A Toast to Editors

By Christine Dillon

“Why is your point of view character thinking?” wrote the editor. “She should be feeling.”

This comment on my first novel manuscript set me thinking rather than feeling. Why was my character like that? It didn’t take me long to realise my main character is like me.

“I’m an ISTJ (Myer’s Brigg personality type - Introvert- Sensing-Thinking-Judging),” I told my editor. ”Welcome to my world.”

The editor wrote back:

“I’m an ENFP (Extrovert-iNtuitive-Feeling-Perceptive). If someone even looks at me crossly I become teary.”

That was the day I began to respect editors in a new way. 

No longer just for their hard work and abilities with words and grammar. But more for their ability to see what is not there on the page and to make a story richer and deeper. As the editor said:

“To make your writing about the emotional inner world as beautiful as your descriptions of the outer, visible world.”

When I first wrote a book (non-fiction), it didn’t take me long to realise editors were the unsung heroes of writing. Like authors, they come in all kinds of styles and qualities. How was I going to find the right editor for my first novel? I was ignorant of so many parts of the process, including what kind of editors there were. As a church planter in Taiwan, I was also cut off from other authors and their networks. I couldn’t easily attend writer’s conferences or meet editors face to face.

However, I do have one huge advantage: 

I’m a Christian and therefore have many unseen resources. I have a God who not only can help me write (and fiction has been a more than four-year journey towards the first novel) but who answers prayer. He knew where the networks were, and He knew the editors that were both right for me personally and for my manuscript.

I was a slow convert to Facebook but am grateful for it in one huge aspect—groups. Through Facebook, I found many other Christian authors. It quickly became clear that the one essential to writing and publishing a novel was professional editing (and later, a professional cover).

Finding the right editor is a bit like dating. 

Not everyone is a good ‘match’. As my novel is based in Australia, I wanted someone who could understand the Australian context. And I wanted someone who had my values about Christian novels and their purpose. Soon I had a short list and kept praying. I might not know who was right for my book, but God would.

I sent off a sample of my writing and the summary. The editor I chose said, “It’s not ready for me yet”. She listed a few pages of things I needed to do to improve my writing.

That was a disappointing start as I’d planned to publish it four months after I first sent it. Discovering it was much further from ‘ready’ than I’d thought meant delaying the publication by fifteen months because I am seldom in Australia, and I wanted a physical book launch in Australia.

How could I have ever doubted that God had things under control. 

Every minute of the extra time has been needed to improve my writing, build networks, learn to market, run an author website, and grow my email list.

It was an exciting day when the editor finally said, “Now your manuscript is ready to edit.”
Once we worked out each others styles, we settled into a rhythm. However, the day I really knew God had matched us was the day we had the ISTJ/ENFP conversation. My natural tendency would have been to choose someone like me. Without an ENFP editor, all my main characters would have been ISTJ’s!

After the edit was complete I thought the book was done. 

Then God stepped in again although at the time it felt more like more stress, and more cost. I submitted a sample for a cost estimate for a final copy edit. Imagine my horror when the chapters were returned covered in comments. It was time for me to learn more lessons about showing not telling, and narrative distance.

After this second editor read the whole manuscript she said, “This is one and a half books, not one.” I found myself planning a trilogy and having to cut the first book off at the two-thirds point and add a new conclusion.

Has it been worth it?

A million times yes! Without these editors I would have published something that was about a 30% standard. Those editors had the courage to say what needed to be said.

Hurrah for editors (good ones, of course) and a toast to them.

What have you learned about finding a good author/editor match?

About Christine Dillon

Based in southern Taiwan, Christine loves to tell Bible stories (to adults) as part of a church planting team. Traditionally published in non-fiction and is now working towards self-publishing in fiction, she keeps telling God she really doesn’t want to write.

In her spare time—now much reduced due to writing—she loves hiking, cycling, genealogy and of course, reading.

You can find Christine at her website, www.storytellerchristine.com, and on Facebook.

