Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Editorial Squabbles

Editorial Disagreements Terry here, answering our weekly discussion question: Who wins when you and your copy editor or proofreader disagree about a word, a spelling, a term of slang, etc? Do you sometimes choose to lose a battle in order to win a larger war? 

I once had an author friend who cried when her editor revised her entire manuscript to reflect a different voice. It was a show of hubris that I’ve never heard repeated. But I have heard of changing carefully crafted prose to fit “correct” usage. 

 Imagine changing a cockney’s use of “bruver” to “brother.” Or a hillbilly high-school dropout’s “We ain’t laid eyes on him,” to “We haven’t seen him.” 




 The editor’s job is to intrude as little as possible, while finding discrepancies in the intention of the writer. It’s a hard job to take that fine line between intention and a mistake, and sometimes editors are bound to cross that line. 

 I write about small-town Texas, and not every one of my characters is going to use language the way a professional editor thinks it ought to be used. 


Happily, I’ve never had war with my editors, but I have had “explanation” times. That is, times when I had to explain what something meant when either geographical or colloquial expressions, or age got into the mix. 


 I once used the expression, “If you think you’re going to do that, you’ve got another think coming.” It’s an expression I’ve used for years. But my editor asked if I meant “you’ve got another THING coming.” No, that makes no sense. What the expression means is, “think again.” 




It seemed obvious to me, but I reasoned that either it’s a Texas expression and my New York editor never heard it, or my young New York editor never heard it. Happily, I ran across the expression in the book I’m currently reading, set in present-day London, so apparently it’s at least used in Texas and London. 

 After a few books, my publisher assigned me a different editor, and I was horrified to see that in the first couple of pages she had taken a brisk editorial hand, changing the tone of the writing. I protested and she hastily told me that she had been hesitant and that she only did it for a couple of pages to see if the changes were acceptable. When I explained my position, she had no problem backing off (and the book got a PW starred review, so it wasn’t the worse for my insistence). 

 It isn’t always an editor who gives me grief. My agent recently flagged the term “country and western” and changed it to “country western.” I’ll go to the mat on that one. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in Texas it’s “country and western.” She also corrected my spelling of “futher” to “further.” Yes, I know the correct spelling, but I also know that the man who said “futher” would pronounce it that way. I regret the loss of this “sound” in his speech, but I don’t know if it’s worth fighting over, because for sure when the book gets to an editor, he or she will flag it again. 




 Words matter. We hear that a lot these days, but I mean it in the subtle sense. The reason any of the editorial touch is worth discussing is because it matters in the “sound” a writer intends. In my case, the small-town Texas sound. I remember once sitting in a car while my daddy (yes, it’s daddy), was talking to the owner of a gas station. He got back in the car, laughing. He said he had just heard one repairman say to another, “Look at this little bitty old tack I found in the tire.” He said it was such a “Texan” thing to use all those extra words, “little bitty old” instead of simply, “little.” Happily, my father never tried to learn Italian. Italians often use five words when one would do fine. 

 It’s the lucky writer who has an editor who gets the intention of the words. I’ve read books that I thought could have used a heavier editorial hand, but only for catching grammatical errors in narration, repetition, or long-winded narration that didn’t serve the book.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Pantsters Anonymous

Describe your editing/revision process. How do you make that mess of a first draft into a real book?

by Paul D. Marks

My name is Paul and I’m a Pantster.

In a word, here’s how I would describe my editing process: messy.

Since I am a pantster I don’t really have much when I start. No outline. Maybe a few notes or some ideas in my head. And I just let the characters “walk and talk” until they get to know each other, and I get to know them. It doesn’t really matter how far flung or bad my early drafts are. I guess in some ways you could say they’re my “outlines”.

The key is to realize that everything isn’t straight from the muse and that you do have to refine and chisel away at it until you come up with something recognizable. You have to work on the characters and the plot and all the other elements. I know I’d prefer never to have to rewrite, but it’s really all about the rewriting, isn’t it?

I read the drafts over and over again, each time chiseling away at them so they become more and more formed with each draft. My early drafts are random and stream of consciousness. Sometimes they run way long, other times they’re way too short. And almost all the time the endings are very sketchy. Those truly get fleshed out more with each subsequent draft.

