Petting and Pampering the Writer

Let me start this by announcing that subscriptions by email are going away sometime in the middle of this summer, so if you subscribe to any of my blogs, you will no longer be getting those cool emails when I post something. I have no idea if it will be replaced by something else - we'll have to see.

Now on to my post

I have a writer friend on FB. A while back, she asked me to edit one of her books. I'm not a professional writer so I don't charge much, so she was probably trying to save a buck or two, but since we'd never worked together before, I offered to do a sample. She sent me her shortest short story. I don't remember how long it was, but it wasn't very long. 

What she gave me was a nice story that ranged somewhere between erotica and romance. What was there was a spotlight on the girl. The hero was little better than a chess piece - maybe a knight - maybe a king - hard to tell - he filled a slot. Everyone else, all the background people that decorated the background were nothing more than that - decorations.

So.

During the edit, I tried add some life to the story. Admiring looks from the peanut gallery, and movement, dialog, and feelings from her knight. I even thought up a background history for the girl - something to explain her thoughts and actions. Something to give her monetary support. Merely a foundation that didn't need to ever be mentioned in the story, but no one walks in a vacuum. 

She accused me of trying to rewrite her story, but it was only examples and suggestions. She was totally free to disregard everything. Like I say on my website, I will give you everything I think of as I read. You will get questions, opinions, and suggestions in reference to the story, and you will get correction in spelling and alternate words if you've picked the wrong one, bringing up the wrong image. I'll also give you better sentence structure if what you have is unclear. I did all that.

She just wanted help with spelling and punctuation. The rest was 'her style'. Her readers loved what she wrote the way she wrote it. Is she a successful writer? I really have no idea. She did not hire me. What I did made too much work for her. She wanted me to fix her mistakes and then she'd probably not look at the story again before publishing.

Needless to say, she did not hire me to edit her work.

Just the other day, she was offering a new work for anyone to read and give her some feedback. I did not take her up on the offer after the last rebuff - why should I?

However

She messaged me and wanted to send me that document. Well, okay. I'll give it a go, so I did. I have an editing job ongoing at the moment so I wasn't willing to devote much time to it. I read roughly half of it - enough to know that her style hadn't changed much. 

This story was a vampire story, and frankly I liked the idea. It was new and fresh, however her sentences were long and clunky, and sometimes they were incomplete thoughts making it hard to follow. The first handful of pages were filled with false starts to be explained later or in some other book. She included things about Atlantis which were interesting - I think - if I could have understood her concepts. All us writers like to make up histories, and I'm sure Atlantis would make an awesome anchor to do that with, however, I just didn't understand. 

Rather than taking my feedback as a way to know that maybe she hadn't gotten her point across clearly, she got miffed, saying how could I not know anything about Atlantis? I know about as much as anyone about Atlantis; it's a subject I read about every chance I get. I love the articles and videos I find on FB and on Netflix or YouTube. She also made a reference to numerology - that I know nothing about - an indication that maybe she should explain it better. I know I'm not the only one who doesn't understand that. 

As you might guess, I told her all this in her return email, including pointing out a bad typo that she might not catch otherwise; it wasn't miss-spelled, she'd hyphenated it to get past the little red lines. In response, I got a long tirade about how it was a work in progress and it wasn't supposed to be perfect, and on and on. She accused me of being harsh, of being in a box and being inflexible. It all left me confused. I guess I don't understand what kind of feedback she wants. Pretty much all that's left is petting and pampering, and I've never believed in pampering a writer. You take feedback for how it's offered. If your reader didn't understand something, you try to make it clearer. 

Sorry for the rant, but I had to get it off my chest. 

Thanks for listening.

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Editing

Once was the time when I could churn out ten pages of writing a day. Doing so piled up nearly a dozen full length books and even more short stories, though I personally don't care for short stories. In my drive to tell stories, some of them simply ended after like five pages. For the life of me, I have no idea on how to make them longer - so, they will stay short, and someday I'll publish a book of short stories. Who knows, maybe I'll do that next. Hmmm now that's an idea.