AFTER THE FIRST DRAFT, WHAT? By Bonnie Toews

You type THE END and heave a great sigh of relief. DONE. You pat yourself on the back.

But wait! In today’s world, this is only YOUR FIRST DRAFT. Now the hard work begins.

Revising and editing are a writer’s most important functions in the telling of your story. In the rewriting stage, you have to move away from the subjective author who loves every sentence you’ve produced and become the tough critic. Switching hats is very difficult.

This is why most successful novelists belong to reading groups who serve to critique each other’s work. But before you expose your baby to a third, fourth or even fifth “eye,” you need to produce your best effort. That means stripping down your baby and redressing it.

Where do you start? Frankly, one rewrite won’t work. You can’t fix everything with one shot.

THE STRATEGIC APPROACH TO REVIEWING YOUR FIRST DRAFT

When you reread your manuscript, you need to examine NINE concerns. Focus on one at a time for each revision you write.

      1.       What is the spine of your story? Some authors refer to this as their THEME. This is a harder question than you think. You may assume it is simply what the story is about, but it isn’t. Your spine serves the same purpose as your backbone does for your body. It holds your story together. In my novel, THE CONSUMMATE TRAITOR, the obvious theme is treason.  When I reread my first draft, I had to measure every character‘s thoughts, feelings, motives and actions against this underlying theme. Yes, it was a gruelling exercise, but it was worth it because readers say I succeeded in suspending their disbelief. They could not figure out who the traitor was until the end.

      2.       Are your protagonist and main characters well-rounded and believable? Have you explored their conscious and unconscious desires, their strengths and weaknesses? Does your protagonist have a “fatal flaw” she or he must overcome to achieve a heroic or extraordinary outcome? In my novel, one of my heroines does not recognize her own self-worth. She strives to please and over compensates to prove her value.

  

      3.       What is the overall conflict driving your suspense? What rival or adversarial force must your protagonist beat? This is the challenge that drives your plot, and as the story continues, this conflict elevates the tension. It can be a person, group, force of nature or aspect of the protagonist’s own character that stands in the way of achieving a desired goal. Conflict leads the hero or heroine to make a critical decision, one that embraces either victory or defeat, and forces the individual to face the truth:  Who am I and what do I really want?

      4.       Is the development of your plot logical? I remember reading a spy story in which the two protagonists reminded each other that their hotel room may be bugged, and then, while in bed, they go ahead and discuss their plan to reveal the villain. I read on hoping this was a decoy to suspend the reader’s disbelief until the surprise “twist” resolution. If the room is bugged, why are they telling the enemy what he needs to know to intercept them?  Maybe it’s deliberate and we’ll find that out later. Alas, no. The author never caught this flaw, and for me the story imploded.

      5.       Is the structure of your story progressive? This even relates to individual paragraphs and sentences. Does your character react before an action even happens? For example, there is an explosion. Does your character dive for cover before the sound or after?  You can’t react to something that hasn’t happened yet. The character must duck AFTER he or she hears the bang. This also refers to the order of your information. Your characters need to move forward with new insights or conclusions, not rehash what is already known.

      6.      Does your opening sentence immediately grab your readers’ interest? If it doesn’t, does the first paragraph? If it doesn’t, will readers even read your first chapter?  Let’s look at the first sentence of my new novel, COVERT DENIAL:  Rhys Jamieson froze. Do you want to know why? Then you have to read on.

      7.      Do you ‘tell” more than you “show?” Some authors introduce a new character by writing what amounts to a biography including appearance and background. Today’s readers don’t like feeling overwhelmed with such description. It’s better to weave in the details as needed, when your reader wants to know, for instance, or when it is critical to the story. This way the reader becomes a part of what is going on rather than an observer.

      8.      How do you treat your dialogue? You’ve seen it – one line after another of conversation until you no longer know who the speakers are. This stems from a need to speed up pacing, but it can be taken too far. Dialogue serves two things: to reveal what distinguishes your characters from one another through quirks in their speech and to convey information. Good dialogue presents a balance that magnifies what your characters are doing, thinking, noticing, and feeling as well as where they are located when they speak. What your dialogue should NOT DO is be a short-cut to adding information crucial to your story. Too often you end up with an unnatural conversation that is awkward and off-putting for your reader.

