Category Archives: Editing

Autumn arriving

02 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by in Boring, Editing, Food, Swimming

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It felt like fall today, so I made myself winter food for breakfast: veggie hash, which is basically just whatever veggies I have available, chopped up reasonably small (for fast cooking) and sauteed, with some protein source mixed in. Today, it was acorn squash, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, bok choy, and red onion with bacon. Some spices — garlic-salt and ginger — while cooking. At the last minute, I added half an avocado because I had two that are ripe. Wow, the avocado just made it. It added a touch of cool creaminess, but the heat of the veggies was enough to soften it, so all the veggies became lightly avocado-flavored. That sounds weird, but it was delicious.

In the last four days, I have edited 150,000 words. (Mostly not my own words.) I am seriously wiped out. Editing is such focused work. But I enjoyed it. Most of all, I enjoyed going over to a friend’s last night for our weekly writing get-together and getting to be back in my own world again. Spending my day hours editing made my evening hours of writing all the better.

I haven’t thought much about editing as what I should be doing to make money while I write for fun, but now I’m considering the idea. I thought I was so burned out on editing that I would never go back, but… well, I don’t know. Maybe.

Yesterday, first day of October, I stretched my lunch break to two hours so that I could spend one of them floating in the pool and reading a book. I think this is the first time that I’ve still been swimming regularly as October begins. This year I saw maybe two love bugs, that was it. Usually by now we’re infested with them. Maybe the summer was too wet? But I’m grateful for the last lingering days of enjoying the water.

This feels like a very boring blog post, but I’ve got a bunch of businesslike things to do — making a new box set, pulling The Spirits of Christmas from non-Amazon sites, downloading a translation, writing a book description and a forward — and I’m feeling so fried from the editing that I’m avoiding all those things. Plus, avocado in veggie hash & swimming in October are things I want to remember, and blogging works that way for me. But back to work I go…

Editing: Looking at the Big Picture

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Editing

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So a manuscript is finished, yay!

Most people suggest that the first step is to put it away for a while to get some distance from what you’ve written, some objectivity about your words. I do think that’s a sensible idea. I don’t do it very well myself. With Ghosts, I tried to wait a month, but actually I spent that month posting chapters at Critique Circle and resisting the temptation to make more than minor edits. With later books, I’ve managed a few days or a couple of weeks. With A Lonely Magic, it was more like a night. Ah, well.

My true first step is to read the whole manuscript, beginning to end, in a format not the same as the one in which I wrote it. I usually create a Kindle version and use that. My goal is to try to read it as a reader would. I don’t try to make fixes along the way. Instead, I make notes. Lots of them! Here’s what I’m looking for:

    1) Scenes

    Does every scene have a clear purpose? Does every scene move the plot forward? Is every scene necessary? Why does a given scene HAVE to happen? What does it accomplish? If the scene disappeared, what effect would it have on the overall story? If it’s not accomplishing anything important, could I add something to it that would be valuable?

    The flip side, of course, is whether I’ve skipped scenes. I do that more often than writing useless scenes (although I’ve done some of the former.) For example, I’ll often start a scene, then throw in some background information, something that’s happened previously, then continue the scene and in the first read, I realize that the background information should have been a scene on its own.

    In A Gift of Time, most early versions skipped from the bistro to days later at Natalya’s house. Then at Nat’s house, I had multiple paragraphs about what had happened at the police station and with the therapist. In the final version, that was a full scene of its own, one which established Colin’s character, developed a better sense of Kenzi’s behavior, gave Nat & Colin another opportunity for tension, dropped a bunch of clues about Kenzi’s background, and let me balance out my point-of-view switches a little better.

    2) Setting

    I don’t like writing description and I don’t like reading description, so I generally avoid it as much as possible. Sometimes, though, that makes scenes feel floaty, un-anchored, or even confusing. I revised the first scene in A Lonely Magic repeatedly, trying to make it more visual while maintaining the tension, and some readers still found it confusing. Of course, too much description can be boring. I also almost invariably wind up marking my descriptions with notes that say things like, “Clunky and boring, trim!” or “total cliche, fix ad make interesting.” But I make sure in my first revision that each scene has a clear sense of place. If you read my CBCA series of posts, you can think of it as a contextual embedding check–I make sure that I haven’t skipped including those details, because for me, they’re easy to not include in a first draft.

