Tag Archives: getting a novel published

22 February 2012

The Roads Newly Taken

By thefallenmonkey

[Warning: The rocky trail ahead is just me placing the needle back on my same broken record. Am in pausing-to-take-stock mode, and writing is my way of therapeutically reflecting through it, so please don’t feel you need to keep reading if you’ve already heard all this crap. :)]

It’s been a lot of work and reinvention of my professional self this last decade and a half, what with making the Finance-to-Education career move and then the USA-to-UK geographical move that abruptly demanded I figure things out all over again…just when I’d had it all sorted. I was happy as an English teacher, truly, and gave a go at teaching in London. But let’s just say I know the joy to be found in teaching, so when I found myself treading water through an unpleasant situation that didn’t let me fully be who I am, well, signs to move on simply don’t come clearer than that.

I was devastated having my professional playing field leveled on moving overseas, but I find myself looking back on these last three and a half years—which had always felt rather random and drifting—and seeing what I’ve been doing in that time is finally starting to gel. I think. Even when I was teaching and loving it, my primary love for the English language and literature that I instructed naturally fed my dreams of also becoming a writer and editor. So, I’ve been biding my time writing web content and editing fiction on a freelance basis, and I’m on the cusp of finishing a second novel. And while my editing to date has been for the same small publisher, I’ve just been approached for my first outside gig and am thinking of shaping that independent role into something more official.

Baby steps.

The querying and job-searching continues as I seek to ultimately become a published writer and full-time editor. It’s humbling to compete with so many talented writers likewise seeking publication, and it’s humbling to compete with young graduates for the same in-demand entry-level jobs. I’m 35 with a Masters degree and CFA and have applied for an unpaid internship, for cripes sakes. It’s fair to say I officially checked my ego at the door in 2008. And now I’m wriggling and fussing a bit, as we newborns will do while we wait for our sight to sharpen and learn new uses for our arms, legs, and minds.

But in the meantime, best thing I can do is keep cultivating mah skillz, yo—hoping they pave a relevant path toward what I suppose is shaping into a third freaking career. And London itself just continues being its wonderful, literary self for me to absorb and enjoy, introducing me to Charles Dickens’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Lucinda, last week and various publishing professionals last night in the very space Sir Laurence Olivier dressed and rehearsed for his stage debut. Ahh, London. I love ya.

So can you tell I’m just feeling out my sense of validation here? Glad I warned ya? Not to worry—I’m very content. I just need to stop now and then to assess the situation…because I work just as hard now as I ever did, but without the compensation or recognition. Fine, I guess I’m not money-motivated. But I’d also always been one of those people who functioned best within the straight-and-narrow, doing everything I was supposed to with clear goals in mind. MY goals, fending for myself. And then I became someone’s wifey. And then supporting his goals resulted in resetting mine (no small feat when you’re as stubbornly independent and feisty as me and will rage against anything threatening your autonomy and inner life). And now that my never-expected-to-have-to-set-new-goals-so-soon new goals are finally clarifying, the road to reach them, I see, is a little less marked and a lot more meandering than what I’m used to. In fact, it looks to me like there are multiple pathways still lying ahead, some flat, some steep, some wide, and some narrowly hugging a cliffside. All of them, though, appear to converge on the horizon…so I guess it’s time for me to just stuff my yapper with a protein bar and take a hike. 🙂

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13 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Monkey Miscellany

8 February 2012

The Red Pen: Stating the Obvious that Obviously Needs Stating

By thefallenmonkey

I’ve been wearing my editor hat again the last couple weeks, working with someone’s raw manuscript that is pending rewrite for resubmission. For confidentiality reasons, I apologize that I can’t be more specific than I am. What follows below are merely some overarching concerns that a rookie can easily overlook (hey, I’m one, too!) and sometimes get the Monkey’s head beating against the trunk of its tree:

1. Research – They say, “Write what you know,” but one doesn’t have to live in a place or serve in a certain profession, for example, to be able to research authentic details relating to such. Writing fiction doesn’t give the liberty to entirely fabricate a place or occupation if it’s one that actually exists. The internet is a beautiful place for research, as are books, site visits, and interviews with people in the applicable locations/fields. Be knowledgeable of your story’s setting and subjects and use common sense to discern what claims need to be fact-checked, then verify them accordingly. (see also “Setting” category)

2. Narrative – Do NOT “tell” versus “show”! That is Writing 101. Your story shouldn’t read like an extended synopsis that lists events rather than describes them in such a way that immerses the reader. Don’t say that your character is making a facial expression that looks angry, show that his brows are furrowed and lips screwed into a menacing sneer. Don’t say that the room is filled with expensive-looking furniture, show that it’s cluttered with ornately carved oak chairs upholstered in embroidered silk astride side-tables trimmed in gold leaf (I don’t know if that’s “expensive” or just tacky…). And don’t say something in dialogue that you then paraphrase in narrative—communicate the info/insight one way or the other; to do both is redundant.

