Bothersome Words

The Writers’ Editor 2019

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Photo by oldskool photography on Unsplash

As Led Zeppelin once said, it’s been a long time. A long, lonely, lonely time since last I blogged 1 . How’ve you been? How are the kids? Been on any nice trips? Written any good books?  

I’ve mostly been head-down in manuscripts and research, so it is perhaps appropriate that my first entry for 2019, after such a long time away, is something of a flashback and a revival. In 2014, Bothersome Words began a project called “The Writers’ Editor”2, intended to discover how different writers work and what sort of writing/editing/publishing assistance they need. The aim was to develop more effective approaches for editors to support authors of all experience levels on their own terms. 

Five years on and the publishing world has changed yet again. Self-publishing has become significantly more mainstream, with a lot more “hybrid” authors who publish both traditionally and independently. Audiobooks, always popular with readers, have become more of a focus for independent authors, who themselves are proving quick to learn and adopt new book publishing strategies. The traditional publishing landscape has become ever trickier terrain. 

As publishing changes, so too do writers’ needs. Whether self-publishing or aiming for submission to agents and publishers, writers are having to do a lot more editing and learning about the industry themselves. The right kind of support can be hard for them to find – especially when they are starting out. Often it is up to a freelance editor to educate writers about the writing process as well as the demands and expectations of publishing.


Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

As such, I have updated and relaunched “The Writer’s Editor Project” survey that I first released in 2014. I want to see just how deep these changes go – how differently writers understand and create stories, where editors fit into that process and, most importantly, how editors can best collaborate with the writers they support.

I’ve already introduced a few new services3 based on comments and requests over the past few years, and more plans are afoot for Bothersome Words this year. However, my ultimate goal is always to offer services and support that reflect what writers want and need.

I’ll be talking to writers, publishers and editors in person this year and, together with the results from these surveys, these will form the basis of a report that I hope will be invaluable not only for shaping the future of Bothersome Words, but perhaps for other writers and editors, too.

Although this survey has been written with novelists in mind, I’d like to hear from writers from all fields: scriptwriters, game-writers, fanficcers etc. I’m also looking to learn from people with varied experience, so whether you’re an international bestselling author or writing for your eyes only, I’d love your thoughts.

You can find the survey here!

And if you have any thoughts about editing, publishing, writing, or just a really weird fact that everyone should know, please contact me here.

I hope you’ve been well – and I hope to hear from some of you soon!

New site launched!

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Workplace With Digital Tablet

How do you like my new digs? I’m still getting settled in — most of the furniture is in place but there are still some boxes to unpack and bits of decorating to do, so apologies if you find yourself with some stray masking tape wrapped around your ankle; I should have it all cleared up soon.

There have been a few changes to Bothersome Words itself, too. First of all, I’ll no longer be taking on legal and corporate editing. I’ll be focusing more on fiction and non-fiction.

Secondly, towards the end of the year I’ll be offering mentoring. I’ll have a bit more information up about this soon, but this will be aimed at authors who are looking for a bit more of a guidance than they feel they can get (or have got) from an edit or a group workshop.

The astute among you may also have noticed the “workshops” panel on my homepage. I will have more news on those soon but in short, in 2016 I will be looking at offering my own online editing/writing workshops. For now the workshops page is where you’ll find a list of any upcoming Real World workshops and presentations.

In the meantime, if you have any editing or writing questions, the Ask an Editor box is always open. I have done this off and on before, but if I get enough questions (about anything writing/editing related, as vague or specific as you like) I’m planning a regular spot on my blog.

 

Finally, if you’re heading to Conflux this weekend I’ll be there, either silently tweeting other people’s panels, or slightly less silently sitting much closer to the front on Sunday at 11am Panel: Editing your own s**t and at 1:30pm Using Grammar wot’s bad konstruktivlee. Hope to see you there!

Editor Q&A: Part 2

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Gather round! Gather round! For it is time for part 2 of Editor Q&A.

Last week, I explained that these posts were the consequence of a social media question time[i] I held a few weeks ago. I’m sticking to that explanation, and without further ado proffer the following as part 2…

FADE IN:

EXT. DIRT ROAD. TWILIGHT.