But I digress - I seem to do that a lot lately.

Anyway - about editing. Since my writing has been mostly taken over by editing, it has become something of a habit. Even when I read a story on my kindle, I frequently see things that should have been treated differently somehow. A lot of the time, putting away my editor in order to enjoy a good book, is really quite hard. That doesn't keep me from recognizing a good story when I see one, and I've seen many.

Recently, a friend of mine posted in an FB group I belong to. She was concerned about mediocre reviews she'd received on her book. I offered to take a look, and since it was my offer, I wasn't about to charge her. I know - I'm never going to make a living by editing if I keep doing it for free, but really, I'd much rather see a good story made better than earn a buck. I'm a long way from earning a living this way anyway.

I was especially dismayed when I learned that my friend had already paid for an editor. I understand that many editors charge different prices for different levels of editing. I found a good page that describes it all here. I charge $1 a page, which puts my price range among the lowest on that page. However all I have is my passion for a well written story that doesn't raise any questions as I read along. So I guess I do most everything mentioned on that page short of the rewrites mentioned there. I have done a few ghost writes though.

What troubled me was that it seemed like her editor did little more than look for the cool little red and green squiggly lines. And while I leaned heavily on those when I first started writing (I learned a lot doing that), an editor really does need to give a manuscript a careful read-through in order to find those pesky little typos that aren't misspelled. I did find a couple of those that would have been easily caught if read. I wasn't looking for typos so much yet. I wanted all those questions answered first. In my book, first comes the story, then comes the mechanics.

I want the story to remain yours, so any questions that arise as I read along, I ask. My asking tells you that you missed something, just as any changes I make say the same thing. My goal is to help you develop your story to a point where it is a clear movie inside your reader's head. Only then can a reader truly enjoy the story. Questions and jarring inconsistencies diminish a good story.

Freelance editors abound of recent years, or maybe they were always around and I just wasn't around enough to run across them. And checking their credentials isn't all that easy, which is why I do ask for a comment on my website. I don't ask for a good review, it is important to me that I get an honest review. For any editor you want to hire, you need to make the effort to look into their credits. I don't have any education to support my editing. All I have is a passion for good writing, and what I've learned on the internet from other writers who are more knowledgeable than I am. When I go through a manuscript, all I have to offer is my opinion, and the hope that it helps. I find it frustrating that other editors seem to think only of the dollar.

This isn't the only time I've read through a book that had already been edited. The first time, I told the guy he needed to ask for his money back. I have no idea if he ever did, but he sure was embarrassed by the major mistakes I found. Whole plot holes and typos - that was years ago now and I don't remember what all I found in that book, but I do remember that it was pretty bad. I didn't know how to use the track changes feature back then, all I remember was that I would send him an email every time I ran across something, giving him page number and telling him what I found. I was sending him an email or two every day. It was still rather astonishing to me that he'd actually paid an editor for what I was reading. I've come across this a few times since. I find it rather sad really. Sometimes, I feel like I'm alone in my passion for good writing - good writing wherever I find it - not just my own.

Well, it's time to get back to my passion and my obsession. Happy writing, people. Remember to do your homework when hiring that editor. Now, I think I'm going to head over to my personal blog and write a post there. Check it out. Every day is an adventure around here. Well, almost every day is. :D

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To Rush Your Editor

Have you ever read a book that felt like all or part of it had been rushed? I have. There's a difference between ramping up the drama of things like a fight scene and a car chase, and simply rushing through a scene, skimming over the details with only the ending in sight and no care given to the journey to get there.

But there's another rushing you should really avoid, and that is trying to rush your editor. I know how anxious you can get when you've finally written those final words - The End - and then you ship your baby off to the editor. Some marketing strategies aim for certain holidays in the hopes to catch those shopping for Christmas or Valentine's Day because the content of the book is relevant. But if that is the issue, it would be better to hold off till the next year than to rush your editor.