Also, avoid an abundance of character introspection. Readers really don’t need to know every single thought and motivation of your character. Make them privy, yes, if it’s from a certain character’s POV, but it’s also more interesting and vivid to visualize if you concisely show their body language and actions and let the reader reasonably infer some of what they’re thinking or feeling. Telling all on characters and the labyrinth of questioning they’re wondering their way through is tedious and doesn’t let readers form questions of their own that’ll make them keep reading in search of answers. Leaving something to the imagination not only indulges one of the joys of reading but can heighten a story’s sense of conflict and climax when the reader isn’t already in the know of everything. (see also “Descriptive Language” and “Sensory Details” categories)

3. Dialogue. In keeping with the above, character conversation can come across as unnatural when too much information is shared by this means. Be subtle when doling out back-story or insight via dialogue, otherwise it’s blunt and awkward: your manipulations of story become too transparent, and the characters don’t sound like real people. (see also “Dialogue” category)

4. Characterization. The above narration/dialogue factors are just as important to building a strong sense of character. Do your characters sound believable? Are you showing enough description of features, mannerisms, and personality such that your reader can visualize your characters (yet not so much that you’re telling readers everything about them and leaving nothing to the imagination)? And are you giving your reader reason to remotely care about them and whether or not they reach their goals? Without any of this, characters aren’t even two dimensional; they’re stick-straight lines. Boring. Flesh ’em out and make them more interesting with flaws if they seem too goodie-goodie or benign—or with redeeming qualities if they’re otherwise the Devil incarnate. No one likes a purely good hero or a purely evil villain. (see also “Character” category)

5. Story Arc. Tensions need to rise as the story progresses. Not overly telling and giving everything away (as discussed above) will help contribute to this as readers speculate character motivations and future actions and reactions; scan and replace lengthy sections of introspection with concise, external descriptions of character body language/expression and leave readers to their own interpretations. Add complexity by interweaving relevant back-story and subplot(s). Foreshadowing is also a useful device for enhancing curiosity along the way as readers form predictions, but it will blow up in your face if the seeds you plant are too obvious! Don’t lead up to your big reveal only for your reader to go, “Uh, derr!” That reeks of anticlimax.

It’s not to say everything should be a surprise for the reader—it can be just as suspenseful when the reader already knows something the character doesn’t (like in horror movies when you know the killer is lurking right around the corner from the innocent victim), but only when it’s deliberately played to this effect. There’s a craft in pulling that off, so don’t think simply telling your reader everything and leaving your character in the dark is an easy shortcut—be discerning in what you share and withhold.

Your big revelations can likewise be a let-down if your characters’ own responses fall flat. Think about what you’re wanting your readers to anticipate, to get excited about, and make sure you deliver it in a commensurately enthusiastic fashion. If there’s a big secret out there that your reader knows and is dying for your character to find out, is the character finding out in an exciting and unexpected way? Or is, for instance, another character just explaining it in a straight-forward conversation, garnering a reaction as enthralling as, “Oh.” (see also “Story Arc” category and, more specifically, “Pacing Your Pages” Parts I & II)

6. Other: Plot Elements (in general). Map out all the major and minor elements of your plot and subplot(s) alike and make sure every piece of them flows/connects logically. Ensure not a single important question they could raise is left unanswered if it’s vital to understanding and believing in the story. Loose ends that leave something to the imagination or tease for a sequel are one thing, but overlooking major gaps in how a character got from Point A to Point B (just because you want them to get there for the sake of driving the story forward in other ways) undermines a story’s entire credibility. Don’t just say something happened if it’s not entirely logical for it to have happened and assume your readers won’t notice, that they’ll just take your word for it. If something is complicated whether you like it or not, do the work to figure it out; stop writing and start reasoning through it (via outline or time-line, perhaps). Do more research if it’s necessary. And if it’s not working, accept it and change it to something that will.

Readers’ disbelief can only be suspended so far; you have to earn their trust if they’re going to follow the journey you want to take them on. Even the most fantastical of story-worlds need plausibility (working within the rules/parameters the author so designs for those worlds if it’s not the one we actually live in), so the reader must understand how plot events feasibly come to happen and tie together for the story to be realistic and identifiable.