<HOWLING>

***

@laimelde asked: How do you get work/how does the process of agreeing to edit someone’s (manuscript) happen? ie: What info should someone have handy before they approach an editor?

1. Freelance editors get work by:

  • Word of mouth – fellow editors passing names on (either because we used to work in-house with them or because we have freelanced for them) or publishers/authors/clients passing our names around.
  • Many of us also have our own websites and advertise in editorial directories etc.
  • Most states/territories in Australia have a Society of Editors. Members can often apply to advertise in the directory and there is usually a jobs board as well as networking events.
  • Networking – in person and online!

2. As to the process of hiring an editor…

The basics to have on-hand when you approach an editor are:

  • A manuscript or document that is ready for an editor. (ie: not one you are still rewriting. UNLESS you want an editor or mentor to work with you at that level[ii].)
  • The final word count.
  • A description of the manuscript/document.
  • A goal.manuscriptpiles

I also like it when clients are able to give me a history of the work: whether it’s a first draft or something they’ve been working on for years and that they’ve passed through crit partners and writing groups. (This also holds for, say, corporate documents that may be compiled from several sources – has anyone else had a go at editing it into shape or am I being given the raw data?).

This gives me an idea of what state the manuscript is likely in and how much experience the author/writer has with being edited. This can affect the advice I give and terminology I use when discussing the work with them.

It also means I get an idea if the author is trying to hire someone too early in the process. A lot of people try to hire an editor to work on their very first draft and I think this can be a mistake.

If the author is looking for a quote, I usually ask for a few sample pages so I can gauge for myself how much work is likely involved in the edit. It also means I can give them feedback on the service I think is most suitable to them. I need to know the full, final word count for the same reason.

A description of the manuscript can be as simple as a couple of words stating that it’s a sci-fi novel or a short story, or as detailed as a half-page synopsis. This lets me know what I am dealing with – proofreading a legal text requires different time and skills than copyediting a romance novel, and developmental or substantive edits are different again.

Defining the goal is also important and it’s an opportunity for the author/client to clarify their expectations of the process[iii].
Someone who is self-publishing will need slightly different services to someone who plans to submit to agents and publishers. Someone who wants to work slowly on developing their manuscript will need different advice to someone who already knows how the publishing process works and wants a straight copyedit without any fuss. This part of the conversation ensures that both the author/client and the editor are approaching the edit with the same expectations and understanding.

 

 

Desolie Page asked: What, for you, is the biggest challenge in completing an editing project?

I think the best answer I have is: being overwhelmed.

Sometimes the project feels insurmountable – maybe there is just so much work to be done on the manuscript that it’s hard to know where to start; or it is competing with other deadlines and it feels like you could never get it finished. Sometimes it can even be difficult to know when to stop…

In this case I am a chronic list-maker. I write out all the steps I need to complete for the edit, or all the tasks I need to complete and their deadlines, and then mark them off as I go.

NB: I found this question quite tough – not because there are no challenges to editing, but because there are so many different ones. So I made Desolie answer as well!

Here’s her response:

Well, apart from all the challenges of freelancing (marketing, workflow), I often forget to pace myself, especially when working on a tight deadline. I need to take mini-breaks to rehydrate, change my focus for a bit, otherwise I’m just head down and running on adrenaline, which is not good for my health.

Like you, I need a list to remind me of the ‘little’ things I need to check. And I’ve learnt to keep all the notes relating to a project in the same place, rather than just grabbing the nearest piece of paper that I manage to misplace. I think my biggest fear is that I’ll miss something that obvious.

That sounds like my challenge is being organised (better work on that one).

 ***

 

FADE OUT.

 

Thanks everyone who joined in and asked questions! I’m always happy to answer editor questions, if I can. Drop a line in the comments or ask me on Tumblr, Twitter or Facebook. (And if I can’t help there’s sure to be someone online who can!)

