Bothersome Words

Conflux 9

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It’s always great to head off to Canberra’s annual Conflux, where I can catch up with friends and make new ones.  It’s a chance to find out what everyone’s up to and celebrate successes. There are parties and gatherings and just all-round fun.

Mark Timmony, Karen Miller and Kaaron Warren
Mark Timmony, Karen Miller and Kaaron Warren

But for me it is also a chance to learn. Conflux may be a speculative fiction convention that draws and encourages fans of all flavours, but more than anything it is a celebration of writing; bringing together authors and publishers and readers in one spot. For all that I already spend a lot of time reading books and blogs about genre, writing, and publishing; events such as Conflux are an opportunity to hear experts and folks in the field speaking in person about their passion.

It’s a chance for me as an editor to discover what makes the worlds I wander through work so well, and to learn how writers understand their processes – so I can talk to them in their own terms when I am editing their words.

It’s also a chance for me to share the pearls of wisdom I pick up with other writers who may not yet have discovered writing communities or online resources. My incessant livetweeting during these events[i] is intended as much to help spread the word to them as it is to record/report the event as it happens. And spending time attending panels and talking to industry folk keeps me armed with the latest information to help new writers who often turn to me and other publishing professionals for advice.

This Conflux I not only followed panels, but also participated (because I was momentarily brave when filling out my registration form). I spent a late night with Patty Jansen, Ian Nicholls and Satima Flavell mumbling to a bleary-eyed audience of ten about whether self-publishers need editors (you can probably guess what I think about that). I think we mostly made sense, and even if we didn’t all agree, no one punched anyone and we’re all still friends. I also got to ramble about social media etiquette at the end of the con with Russell Farr, Zena Shapter, Alan Baxter and Alex Adsett. My favourite part of that was Jason Fischer repeatedly putting his hand up and prefacing every question with a promise not to pun. (Although I am pro-pun, as anyone who’s ever had to edit my magazine and newspaper heads can attest, so I was all for it…)

I also did my first pitching session for Etopia Press! That was an adrenaline-pumping  hour – who knew five minutes could go so quickly? I can’t speak for the writers, but I really enjoyed that session as I met some lovely writers, heard some fantastic stories, and can’t wait to read more. I also chatted about pitching and the process thereof to a few people later on, so maybe I’ll blog on that topic down the track…

Topics I followed through the con…

Small press: I work with small, medium and mainstream publishers so this was a particularly interesting series of conversations, not least because so many innovative things are coming from small press in this changing publishing landscape. The mainstream versus small press smackdown highlighted the different considerations and approaches publishers and small press take – and the different challenges they face and the opportunities for their authors. There was a strong sense that small press like Ticonderoga have been able to take more risks and follow their hearts on “artier” projects in ways that mainstream publishers, driven by the bottom line, cannot. Marc Gascoigne described Angry Robot as medium press and was keen to take advantage of the ability to move faster than larger publishers on publishing projects and even marketing and promotional ideas.

Fantasy: I read and edit so much in this genre, and there are so many sub-genres within it – and they’re constantly changing and expanding.

Duncan Lay and KJ Taylor prepare to launch each other's books!
Duncan Lay and KJ Taylor prepare to launch each other’s books!

The panel examining the success and visibility of women in fantasy was particularly fascinating as this seemed to vary depending on country and subgenre. Indeed, while this panel was taking place, *this article*  was going around Twitter; and many people have since been discussing the Strange Horizons survey. It was especially interesting to hear Trudi discuss her unexpected success in Poland, where she says publisher support and promotion meant her book tours made her feel like Stephanie Meyers.

Young Adult: Again this is a topic I followed as a fan and as an editor. Arguments about YA and what constitutes a YA novel seemed to permeate the whole convention – and you can log on to Twitter at any time of the day or night and bump into people discussing the subject. As the YA explosion panel explained, the fact that so many books originally published as “adult” titles have since been rebranded as “YA” only adds to the confusion.  Garth Nix pointed out that it’s no surprise so many adults enjoy YA fiction – the word “adult” is right there in the name. The panel ultimately concluded that YA is story-driven and this will always appeal to readers.