      9.     I leave line editing and proof-reading to my last draft, and I have a few tricks to make it easier. First, I search and replace a list of “boring” words with stronger action words or adjectives. This short list causes agents and book editors to wince: was (passive), by the fact that, very, so, then, felt, great, big, would, could, or against. Suppose you wrote, felt angry. What action can your character do that shows he is irked? Barry’s eyes flashed. He slammed his fist on the desk. “Are you crazy?” That is a stronger picture. Second, be careful with words ending in “ing.” Often it signals an imperfect past tense (was working) that is easily corrected with the simple past tense (worked). Keep your text active. Avoid passive verbs.

A retired Canadian journalist, Bonnie Toews is a veterans’ advocate, who uses fiction to bring attention to conditions she has found at the “crossroads of humanity.” In novels of wartime intrigue and suspense, she expands on true events to reveal the political betrayal of our military veterans. The first novel in her “Trilogy of Treason” – THE CONSUMMATE TRAITOR – is available at amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Consummate-Traitor-Bonnie-Toews/dp/1461015383 and on her web site

http://www.authorbonnietoews.com

Love your editor

Photo courtesy of radnatt/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It was finally finished. I’d just typed “The End.” Now what do I do?

September 2003. Yes all those years ago. I’d set out on a mission to write that novel the I was always going to write. The previous December I’d read Stephen King’s “On Writing” (it’s excellent BTW – part memoir, part lessons on writing). One of the key takeaways for me was King wrote 2,000 words a day, rain, hail or shine. Being new to all this then I best follow the master’s advice.

Surprisingly, I managed to do this on many of my writing days. I’d offered myself up in a company-wide redundancy program and my amazing wife encouraged me to take a sabbatical to “write that novel I’d been talking to her about all those years.”

I started with two words: “It’s time!” and a story about angels and demons. Then I wrote and wrote. Wrote some more. Didn’t really spend any time studying the craft as I took the view that I wanted to see if I had a story in me.

Lessons in Writing

And there I was. A manuscript. 250,000 words and 707 pages. Can you believe it?

Hey, I was a newbie. Didn’t know what to leave out. Makes me laugh now.

I then re-read it. Made a lot of changes but only reduced the pages by about 100.

I didn’t know any Christian authors and only had limited understanding of the American Christian market. But I knew I needed to find myself an editor. That’s the next step isn’t it? Write it, and then get it edited.

Yes, I’m in awe of those authors who write one draft, hand it to their editor and before long it’s on the bookshelves. Maybe that’ll be me one day, maybe not.

So I googled and discovered Clare on the south coast who edited Christian novels. Before too long I’d sent the entire manuscript to Clare (snail mail) and she did an “Editorial Review” for me.

And then Clare taught me to write.

Editing and more editing

Years passed. Angelguard had been re-written, put in the bottom drawer for five years, and then one of those God-moments occurred when it was clear it was time to dust it off and see how time had improved my storytelling and craft.

So I pulled out Clare’s notes (that I still refer to today) and rewrote Angelguard.

Lion Fiction took a chance on me. Thank you Tony Collins. Tony introduced me to Jan who overlaid even more editorial wisdom to the manuscript. Once we handed it back to Tony who did his own edit to arrive at the final publishable MS: 110,000 words and 323 pages.

Phew. I believe over five or six significant re-writes I wrote more than 500,000 words. But the final version still started where it did all those years ago with “It’s time!”

On Angelguard being published I looked up Clare to thank her for all she did in setting me up. Clare had passed away and I was fortunate to be able to locate her son who lives in England. I sent him a copy acknowledging the significant role his mum played. He hadn’t known much about his mum’s editing work and appreciated receiving the acknowledgment.  