 

[i] Not at all like this:
Fast Tube by Casper

[iii] Sometimes writers will state explicitly that they are looking for “a proofread”. Asking what they want to achieve from the process – their ultimate goal, is a good way to find out if they are really expecting an edit that will analyse plot and structure. Alternatively, sometimes people ask about an edit when they’re not even sure whether they want to or should continue their work at all. Again, by getting them to explain this, an editor might conclude that the author really just wants some initial feedback.

 

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Editor Q&A: Part 1

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A couple of weeks ago I decided to open the floor[i] to questions: writing worries, query quandaries, or questions about the deeply mysterious hooded figures world of editors and editing. The following are some of the questions that came through on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook…

FADE IN:

EXT. MOUNTAINS. SUNRISE. MIST.

<BIRDSONG>

* * *

 Q. What makes a book good to edit?

Assuming we’re talking fiction: the same thing that makes it good to read – a good story.

I work on different levels of edits and with writers at different career levels. It is an amazing experience to do developmental work with someone who is starting out – discovering the story and characters with them. But it’s also enjoyable to work with authors who already understand the writing/publishing process and who have handed in something that, on first glance, already looks publishable. (Because sometimes that’s a challenge[ii].)

Often it’s less about the book so much as the author. An author who is resistant to the very idea of editing is hard to work with. But then I consider it part of the editor’s job to explore why this might be the case so you can develop a productive working relationship. Ultimately you both want the book to be the best it can be, so you really ought to be able to work together rather than battling each other.

openbook

Q. (cont…) My attitude is to (attempt to) get my work to near publishable level, then work with an editor on substantive things…

That is exactly what I try to encourage people to do. Hiring an editor too early (if you choose to hire one

– critique partners and writing groups can work wonders too) can be very expensive.

I see writers who end up paying an editor to do the kind of clean-up the author could probably have done themselves (bad spelling, obvious grammar errors, awkward sentence construction) and thus miss out on the closer eye, subjectivity, and expert insight they actually signed up for[iii].

It’s like any other job you might hire a professional for: painting, cleaning, renovating. You’re paying for their time as well as their expertise, so the more “basics” you can clear before they start (shifting furniture, picking up odds and ends etc.) the more time they have to concentrate on the things you may not want, or be able, to do yourself.

This isn’t something that only applies to beginners or self-publishing authors, either. Even if you’re not hiring an editor, if you’re working directly with a publisher, that process applies.

An unedited first draft will take a publisher more time and resources (usually on a limited budget) than a manuscript that has already been fairly well developed and polished by the author. In fact, it could be the difference between the publisher accepting your manuscript to begin work and sending you off to rewrite it. (Even if you have already signed a contract.) However, some authors just hate self-editing, and there are experienced, traditionally published authors who will hand in their first draft for the publisher to sort out.[iv]

A lot of people starting out may just not realise how much reworking is involved. If they are not part of a writing community and/or they haven’t (for whatever reason) ever read anything much about the writing or publishing process, they may simply not know how to redraft or edit themselves. Especially if the only thing they have heard is that they “need” to hire an editor.

It helps to know the different edit levels and services that are available. And it’s also worth keeping in mind that some editors and organisations also offer mentoring, which can be useful if you’re not quite ready for an editor but want some professional guidance.

* * *

FADE OUT.

 

Thanks everyone who joined in and asked questions! I’m always happy to answer editor questions, if I can.
Drop a line in the comments or ask me on Tumblr, Twitter or Facebook. (And if I can’t help there’s sure to be someone online who can!)


[i]  Not like this, obviously:
Fast Tube by Casper

[ii] By which I mean it can be difficult to find anything that needs changing – which is excellent for the author but a source of stress for an editor!

It’s not that we believe no one is capable of writing anything properly in the first place, it’s just that we’re employed to find problems and if we can’t see any we assume a) we’ve missed something that will immediately be obvious to someone else, and b) that whoever has employed us (either the writer or a publisher) will assume we haven’t done anything if nothing is marked up. This means we will never be hired again and we will starve to death in a hovel somewhere. It’s not a judgement on the quality of an author’s work; if you think we’re tough on authors you should know we’re 10 times tougher on ourselves!