I recently took a job where publication was aimed for Valentine's day. The writer told me that from the beginning. She was aiming to be done with the first draft by the end of January. Knowing that it can take 3 or 4 days to see a paperback up on Amazon, that didn't give me much time. I did try. she was asking for chapters almost every day. It was a good thing she had another reader to go through it, and with screen shots, things I'd were pointed out to her.

Me, I'm a stickler for picky so I was utterly mortified at the list - crazy little things like missing words and extra words left over from sentence adjustments. Now I will admit that there were a couple there I might have missed no matter what. Those annoying words that look very similar and are even pronounced alike but with a slight spelling variance making it mean something entirely different. I'm not perfect.

Anyway, she sent the document back to me, even offering to pay me for a second round, but I won't take pay for a document I've already been paid for. Now six months after the fact might be a different issue.

At any rate, I have a wonderful trick I discovered way back when I had my first computer. Back then - seven years ago now - my PC would read a pdf if you told it to. On a later computer, I could tell my computer to read whatever text I selected. I'm sorry, I don't have a PC anymore and I don't remember how I did it then. There should be a text to speech option for selected text. On my MAC I had to set up a key command, and if you're a computer whiz you can figure out how to do that too. I had to be talked through it by a tech over the phone. I'm sure, even with a PC, you can call up someone who can help you too. I'm having my computer read this document and I've found much more than just those caught by her other reader.

I encourage you to try it out. You'd be surprised the little things this trick will help you find. For me, other than those annoying words that look so close to something that should belong in that sentence, this helps me with coma placement and sentence rhythm. It's a rhythm that the brain puts in there most of the time, but with a little literary help, the end result is less work for the reader, affording them more enjoyment in the content of the story. Try it - you'll like it - I'm sure of it.

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To Edit, or Not To Edit

That is the question, or at least it seems to be in some cases. In short, yes, you should. Have I? Yes, I have in all but two of my books. Those two, I edited myself. I didn't have the finances, but I did want to get them out there.

However, it has come to my attention that more than likely, the problem of whether to edit or not has been the same for a very long time. One of the books I'm reading at the moment was published back in 1847. Now it's not a book I would just pick up, mostly because I'm fairly certain I'd never run across it where I look for books, but I am enjoying it even though the writing style is drawn out and flowery, making some of the dialogue seem rather tedious. What I find odd about this book is the sprinkling of editorial mistakes I have occasionally noticed. Now, don't get me wrong, the spelling is European, but I'm familiar with most of those discrepancies. I'm about three-quarters of the way to the end and I've noticed a handful of dropped words as well as a few typos. Giving when the book was published, I have no idea what kind of editorial services were available back then, nor do I know if the book was published traditionally (or as traditionally as was possible back then), or if it made it to cover by some other means.

Now I know how hard it can be to hire an editor. I'm not rich; in fact I probably live well below the poverty level. It is my hope that one day my writing will help me do something about that. Until then, I'm comfortable enough, but it also means that my hiring an editor is directly linked to whatever work I can find where payments can be brought in through my PayPal account, be it the sale of a book or two during the summer, or paying for my help with your writing. I don't claim to be an expert because I did all my learning here on line rather than from some expert in some sort of school. I simply don't have the money to pay for the luxury of going back to school.

Editing though - who do you trust? That's a good question. With the advent of self publishing, independent editors abound, and I'm sure the field will continue to grow. With all these editors out there, the choice is incredibly hard. Trusting your manuscript to just anyone is also very risky, or it can be. While I run across more and more editors, I suppose it is fortunate that I have heard very little about pirating of manuscripts.

So how do you choose? For myself, you have my most solemn promise that I will treat your manuscript with the same care I would my own, and I believe in keeping promises. For all those others - do your homework. Look them up. See if there is anyone who has used them in the past and ask them for their opinion. Heck, if you can, use the 'Look Inside' feature (if there is one) and read something they've claimed to edit. Sometimes authors will list who edited the book and sometimes not. Reading is the ultimate test.