Crime: It was a twist to see the “crime tropes” panel pop up in a speculative fiction convention, but the reason for this soon became clear with a quick poll that confirmed everyone present, speculative fiction readers all, also read crime. The success of last year’s first GenreCon already made it obvious that most genre readers probably cross the streams fairly readily, but it was impossible to determine from this sample crowd whether as many readers of crime also cross back to science fiction. This talk covered the difficulty of categorising crime novels when so many cross genres – Daniel O’Malley making the point that in “anything ‘other world’ a single drop will make it so, but a drop of blood does not make a book a crime novel” – and quickly led on to book covers and bookshop shelving (a topic which came up numerous times during and after the convention; frustrating more than one bookseller.)

Co-author Lisa Hannett and cover artist Kathleen Jennings model their beautiful 'Midnight and Moonshine'
Co-author Lisa Hannett and cover artist Kathleen Jennings model their beautiful ‘Midnight and Moonshine’

Short story: I’m starting to edit more of these now I am working with digital presses – which have begun to accept and publish shorter works – so I was keen to learn from the experts what makes a short story successful and how the process differs for the writer compared with writing a novel. Lisa Hannett described short stories as “evoking more than they explain” and it was interesting to hear the panel describe the importance of the first paragraph or two of a short story – rather than the first line. Jonathan Strahan admitted a good first line made him suspicious as he’d then anticipate two pages wasted on justifying such an opening.

The business side of writing: In “facing reality” terms, this was one of the most valuable panels I attended. I often hear from new writers who plan, based on the first draft of the first thing they’ve ever written, to quit their job and live off their income as a writer. I know enough to talk them out of this,(!) but this panel took it to the next step. This was about the reality of being a career writer once you have been published. In many ways it was similar to workshops I have co-presented for freelance editors – the focus being less on the actual work you do (writing or editing) and more on the reality of what that life means: you will be running a small business. And you will be working alone. You have to be prepared, you have to be organised, and you have to know yourself. Karen Miller pointed out that while writing is a solo endeavour, publishing is a team sport and you need to know the roles of all the publishing people you work with. All the panellists agreed that publishing was just one step in a writing career and shouldn’t be the end goal because actually being published involves a lot of work and effort on the writer’s part.

Guests of Honour: I tried to attend as many guest of honour presentations as I could, although I missed more than I would have liked. Karen Miller’s photo presentation stood out in particular, showing how valuable a research trip can be and how differently a “standard” tourist tour of the castles and exhibits of Europe can be, viewed through a writer’s eyes. Under Karen’s guidance, stunning shots of a romantic, mist-swathed glassy river became the potential scene for a bloody ambush; an intricately engraved helm featuring the moulding of a bearded face became the enchanted armour for a king and so on. She showed us pictures of elaborate (and decrepit) doorways and encouraged us to imagine what sort of occupant might reside beyond, and further: how difficult (or how easy) others may find it to enter through such deceptively restrictive openings. The presence of tourists in the ancient dwellings served to add perspective – providing a measure by which we could see how humans have changed in height and girth (or not) and the challenges a character (and thus a writer) may face maneuvering within any given space.

Books about these places are easy to find, but Karen’s photo presentation made it obvious that these realities are much clearer when seen in pictures.[ii]

I also signed up to attend my first ever kaffeeklatsch – with Angry Robot’s Marc Gascoigne. I think everyone has been watching Angry Robot closely since they started as they’ve certainly been trying exciting new things and publishing fantastic titles – lots of Australian authors among them. Angry Robot are extremely online-savvy and one of the most important things I took away from the conversation, given the number of authors I have heard bemoaning the need to be on a blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, etc. was that the only thing that is a must-have for any author is a website. Nearly all publishers feature pages for their authors, but Marc pointed out that readers will go to Google, not a publisher, for the latest information about their favourite author. An author can keep all their information on their own site and be the obvious, official place for readers to go. Additional social media: blogging, Twitter etc. should only be undertaken with genuine interest. As our later social media panel discussed: readers and followers can instantly tell if you’re faking or marketing, so if you aren’t interested, don’t have time, or can’t be bothered: don’t do it – concentrate on the writing!

Angry Robots
The “Angry Robot family”: Marc Gascoigne, Jo Anderton, Ingrid Jonach, Kaaron Warren

I think all the authors at the chat[iii] liked the idea of Angry Robot’s inclusive approach to publishing, which both Marc and his authors described as a kind of “family” with AR authors
encouraged to join in on their email loop for discussions about releases and covers, launches and signings. More than one writer mentioned later how isolated they had found their own publishing experience by contrast.

