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You Can Edit Your Own Work by Connie Vines

July 13, 2016 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , ,
‘Do I really need to hire a professional editor?’

When you are busy writing your first draft, you can definitely edit your own work.  An editor is usually brought in only when you have a complete manuscript. Whether you’re at an early stage of writing your novel or you can’t afford to hire an editor at present, you can learn to edit your own work. Begin these 6 easy steps:
1. Take a break
This break in between the time that you finish your novel and the time that you return to it for editing is essential for several reasons.
During the time that you are apart from your novel, your subconscious will still be working on it. You will be surprised at the types of connections that you’ll make on returning to the work. If you are a writer who edits as you go, taking small breaks between finishing sections like this can also help. Thus resulting in the growth of fresh story ideas.
Distance from the work allows you re-read with a fresh perspective. On returning to your novel, you will be surprised to find passages that you don’t remember writing; passages that affect you emotionally as though someone else were the author. I call this the ‘goosebumps’ factor (remember the scene in Romancing the Stone?  If not, rent the movie).
With this re-read you will find weaknesses, plot holes, sentence structure that simply doesn’t flow, etc.   Assessing your book realistically is easier after a break as well. While in the process of writing it, you probably experienced times when you thought you were writing an extraordinary novel as well as times of great self-doubt. Now your judgement will not be clouded.
Try not to think about your novel very much during your break (work on one of my other WsIP). If something does occur to you, make a note to come back to when you start your revision. Do not dwell on your new ideas. Calendar your re-read a week or two after completion of your novel. 
2.    Get organized
  • When you sit down to do your revision, you must first get organized both physically and mentally.

Prepare your work-space. Have your writing reference resources within reach.    
Make a schedule for your revision just as you did for writing your novel. Set a goal and stick to it. Do you need a tracking system? Sticky notes? Spreadsheets, a notebook with sections and multicolored pens/highlighters, or a filing drawer?
Whatever planning you did prior to writing your novel, when you revise you will need to track things such as structure, characters, scenes and plot points to ensure that they all fit together. During your revision, you’ll need to do things like examine each scene to ensure that it moves your novel forward and does what it sets out to do. Your system can be as formal or informal as you like. The most important thing is that any editing system you use is intuitive for you and helps rather than hinders you.
3.    Develop a plan
You should make yourself a checklist for dealing with all the large and small issues you want to examine over the course of your novel. A romance novel, will have one thread showing the progression of the love story.  A crime novel, will require clues are appropriately placed and reveal just enough to the reader. While science fiction or fantasy, will require world-building that is very solid.
4.    Questions to ask yourself
·         Does the book work structurally? If you followed some version of the three-act structure, did you maintain that structure and does it create a satisfying form?
·         Does your plot make sense? What about the subplots? Are there any logical errors? Do the subplots work with the plot, or do they distract from it or make the book seem like too much is happening?

·         Are your characters well-developed? Do they seem like they could exist as flesh and blood? Do they behave in ways that are plausible for them?
·         How is your setting? Is it fully realized? Does it need more or less detail? Is it integral to the story?

·         Are there places in the book where the narrative seems to drag?
·         Do you deliver information to your readers in a way that is engaging?
·         How is your prose? Are your sentences grammatically correct?

This is just a start; you will have your own questions you’ll want to consider. Once you’ve made your plan, it’s time to start the actual revision:

5.    Make multiple passes
Editing is seldom a one-step process. First do a read through. Make notes, about problems, new ideas, structure, language problems. Don’t stop reading and begin revising.  Just make notes.
Next, go through the book more carefully and address the major elements. (# 3) Use your checklists to look at plot, structure, character, setting and the other major parts of your novel. If you find that you are going to be doing major rewrites, you should work on those rewrites before you do any line editing.
After addressing any major issues and completed your line editing, take a look at your prose. It’s now time to read your book out loud. This may seem time-consuming, but nothing compares to reading a piece of fiction out loud for finding clunky phrasings, repetitions and other things that just don’t work (if I’m not careful, my characters spend too much time drinking coffee).
6.     Get feedback

The final step in your revision is having others read your work. You may already have writing friends or belong to a writing group. Some writers(I) find it useful to ask my reader(s) to focus on certain aspects of the book. Remember readers who are not writers notice things, both views are valuable.  