    3) Pacing

    This is an easy check, a hard fix. If I start skimming–and I’m a serious skimmer most of the time, so it’s instinct for me–I immediately stop reading, identify where I started skimming, and mark it for revision. Maybe it needs tightening, maybe it needs to be deleted, maybe it needs to be pumped up, to have some emotion added. I don’t necessarily know as I’m reading what I need to change, but I know that the pacing is wrong if I start skimming.

    And the flip side of that, of course, is that I also look for scenes that are too quick. I think every book I’ve written has a first version of the climax that almost a bare bones outline instead of a complete scene. Those are easy to identify but less fun to fix.

    Finally, I try to consider the overall pace of the story. In A Lonely Magic, the first draft has a climactic moment that is immediately followed by a ton of exposition. In the final version, almost all of that conversation gets moved ahead of the climactic moment so that the pacing doesn’t go straight from a major adrenaline high action moment to a thud of historical detail. So in this first revision pass, I look at the high and lows of the story and try to make sure that they flow the way they should. One of my favorite reviews of ALM calls it a “tilt-a-whirl” which I loved. It means I hit what I was aiming for!

The final element that I look for in this first draft revision is the most important to me, so I’m going to give it a whole blog post of its own next time. Any guesses about what it is?

*****
Today’s writing goal: a whole chapter, at least 1000+ words, of my final Eureka story. I’m dragging my feet about wrapping it up, because it feels like I’m closing a chapter of my life. But it’s time.

A course in editing that doesn’t exist

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Editing, Self-publishing

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So I applied for a teaching job about three weeks ago, one that sounded sort of astonishingly perfect for me. It would be for a college level course on editing and revisions at a career-focused school. Alas, I haven’t heard a word back, not even the basic form letter acknowledgement that I applied. I’m thinking I give it another week or so and then move on. My problem, though, is that my brain doesn’t want to move on. During my long dog walks, when I’m supposed to be thinking about my villain and how his conversation with Natalya goes, I’m pondering knowledge and lectures and teaching methods.

How would I structure a course in editing? How would I structure class time? What kinds of activities could teach someone how to edit their work? What’s the best learning style for an activity that is usually solitary? What’s the most important information that I’d want students to walk away with? How would the process be different for screenwriters and game designers?

I’m thinking if I write some of it down, I’ll be able to let go of it. So here goes. (And if you have no interest in learning about editing and revisions and information design and learning theory, come back next week, instead. Maybe I’ll write about ducks again.)

The course takes four weeks, so I’d structure the overall arc as:

Week 1: First readers

  1. Alphas, betas, and OSC’s concept of a “wise reader.”
    1. Building a support team of early readers
    2. Communicating
  2. Critique groups, online and off. Pros/cons.
    1. KRusch on perfection
  3. Responding to critiques
    1. Neil Gaiman: “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
  4. Collaborating (important for screenwriters and game designers, less so for novelists) and communication.

Depending on the size of the class, I’d break them into groups that they’ll stay in for the length of the course, so that each student’s project gets an alpha, beta, and wise read from one other student, and each student also provides an alpha, beta, and wise read for one other student. So groups of four would be the ideal, but if it didn’t work out that way, I’d figure it out. Possibly pairs with three sets of reads instead of the team approach. That might work better, anyway.

Week 2: Structural and developmental editing

  1. The job of a structural or developmental editor or producer(?). Revision requests.
  2. Pacing
    1. The three-act structure: hook, conflict, climax
    2. Story beats
  3. Characterization
    1. Making your characters work. Goals, motivations
    2. Dialogue: tightening, tweaking, finding authentic voices, key words. Reading aloud.
    3. Character details, choosing the right level & info
      1. Minor characters don’t need names or backstories
      2. Major characters – quick sketches plus meaningful info, killing details that don’t influence plot or story
  4. Details: “Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work. … Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.” —Stephen King in Writer’s Digest
    1. Criteria-based content analysis for strong storytelling: choosing the right details
    2. Subtext and foreshadowing (Joss Whedon examples from Firefly, ie the set up for the stranded in space episode)
    3. TVTropes: The Law of Conservation of Detail
    4. Visualization and sensory information
      1. Visualization esp. vital for screenplays – setting mood and tone

Week 3: Copy-editing (“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”—Elmore Leonard)

  1. Stylesheets & background info: names, places, details
  2. Knowing yourself — developing individual checklists for your own common errors
  3. The fundamental grammar mistakes (it’s vs its, they’re vs their) and tricks for checking on them
  4. Repetitions and word choices
  5. Stronger verbs, passive voice
  6. Adjectives, adverbs – how to decide if they’re useful (cut/come back later)
  7. Tightening, cutting unnecessary words (Elements of Style?)
  8. Online editors – prowritingaid.com, autocrit.com, others