There are different kinds of editors too. There's the guy who does little more then run your manuscript through his grammar and spell-checker. I firmly believe my very first editor did something of the sort, though he may have done a little more than that. As a writer hungry to learn more about writing, I learned nothing from him. That's probably at the bottom end of the spectrum of editors though. Don't scoff at the spelling bee champion out there, there are so many screwy words in the english language.

There are three main kinds of editors out there:

• The copy-editor, the guy who checks your spelling, sentence structure, and such, isn't the only kind of editor out there. 
• There is also the content editor, the guy who goes to the next level by scrutinizing your paragraph structure and story flow. This person looks at the story as a whole. They look for loopholes and inconsistencies. They also might look for loose ends, I know I certainly try to. 
• And then there's the proofreader. This guy reads through the work looking for whatever mistakes they might be able to find. 

I guess I try to do it all. I know when I'm reading through some book, any of these issues will jump out at me anymore - too much editing my own stuff, I guess. Even formatting will annoy me if it's just all over the place. Appearance is just as important to me and a misspelled word.

So, in case you haven't caught on yet, I'm trying to break into the field in a minor sort of way. I'll never claim to be an expert, because I consider an expert...well...just that, someone with far more education than I had in the field. However, I do think I've gotten pretty darn good at what I do. Be careful out there as you surf around looking for an editor. Thar's sharks in them thar waters.

Happy writing.

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Just How Careful Are You?

Are you self-published? Meaning do you publish your books yourself, either through Kindle Direct Publishing, CreateSpace, NookBooks, or any of the other publishing formats accessible directly to the writer. If you are, how careful are you about the product you turn out?

Since I started reading whatever tweaked my interest, especially within the environment I've currently been swimming, meaning the different on line forums where books are advertised by my friends and acquaintances and other people who frequent the same sites, I've noticed the product has improved over the last few years. In the beginning, the documents and PDFs I read were really quite bad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the story itself (most of the time), I'm talking about the product, the document, the book. Of course, most of the time, editing was the biggest issue in those early days, or at least that's what I noticed, and in those first days, if I noticed it, it was pretty bad.

Now, since I've had my Kindle, I see other things most of the time, not that editing isn't still something of an issue upon occasion, but usually it's just carelessness that grates my teeth these days. Nowadays, the eBook without a variety of formatting, or spacing, or paragraph indenting problems, is few and far between, and really very nice when I run across one.

To date, I've published two books all on my lonesome using CreateSpace (for paperback) as well as KDP for Kindle. Both allow me to look at what my book will look like as a finished product. Things I check for are:

• Are the chapter headings at the beginning of the page?
• Are my paragraphs all indented the way I like them to be?
• If I used graphics, are they where I want them to be?
• Is everything inside the margins prescribed by them?
• Is anything at all out of place? (I once found a random line that didn't belong)
• How about the header? (I once had to fix the indent there cause it was off center from the title)
• How about the footer? Are your page numbers where you want them? I don't put page numbers in my eBooks.

That's not all though, that's just the kinds of things I look for while I'm there, but before I get there, I do a spelling and grammar recheck of my document. That clears all those things you've opted to ignore in the past. Now there's all those nice little red and green squiggly lines. Going through this step would have helped the book I'm reading right now quite a lot, because frequently the space is before the comma or period rather than after it. This is a byproduct of some formatting work that created more problems. I'm not sure what it is or how it got past the editor, but I've seen it more than just this time.

You also have to understand that those nifty little squiggly red lines won't find all typos. There are a lot of words that are official words, but they are not the word you want in that spot. One I've noticed in this book is a word I happen to like - belying - meaning 'to put a lie to' or 'show something as false or impossible' - in this case spelled 'bellying'. As you can see, the spelling isn't far off and they are both in the dictionary. Believe it or not, I even found a 'there/their' mistake. I was really quite surprised to find that one.

