to it. Too attached."
By that point I'm only too ready to push it out of the nest. :)
I always kick against any comments from betas/critters/editors first... Then I close the document, let it rest, open it again, and I KNOW they're mostly right. And if I feel they're not, I'm able to explain to them why I don't agree.
I can be stubborn, too, but yeah... not with the small stuff. Of course, sometimes I'm into my story so deep, that small stuff seems like big stuff, and then it's time to take a step back.
As for betaing/critiquing myself: I try not to be nitpicky and look at the big picture, but sometimes I can't help dot those i's :)
edited to add: and I ask questions. If I don't understand a change, I ask. Because how am I going to learn if I just blindly accept those changes?
Blaine wrote: "and I ask questions. If I don't understand a change, I ask. Because how am I going to learn if I just blindly accept those changes?"I always ask questions, especially of my critique partner's feedback. Oftentimes, she will point out something that doesn't work, and I have to tease out of her why it isn't working so I can figure out how to fix it. Frequently, it isn't for the reason she first thinks.
(Maybe that sounds like I'm ragging on my critique partner, but really, I'm not! She is an absolute godsend.)
Josh wrote: "When I think how much time I spent in fierce debate over the use of dialog tags with copy and line editors who totally missed all kinds of continuity errors and missing words and typos...ARGH!"Oh, man, don't even get me started on that: nitpicking petty BS rather than looking for what counts.
It's so true that once we've written and rewritten and revised and gone through two (supposedly) major edits and line edits and proofreading, we've pored over our text so much, we're no longer capable of reading it.
Truly astute editors and proofers are precious commodities.
Speaking of betas, how do you all feel about them? How do you even go about finding good ones? I've wanted to use beta readers but never have, primarily because I haven't a clue how to find the best fit.
I meet ... fellow authors (I was never plugged into fandom, so I feel like a bit of an outsider...), and we "beta" each other.
Aleksandr wrote: "I meet ... fellow authors (I was never plugged into fandom, so I feel like a bit of an outsider...), and we "beta" each other."Other authors, yes, but also a reader or two I know I can trust. I write some really dark & weird shit sometimes, which makes finding betas difficult.
I've thought about forming a group among other dark/dubcon writers a thousand times because of that difficulty. Not just for crit/beta'ing, but also to organize promo events among one another, for info-sharing, things of that nature. To say writing a niche within a niche presents unique challenges vastly understates the issue, LOL. Only reason I haven't done it is because I want a partner to help me get it off the ground and so far, no dice.
I think it's a little tricky K.Z. because you want someone whose work you enjoy and who responds well to what you write but is brave/strong/wise enough to tell you where you've gone off track. A good one is precious and I think, as Aleksandr says, starts in friendship and mutual respect.
Kari - I'd be game, though I'm on the softer side of the dubcon issue. :)
Aleksandr wrote: "Kari - I'd be game, though I'm on the softer side of the dubcon issue. :)"Prepare to be conscripted for duty, LOL.
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It's not conscription if I'm volunteering. :)
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True. And by the time I get to line edits I'm so familiar ..."
Oh well yeah. I'd say I accept 98% -- well, maybe now days more like 95% -- of all edits without blinking. But when I do kick, it's because it's clear the editor missed the point or it's a question of style and voice. I do kinda know a bit about writing. And I do kinda know my own style and voice.
Plus, I detest people who try and pass off their personal preferences as The Law, and that's where my back goes up. I'm far more likely to give weight to an honest, "This sounds awkward," versus "OUR HOUSE RULES STATE THAT GOD HAS DECREED THIS IS NOT A DIALOG TAG!!"
But the whole point of having an editor is to get that outside, objective opinion. Not much point in that if you're just going to ignore everything the editor is telling you!
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..."
I think where I basically lost interest in anything to do with grammar, etc. is when books that had been previously (and legitimately) edited by one house would go to another and the editors would reverse everything the other team of editors had done. At that point I knew that my innocent belief in hard and fast rules of grammar and punctuation and even spelling was sadly misplaced.
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They are an increasingly vital part of the process for me. Where I desperately need help is with the copyedit and line edit stuff, but it's good to have fresh eyes on all of it.