For myself, I think it’s imperative that any future office[iv] I move into comes equipped with underfloor caves like the AR offices. And cobbled streets outside, too. Or inside. I’m not picky.

 

In all this was another fabulous con. I met some wonderful new people and learned far more than I could ever condense into a single post. (Even one as epically long as this.) And I haven’t even touched on all the launches, readings and parties that took place between and after panels. Once again, this was a weekend of fun and enrichment that reconfirmed to me how lucky I am to work with the books and stories I love to read.

 

[i] Apologies to everyone who has been bombarded during this month’s Bothersome Words Conference Tweeting Extravaganza.

[ii] Or real life. I think we could all justify a holiday to somewhere that would help with our next writing/editing project: yes/yes?

[iii] And at the Angry Robot Hour held later in the con… I may have stalked Angry Robot a little bit…

[iv] House.

Latest additions to Mount ToBeRead, courtesy of Conflux.
Latest additions to Mount ToBeRead, courtesy of Conflux.

Fictional characters are real people too…or they should be

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I recently* watched an interview with author John le Carré, in which he spoke at length about life as a spy versus life as a writer and the importance of story and character. Stories, he said, are “the ultimate escape: the fictional world is the one in which you really want to live”.

Now, if ever there were two careers likely to make one an expert on fiction versus reality, I’d say spy and novelist would be the ones! And le Carre’s assertion on stories is certainly true for me – the fictional worlds I travel to are invariably more interesting than my real life,** but more importantly, they tend to make a lot more sense; I am somehow more deeply involved in, and often inspired by, fiction in a way that I’m not always by my blander meatspace existence.

I wonder is this escapism true for everyone in the way that it is for those who write and work with stories? Le Carré wasn’t just talking about the daydreams in which surely every human indulges. He meant the particular finely crafted fictional worlds of books and film – populated with people so lifelike you can imagine them stepping off the page and down the street.

Stories help us to understand reality

I have spoken before about people who resist giving up their hold on the real world. And I frequently encounter those who are dismissive of fictional fancies. Yet we have always made sense of the world through storieThrough the Looking Glasss; we’ve always taught children and societies through myth, parable and fairytales.
Many university courses, particularly the oft-looked-down-upon Arts courses, still do so.*** Not just English, but philosophy, culture, sociology and other subjects are all taught with one eye/ear on stories to get the message across and clarify different concepts. In part this is also to show students and readers the different ways there are to read various books and texts, but these are important lessons too for writers who want to learn about hidden layers, messages and triggers in a story.

This week Linda Morris wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald about the Australian army’s prescribed reading and film lists****. “Reading lists,” she writes, “are assembled by military forces to help soldiers understand the history of conflict, develop critical thinking and navigate moral and ethical questions.”  Here is a prime example of fiction – albeit based on and bolstered by real life encounters and non-fiction materials – being used to help people come to grips with the real world. The realities and complexities of war are such that simply explaining the facts are not enough to prepare a person for it. We need stories to bring things to life; to enhance understanding.

It is sometimes easier to relate through fictional characters – whose inner thoughts and turmoils are often more clearly defined than those of a “real” person ***** –  and consequently it is easier (as a reader or a writer) to untangle your own thoughts, feelings and experiences through their stories. And yet these days a lot of people would say that fiction isn’t the place to get life lessons. It’s all just someone’s imagination.  How sad, they say, to live your life in books and not experience the real world. You can’t really connect with a fictional character, they say.

Can’t you?

Readers need characters to be real

Countless tales have been written where fictional characters come to life. And plenty of people talk about how much they wish certain characters were real. The fact is someone wrote that character, that experience. Even if entirely invented, the author must have drawn on something to pull that creation together: their own human emotions, or traits they’ve seen in others.

Many authors’ writing tips include putting together files or boards for each character, including their backstory, traits, appearance, tastes and so on. It’s important to note barely any of this goes into the actual story but it’s enough to help build the character into three dimensions in the author’s own mind – which means a lot of things will, or should, bleed through as they’re writing the story proper. It also means there is a frame of reference already built in when that character needs to react to a situation or interact with other characters.