I do know that some of these typos are rather hard to spot. That's what makes a beta reader so valuable. There's nothing like a fresh pair of eyes to read through your manuscript, especially if they happen to be good with spelling. But in lieu of a fresh pair of eyes, you could accumulate a list of these kinds of typos and manually check for them. I strongly suggest you do this. At the very least, develop a list of your own writing weaknesses. I have one.

So writing your story is the fun part, but if you really care about your work, making sure the finished product is all it can be is the work part of your project, and none of it can be neglected. Take great care, and be very picky. The harder you work on this, the better the finished product will be. The byproduct of that will be a happy reader who just might tell a friend or two about your book, and that should put a smile on your face.

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Where is Your Passion

I was looking forward to this post being about an editor I met on FB, but she didn't seem to have the time, stating a busy family life and the coming holidays. She wanted to post a short list of generic editing tips, whereas I wanted you to get to know her, to get a feel for her passion for the job, her love of taking a rough diamond and turning it into a polished gem. I wanted to showcase her to her advantage, but she didn't want to, didn't have time, sadly.

So...what is your passion? Where is your passion? Have you thought about it? It doesn't matter if you are in the writing business or not, are you passionate about what you do?

Writers? What of your soul do you pour into your stories? Are you excited (and terrified) to put your labor of love out there for people to read? Are you thrilled at every review, good or not so good, or even the bad ones? Even if you've written twenty or more books, is the passion still there? The excitement? The love?

Editors? Do you like taking that labor of love, that rough work, and turning it into a gleaming gem to be proud of? Are you thrilled every time you hear about or see a book that you know you had a hand in making it what it is?

Cover artists? Do you love putting together that perfect picture together and hearing how thrilled the writer is about it. Does it make you smile when you see it on a shelf somewhere, or on Amazon?

Publishers? Do you love taking these beautiful gems and putting them out there under your moniker? Does it make you proud knowing that book is such a culmination of so much work, and there it sits, glowing, waiting to reward everyone for all their hard work.

Notice I didn't mention money until the very end. Publishers are in the business end of things and so money is a large part of their concern, but the rest is no less important. Writers, editors, cover artists, and publishers too, if you are only in the game for the money, you are cutting yourself short. Of course, we all need to make a living, and yes, we should all get paid for our work, but if there is no passion, no excitement, why are you doing what you are doing? Life is too short to commit yourself to a job you have no love for.

I don't care if you are 'good' at telling a story, and being 'good' at editing can't be good enough either. I've worked with a 'dry' editor; I even spoke with him on several occasions. He always sounded bored on the phone, or maybe he was just tired. Creating an eye-popping cover takes attention to detail and a desire to create something beautiful. The bland, barely good enough cover simply isn't going to generate any sales. Believe me, I know. I have one like that.

If we all work together, with passion, excitement, and pride, the end product can only be a wonder to behold. You low budget publishers who can't afford to hire an editor for what they deserve to be paid, need to hire one passionate enough to make up the difference; your business depends on it.

So where is your passion? Is it somewhere here in the writing world? Is it perhaps in the reading world? Or somewhere else? Whatever it is, are you passionate about it? Are you proud of your work?

To Publish Again

It was about this time two years ago when I first ventured into publishing. Oh my God, I was going to be able to mix and mingle with professionals in the writing field. I should have paid closer attention when I got my edit back - that was my first interaction with a professional. I so wanted to learn from him. I was so excited. My edit, however, was far less than I hoped. Surely I wasn't that good a writer. Sure he did the editor thing, he caught when I switched the spelling of one of my minor characters. He found capitalization mistakes and verb goofs. All the things needed to make a error-free manuscript. But he never explained any of it. He never made any suggestions that might improve my skill or the story. There were also things he suggested I could see no sense in. Why should all my number-words be switched to number-figures? I even called him on that one. I asked what book he used to dictate his recommendations. Since he wasn't going to explain anything, I'd try to get the book and learn for myself. I just looked at that edited document for the first time since way back when. He commented only twenty-two times in the whole document and none of them was an explanation of anything. Bleh. Never, in all the books I've read, have I seen numbers rather than their words, other than in a math book that is. That really bothered me.