Speaking of “Uh, durr!” and “Oh,” that’s probably your reader-response to all of the above. But you’d be surprised what we writers can’t see in our own writing that we so clearly do in others. As the author, the mental full-picture we see tends to automatically fill the gaps of the written story that our readers otherwise trip into. With that in mind, never underestimate a pair of fresh eyes; it really does pay to have others read your work. So toughen that skin and git ‘er done! Constructive criticism has groomed the Monkey’s own fur into a nice thick and glossy coat. 🙂

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Character, Conflict, Descriptive Language, Dialogue, Musings on Editing, Novel, Sensory Detail, Setting, Story Arc

9 January 2012

NaNoWriMonkey – Follow-up Reflections (Finally!)

By thefallenmonkey

Just over a month of recovery has transpired since my NaNoWriMo burnout. Like a Roman candle, the concentrated spew of writing was glorious, dazzling my eyes with a populated computer screen after a long stretch of spark-less procrastination. And then November ended and fffffzzztt. So did the writing. For the most part. Just like legs need a rest after a marathon, I needed to retrieve my eyeballs and fingers from where they’d fallen off onto the keyboard and step away from that project for a bit.

In the meantime, I’ve been tweaking my first manuscript and rewriting query letters over and over again to get ready for a much-delayed round of submission. I also headed Stateside for another two weeks for Christmas, which was crazy-busy but magical, just like the Disney trip before that. 🙂 Anyway, I’d promised to follow up on my NaNoWriMo experience, so let’s get on with it.

Writing 50,000 words in one month is a concept that makes folks wary, and understandably—for years I assumed it could only generate pure and utter crap; good writing is not to be rushed. But now having gone through it, there’s no question it was a useful exercise that I highly recommend, and here are some reasons why:

1. NaNoWriMo was like a writing enema. I’d been stopped up for a while in that respect, sitting on a story outline I’d completed in spring only to sputter out one chapter in summer and jack until November. It was shit-or-get-off-the-pot time, and NaNoWriMo was precisely the initiative I needed. So, to run with my disgusting metaphor, even if a lot of my massive brain-dump was crap, it was purifying to get it out of me. I did have an outline to keep me focused, but I think if you’re still in novel-brainstorming mode, it’s a perfect way to write your way into a storyline to run with beyond NaNoWriMo.

2. NaNoWriMo gave me discipline. For as much as I’ve preached on this blog that writing is a discipline, I still tend to fall in with the “I write when I feel like it” crowd. It’s incredibly difficult for me to establish routine in my writing, so having that NaNoWriMo goal was such a motivating force. Not only did my profile stats continually calculate how many words I had to average per day based on my actual pace, but punching in my new word counts and watching those bars climb on the chart was immensely satisfying. It pushed me each day to stick to a daily word goal and punch out a few more sentences just when I thought I had no words left in me. Contrary to such doubt, there’s always more waiting in the folds of our grey matter.

3. NaNoWriMo pushed me out of my comfort zone. There’s obviously no hard-and-fast “right” way to write. Some writers vomit out their stories first and revise later, and others revise as they write. I trend toward the latter category. It has merit, but I found it worthwhile to try a new approach, and the result broke some bad habits I’d naturally fallen into. One of the major flaws of my first manuscript was that its early drafts were overwritten. I pored way too much over every word and sentence and stopped writing new material in favor of revising finished chapters to death first. The writing needed to relax, and, what’s more, I hadn’t mapped out that entire story yet. To so painstakingly revise early chapters when I still had no idea where the later chapters were going was just stupid. It was only when I’d finished drafting the entire story that I realized what needed to change at the beginning to improve consistency. So, not only did I outline my second manuscript beforehand this time around, but NaNoWriMo forced me to keep driving this story forward and not complicate phrasing through over-thinking it—there simply wasn’t the time to. It’s not as though I had no opportunity for some thoughtful wordsmithing, logically thinking through plotting, or researching to enrich descriptive detail and authenticity. I simply mean that, overall, I had to write more off-the-cuff and to-the-point than I’m used to, a risk my writing in particular really needed to take.

4. NaNoWriMo powerfully immersed me in my storyworld. Curling up with a single story for so many hours of the day every day was the deepest sea-diving into my imagination I’d ever done. I was truly married to my characters, setting, and situations at that point; the level of commitment was tremendous when I promised to come back to them every day, and the short gaps between bouts of writing ensured I never really loved ’em and left ’em. It’s essential to at some point step away from a story and come back to it with fresher eyes (as I’m doing right now), but the benefits of sticking with it for better or worse in November included seeing my storyworld more vividly and improving its continuity—I remembered details more clearly and strung them together more efficiently since they were written only a matter of hours/days apart from each other.