The flip side of this is being given something to edit by someone who is exceptionally talented/experienced/knowledgeable… in which case there is that competing stress that causes us to second guess any edit we might think about considering marking up…

[iii] More on this in the next post…

[iv] Just because they can, doesn’t mean you should…

 

 

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Watch your language

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My mother used to call me a slut.

One step into my bedroom and she’d cast her eyes despairingly to the ceiling and berate me for my sluttish behaviour. It wasn’t until we’d lived in Australia for several years that things changed and she would comment only on the untidiness of my room.

This was not because of any change in behaviour on my part (despite my parents’ best efforts to get me to “do something about that pigsty”) but because they’d finally worked out that the word had an entirely different meaning in this country than it had back home.

Fast forward a few years and this particular word is almost universally used primarily in the “immoral” sense.

Language, then, is important. It’s important when you’re a schoolkid trying to fit in – even if you appear to speak the same language as your peers, slightly different word choices can lead to embarrassment if not actual miscommunication – and it’s important if you’re a writer, trying to set a scene.

This time last year, I wrote a similar post on building worlds. Lately I’ve read a lot of stories set in places that are clearly foreign to the authors writing them, so I’d like to return to the theme of worldbuilding from a language perspective.

The internet has made it easy to research countries and cities, and even different industries. With enough time and effort it can be relatively straightforward to build up a fictional set of characters livingfootpath in a real-world place. But picking up those subtle language differences is not so easy – and it’s not always obvious that there are differences, unless you’re looking for them.

The most common issue encountered in my writing/reading/editing bubble is the use of American English when a scene, its characters and even the narrator are intended to be English or Australian – and this differentiation must certainly work the other way for American readers/writers/editors.

Often, people flag footpath versus sidewalk as the most obvious writer “tell”, but there are more subtle differences of which to be aware. For example:

Once they have traversed the walkway of their choice, do your characters buy their groceries from a shop or a store? And how do they carry their shopping home – in bags or sacks?

Do they snack on biscuits or crackers? If they tuck into a packet of chips, does that mean a steaming hot bag of fries or a nice pack of crisps?

Do they take cream or milk in their tea? Or do they prefer a nice bottle of fizz? Or pop? Or just a plain old soft drink?

Where do they live? In a house or a cottage? Or perhaps they prefer a more urban lifestyle and they’ve shacked up in a flat/apartment/unit/condo…

Clothing can be a conundrum, too. If a character puts their pants on, does that mean he has his trousers on or that she’s clad in nowt but her knickers? If they’re sporting a rather fetching vest, should this include a pocket-watch adornment, or is this another word for undershirt?

Narration, as well as dVestsialogue, will need to fit too. Natural style for a UK or Australian speaker is usually:  “come and sit down,” or “go and get your sister,” where US style is to drop the and: “come sit down, ” or “go get your sister,”* – subtle but notable differences. US style also allows for gotten and anyways, which are not typical of UK or Australian English.**

From an editing standpoint (because we tend to check these things) this goes even further. Are any of your characters experts in their field? It’s important to not only know the language of their industry but how the experts use it – including their colloquialisms and jargon. This can be key to your story and it’s vital to note that the manner in which the public commonly uses an industry’s terms is not necessarily the way the experts wield the same words.

IT is a perfect example here, where terms are commonly misused by everyday folk and it’s easy to assume that tech experts will use the same colloquialisms, when in fact they are as precise as any doctor with their wording, even when they bandy jargon about.***

Do your research. If you’re setting your story somewhere with which you are unfamiliar, don’t just rely on the interwebs to show you where that country town is or how many Tube stops are involved in your characters’ travels. Concentrate on the language as well as the layout of your world.

If you can’t visit your intended setting, watch television shows and read books from that area – they’ll give you a good feel for dialogue and language culture. If your story is set in a specific time, be it the distant past or the present, do the same and take note of how words and language may have changed – even a couple of years can make a difference. If you’re going to write about a field or industry outside your own experience, don’t just talk to experts about their work – check that your fictional expert is using the jargon correctly, too.