The value of having others look over your work is that they will spot mistakes or inconsistencies you might miss because you are so immersed in the craft of writing.
Editing and revising are not separate from the process of writing. They are just as important as writing drafts. Editing and revising will sharpen and strengthen your novel.  After all, we want our novel to be ‘exactly’ a publisher has been waiting to acquire.
Happy Writing,
Connie Vines

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Cinderella’s Happily Edit After: My Kindle Scout Experience Part 3 by Jina Bacarr

July 11, 2015 by in category Jina’s Book Chat tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(You can read my previous posts about my experience with the Kindle Scout program by clicking on Part 1 and Part 2.)

Remember when Cinderella was all aflutter getting ready for the ball? Her fairy godmother shows up and poof! Cindy has a gorgeous gown, a carriage, and the sexiest pair of glass slippers. Next, she meets the prince, loses her slipper, gets it back, and marries the handsomest man in the land.

Then comes a reality check.

Cindy is a princess with a hundred and fifty room castle to manage, servants galore, royal obligations, and a demanding mother-in-law who can’t wait to show her off at high teas.

First, she must learn how to be a princess.

Kinda like putting out a good book. It’s a lot of work. Period.

After my 30-day campaign with Kindle Scout for LOVE ME FOREVER, my Civil War time travel romance, being on and off the Hot and Trending list, then waiting to see if I made the cut, came my reality check.

Edits.

Most writers would rather clean bathrooms for a week than open the Editorial Letter.

I was shaking in my slippers when mine came. I worked more than two years on LOVE ME FOREVER, getting the research right, the romance, settings. Not an easy task. My story is over 150,000 words.

Which brings me to one of my favorite things about Kindle Scout: the Kindle Press Team. With everyone jumping into the self-publishing arena, it’s easy to want to write, write, write and get it out there. Do-it-yourself, especially if you’ve been writing for a long time. I can wrap my head around a story pretty well. I’ve written several novels for trad publishers, non-fiction books, kids’ TV scripts, and plenty of magazine columns and stories.

But no writer is an island.

A good editor is as important as Cinderella’s fairy godmother. She/he can wave their magic wand and give you that extra spin on your book, make you dig deeper, cut excess. One thing that drew me to the Kindle Scout program was the idea of receiving editorial input.

I wasn’t disappointed. The editorial guidance at Kindle Scout/Kindle Press is awesome.

I’m thrilled to say that my editor at Kindle Press was thorough, gave excellent suggestions, made me think, and complimented me along the way when she particularly liked something. She’s definitely one of the best editors I’ve ever had. The turnaround was quick: a week to complete the edits. I admit I hardly slept and I maxed out the balance on my Starbucks gold card, but the KP Team gave me a heads up three weeks before as to exactly what day to expect the email with the attached files and they delivered.

So here we are at a new juncture in my Kindle Scout experience. Edits done; book in production.

Preorder begins: July 13, 2015. 

On Sale at Amazon: July 28, 2015.

Am I nervous? You bet I am. I put my heart and soul into this story, laughed and cried with my characters every step of the way. I’m anxious to get it out there. But the best part is, I feel confident that as part of the Kindle Scout program, LOVE ME FOREVER is the best it can be.

~Jina

Website: www.jinabacarr.com
Blog: www.jinabacarr.wordpress.com

Next month: Part 4: what happens when my Kindle Scout book, LOVE ME FOREVER, goes on sale.

