I Paid For This?! Surviving the Editorial Letter

A guest post by Lisa Kilian of What Not To Do as a Writer

There comes a time in every writer’s life when the plot is adequately twisted, the characters are adequately developed, and all the typos have been eliminated with a laser gun. You think.

Actually, you’re not sure if any of that is true because you’ve been staring at the same document on your computer for so long you’re kind of wondering if maybe you didn’t go blind last week. You think you’re reading words. You think those words are good. The dreams about your story have stopped and now all you dream about is book parties and signings and big wigs and wine.

You think you’re ready to submit. To publish. To throw caution to the wind and send that manuscript off for some close reading. Except you haven’t been able to read your own manuscript closely for months now and you’re honestly not sure what it says anymore. Your characters could be marrying dogs or lost somewhere else in the muddle, you have no idea.

That’s why you need an editor.

Someone who doesn’t know you or love you but knows writing and loves reading freshly pressed work. Someone who will look at your characters and say, “Hey, cool story, but did you notice Sally marries a dog on page 23?”

When I receive a manuscript to read, I welcome it with open arms. And the brave writers who have sent their words to me wait patiently in the background brimming with nervous energy. It’s a great relationship. We email back and forth about little things. We laugh. I read and make notes.

And then I send the editorial letter. And that’s when the fun stops.

Right there, in one convenient document, is an overview of all the concerns I have regarding their manuscript. Plot holes, flat characters, lagging prose, over-telling, over-explaining, back story — all of it. Their manuscript is suddenly less pristine and more of a mess and I know I’m not gonna be the one to clean it up.

Receiving an editorial letter after you’ve paid to have your novel edited sucks. It just — sucks. That’s pretty much the only thing I can say. But! That same editorial letter that sucks so much to read is also the heart and soul of what you paid for. You asked someone professional with an objective eye to read your manuscript and deconstruct it — and that’s exactly what they did. And they even went one step further and gave you suggestions on how to clean up your mess.

Still, I can hear it through the email; the writer’s happiness just deflates. I receive an answer just dripping with defeat. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Steel your skin and prepare your mind before you open that letter. And remember these things:

 

1. What is a Finished Piece to You is a Rough Draft to Me

 

You may believe your manuscript to be finished and polished — but if you’re sending it to an editor, it’s not. Why else would it end up on an editor’s desk? There are things going on in your manuscript that you are simply blind to because you no longer have the distance and objectivity to see it. Why would you? You’ve spent months with your nose to the screen trying to figure out how to finish this thing.

 

2. Just Because You Receive In-Depth Edits Doesn’t Mean You Suck

 

Everyone receives in-depth edits. Everyone receives suggestions for change. Everyone has to get edited. I, too, am a writer. And my critique group always makes suggestions for changes. They even tell me ::gasp:: that something is not working. And I get sad. I go home. I take a nap. And then I rewrite.

 

3. By All Means, Get Angry — Just Don’t Call Me

 

When you receive edits and they seem overwhelming, you’re going to get angry. And you’re probably going to be angry at me. That’s the nature of the beast. So get angry. But remember that it’s not me you’re angry with. Frankly, you’re upset with yourself because you sent something that you thought was ready to go and it turned out to not be so ready after all. And that’s okay, really. It’s human nature to get upset when things are hard and writing is just that. So read your letter, take a few deep breaths, hit a punching bag, and take a nap. Seriously. Naps fix everything. When your emotions are defused and you’re ready to get back to work, then you can email me.

 

4. I’m Not Here to Make You Feel Bad

 

My job is to make your writing better, and by default, make you a stronger person. My job is not to take your money and rip your work to shreds. It is not in my interest to be snarky and make you feel like shit. I don’t want to make you give up.

I want to make your writing better. I want to make your writing better. I want to make your writing better.

That’s the first and last concern on any editor’s mind when we read your work.

Lisa Kilian is the author of the blog, What Not To Do as a Writer. She has had essays published at Beyond the Margins, Best Damn Creative Writing Blog, and Write It Sideways to name a few. Follow her @LisaKilian or email her at lr.kilian@gmail.com She would love to read your work.

 

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Categories: Fiction - Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wordflab Surgery: How to Put Your Writing Under the Knife

surgeons

By Mary Jaksch

Does your writing suffer from wordflab?

Wordflab is the number one enemy of good writing. At least, in the eyes of Sol Stein, the master editor who wrote Stein On Writing.

Yes, folks – we’re back at school with Sol.

This time it’s off to the operating table: We’re going to liposuction wordflab.

Stein says:

Flab-cutting is one of the best means for improving the pace of both fiction and non-fiction. When eliminated, the loss of fat has the welcome side effect of strengthening the body of the remaining text.

Here’s how to operate on wordflab in two steps:

1. Remove all adjectives.

Once you’ve got rid of them, readmit a few after careful testing.

Mark Twain hated adjectives. He wasn’t into surgery. He liked to kill.

If you catch an adjective, kill it!”

The great thing about taking out adjectives is that the resulting text is sleek and the pace quickens. Read more »

Categories: Art of Writing, Blogging - Tags:

How to Rescue a Piece when You Write a Frankenstein

structural editing

Ready for structural editing?