My next disappointment was when I started getting proofs. I spent a delightful hour or so on the phone talking to the two people who were supposed to be responsible for it all. They were the experts, and though I had a few preferences on fonts and such, I figured they knew what was best. What I had done was pick up the last book I'd read. I diligently counted five-character words across an average line and then the lines on that page, then I set my computer document margins and font size to get as close to those numbers as I could. That way, I would have a rough idea how many pages my book would have. It was all a visual thing for me. However, that all meant it would have to be resized to fit their requirements. Where I visualized a pocketbook sized book, they recommended the larger 6x9 size. Once again, they were the professionals. They knew what was best, surely. What did I know about book sizes? The first proof I got back was so incomplete. How could anyone release work with such glaring resizing misses???? Have they no pride in their work???

Then came the cover work. Completely out the window went my suggestion without even a mention. But once again they were the professionals, surely. They knew about cover art. I knew less than nothing. I do have a bit of an artistic eye and I tried my best to make sure the picture wasn't too busy behind the title. I tried to work with what they gave me but apparently there was only so much they could do. Then came the spine. Yes, this is book 1, and for this collection, an oval opal was the one connecting link for all three books. But do you think they could get that right??? I found them three images of an oval opal on line and sent them to use as an example. What did I get in return??? Something that looked like an oval piece of marble. I mean really, the opal with its sparkling center was important, but apparently they didn't have one they could use.

Yes, it was a disappointing, expensive learning experience, but it was a learning experience. I learned that I should have stood my ground and insisted on what I wanted, or at least a lot closer. They would have bowed to my desires, after all I was footing the bill. That book will have a second coming one day - maybe when I finish book 3, and I can publish them all together.

I was, however, able to pass on what I've learned to a close friend of my brother's who is also just publishing a book. His publisher recommended a different title. When I asked him about it, he told me the one he had wanted and why. It was important to the story. I told him to stick by his title and his publisher bowed to his desire. I'm all for suggestions. I really want what's best, but what's best isn't always what's easiest to do, to see, or to say.

Now - here I am again. After two years of making like a search light over dark and stormy seas, looking for someone to help me get another book out there. I scrutinize the websites of potential agents. I hover over various writing groups and blogs, watching for a mention. Occasionally, I send out a query, always trying to include everything they say they want. I don't send out mass queries; I want each one to be from me to the person I'm sending it to. There are thousands of places out there full of advice on how to write a query to hook the agent in the first sentence, but in my opinion, if my letter isn't good enough, neither is my query, and if my query isn't good enough, maybe I don't want to be working with that person in the first place - let it be their loss for not taking me on. Yes, I'm proud of my work, and I'm proud of who I am and who I have always been. I am me. This is my work. Take me or leave me and I will move on.

Just the other day I found the website for a new publishing company. So new they only have a few authors under their belt. According to the website, they wanted any submissions to have been read by someone else - a luxury I can understand and advise others to get if at all possible, however, it is something I have been unable to indulge in much myself. Living in the wilderness has its drawbacks in that I know few people and not many of them read, fewer still could give me the help I needed from such a reading. "Yes, I like it." or "That's not my kind of story." Really isn't all that much help.

At any rate, since it was an important stipulation, I sent them an email asking about it and explaining some of my situation. I think he must have taken a look at some of my links, at any rate, his reply was very understanding and he asked that I submit a sample. Going back to the website, I sent in what was asked, and also according to the site, I could expect a reply in two to three weeks.

I prepared to sit back and wait my two weeks or so. I posted a note on Facebook announcing my submission and got lots of good luck wishes. That is so nice, you know. To know so many people are watching my progress through this writing sea I'm trying to navigate, and to know that they took a moment of their time to wish me luck.

Lo and behold!!! Only four days after my submission, he asked me for the full manuscript. Oh my God!!!! Am I really on this journey???? And I KNOW I'll be among the real professionals this time. Will he take me on for real??? We'll have to see. I'll be sure to keep you informed.