The right language adds fine detail to your worldbuilding. Get it right and your reader will be an armchair traveller, mentally meandering the streets  you describe with the ease and familiarity of a local (which, of course, they may well be!). Get one word wrong and they can be as easily thrown out of the story. The believability is strained, the narration rings false. If those details are wrong, thinks the reader, what else is untrustworthy in this tale?

How do you craft your language? And what words throw you out of a story?

*    And yes, there’d be different punctuation here as well. I’m not entering that argument here.

**   Of course there is some slipover. Americanisms and UKisms and Aussieisms cross oceans and borders with merry abandon. But unless it has been adopted into common use, an editor will likely adjust for local style. So even though, for example, “gotten” is being adopted into colloquial use in this country, it’s totes not something many editors would let pass just yet.

***  For more information on this, speak to any IT guru you know who has had to help someone fix anything on their computer. (This will be *every* IT guru you know.) Ask if you can watch next time someone asks for tech help. Marvel at the array of facial expressions deployed by said expert as they try to translate what *exactly* this person means when they say their computer is “broken” and describes the elements involved.

Use and misuse of language – get amongst it

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The more observant among* you may have noticed it’s been a while** since I last updated this blog. This is in part due to the demands of Real Life, which recently included attendance at Conflux and involvement in the National Editors National Editors Conference 2011Conference.

Each of these were opportunities to meet fellow editors and writers, and to discuss language. And many arguments were had by all.

Many. Arguments.

Universal wisdom, nay, the RULE that guides all editors, states the editor’s job is to make the written word plain and simple for the reader. Take out flowery language, antiquated words and jargon, and replace them with plain English and functional phrasing.

But here’s the thing. Rules, as we’re also told, are made to be broken.

I don’t always think the plainest wording is the right wording. I certainly think any text – whether it’s a business brief or a fantasy novel – needs to be clear and easy to understand, but I also think you need to remember the audience and the purpose of the chosen words. (And if you’re the editor, rather than the writer, it’s worth considering that the writer may well have chosen specific word types for a specific reason before you impose blanket changes on a document.)

Flow, structure, intent, resonance, connotation etc. also need to be considered as you “clean up” your own or someone else’s writing.

The plain English argument comes up all the time and, of course, it was discussed many times during the National Editors Conference. One of the clearest off-the-cuff moments for me, however, was during one of the Style Council sessions following the Conference. One of the panellists was pulled up, light-heartedly, by his fellow speakers (and several audience members, besides) for repeatedly using the word “whilst”, rather than “while”. A well-known barrister, he reasoned that he used it all the time in his legal writing, where such “antiquated” and formal style is expected, but admitted he tried to avoid it in ordinary speech and writing***.

Legal EditingWorking with legal publishers, I find I am nearly always encouraged to simplify and modernise any material that isn’t direct court**** transcript or government legislation. Capitalisation is minimised. “Whilst” and “amongst” are right out, along with any other “archaic” spelling. Most legal documents are already complex and wordy, and sometimes filled with jargon, so it seems reasonable and logical to simplify textbooks and legal commentary for an intended audience who may not be legally trained.

But I baulk at applying the same principles when it comes to fiction. Sure, “amongst” and “whilst” are not always suitable and could seem dated or clunky in, for example, a fast-paced action adventure set in the present day; but in a historical context, or in many medieval style fantasies, such wording seems wholly appropriate. If I am called on to make the choice while editing*****, sometimes I will even make allowances for speech over narration if the pattern of narration or a particular character’s speech seems appropriately – and consistently – “Olde Worlde”. And this despite a blanket rule in many style guides, and certainly in The Universe, that states such wording must cease and desist. Editorial rebellion. Are you quaking in your boots?

There is, to be sure, a fine balance between what seems appropriate and natural, and what reads as clichéd and overwritten, but these words ­­- dismissed as overly formal and antiquated – have their place in works that are themselves intended to read formally, or which depict old worlds. So long as there is no risk that the reader will be confused or disrupted from the story, the use of certain words over others – even at the expense of crisper, plainer words – can add atmosphere and rhythm to an otherwise sparse-feeling page.