Of course this technique won’t work for everyone – many writers are dedicated pantsers, working entirely without notes – but even if you keep it all in your head, you need to “know” your character if you’re going to wrangle him or her (or it) successfully on the page. This background is handy to prevent characters simply performing “actions of convenience” that move things to a necessary plot point but are otherwise out of character or lack sufficient motive. It means that if someone has to ask the question “why did he do that?” there is already an answer.******

This level of detail is why authors so often talk about characters writing themselves – not all of them spring to the page fully formed, some require careful creation by the author­ – but once you know them well enough, your characters may almost speak for themselves. This also means that when it comes to editing, your editor will also be able to spot inconsistencies in a character – even though they may not have all the background knowledge you do as the author.

So do writers

The irony in all this is that while the fictional world may be more alluring, the best characters are true to life; they are drawn on real people, real experiences – even if one single character is a mishmash of several real people. Le Carré suggests writing these characters can be an opportunity for the writer to explore themselves, noting that “in the reinvention of oneself you get the therapy of making character”.*******

Good writers are generally good observers, taking in all levels of detail from the world and the people around them – from dialogue overheard in cafes to altercations and misunderstandings between friends.********

The most convincing characters are believable because they draw on reality. Of course there are extremes – the serial killers you’d hope are not actually based on the writer’s true experience – but again the most memorable tend to be the most human. What makes them chilling is their charm, often the fact that you can imagine this person, responsible for such reprehensible crimes, could be your neighbour, your friend, even your lover. They share traits with people you, the reader, actually know.*********

Of course there’s further irony in the fact that while they strive to create realistic worlds – and even the fantastical ones must in some ways be realistic –  many writery types often joke about their personal obliviousness to and inability to interact with the real world.**********  Again, I would point to the real world’s dismissal of those who work with fiction as perhaps a reason for this sometimes-awkwardness; for example, the glazed expressions from people bored to death when one waxes lyrical about a beloved story or thrill of getting the words to align Just Right.

Fictional characters never judge you for this passion.***********

Stories and fictional characters are often what make some of us get up in the morning and keep us up at night. They may be our own creations or someone else’s, but though they’re not often accorded the same respect, they’re things we take as seriously as other people take their own jobs. (Perhaps more so in some cases, because some people hate their jobs and don’t care about them at all.)

Caring this much is hopefully what makes good stories. You care about the fictional as if it were real, because sometimes you wish it was. And ideally you want your reader to have the same yearning. If le Carré is right, and the fictional world is the one in which you really want to live – or the one in which you’d like your readers to want to live – then you have to make it real.

Do you get lost in your fictional worlds? Do characters write themselves onto your page? Or are you one of those terrifylingly well-adjusted creative types who can compartmentalise and socialise with the best of them?

 

*Recently = months ago. It was one of the extras on the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy DVD.

**Not a challenge. Even the most creative writer would get limited mileage from the exhausting adventures of editor-sitting-at-desk.

*** Anything from Shakespeare to The Matrix can be used to explain complex philosophical ponderings…

****Linda Morris: Military gets the reel deal: now army’s reading list includes these films SMH, July 30, 2012.

*****Because real people don’t have their own separate author, or a draft and edit function. Well, unless you want to be metaphorical or philosophical about it…

******Of course if someone is asking that question when they shouldn’t, that may not be a good sign. Make sure any excessive background you have kept wrapped up tightly away from the manuscript has a little more air to breathe and circulate.

*******And really, there is no better place to start when asking a character to perform a certain feat than by asking yourself what you would realistically do or say in the same situation. If you don’t like the answer, decide which one of you – you or the fictional character – needs personal development/therapy.

********You need to watch out for this. Some writers will warn you that anything you say can and may very well be used in their next book. I once made the mistake of mentioning an altercation I was involved in, forgetting I was at that moment standing in a room full of writers. I quickly found myself surrounded by a selection of eavesdroppers clamouring for a detailed anecdote, which both my stage fright and my conscience failed to provide. However, this was a handy reminder that writers are always listening and anything you say to, or near, a writer is fair game.

*********As indeed do real serial killers, apparently. Neighbours and friends are frequently reported as shocked that the quiet unassuming person on all the news channels is the criminal described.

**********This tumblr post by Neil Gaiman is the perfect example.

***********Unless you write them that way. In which case I refer you to the above footnote. Not that one. The other one.

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.