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I discovered fandom long after I had been published -- which is to say, I knew of fandom and slash but had no idea what a huge and influential and thing fandom really was. Then I realized that nearly everyone (at the time) writing m/m had come out of one fandom or another.
It finally explained why m/m was so different from the gay fiction I'd grown up reading.
Na - It happens, though I can't "write to order", I have pushed books to the top of the To Do list because people are desperately waiting for it (rather than, say, my pure-bred historical novel that's very likely to be a massive flop and nobody is really waiting for).
Na wrote: "Question for all writers : Have you ever felt compelled to write more to appease your readers rather than to please yourself ?"I've only written fanfic and never for profit, so my outlook will probably be different from published authors. I'm sure I've 'blamed' a few readers for egging me on to write something specific and while I'm happy to receive encouragement I tend to write to please myself. So, if it's not something I find interesting enough or if the ideas won't flow, then I won't do it.
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Of course, my current WIP is a list of three names and I'm thinking that last comma would look pretty odd in a title. lol.
Jordan wrote: "As for grammar, I'm one of those odd people who believes all lists of things should have that last comma at the end. You know: He went to the store and bought bread, cheese, and milk. Not He went t..."Inserting that last comma is technically correct.
I'm a stickler for proper punctuation. It drives me batty when writers randomly fling around em dashes, colons, semicolons, and commas, as if they're interchangeable. My eyes trip all over text that's chaotically punctuated.
My answer's yes and no. If I wrote to appease readers, I'd have more sequels by now. But, at the same time...Good isn't good enough, not for me. My tagline is "A world more extraordinary" and if I don't think a story is ready to deliver on that promise, I wait. That undoubtedly frustrates readers at times, but I didn't go into this business to do the bare minimum that would part dollars from reader pockets. If I don't think it's ready, it stays on my hard drive until that story is where I think it needs to be.
The Oxford comma - some use it, some find it antiquated. I use it when clarity demands it. :)
Kari wrote: "My answer's yes and no. If I wrote to appease readers, I'd have more sequels by now. But, at the same time...Good isn't good enough, not for me. My tagline is "A world more extraordinary" and if I ..."If one is serious about the craft of writing, this is the only sensible approach. How certain authors can crank out a book a month bewilders the hell out of me. Some even seem to have a new release every two weeks. How is that possible?
I don't know. Maybe I'm just a slowpoke. (Wow, I haven't used that word in years! :))
Lou wrote: "Ah, the Oxford comma. It's actually "correct" either way, unless it's lack or presence changes the meaning of the sentence. Comes to show you that grammar rules are not absolute. ..."Oh my, just shoot me now. Where is calculus when I need it? ;-p
K.Z. wrote: "I don't know. Maybe I'm just a slowpoke."Regardless of your speed, K.Z., yours is quality work. :)
Aleksandr wrote: "The Oxford comma - some use it, some find it antiquated. I use it when clarity demands it. :)"I use the Oxford comma on my grocery lists.
KZ - I know people - like LA Witt - who write 5-10k a day and their craft is flawless. In some extraordinary writers, craft and speed are not related to each other.I've seen it all. I've seen people work ten years to put out a flawless master piece and then go on a 1-2 a year rhythm, then people who've been working on a book for 30 years and it's still shit. I know authors who can write a novel a month and they are pretty damn good, and I know authors on the same schedule who are crap. Me, I'm moderately fast, but nowhere near the top end.
That said, I have co-written a novel in four days and it's really good. It'll need some editing, but it's no worse than a book I'd have written slower.
Aleksandr wrote: "KZ - I know people - like LA Witt - who write 5-10k a day and their craft is flawless. In some extraordinary writers, craft and speed are not related to each other."My writing partner can do that. It drives me up the wall, because I usually have to go through, like, five drafts to get to the quality she can reach in one--one that she can pump out faster than I can.
But then, I write more consistently than she does. Almost every day, whereas she will go months without.
It's a tortoise and the hare thing, I figure.
Some hares have rocket-propelled legs, though...
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Q&A with Josh Lanyon
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(*cough* Sorrry. Very bad nurse-writer humor.)