So from antiquated language to jargon. Again, I fear I shall say something controversial. First, let me state up-front that I am a dedicated player of boardroom bingo*******. And I have no interest in continuing the lives of weasel words or promoting ambiguous phrasing. But I would venture to suggest that in some instances, in some industries, jargon – or industry-specific terminology – has pervaded the rest of our culture enough that it is more easily understood than the plain English equivalent.

Of course, this again varies depending on audience. If you’re writing a medical journal aimed at physicians, they will have a different grasp of language than intended readers of a general health and fitness magazine, which is different again to an advisory brochure designed for children and families. And I have said before that newspapers are apparently written for an intended audience with a reading age of eleven.

However, lately I have seen jargon-busters suggesting, for example, we do away with particular well-known medical or legal or business terms in favour of longer, simplified plain English phrasing.  The problem is… most of the time I have had trouble untangling the meaning of the plain English alternative. This is because the original terms have become familiar not just because of their industry use, but because they are used so frequently in popular culture. Film and TV courtroom dramas, police procedurals, murder mysteries, forensic thrillers, hospital soap operas, and so on all contrive to teach us new terms so that eventually it is actually easier to understand those terms than the more long-winded but simple phrasing.

I am not suggesting that plain English is a bad thing, or that we all need to add Shakespearean flourishes to every page, or particularly that we should embrace the use of jargon in our everyday lives and look to soap operas to guide all our language use. Far from it. I do think, though, that there is a time and a place for all words and styles – as long as your reader can still understand what you’re trying to say.

 

What do you think? Are you a fan of flowery phrasing? Are you a jargon junkie? Or are you an absolute minimalist when it comes to getting the message across?

 

*amongst

**awhilst – see what I did there?

***This qualifying comment meant warning cries went off every time he used “whilst” thereafter…

****Court

*****And for all I expect to lose my editing licence for claiming “amongst” is ever acceptable, this decision process occurs more often than you’d think. Those “-st”s are as common as the double-space-after-a-full-stop******…

******Just so we’re clear, that double space is entirely unnecessary. No typewriter = no double space.

*******Although generally I lose on account of giggling. My favourite real-life example of a made-up corporate word is “helicoptic lens”. No, I don’t know either.

On how hiring an editor is just like hiring any tradesperson

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There are many ways to go about hiring a freelance editor to help you with your fledgling manuscript or document. You can trawl through the Yellow Pages, check Google, contact your local Writers’ Centres or dip into the directories of numerous Societies of Editors.

Just as there are hundreds of tradespeople to choose from, so there are hundreds of editors. So you narrow it down. You look for editors who specialise in your subject area. Maybe you take advice from fellow writers, get recommendations.

Finally, you have a list of people who you think would suit your manuscript. So what next?

When you contact a freelance editor and ask about hiring them to go over your work, often they’ll ask to see a sample of your manuscript before they’ll give you a quote for the cost and time it will take to complete the job.

Sounds pretty straightforward, yes? Yet for some reason this process can cause confusion and heartache, and possibly this is because writing is such a personal and creative endeavour. It’s (understandably) hard to suppress the need to impress and the fear of rejection.

The thing is, hiring an editor is really no different to hiring any tradesperson to work for you.* Most people understand that if they want to hire, for example, a plumber, to come and do a specific job, they will need to give them details of the work required in order to get an accurate quote.**

Imagine that you have a house with two bathrooms. One has recently been completely refurbished and just has a leaky tap that still needs repair. The other is completely run-down – all the tiles need replacing, there’s damp and mould. All the fixtures and fittings need replacing. In short, it’s a mess. You track down a tradesman with the right skills to do the job and tell him you have work for him. He agrees to come over to quote. You’re a bit embarrassed by the state of the old bathroom, so you just show him the leaky tap in the impressive new bathroom. He duly quotes for the work. You agree to the terms and he comes back the following week – at which point you show him into the old bathroom…

There is confusion. This is not the work he quoted for. This isn’t even the same job. This work will take much longer. It will cost more. It requires different tools. Both parties become equally frustrated.

This sounds like a ludicrous scenario.