Best Australian Blogs 2011

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I first started this blog back in January this year after finding myself repeating the same comments about wording and structure in numerous manuscript assessments and reports. At the same time, I realised I was getting identical editing questions from nervous authors who were understandably worried about handing over their precious manuscripts for the first time.
Outside work I found I was having conversations with people trying to start editing careers who were having to dig to find all the information they needed about the industry – just as I had had to when I was starting out. Although there is a lot of information about writing and publishing available, it seems the editorial process can be a mystery for those who have not yet gone through it. Sometimes it seems it’s a mystery even for those who work regularly with editors!

I genuinely love working with authors and new editors – it’s no secret that writing and words are my passion* ­– but I found I was spending a lot of extra time putting together advice and information in separate emails instead of actually editing. Plus, I had pages and pages of spare notes that hadn’t made it into editorial reports for varying reasons – all that time and energy spent explaining different writing problems for nothing.

Originally, I had thought I’d just put a FAQ up on my static website, but those notes kept growing with every editing project – more than would make sense for a question and answer page on a business site. Once I’d decided on a blog, I realised I could also explore some other areas of writing and editing – there are lots of writer blogs, I thought it would be interesting to show what it’s like to work with writers and words from the other side.

I’m not usually one to enter competitions, but when I saw the Best Australian Blogs competition advertised, I thought I should probably enter Bothersome Words – not because I expected the blog to win, but because everyone knows it’s very hard to get a blog up and running and most of them fail within the first year. The competition, I thought, would be a good way to get the blog “out there” – and it was all about promoting good writing, which is something very close to my heart.

Writing is scary business. I have always respected any writer for having the courage to hand over their work to someone else to read**, never mind actually allowing it to be published and sent into the world at large. I get nervous enough just hitting “publish” on a simple blog post, knowing that it will slip out into the ether to be read and judged (or not read at all – is that worse?) by the denizens of the interwebs.

I was absolutely astounded when the 23 competition finalists were announced and I was notified that Bothersome Words had made it as one of the five in the Words category. I have been deeply touched by all the lovely messages of support from friends and family on- and offline. And delighted and amazed to announce that today Bothersome Words won the Words Category in the Best Australian Blogs 2011 competition.

Thank you so much to the judges, particularly the Words judge, Angela Myer, and to the Sydney Writers’ Centre. Congratulations to all the other winners:

Business and Best Blog: Styling You – Nikki Parkinson
Lifestyle/ Personal: Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum – Lori Dwyer
Commentary:  News with Nipples – Kim Powell
People’s Choice: Bike Exif – Chris Hunter and, of course, all the finalists and nominees.

Here’s to celebrating writing, in every category!

 

* No, seriously, allow me to bore you some time.

** Or edit. Really, we editors DO know how terrifying our pencils/red pens/post-it notes/track changes are.

If you want to be an editor, use your imagination

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Mandy Brett wrote a fabulous article recently about editing and the invisibility thereof (Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction) It got me thinking as to how editors view the art and act of editing and, further, how others view editing as a profession. I don’t mean in terms of its value, so much as the very bones and passion of it.

Writers often bemoan the fact that their lives and careers are looked upon in such “romantic” terms – those outside the industry tend to assume all writers are either tortured, starving and misunderstood* or impossibly rich and lurking in Hollywood mansions, dashing off film scripts. Either way, authors are usually objects of intrigue because they are creative – “professional daydreamers”.

Editors do not have this problem. Career-wise, they are generally regarded as boring and most assuredly not creative. No one wants to hear what an editor spent the day doing (although some writers might argue that no one really wants to hear what they actually spent the day doing, either – it’s the fantasy that’s appealing**). However, it’s the difference, or perhaps the similarities, between the two vocations, to which I wish to draw attention.

Non-writers always ask editors, “Don’t you want to write?” – the assumption being that surely one must be bored doing all those tedious corrections and desperate to do something less dull and more creative. Something with a purpose.

Writers, by contrast, tend to couch the question more tentatively and their phrasing will depend on their own experience and how their current manuscript is going: “Do you write at all?” they might ask, cautiously. Or more caustically, “Oh, God, you don’t write as well, do you?”****

The thing is, both editors and writers are drawn to their careers for the same reason – an absolute love and passion for words and stories; and for fiction writers/editors, the thrill of imaginary worlds. While the skills of each are quite different – writers are, of course, the creators; editors merely step in when the words (worlds?) are already on the page – I think there are fundamental similarities at the heart of both.