This article is by WTD Chief Editor Mary Jaksch

Sometimes I write a Frankenstein piece. It looks fine until I notice that arms sprout where the legs should be – and unfortunately I forgot to attach a neck.

I don’t always notice that straight away. Why? Because when I finish writing a piece, I’m in love with it. I adore it. It’s great. No, not just great: it’s brilliant! …Until the next day…

Next day I’m shocked to see that my piece needs intense reconstruction. What happened? Overnight I took off my writer’s wings and donned the editor’s white coat and stethoscope.

Let’s say that you are ready to do the same. What now?

Those of you who can wave a First Aid certificate will know. First you do triage. Find out whether it’s a case of CPR or whether a plaster will do. Is it an oh-gawd-this-just-doesn’t-hang-together-at-all piece? Or is it a well-this-will-only-need-a-tweak piece?

In the following I’ll focus on how to get a piece to hang together. It’s about structural editing, or, how to reverse engineer a piece. Structural editing makes sure that all the bones of a piece are in the right place.

Here’s how you can operate successfully on a bungled piece:

1. Reassemble the Bones

  • Write down each point of your article in its shortest form.
  • Re-arrange the points into headings and subheadings.
  • Add missing points.
  • Cut and paste each part of the old article into the new structure.
  • Add or delete sentences to make transitions.

2. Check Your Transitions

Once you’ve got your bones right, check for smooth transitions. The reader wants to be led from one idea to the next – without any jolts. I find that transitions sometimes happen in my mind but don’t land on the page. Maybe it’s perfectly clear to me how I got from cucumbers to cataracts – but my readers might need a pathway from one to the other.

3. Make a bold entry

Before you settle on an a beginning, ask yourself if it provokes sufficient curiosity in the reader. - Leo Stein

Take a look at the start of your piece. There are two questions you need to pose:

  • Does it grab your readers?
  • Does it introduce your theme?

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at my writing to show how editing the entry made a difference. Some months back I wrote my first guest post for Write to Done: Juicy Writing: 5 Ways to Glue Readers to the Page

The draft I sent to Leo Babauta had this beginning:

Do you want your readers to sit up and read your stuff in one gulp?

Here are five ways to glue readers to your page, whether you’re writing a blog post, an article, or a book.

1.    Sweep in; don’t creep in

Leo wrote back:

Could you add a couple paragraphs to the intro, explaining why gluing the reader to the page is a good thing and how it’s worked in your experience — I find that having a bit of background leading into such a list is helpful to readers — less abrupt.

My version number 2 was as follows:

I love reading. But not just anything. Some writers arrest me on the spot and shackle me to their page. But others fail to keep my attention: I soon start playing with the cat or surf off to other sites.

Our readers are exactly like that. Their attention is fickle and they will wander off if we don’t grab them with our words.

That’s why it’s important to seize them from the moment they hit the page and get them to read our stuff in one gulp. In the following five steps I’ll show you how to glue readers to your page, whether you’re writing a blog post, an article, or a book.

I think you’ll agree that the second version is more elegant and leads the reader into the theme.

4.  End on a high note

Check out your ending.

  • Do you fizzle out?
  • Do you cut off in mid-stream?
  • Do you wrap up your theme?

It’s important to wrap up your piece and hand it to your readers at the end. Don’t just throw it at them and walk away!

When you look at these four points, you’ll understand that a structural edit can rescue a bad piece, as well as enhance a good one.

There are some simple things you can do to improve the structure of your writing. One is to plan your piece before you write it. (All the pieces of mine that needed reconstructive surgery were ones I wrote on a surge of inspiration – but without prior planning). The other is to analyze articles by other authors with the eyes of a structural editor.

Ask: is it a Frankenstein, or does it skip, dance, and sing?

I’d love to know whether you too have ever written a Frankenstein. Where you able to rescue it? If so, how?

Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done. If  you enjoyed this article, please visit Mary’s blog GoodlifeZen.com where the focus is on practical inspiration.

Photo courtesy of juhansonin

Categories: Art of Writing - Tags: , ,

Trouble Sticking to Your Word Count? Try These Editing Tricks


Photo courtesy of aussiegall

This is a guest post by Jesse Hines, a freelance writer who writes the blog Robust Writing.

Word counts.

Most writers have to deal with them. Whether we’re writing a paper for a high school or college class or submitting an article to a magazine or newspaper, chances are good we’ve been told how many words (give or take a reasonable amount) the paper or article should be.

Word counts are tough to deal with sometimes. Maybe the word count is small (100 words) or large (5000 words). Either way, word counts can haunt us if we let them.

Is This You?

Some writers have serious difficulty writing enough quality content to reach their word count. They just don’t seem to be able to come up with much to write about for that topic. For them, just about any word count is too big.

Or Maybe This is You?

Other writers, like me, constantly exceed their word counts; for us, the problem is having too much to say, and wanting to say it all.

To the writers who have trouble meeting their word counts, all I can really say is to read more widely, think more critically, do more research on your topic, and throw every bit of information on your topic into your assignment and work backwards–go past your word count and then edit it back down to the right number.