But if you want to hire an editor to work on your manuscript, the principle is the same.

When an editor asks for a sample of your manuscript, they are asking because they need to know exactly what will be involved in working on this text.

By looking at sample pages, the editor can advise you as to what is necessary to bring the manuscript up to the standard you require.*** They can see for themselves whether the job will require a few hours simply correcting minor typing errors, or several weeks reworking awkward sentence construction and providing detailed feedback on better story structure. Often, what a writer describes as “a light proofread” can turn out to be “a heavy copy edit” if the author is hoping this will ultimately be a publishable or submittable work. It’s much better to know this up-front, when asking for the quote, rather than finding out once work has started.

When you’re considering which pages to send to the editor, then, it’s important to keep in mind why they are asking for the sample in the first place:

It’s not because they are short of reading material – they don’t need the whole manuscript at this point, and it’s unlikely that they need all the back story.  The editor won’t be reading for enjoyment or to get a feel for the story at this stage, they just need to see what work and time is involved in the edit.

It’s not because they want to see how well you can write. At least, not the way you might be thinking. You are potentially hiring this editor to work for you, not the other way around. Although they will be giving you feedback at the end of the edit, it should be honest feedback that you have asked for. Remember, this is not someone who is going to offer you a publishing contract. This is not part of a submission process. This is not about impressing anyone.
Sending through the five shiniest pages you have worked on solidly with a writing group may well prove to the editor that you have talent, but it won’t help with the quote if the other 450 manuscript pages turn out to be littered with disjointed dialogue, poor spelling and faulty grammar. It is in both your interests and the editor’s to send an “honest” sample so that you can get a proper quote.

As a writer, you will be understandably protective of your work. Editors know that you want to make sure that the person who will be working on your words really “gets” it. We know how important it is to you that we grasp every nuance. But these are concerns for the editing stage, not the quoting stage, even if it is tempting to add a few more chapters to the sample, and to send only the cleanest and best pages through. The finer details of the story don’t come into the calculations as to how many hours it’s going to take to correct all the punctuation and grammar, or whether it is likely to need a structural edit rather than a proofread.

Once you have the quote in hand, you can decide whether or not it suits your purpose. If this is your first time hiring an editor, make sure you’re really ready and keep in mind what that quote was for. That might sound stupid, but the perfectionist tendencies that see writers send in their most polished pages for a quote are the same ones that result in major rewrites post-quote. In theory there is nothing wrong with this, of course, except that an editor who has quoted for a 50,000 word manuscript will be just as surprised on receipt of a 150,000 novel as a tradesman would be on discovering that a bathroom refit suddenly also includes a kitchen refurbishment.****

What do you think? Does the quoting process send you quivering into a quandary over the perfect sample pages? Are you an editor? What are your tips? Do you drink tea, and if so, what’s your favourite?

 

*Editors probably work a little more quietly but they likely consume just as much tea. If not more.

**I know. You’re all just aching to tell me your home renovation/tradie horror stories. That is an entirely different blog topic. I shall not be moved. This is my metaphor, which is full of sunshine and happiness, tradesperson-wise.

***This is actually another important point – what sort of standard does the document need to be? Do you just want to get it to the next draft? Is it to be used in-house? Does it need to be publishable? Submission-level? Do you want to learn from the edit? This affects how the editor approaches the job as much as the style of edit.

**** In editing, this is an extremely common phenomenon. I didn’t even have to exaggerate the word count. I’m not sure how common the home renovation scenario is, to be fair, but I am not sure I have ever received a manuscript that hasn’t been worked on “just a bit” between quoting and start of editing.

How to build worlds

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When it comes to setting the scene in a book, everyone will tell you the worldbuilding is important. This is true no matter what sort of book you’re writing or which genre you’re writing in.

If you’re writing a fantasy novel, of course people tend to focus more closely on the worldbuilding since it is expected that you will be inventing new, make-believe worlds with your words. But it is just as important to create a believable world if you’re writing a memoir or autobiography: you have to recreate the world of your past, bring real people and landscapes to life for today’s reader.