Week 4: Proofreading & Formatting

  1. Fresh eyes – the need for a break between editing and proofing
  2. Tricks – putting the file into another format (Kindle, paper, different font size), reading aloud, listening to it read aloud (computer), blocking off lines with paper or a ruler, reading it backwards
  3. Using Find & Replace (carefully!)
  4. Punctuation issues (?)
  5. Using styles and shortcuts
  6. Cleaning up hidden code (Sigil?)
  7. Formatting rules for different types of files, ie screenplay rules, game rules, etc.

I suspect that the actual breakdown of classes wouldn’t be by weeks. The biggest and best topics all come in week 2, but a lot of the work comes in week 3 and 4, given that the students don’t really have enough time to do serious revisions on a major work. They might discover that a major revision, like deleting a character, would improve the work, but not have time to do it. So probably each class during week 3 and 4 would be half the subject of the week and half more on one of the topics from week 2. Blend things up a bit. Hmm, possibly the way to go would be to have half the class time be on the subject and half be spent looking at their own real work, in discussion format, with a focused topic, such as details or dialogue or subtext.

And speaking of classes…

I’d want to start each class with an exercise. Something experiential and engaging, that immediately gets the brain moving onto the topic at hand. I don’t even know how many classes there are so how many exercises I’d need to create (8? 12?), but examples would be things like:

1) Rewrite a scene (15-20 lines of dialogue) so that one of the characters is different (older/younger/other gendered/different culture/the villain/attracted to the other char/etc.). After ten minutes, share some lines.
2) Act a scene from one of the students’ works, student as casting director, lines read aloud. Discussion on lines afterward – did they feel fluid? Reveal character? Work as read?
3) Pick a movie quote. Why is it good? (Or bad.)
4) Find a trope used in your work (from TVtropes). Discuss if you subvert it and how, or why it works as stated in your work.
5) Create a wordcloud (wordle.net) of your WIP. Any words in there that shouldn’t be?

Hmm, possibly I’m writing homework assignments here. And possibly when I haven’t come up with an engaging exercise, I’d start the class by having them partner up with one of their first reader partners and discuss a specific piece of feedback and/or a specific scene that could use tweaking.

So, class starts with an exercise (goal: engage brain through active participation), then moves on to lecture, probably about 45 minutes. Then, alas, a quiz. I’d do a quiz in every class because of the sad fact that quizzes improve information retention. In learning theory, the more times you’re exposed to a fact and the more different ways in which you’re exposed to a fact, the better your chances are of actually remembering the fact. That’s why lectures with visuals are better than lectures without. But the perfect combo is listening, seeing, and doing. And quizzes are a good way to do.

But I hate quizzes just like everybody else in the world hates quizzes, so I’d make it so that any incorrect answers can be fixed after grading by taking the quiz home and re-doing it as open book. It becomes double homework then, so there’s motivation to just do it right the first time, but it also removes at least some of the test-taking pressure. I don’t want students sitting in dread through the first half of the class worrying about the quiz.

After the quiz a break, followed by a lecture that ideally combines experiential work. Depending on what kind of homework I’m giving, it might include some sort of homework review. For example, in the copy-editing week, we could look at the style-sheets they’ve created. But that might be boring, too. I’ll have to think some more about that.

I think the thing that makes me so very interested in teaching this class is that it so easily combines two things I love: editing and story. I love character. It’s my favorite aspect of story-telling. And you can’t edit without thinking about character. But I also love editing. I love spotting the repetition and tweaking the words and looking for the stronger verbs and tightening without removing meaning. And also, of course, after twenty years as an editor, it’s my one true area of expertise. I’m okay at lots of stuff in the world, I’m good at several things, but I’m an excellent editor. And teaching it—well, it just seems as if it would be really fun.

And now that I’ve spent three hours writing all that down, can I let it go? I hope so, because planning course curriculum for a job that I haven’t got is, at best, an exercise in frustration. I should plan a curriculum for a course in self-publishing instead, because that one I could probably find a way to teach on my own. Also, of course, even if they did hire me to teach this class, they might have a curriculum of their own that I was supposed to use. Ooh, imagine how frustrating that would be. Perhaps I shall be glad that I got the pleasure of writing it and thinking about it and let that be sufficient unto the day. I should really be writing a novel instead!