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That Pesky Internal Editor

August 19, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,

I think we’ve all laughed along with the t-shirt motto: I’m Secretly Correcting Your Grammar. And nodded because, yes, we are. We each have our own particular misuse or phrase that acts like fingernails on a blackboard. For me it’s Who/Which/That. I find myself inserting “Who” for “That” while following a conversation, or listening to a television news personality.
We can also be distracted by titles or weak plot points. Most recently I remember a title referring to the hero as soldier coming home. Lovely thoughts. Except this particular hero was a Navy SEAL, as in SAILOR. Somehow this faux pas made it past multiple editors as well as an author who has in the past shown excellent military knowledge.
Maybe we’ve become experts at catching plot anomalies such as horses changing color (or their riders shifting from in the saddle to on the ground to in the saddle without ever actually mounting or dismounting) I remember one love scene where the hero unbuttoned the heroine’s blouse then removed her dress…guess she really wanted to cover up.
Sometimes that editor doesn’t even show up when we first read or hear something that will one day bother us. I’m thinking about “Sound of Music” which I saw when it came out at the drive-in theatre (remember those?) and subsequently wore out the sound track on my record player. Sometimes while I’m gardening or working with the dogs, I’ll break out into show tunes, since there’s no one around to hear me. I was singing “(How Do You Solve a Problem Like) Maria,” trying to sing all parts myself since the dogs aren’t great at following a tune.
“She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee. Her dress has got a tear. She waltzes on the way to mass and whistles on the stair. And underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair. I’ve even…” Wait a minute? Curlers in her hair? For a young woman from a small village who intends to be a nun? Where would she buy curlers and why would she spend her money in that fashion? For that matter, if she’s a novitiate, wearing a wimple, she’s not going to have enough hair to wear curlers. Certainly Julie Andrews wasn’t showing off flowing locks of hair in the movie.
Minor?  Perhaps, in this instance. After all the movie, the music, the story all combined to enchant us to such an extent we probably wouldn’t question the curlers. I certainly didn’t until, well let’s see, Sound of Music came out in 1959 and it’s…ahem.  Well, anyway…
We’d all like to hope our characters are so compelling readers will ignore minor editing issues. Except what’s minor when it comes to editing? A character who despises coffee in the first chapter and is swilling down espressos in the second half of the book, with no logical explanation for the change in taste.  Although come to think of it, that is an interesting plot point. Hmmmm
Sorry for the digression, must be too much coffee. Or maybe not enough? Of course we’d rather be known for scintillating dialogue and compelling characters instead of unintended humor due to poor editing. And we really don’t want to dump a confusing mess on our editors, especially if we want to keep sending them books.
This problem has many solutions including beta readers, critique partners, and people you pay to give your book a cold read. Just be sure whoever has input on your story cares enough about you to be brutally honest when necessary. Better them than someone reading your story after publication.
Happy writing
Monica Stoner w/a Mona Karel
http://mona-karel.com/

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Of Edits and Covers and other Minutiae

March 19, 2012 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , ,

by
Monica Stoner, Member at Large
I continue to be amazed to read “no one edits books anymore.” Mind you, I have read quite a few books that don’t seem to be edited at all. But it’s hard to say if the books were not edited or maybe they just were not edited well.  However that works, I do know some publishers do still edit submissions, and state so quite clearly in their websites.
I can only personally speak of my own publisher, Black Opal Books.  My books have received three edits: one for spelling and basic grammar, one for syntax and style, and a final review by the lead editor.  Each time the book comes back to me, I read it from beginning to end, considering the suggestions, made some of my own, and along the way found even more places where words could be replaced, eliminated, polished.  This after what I thought was an intensive rewrite.  There really is always room for improvement.
And how many times are we told: “The author has no control over the title, the cover, the blurb, or anything else to do with their book but the actual words?”  Lucky me, I have not experienced this situation.  The cover for My Killer My Love was collaboration between me and another Black Opal Books author.  I had the face I wanted to use (see image on the right) and I knew I wanted the face “haunting” an ancient forest.  



For my upcoming book, the edits made Teach Me To Forget more poignant than I had ever imagined it could be.  The blurb was a matter of a few messages between Lauri Wellington, editor extraordinaire, and me.  But I could NOT come up with any sort of cover.  Too many scenes crowded into my head: Bethany’s travesty of a wedding, her later success as a feature writer, her Irish setter, or Jonathan’s past life as a jet setter, his new life as a nature photographer.  Any of those would have been a decent cover, but none sang to me.  So I admitted defeat, and asked for help.  Within a day, I received this cover:
Okay, so Jonathan and Bethany never really got it on in the middle of the woods.  But for such a pretty cover, I think we can allow a little poetic license.
Teach Me To Forget will available in e-book format May, 2012 from Black Opal Books.  
Mona Karel’s blog talks about cooking and dieting and getting by.  
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