One of the things that truly does blow me away is just how that hot mess of a first draft (and second draft and third draft) becomes something that actually makes sense and might even be fun to read. I just finished 2 new stories, working on a 3rd, amazing when it all comes together. There’s always that phase around the middle of the writing process where I look at something and it’s just a big mess and I wonder if it’s worth continuing. Most of the time it is. You just have to see the Maltese Falcon under the black paint. It’s usually there, but you have to chip away at the paint ever so gently so you don’t chip the falcon.


Even the great masters of painting “edited” their work. When some of their paintings are x-rayed they find earlier “drafts” of a work on the canvas, sometimes even different works altogether. So there’s no sin in editing and doing draft upon draft.

I usually go through lots of drafts. Some have major changes. Some have minor. But here’s a hint, don’t edit as I go along. Big things, little things, most of the time I change them in the next draft. I might make a note but I don’t get bogged down in the minutia. For example, if I have someone with blue hair on page 7 and I decide I want them to have green hair throughout, I don’t make that change till the next draft. That’s a small one and a silly one, but it gives you an idea of what I’m talking about. The only real exception in my method is if I decide that something major, plot or character-wise, isn’t working. Then I might toss the draft I’m working on and go to a new one with the new changes. But more often than not, even with big things I just change horses in mid-stream, so to speak, and go back and fix the earlier things in the next draft.

And, though I’d like to think that my drafts are perfect it helps to have a Maxwell Perkins of your own. Perkins was the editor for Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe and others. And he helped them whip their manuscripts into shape. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t need an editor but we really do. You need someone with a different perspective and who isn’t tied to every golden word you put down on the page.

I’m lucky to have my own Max Perkins, my wife Amy, to read my stuff. And sometimes I don’t like it when she tells me she thinks I should change X or Y, but most of the time she’s right and I’ll go back and re-do something. Other times I might argue with her and I’ll end up keeping something and changing something else.

But you have to be careful about who you choose as your editor. You don’t want someone who doesn’t “get” you or who can’t be impartial and just loves every word you put down on paper (i.e. my mom – to whom everything I wrote was just wonderful). It works for Amy and me because she’s not afraid to tell me what she thinks, but we also just work well together, we’re able to hash things out and brainstorm a problem in the manuscript together. For some people, a professional editor is the solution for others a trusted beta-reader. You just need to find what works for you.

Next in the editing process is the almost-endless read-throughs. I’ll read a draft and make notes, then Amy reads it and comments on my notes and we go back and forth that way for several drafts. Finally, we’ll sit down together and read it aloud. It’s amazing to me how so many things will come out when you read out loud. Lines that might have looked fine, sound bad or awkward. Typos that you become “snow-blind” to will become obvious when you’re reading aloud.

At some point the editing has to end. It’s really hard to stop sometimes because you’ll always find more things to polish the more times you read something. But you have to finally finish and let it go. Send it out into the world and hope it can fly on its own.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

Check out my Duke Rogers Series:





Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

Friday, October 4, 2019

Lightning vs. The Lightning Bug

How do you know when you’re finished and it’s time to submit? Do you take a break or start right on the next one?

by Paul D. Marks

Second question first: In the Good Old Days, I used to take breaks before next project, not these days—in fact these days I usually have more than one thing going at one time. Work on more than one at once and they overlap. No rest for the wicked.

And now to the first question:
Me after I'm done editing

You never really know when something is done—because you’ll always find something else you know you can do better, to fix, change, etc. As a pantster, versus being an outliner, I fine tune and fine tune, until I get something I like. My early drafts are pretty rough. I just let the character “walk and talk,” so they can walk and talk your ears off or walk off a cliff and you have to get them back on track. Each subsequent draft hones the various elements. The early drafts mostly work on a plot level. Later drafts deal more with character, polishing, getting the right word or right way of saying something.

Sometimes things don’t quite seem to be coming together. Then you’re walking the dogs and something pops into your head that makes it all come together. It’s like the keystone in an arch—the element that makes it all work. But still, you’re not done.

Once you get that element you still have to fine tune everything. You have to make all the elements fit together. Make sure everything is consistent. As a silly example, I often change descriptions of characters, but I don’t do it as I go along. I’ll do it in the next draft. So if I have a character whose hair is green at the beginning and I change it to pink I need to make sure I do that throughout. On a deeper level you need to make sure that the characters act consistent with the personalities and character traits that you’ve set up for them.

