Which Bear is Best OR Who is Right?

To approach an editor about getting their paid input on a manuscript can be frightening. You are paying someone to be brutally honest (at least they should be). Are you a good writer? How much more work needs to be done? Is it worth it? Well all of that depends.

One of the best ways to tackle those questions, before even worrying about how to publish the damn thing, is to get an estimate from an editor based on a sample of your work. I am learning this process and currently working on a dear friend's manuscript. I hope to continue working with her on it, but even as a green editor I can't gauge if I am a good fit for what she is looking for. 

Writers and editors don't have to see eye-to-eye, but they do have to find a certain common ground. But, at the end of the day, who is right? The editor has a certain compulsion to fix every little thing, while the writer wants to keep every unique turn-of-phrase even when they become overwhelming and distracting.

You, whether the writer or editor, must be open to collaboration. You must be open to discussing the choices and options that each manuscript can take. A fresh set of eyes can see a whole different pallate of colors.

Where is the Time?

When writing it is easy to create a world where everything is perfect. All the pieces of your story seem to fall into place. It goes into the hands of others, before editing, and you ask what those friends and family members think. If they follow through, the likelihood of getting more than "I really liked it" or "the story was really interesting" is slim. It is critical, as a writer, to get feedback. If there is no one in the world to tell you what is good and what you can improve on, why do it? 

I hope that most writers are driven to write for the pleasure of getting the words, phrases, and artistic articulations of the world around them on paper. But when bills are due, dogs need walks, and dinner needs made (on top of a full-time job). Where does the time come in?

Five minutes here, ten minutes there doesn't build a novel. Deadlines, dedication, passion, and goals build novels. How do you find he discipline? 

I don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out everyday.

Rules

How do you handle rules? With a moment of grief or with a quick concession of error. Not everyone likes to follow rules, including writers. It isn’t always necessary to takes any rule set by the horns and fight back, but in fiction writing it may be necessary to get to know the rules pretty well before those horns aren’t targeted at your red cape.

As a writer, I don’t like rules. They can be used well to articulate specific ideas or they can be thrown aside in ignorance, guilty. Rules exist to help any construction of written words be clear for the reader (there is a whole other argument to be made for writing that is intentionally unclear).

As an editor, it is important to know the rules to tell the difference between creative genius or careless ignorance. There are rules about sentence constructions and the separation of clauses with commas. In technical, professional, and educational writing there is little flexibility, but that is why we don’t enjoy reading those, right? A good fiction editor can find the balance to avoid the distraction of the reader.

Do the rules apply to you? Can you handle being told that, yes, the rules to apply to you? The secret of being a good editor: know the best way to deliver the news that you are breaking the rules, but also make suggestions to get you back in line without being insulting.

What Kind of Writer (or Reader) are You?

Not all writers are perfect - or desire to be - but every writer has their strengths. World building comes strongly to writers who strive for complex governments and social structures encompassing a land filled with lush adjectives. Where other stories are driven by writers who create characters that you know so well you could predict how they would react in any situation presented to them. Readers are drawn to these attributes as well. 

But, it is important to balance world building and character development. It is easy for writers to get caught up in one over the other. As a reader, knowing which of these you prefer is crucial in finding books - and authors, specifically - that keep you coming back for more. 

Science fiction and fantasy are genres more suited for authors with skills in creating new and fantastical worlds with aliens, dragons, kings, space stations, undiscovered planets, and so much more that their minds can imagine.

Thrillers, mysteries, period dramas, and culture focused novels are genres that cater to character rich environments. When settings exist in a realm where the reader is vaguely familiar, at the very least, leaves the author more of their word count to flesh out the characters that bring the story to life.

Not all writers are perfect, but they strive to write the perfect piece for the reader. Sometimes that means that their boundaries of world building and character development are stretched. And they are better creators for it!

Perpective

Perspective is everything, literally. We are unable to interpret the world around them outside their own perspective. When things impact us we interpret them through our five senses, sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. On top of that, these senses get filtered through our brains. Our brains are full of biases from previous experience, education, memories, and various forms of conditioning.

This comes into play more often than we even realize. When writing, authors build stories based on what is in their brain. Their perspective on the work is unique to them because of all the pieces that didn’t end up on the page. They do their best to share their vision with the world, but no amount of writing can express their biases.

Editors work with writers to help tell these stories. They approach the story as the general reader and attempt to round out the story for most perspectives. Working with the author and the publisher, if available, the editor is tasked with reading without biases to create the clearest story.

As the reader, we bring our emotional weight to everything we read. From news articles to novels there is always some unique perspective brought to the reading. It is a huge undertaking to create clarity for a universal audience. Interpretation of the written word is never as cut and dry as we want it to be.

Inspiration?

Where does inspiration come from? 

Sometimes it just doesn't.

When it does, grasp for it and get as good of a hold as you can for as long as you can. 

You may never see it again.

But those few moments, like little memories, can make all the difference in a life.

Moments of inspiration may not change the world, but they may change yours.

Just keep writing.

I learned a very important piece of grammar in my editing class this week. An ellipsis-one of my favorite forms of punctuation-for text messages-is an accent that I (and most folks) don't use properly. This makes me sad. It is so . . . effective. We also type it wrong, regularly. To properly type an ellipsis: space, period, space, period, space, period, space. It was originally used to indicate an omission in a quotation. But it works so beautifully to create a heavy pause to create the perfect . . . timing for your reader. 

I learned that the best way to write better is to learn how punctuation can work for you. Yes, that is what editors are for, but when you are writing for fun, with a lack of funds, it is pretty cool to learn the difference between and en dash, em dash, hyphen, ellipsis, and parenthesis.

Getting Grammar Correct

In a writing frenzy, it is difficult to make a sentence express the exact emotion or moment that you want while making the grammar work in your favor. As a writer and editor, it is a two-edged sword. As I write, this post, for example, I question every word and punctuation choice. Am I going to get something wrong? Sure. Because I believe a blog is a place to practice those mistakes, and review them after they exit your fingertips. I know things about myself, as a writer, I write comma-heavy, I have a VERY strong voice, I love to play with dialogue, and I don't like to look at something more than once...of my own work, at least. 

I am learning what kind of editor I am. This is what will make or break me. Stay tuned...