Archives: Revision

The Right Editor for the Right Job

Think of an editor as a medical professional. If you have an infected foot, a brain surgeon may not be helpful. Your manuscript must have vitality, to be submittable or published independently; it must be fit, throbbing with life, well-formed, well-groomed, and dressed in its Sunday best. The editor needed for the job depends on where you are on your path to print.

Post Second Draft Check up – Manuscript Critique

You’ve survived your first round of revisions, cleaned up obvious errors, filled story holes, polished tone and pace, and digested feedback from beta readers. Now what?  Time to put on your big writer pants and seek a professional. Genre is key to finding the right (write) editor. If the editor is neither experienced nor aware of your market, save your money. Find an editor well versed in your genre. If you write memoir, you want a seasoned creative non-fiction editor, not a  fantasy/sci-fi editor.

What can you expect from a manuscript critique? The editor is an attentive reader who provides feedback regarding content. Think of it as a physical. Expect a 5-10 page report that highlights the health of your work — both the good and possible trouble points. Anticipate criticism and comment about the opening, structure, POV, style, pace, dialogue, and ending. Specific pages, passages, and plot points will be highlighted. Is the work compelling, does it work as a whole, and if not, what steps need to be taken? Prepare to be relieved, with moments of associated delight and terror.

Terrified about what a manuscript critique might cost? Editing, like a good diet, is an iterative process. The more you improve your practice, the better you can manage the ultimate cost.

Identify your writer’s habits. with the help of an editor/writer’s coach. Your habits: qualifying phrases, word overuse,  complicated dialogue attributions, a preference for stutter verbs, voice shifts, adequate pace, and characterization can be identified in as little as three chapters. The editor will mark up the work with highlights and suggestions. It is up to you scan your full document for other examples and make corrections to achieve the third draft. The cleaner the draft, the more focus on content by a developmental editor.

Developmental Editing – Penultimate Draft

If a manuscript critique is equivalent to a physical at a GP, a developmental edit is on par with a full work up at the Mayo Clinic. You look for a developmental editor when you have taken the manuscript as far as you can toward a goal of submission or independent publishing. Expect in-depth feedback on all issues: word use, historical accuracy, questions regarding writer’s choices, under or overdeveloped characters, pace, a tone in keeping with the genre, marketability, and praise for strengths. Don’t waste your money on developmental editing if your work is not ready. Patients do not go to the Mayo Clinic for hangnails or two or three bouts of indigestion.

Copyediting – Final, Final

You can be a brilliant writer but be a horrible technician. I’ve coached many writers who insist on creating their own document structure rather than follow standard submission guidelines. A unique document structure may feel creative at the beginning of a draft, but it is hell to clean up at the end. Ignoring structure and punctuation rules is like living on Tostitos and soda until 5:00 and happy hour appetizers and alcohol until bedtime for ten years. A seven-day detox will not correct the underlying and long-term issues. Writing is a practice. Copyeditors are perfectionists. They want every comma, paragraph indent, en dash, and period in its proper place. Many a prospective agent has dismissed a manuscript for sloppiness, not content.

Many a Mayo Clinic visit is built on a foundation of bad choices. Ensure that your work is the best you can make it for a clean bill of health. A strong, healthy, and clean manuscript increases publication chances and happy readers.

I Can’t Afford an Editor

“I Can’t Afford an Editor.”   

I hear this claim in every class I teach or writer’s group I attend. The complaint hides two fears: bloody red ink on your manuscript and the idea that a supposed, expert stranger will tell you what to write. The cost is a factor but it is not the factor. 

To allay your fears and minimize the cost know that editing is an iterative, not a one and done process. What do I mean?

• Only you can write your 1st draft. Introducing an editor at this phase is a form of creative suicide;
• Create a full draft, celebrate, and self-edit after you take the following steps:
  • Celebrate your accomplishment
  • Allow the text to marinate in a safe inaccessible place for 2-6 weeks
  • Read the full manuscript as a reader, not a writer
    • Understand that you can never be a fully objective reader
  • Return to the text to read as a self-editor
    • Is the point of view consistent?
    • Are there adequate transitions?
    • Have you used enough dialogue to move the action forward?
    • Is the pace and tone in keeping with the genre?
    • Did you use the five senses as tools to show not tell your story?
• Use your self-edits to write a second draft.
  • Be amazed by how you have improved the text
• Do a copyedit of the second draft, use online tools to help you
  • Spell & grammar checks
  • Grammarly.com
  • Search and replace tools
• Ask other writers to act as beta readers:
  • Specify what you want from readers
  • Specify the desired turn around time
    • Be sure the anticipated return is reasonable for the length of the manuscript
    • Don’t resent a no response, timing is everything
    • Be willing to reciprocate
• Read through the provided edits with care
  • Consider every comment and use those that resonate to complete your third draft

Presuming that you’ve made edits to the manuscript based on reader feedback, re-read the text with the above-bulleted self-edit questions in mind, performed a second tools scan, and made all changes you can identify you will have a completed third draft and you haven’t spent a cent. Congratulations!

Time to hire an editor.

How do you find the right editor?

See you next post. Happy writing.

Let Your Internal Editor Out of the Closet

Your draft is done, correct? I hope you celebrated this major goal. It a rare occurrence and few can appreciate the work involved to attain it. Is your draft perfect? No. But guess what no one’s first draft is perfect. After the celebration, even if it is a party of one, put your manuscript away for three to six weeks.  Why? It allows you to create space between writing and reading. It’s amazing what you see when you return to the text as a reader with fresh eyes.

Please read the text without pen or other writing implements. Read for story, flow, pace, and context. Treat the manuscript as any book you read. Create a review. What works, what doesn’t work for you as a reader, not as an editor. Your internal editor will be chomping at the bit to chide you, demand changes and question your every word. She’s hungry for red ink. Reread the text as editor and reader. It is the editor’s job to hunt for your writing habits:

Reread the text as editor and reader. It is the editor’s job to hunt for your writing habits:

• Overuse of comfort words: would, could, when, turn, became
• Qualifying phrases
• Misuse of synonyms
• Punctuation
• Fear of jumping into the action
• Overuse of internal dialogue
• Wordy dialogue attributions

It is the editor’s job to draw the blood of red ink, an indication of decisions you need to make as the writer. Not all ink splatter is equal. As the writer, you are the CSI. You must decide what is relevant and what is superfluous. Second draft is not the time for copyediting it is the time to make decisions regarding story. Are you telling the story from the best point of view? Are character details consistent throughout the text? Do you have adequate transitions to enable the reader to move forward without question? Have you refrained from over telling? Are the details consistent with time and place?

Reread the text with pen in hand and mark up content with the above questions in mind and indicate with question marks in the margins to indicate decision points raised by your internal editor and your notes as the reader. Let the revisions begin.

Remember you have the final say as the writer and referee for all feedback from the reader and editor.