Similarly, even if you’re working between these two extremes, creating a fictional story set in the real world, you still need to focus on piecing the foundations together. Things need to make sense. They must be believable and consistent and well-rounded. The biggest mistake a writer can make is to assume that their own knowledge or view of things is enough to for an entire world.* We all have our blind spots and biases, and these can easily be revealed in the worldbuilding if care isn’t taken.

The devil, they say, is in the details. They can make or break the story. As the author, by presenting the reader with your words, your vision, your world, you’re asking the reader to suspend disbelief and let go of this world to enter yours (even if the story is set in this world, and even if what they’re reading is “true” rather than fiction). So, you have to give them enough information to experience that world – and you have to maintain their interest in your world throughout the story.

Add enough detail and the world you have created is brought to life. Leave too much out and the entire story can seem shallow. Lose track of even the most insignificant-seeming fact and the entire plot can fall apart. **

Worldbuilding and the speculative fiction focus has already been mentioned. The skill it takes to create these fantastical places is widely recognised by fans of the genre. These authors are not just creating a land or planet complete with landscapes and townships, but also ecosystems, cultures, politics, language, magic – entirely different states of being. Ideally, everything that makes the world run on every level has to have been thought out as it affects every character and the way they interact with each other and the plot at large. The author needs to keep hold of every strand that they’ve used to weave this world together if they are to keep the reader convinced with every page they turn.

All this attention to detail gives a sense of realism to even the most incredible of tales. If the world works, the story works. But if some of the details feel off, if the worldbuilding isn’t strong enough, the whole story can come crashing down. Unless it is a plot point, nothing is more distracting than finding a character possessing skills or achieving feats that the very rules of the invented world insist should be impossible. A reader will snap out of a story in an instant if, for example, the shapeshifter who couldn’t touch metal in the first three books of a series is unharmed by several silver bullets in the fourth because the author forgot that particular clause.

Consistency and attention to detail is just as important in less fantastical novels. Action thrillers that otherwise show extreme attention to detail when it comes to science, technology and military power can fall apart if, for example, the political scenes depicting world leaders gathering to combat the major common threat (aliens, terrorists etc.) only show the US President and his security force in action – leaving out any further mention of the other supposedly powerful “leaders”.

Such a situation suggests the author has cribbed from US-centric Hollywood movies, rather than researching how global political leaders might react to crises. It doesn’t matter how convincing the aliens are, how believable the technology, or how tightly-written the gun-fights if the scenes most easily imagined in our world are the ones that are merely sketched over. Such a contrast in the level of detail is likely to pull the reader out of the story. It suggests a lack of authority and mastery on the author’s part and the mirage can be shattered.

Research, then, can be key to ensuring that details and your own narrow knowledge base don’t let you down. But there’s more to it than merely adding and enforcing those details. It’s not just about creating a world – you have to make it believable and it has to make sense.

If your world is different to ours in some way, if it breaks the laws of nature or physics, you might do well to familiarise yourself with the consequences of such a change. How would that affect day-to-day life? Geography? Trade? Buildings and cities? Education? Politics? Family life?

If you’re writing non-fiction, think about your audience and consider whether you’re writing about something that will be different for them – are you writing about a different time? A different country? Again, how is life different in that world to this one?

It’s also worth ensuring you’re familiar with the genre in which you write, even if (or especially if) you plan to break all the perceived rules of those who have written before you. It’s worth knowing in advance if the concepts and characters you think you have invented are actually featured heavily in World of Warcraft or bear an uncanny resemblance to a well-known Celtic myth, even if it is entirely coincidental. Whether or not these similarities are acknowledged in your world are themselves  important in the building.

* Unless you’re writing a dystopia. Or utopia, depending on ego size and confidence/tendency towards tyranny…

**Of course, add too much detail and you leave no blanks for the reader’s imagination to fill in. There’s a lot to be said for hinting at information. Worldbuilding doesn’t necessarily mean giving all the facts, figures and measurements of a world or city. That way page-skipping lies.

What are your tips for worldbuilding? And have you seen any major slip-ups? What pulls you out of a writer’s world?


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