At least, there are for me.

I have yet to read anything written by an author or writer about the experience of writing or being a writer that doesn’t in some way mirror my own feelings about being an editor. In particular, I have just begun reading The Writer’s Tale by Russell T. Davies. While I haven’t yet finished the book, it’s a fascinating and completely raw look at what goes on inside the writer’s mind as he goes through the writing process – not just as he writes, but as he considers each new idea and mulls things over. The doubt, the exhilaration. Every aspect is laid bare. This particular quote struck me at the beginning:

“Writing’s inside your head! It’s thinking! It’s every hour of the day, every day of your life, a constant storm of pictures and voices and sometimes, if you’re very lucky, insight.”

It occured to me that people speak this way about writing (so passionate!), but never about editing.

Editing is regarded as the “clean-up” – it’s mechanical, drudge-work, and has been given an aura almost of soullessness, suggesting a lack of creativity or imagination involved in the process.

But is this a true reflection?

Editing is not just about correcting errors. I know many are quick to point out that an editor’s role is to read and amend a manuscript objectively and calculatingly. Indeed, they say, the editor’s greatest skill is their ability to survey the work with a scrutiny and distance the author could never be expected to achieve. And yet the vocation itself is not cold and calculating and I find that I shy away from being associated with such distant terms. I don’t know any editors that don’t live and breathe words as surely as the writers they work with so closely.

Do we use them and filter them in different ways? Perhaps.
I can’t, however, think of a time during which my mind is ever switched “off” from its natural storytelling state. There is always part of my mind experiencing anything, everything, in the world as that “storm” of words and stories. There is always a disembodied narrator putting things down for me on mental paper – rewording, rephrasing: editing, if you like. As Davies says – it’s every hour of every day; it’s constant… and sometimes it brings insight to a piece I am editing, or to a piece I will edit.

And, it seems to me, it is very similar to the way in which so many writers say they experience the world.

Many writers note the way they get lost in fictional worlds; the way characters – born entirely of their own imaginations – become as real to them as anyone with whom they actually share a house. They may write blog posts confessing that interactions with friends and family, or even strangers, are likely to end up as thinly veiled passages in future books.

While an editor might not be prey to the Muse in the same way as a writer, the above is not unfamiliar. An editor becomes so involved with the books they work on that they too begin to know the characters nearly as well as the original author. They have to, for how else might they deduce any errors in characters’ behaviour or inconsistencies in plot?

Once trained to analyse texts and manuscripts and re-imagine characters and structures fitting together in different ways, it’s not so far-fetched to think that editors, like writers, might also mentally rework their next meal as a scene in a book – even if they don’t then sit down to type it up.
Where a writer might use such a scene as inspiration for their own new creations, an editor might similarly mentally catalogue the scene and use the same kind of creative process to help the authors they work with to develop their existing stories and improve their writing. It becomes a real-world example for the editor to draw on: “this is how dialogue should flow”, “this is how a family scene might be”.

Editors need to develop their powers of observation and a certain amount of creativity and writing prowess in the same way that writers do. Editing is not, in fact, all drudgery and red pen, and checking dictionaries and “just being pedantic”.

My own “about” page here says: “I spent most of my childhood buried inside my imagination and now spend most of my time mucking about inside other people’s as a freelance editor…” and for me this is key to my ability to edit. Because if I don’t allow my own imagination free rein, then how can I guide anyone else? How can I presume to offer suggestions and amendments beyond the prescriptive offerings of the grammar rulebooks and dictionaries if I haven’t explored my own imagination and spent a good deal of time learning the art of daydreaming?

I am not suggesting for a moment that what an editor does is by any means the same thing as what a writer does. Of course writers are the ones who create the works that we merely step into. Nor am I suggesting that editors ought to be treated as tortured artists.
But I do think it’s important to remember that editing has a creative side – and it’s okay to admit to that.

What do you think? Is editing a creative process for you? (Or do I just have voices in my head?)

 

* Possibly this IS true.