Sometimes as you go along you see possibilities for plot turns and characters that you didn’t initially see and things can change radically.

Then, you want to make sure you say everything just the way you want it said, and use just the right words for everything. Mark Twain famously said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”


I was going to say you tie up all the loose threads, but I don’t always do that. I tie up the major threads and story questions, but because life is messy not everything is always tied up in a nifty little bow.

Then, when you think you’re done, put it aside for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks. Go over it again—you'll find things you missed, even though you thought you were done.

Read it out loud. You'll be amazed at the things you missed.

Put it aside again and start the process all over again.

Finally, give it to trusted friends—beta readers—who will give you an honest critique, not just people who will be yes men or women. Your mom might love it, but how critical is she?  And how much about writing does she know?

If you want, you can hire a professional editor to give it another go-over.

But then, you just have to stop at some point, because the best is the enemy of the good, as Voltaire said.



Then you turn it in and inevitably if you read it over after it’s been published you find things you know you could have done better or differently (which = better).


~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

Don't forget to check out Broken Windows, the sequel to my Shamus award-winning novel, White Heat. Betty Webb at Mystery Scene magazine says: "Broken Windows is extraordinary."


Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

One Hundred Words Per Minute


This week we are posting about the most valuable business skill that we’ve used in our writing career.
Here’s my take on it.
Terry

It may sound odd, but I wasn’t sure what “business skill” meant. “Business” is a vague word that can take on a lot of meanings. The word business connotes busy-ness. People “go about their business,” and it means they are doing the things they normally do, which may be nothing more than going to the grocery store or picking up the kids from school. “None of your business” means don’t get involved with other people’s lives. 

In the case of writers, our “busy-ness” is focused on writing. I looked up skills for business on the internet and found  this list of Essential Skills:


·       Financial management.
·       Marketing, Sale, and customer service
·       Communication and negotiation.
·       Leadership.
·       Project management and planning.
·       Delegation and time management.
·       Problem solving.
·       Networking.


It strikes me that the skills that help us succeed in our writing career are basically the same skills needed to succeed in everyday life. We have to manage our money, communicate, negotiate (with ourselves and others), provide leadership (leading ourselves to our desk to get to work), manage our time, solve plot problems, etc.. When we publish, we have to learn the arcane business of marketing and sales, we have to network, which involves not only marketing our own books, but supporting fellow authors in their efforts.

 And the same thing applies to “advanced” skills in the list below.


·       Complex problem solving.
·       Critical thinking.
·       Creativity.
·       People management.
·       Coordinating with others.
·       Emotional intelligence.
·       Judgement and decision making.

·      
Service orientation.

Which of these things has been most helpful to me? None of the above. When I was in grade school, I taught myself to type. Who knows why? It was a whim. I had seen my mother type since I was a child—she was a fast, accurate typist whose skills were essential in the World War II years when she worked in a munitions plant. When my father was in college when I was a toddler, my mother typed his papers. I remember going to sleep to the sound of the typewriter. So maybe it was admiration for her that drove me. But whatever the reason I had for learning to type, I’m not sure I ever had a more useful skill. I worked my way through college typing, and in college typed all my papers. in writing it has been a key skill. I’ve always been a fast typist, so when people say that I write fast, I sometimes think that’s because I can type as fast as I think.

When I lost the use of my right hand for a time a few years ago, I wondered how I was ever going to write my next book. Turned out that if you type over 100 words per minute, typing with one hand still gets you 50 words per minute. My fifth book was written entirely with my left hand.

As I writer, of course I value creativity, time management, marketing, critical thinking, networking, and all the rest. It’s important that I have computer skills, that I am able to give talks that have substance and humor, that I can update my website, that I can navigate the internet for research, that I can participate in multiple social media sites. It’s valuable to be able to delegate jobs that I can give someone else to do, like recently hiring someone to read all my books and put together a Bible of characters. I have to be able to make a judgement about whether an idea I have for a story is going to be viable. When the times comes, I have to be able to edit effectively. I have to communicate about my books, from pitching the initial idea to my publisher to talking to readers about them.

There’s hardly a business skill that isn’t useful, but for my money, the time I took to teach myself to type all those years ago tops the list.

Terry Shames
A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary
The Samuel Craddock Series
www.terryshames.com