To the writers who are always going well past their word counts, and need some help determining how to cut their copy down to the level required and still retain the piece’s quality, I’ve got some editing tricks to share.

Editing Tricks for Cutting Your Word Count

I often write articles that have a word count roughly between 500 and 600 words. It’s not unusual for me to finish my first draft well over 600 words and even past 700 words.

I often find myself having to eliminate somewhere near 100 words. Through a regular necessity to rigorously edit myself, I’ve naturally found myself implementing the following editing methods. If you put these principles into action, you can often get down to your word count while retaining the critical substance of your piece.

Plus, by having to make your copy more concise, you can end up with crisper, quicker, smoother, and more readable content.

Eliminate Articles, Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Pronouns, and Other Descriptors When Possible

Often, I strike out as many uses of a, an, the, that, which, and similar words as I possibly can. Sometimes these articles are necessary to smooth out the prose or to make something specifically clear.

However, often, they’re just filler and can be safely eliminated if their presence isn’t necessary for clarification. You’d be surprised how many of these words you use–just getting rid of them can significantly bring down your word count. Look at the following example:

With articles

He won second place for the best tasting pie, as well as third place for the most original ingredients.

Without articles

He won second place for best tasting pie, as well as third place for most original ingredients.

The revised version, by cutting out two non-essential uses of the word the, says the same thing smoother, and with two fewer words.

As well, the adverbs and adjectives which you use can add incredible color to your writing, but they can also very often end up expanding your word count without adding necessary or beneficial depth.

If you write, “His incredibly intense passion motivated him to work hard,” you can eliminate some adjectives and reduce the number of words, while keeping your meaning.

Eliminate incredibly and intense, as the word passion means, “any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling,” according to Dictionary.com, and thus already expresses your meaning. The two adjectives don’t add much description to the meaning and can be safely cut.

Eliminate Redundant Words and Passages

If you find a phrase like, “The armed gunman,” cut armed, as it’s obvious that the gunman was armed with a gun.

If you find a phrase like, “Past history shows that…,” cut past, as anything that is history is in the past.

Cutting these singular words can add up.

If you find that you’ve written a passage later in your piece that seems really similar to one you wrote near the beginning–look at it closely. It’s possible you’ve essentially repeated yourself. Thus, you can eliminate one of the passages or combine them into one, smaller passage.

That action can cut out bunches of words.

Eliminate Anything that Doesn’t Specifically Relate to Your Main Point

If you’re forced with cutting your word count down by a lot, scour your piece for any passages that don’t absolutely or necessarily relate to your main argument or subject.

You may have written some stuff about how the successful coffee shop’s owner is from such and such and he enjoys such and such in his free time, but if the piece is about the shop’s success itself, the owner’s hometown and hobbies can be left out if you need to use fewer words.

Use Contractions

This trick is sneaky, but simple. It’s also great for keeping your meaning exact and cutting your word count.

Use don’t instead of do not, haven’t instead of have not, won’t instead of will not, and they’ve instead of they have, and so on.

Using one word instead of two whenever possible can drop that word count quickly.

An Example

Let’s take a sentence I used earlier in this post and edit it down significantly by using some of the above tricks.

Original version (34 words)

As well, the adverbs and adjectives which you use can add incredible color to your writing, but they can also very often end up expanding your word count without adding necessary or beneficial depth.

New version (16 words)

Adverbs and adjectives give color to writing, but can also expand word counts without adding depth.

I didn’t even use all of the tricks, but I still cut that sentence in half, paring down my overall word count.

A Clarification

Don’t misunderstand me–I’m not saying that eliminating descriptors and doing away with interesting bits of information not strictly related to your thesis is the way you should always write.

What I’m saying is that if you find yourself having to drastically cut down your word count, then the aforementioned editing tricks can help you do just that, while leaving the substance of your piece intact.

What about you?

What editing methods do you use when you have to bring that word count down?

About the Author: Jesse Hines is a freelance writer. You can read more from him at his blog, Robust Writing.

WritetoDone is a Proud Winner of the Top 10 Blogs For Writers Award!

We were voted the #4 writers blog. In the description it says: ‘This blog delivers a steady stream of excellent articles for all writers’.

Leo and Mary would like to thank all of you who voted for WTD!

Categories: Art of Writing - Tags:

7 Certain Ways to Crucify Your Content


Photo courtesy of e³°°°

Chief Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Shilpan Patel of Success Soul whose meteoric rise in the blogging world has attracted much attention.

Have you ever met someone who instantly gave out a negative vibe? Have you visited a blog lately that gave you a feeling of being in a haunted house? What was your immediate reaction? I might guess that you clicked on the back button to flee the dreaded experience.

Have you considered the reasons for your knee-jerk reaction? I have.

The truth is a contradiction, but there are writers who crucify their own content.

There are many reasons why content can create a negative vibe. Some writers – such as Hemingway – can instantly connect with us, whereas others stop us reading beyond the first few lines.

In this article, I explore the characteristics of content that sends out an instant negative vibe and offer you helpful hints so that you can avoid this in your own writing. Read more »

Categories: Art of Writing, Blogging - Tags: , , ,