Always Learning

Last week I received some feedback from an editor friend who had generously offered to read some of my latest WIP. Besides the fact I was blown away by her encouragement and detailed response, she provided me with confirmation of a number of areas I was concerned about.

Once again, I received a lesson in how to craft a great story. Further, as often happens, she proposed to kill off a scene that I would consider a darling. Yes, I squirmed at that but sometimes we need to let that scene or character go especially when it will improve the end product.

It gave me such a pickmeup even though I have more work to do.

So here’s to all the editors out there. Yes, I know you get well acknowledged in every book you edit and no doubt your authors love you to death.

To any newbie authors who perhaps have a ready manuscript and/or are in the publishing cycle, love your editor. It may take you a little time to find the right 'fit' and certainly there will be times when you disagree with your editor. Don’t be surprised if they suggest you kill some of your darlings, some of those scenes or characters that you’ve agonized over. Hey, there’ll be other manuscripts where you may find those darlings slot in just perfectly. But after your editor has finished with your MS, you’ll be a better author.

What’s a story you can recall of a particular time your editor helped you improve your manuscript. Was there a darling involved?

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard, is now available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Angelguard was recognised at the 2014 Selah Awards for Best Speculative Fiction. You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter

Watching those leaves pile up

One day during the recent school holidays, I received a phone call from one of our granddaughters.

‘Hello, Nanna. Can we please come over and visit you? We don’t have anything to do! We can come before or after lunch. What would be best for you?’

Now how could anyone resist a polite request like that? After our two granddaughters and our son arrived and we had finished lunch, eleven year old Amy wanted to teach me some card games—but eight year old Olivia decided she would prefer to play outside. A little while later, however, she came back in.

‘Nanna, do you have a rake? I want to rake up all those leaves and petals on the grass.’

Again, how could anyone resist a request like that? I duly found the rake but felt bad that there was Olivia, working so hard outside all by herself, putting her whole heart and soul into raking those leaves, while we sat inside, playing games and enjoying ourselves.

‘Don’t worry,’ our son told me. ‘Olivia likes doing things like that. And she likes being by herself.’

A little later, when I checked outside, there was a neat pile of leaves right in the middle of our front yard. Olivia had really applied herself, removing her jumper as she sweated away, working so hard. But she had enjoyed every minute of it, she told me. And anyone could see her pride in that neat pile of leaves she had created.

As I watched all this unfold, I found myself comparing the task Olivia had undertaken so happily with the task that had occupied me all morning before my visitors arrived—that of piling up leaves of a different kind. I had been busy editing my current non-fiction book, carefully raking through all those words and sentences and gathering them into much neater shape. How satisfying it was to watch those completed ‘leaves’ of my own mount up! Of course, I knew there would still be more cleaning up to do on this manuscript, but at least I could see something emerging now from all those hours of work I have put into it so far.

I had been happy to work on it by myself too, just as Olivia had been as she raked away. But had I been as joyful about it as she had? Her little face almost shone with delight at the change she had wrought in our yard. It was obvious she had truly enjoyed herself as she slaved away for our benefit. She even seemed to regard this task as a great privilege—to be allowed have fun while making Nanna and Granddad’s yard look so much better! Was that something I had lost sight of in my writing—that awareness of the privilege of doing something I love for God?

I wonder how you have felt lately as you try to amass those ‘leaves’ of your current writing project. It can be hard work, requiring much perseverance. But may you and I not lose that sense of privilege of serving the Lord in the unique way we have been given. And may we each continue to be filled with that same joy I saw in our granddaughter as we apply ourselves to our writing.

Jo-Anne Berthelsen lives in Sydney but grew up in Brisbane. She holds degrees in Arts and Theology and has worked as a high school teacher, editor and secretary, as well as in local church ministry. Jo-Anne is passionate about touching hearts and lives through both the written and spoken word. She is the author of six published novels and one non-fiction work, Soul Friend: the story of a shared spiritual journey. Jo-Anne is married to a retired minister and has three grown-up children and four grandchildren. For more information, please visit www.jo-anneberthelsen.com or www.soulfriend.com.au.