** Undoubtedly, writers can make “spent 8 hours staring at the computer screen and procrastinating” sound a lot more exciting than it genuinely is. Nevertheless…***

*** Hypothesis re: procrastination based on twitter comments and blog posts from eleventy billion authors worldwide. Full-time, part-time, published and unpublished.

**** There are just so many ways to take this question. And yes, I have heard every one of these iterations. More than once. In more than one tone.

Are you ready for an editor?

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The other day someone asked what I was working on and then expressed surprise when I said it was the same manuscript they had asked about previously. They felt I had been working on it for a “long time” – in fact this particular tome was on a very tight deadline and needed to be completed far more quickly than usual. This, however, is not an unusual reaction from someone outside the profession – as far as they can tell, we editors just read for a living and how long, really, does it take to read a couple of pages?

When you come to an editor for a professional edit, they are not just reading your words. They are considering each word, each punctuation mark, and the context and flow of each; separately, in combination, and in the manuscript as a whole. They will go through your manuscript more than once.

If you are a new author, many editors will also endeavour to provide you the tools with which to learn so the process becomes easier and less complex for you as time goes on. Most first drafts, particularly of first-ever novels, require a lot of work and a lot of time, but new writers, seeking to get published, don’t always know what they’re getting into when they finished their first manuscript and start looking for help to “clean it up, ready for a publisher”.

Most people who decide they want to become authors pick up on one piece of advice pretty quickly. They know that if they want to achieve their dream of becoming published, they need to write.

However, further down the track when that first novel draft is completed, things are not always so clear. Not everyone is surrounded by fellow writers, or knows what next step they need to take. Many people know only that once they have written their manuscript they need to get it to a publisher and, having looked about a little (online, or perhaps browsing the “how to get published” section of a bookshop or library), they realise they probably need to have that manuscript edited first.

This blog post is about how there is much more to it than that.

Because so often freelance editors get emails from people asking for quotes to edit the first draft of the first manuscript they’ve ever written – sometimes the first thing they’ve written since high school.

This blog post is about why you might want to put a little more work into that manuscript first, about why you might want to spend a little more time working on your own writing and editing skills before you hire someone else.

There are plenty of authors who can tell you why you’d do this from a writing perspective. There are plenty of publishing sitesthat will tell you why to do this, too.

This post talks about it from the editing perspective.

There are a number of different ways to work with a manuscript, depending on what stage the work is up to. An editor may do a structural edit, (which will go over the “big picture” stuff, checking plot, characters, consistency and – well – overall structure, as well as identifying any major repeated errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation etc.)  a copy edit (this goes through the manuscript in detail, checking facts, consistency of plot and characters, as well as language, spelling, grammar, punctuation etc.), or just a straight proofread (this is less detailed and and usually ensures that all the spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting is in order ready for print, but may also catch out any jarring facts or wording).
Depending on the author’s skill level and the state of the manuscript, the editor may decide to do a combination of these.
Alternatively, an editor can complete a manuscript assessment. Depending on the author’s wishes, this can be done at the start of the editing process – so the writer gets an idea of how much work is required on the novel, or at the end, so they can see if it’s actually ready for publication or submission to publishers.

An editor, as explained in previous posts, is there to help the author get the story in their head out on the page. Obviously the more experience an author has, the cleaner the manuscript is that the editor is working with, the easier this task is.

If an author shows up with a manuscript they have never even looked over, that is a much bigger task. It is not realistic to spend the time (or money) on all the things that likely require attention.

No matter how good the basic story is, if it is written entirely in a passive voice, or the dialogue is clunky, or there are constant shifts in tense or points of view; this draws attention away from plot errors, or grammar problems, or spelling mistakes. It’s highly unlikely that a writer would want to pay for the hundreds of hours it would take a professional editor to amend, correct and explain the problems in such a manuscript. So the editor has to make a choice as to what to focus on and that means other elements miss out.

It is not always clear what the author may actually want – do they just want what’s on the page cleaned up, or do they want the story to be the best it can be? Often it can seem that what the writer really wants is a mentor and this is really a separate task to editing.

 

If you’re a new writer serious about developing your skills and creating the best story you can, there are other stages you should consider before you think about engaging a freelance editor:

  • After completing that very first draft: let it sit for a while. Let your brain refresh before you go back over it yourself and check the story for issues as well as looking out for grammar and punctuation.
  • Do you have friends or family who you can trust to read over your work critically? Pass it to them and ask for feedback.
  • If mentoring is what you’re after, consider joining a writers’ group – there’s bound to be one in your city or even online. These don’t work for everyone and you have to find the right mix of people, but such groups can be invaluable. Writers’ centres often also run workshops and mentorships.

All these things can help you workshop your manuscript in ways that could be quite expensive with a professional editor. Plus, you will learn more if you work through these stages yourself, rather than paying someone else to clean up the early draft/s and supply you with a report or some notes.

And if this list looks daunting, if all this looks like too much effort, too time-consuming? You may need to reconsider why you wish to become an author. Because while it’s perfectly true that occasionally a first-draft manuscript arrives that is very clean – an amazing story, wonderfully told, that needs little help in the way of plot tightening or grammar correction, this is exceedingly rare.
Even published authors with ongoing publishing contracts and piles of bestsellers behind them work through a lot of these methods* – many of them have their own personal beta readers, take time out between drafts of their next bestseller, and they certainly go through several rounds of editing with their publisher. Why should it be any different when you’re starting out?

 

 

* Where do you think we learned about them?

 

Diana Wynne Jones

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It’s a sad and reflective time in the BW hovel today, with news that the great Diana Wynne Jones has passed away.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this author changed my life, though I never met her. Certainly she changed my reading habits, for though, as a child, I had already discovered fantasy through such books as Alice in Wonderland and the Chronicles of Narnia, it was Diana Wynne Jones who really brought my love of the genre to life. My devotion to her stories was enough for me to decide at quite a young age that one day I would not only work with books, but I would work with books just like these.

Diana Wynne Jones Books

My first DWJ was Charmed Life, given to me by a book-loving relative when I was somewhere around seven or eight years old. I fell head over heels from the first page and from then on my whole family ensured I was regularly supplied with a DWJ fix. This was not always easy, particularly during the dark days when so many of her works seemed to be out of print – sometimes my habit was fuelled with ancient, second-hand copies, the covers sticky and grimy with age. But I didn’t care. Only the stories inside mattered, and those were intact.

Later there were reprints as fantasy fell back into publishing-favour, and I quickly gathered up books I hadn’t even realised were missing from my collection. That same relative who’d gifted me with my first DWJ continued sending adult-me the latest releases when she came across them.

Meanwhile I’d found a more immediate source – a friend who worked at the local arm of DWJ’s publisher occasionally provided me with advance copies.

As an adult, I reread the books and marvel at the layers – the hidden themes and meaning (often so much darker and more serious than I ever realised as a child), the different historical and mythological elements that are woven into the various tales. But reading as a child it was the simple things I adored.

Despite having no interest in science, I wanted a chemistry set like the ones in The Ogre Downstairs. And I developed a peculiar fascination with matchbooks after reading Charmed Life and Eight Days of Luke. To this day, I get a little thrill every time I find one – so much more magical and olde worlde than a matchbox.

Of course, with Diana Wynne Jones books it is the very ordinariness mixed in with the magic and quirkiness that make them so special. There is something delightful in the notion that a powerful enchanter might use plain old stainless steel in place of the “proper” silver cutlery that cripples him. Jones’s heroes are nearly all ordinary people, complete with their own flaws and foibles, and while sometimes they perform magnificent feats, nine times out of ten, it’s their ordinary strength and wit and courage and mostly common sense that sees them through outlandish and twisted circumstances; staring down the most wicked, selfish, pompous and powerful villains. And usually, the hardest thing they have to overcome is not the wild and magical danger, but the very ordinary and human traits of doubt and fear of being humiliated.

Her books are things to be treasured but, I learned, shared sparingly and cautiously. Having once given a good friend a copy of Fire and Hemlock (my own best-beloved copy deemed far too precious to leave the house) I was horrified when she casually told me she’d thought it was ‘quite good’ but ‘a bit weird’. I loved my friend a tiny bit less after that faint praise and vowed never to chance Charmed Life on anyone unless I could be certain of appropriate levels of adoration.

In the online world I have since met hundreds of the millions of DWJ devotees out there. Now I find it commonplace to see blog discussions on the merits of Howl or stranded commuters tweeting requests to Hathaway for a bus.

What a wonderful legacy she has left us with. And how sad for everyone that she has left so soon.

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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