5. NaNoWriMo was P90X for my brain. In view of all the aforementioned, my mind clearly got warmed up and broke a sweat trying to keep pace with my required daily average word count (~2,700/day thanks to my late start). The mind is a muscle, after all, and it needs to be flexed in order to grow. Pushing yourself to go as far as you can one day will strengthen you to do the same if not more the next. And haven’t you found that the more you exercise, the more you want to? In the same way, NaNoWriMo energized me to the point where I wasn’t writing because I had to. I wanted to. I honestly woke up every morning excited to get back to my computer to research and write.

Granted, there’s no way I could’ve sustained the intensity of NaNoWriMo beyond that month, but I do think the lessons it taught can be applied in realistic doses going forward on my project. I went into it with 10,000 words, came out with 60,000, and estimate I have about 15,000-20,000 more words to go until my first draft is finished. There’s no question I’ll have to revise the hell out of it, but I definitely don’t discount the earnest progress I initially made on it in a very, very concentrated amount of time—I think (*hope*) going into NaNoWriMo with an advance, focused vision of my story optimized how many of those 50,000 words actually have a shot at remaining in the final draft…the major ideas at the very least.  I tried my best to work smarter, not harder, so we’ll see one day what I have to show for it. 🙂

17 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Musings on Writing, Novel

28 September 2011

And now a word from our sponsors…

By thefallenmonkey

* * BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP * *

This blog is temporarily on hiatus.

The Primate was at first preoccupied with October travels,
and now with November NaNoWriMo.

(see sidebar widget to track my progress…
…and have mercy. I joined 12 days in.) 

Please stay tuned for The Fallen Monkey’s winter season line-up, though, when it returns to its regular schedule.

Same Monkey Time. Same Monkey Channel.

*

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26 September 2011

On Priorities, Parks, Parents, and Publishing

By thefallenmonkey

Yowzah. Sorry I fell out of the tree again. These have been weeks of prioritizing, and unfortunately if I’m to make any blogging a priority, it’s gotta be the one I actually get paid for. 🙂 In the meantime, while I haven’t been the most attentive commenter on your blogs lately, I’m glad to see you all are keeping busy and doing well, too!

I do finally want to pop in this week, though, before going on hiatus yet again. I’ll be heading Stateside in a few days for a brief visit to my sweet home Chicago before then undertaking the grand road-trip with my parents to Orlando for our big family Disney World vacation three years in the making. We made this pilgrimage many-a time as kids, but we started the tradition of returning with spouses and grandkids ten years ago. This is the first time since that all of us siblings are able to make it again. So factor in me, me mum and dad, two brothers, one sister, two sisters-in-law, one brother-in-law, six nephews, two nieces, and my brother’s parents-in-law, and our grand total is nineteen. Could be an even twenty if my husband’s eleven weeks of grad school this year didn’t suck away all his work holiday and then some. 😦 In any case, leave it to my parents to be the only ones choosing to drive, so I’m making the journey with them to help out—they’ve had a rough year of health issues, and it’s the least I can do when I’m otherwise missing out on everything, the bad and the good, while living abroad. Time to shift my priorities to others, finally.

And who am I kidding. I love this stuff. Fire up the Family Truckster! Cracker Barrel, here we come! Marty Moose! Marty Moose! Marty Moose!

“This is no longer a vacation—it’s a quest. It’s a quest for fun.”

In literary news, where my freelance editing work goes, I’ve wrapped up the developmental edit of a very fun YA paranormal novel so will await whatever the managing edit may throw back our way. And the second novel I’d edited has just been published! The author has been making a great effort at social media, so it looks like it’s doing well so far. Three-for-three wonderful authors to work with [knocks wood for next time]. And as for my own manuscript, I’ve been revisiting ms #1 after some time away from it and reckon my next step is consulting with a professional editor—I’ve been really envying the process I go through with my authors and would like to see my story get all buffed-n-polished, too. Regardless, I need to get more momentum behind that one; I admittedly haven’t been trying very hard to query. Dare I say it, I think I’ve settled into contentment with just the process of bringing it into being—I’ve entertained the hell out of myself!—so, where priorities go, getting it published has almost come to feel secondary. Or is that what all the unpublished say when they’re in massive denial? 😉

In any case, I’ll try to pop back at least a couple more times this week before the *Disney magic* beckons me…

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Monkey Miscellany

26 August 2011

A Cage of One’s Own

By thefallenmonkey

Ya know, I usually play up the whole monkey thing because I think I’m so terribly clever and no one will ever get sick of it (shyeah right, you’re thinking), but, honestly, my flat really is starting to feel like a zoo right now.

Within one week of returning from two weeks in Singapore with my husband and in-laws, I already hosted two separate visitors and received news that another was scheduled to arrive, well, as of yesterday and staying for two weeks. Apparently so much poop flies around in here that my husband’s ears must’ve gotten clogged, because for the second time we have a scheduling conflict thanks to our stellar communication with each other. The first time was last fall when we double-booked my parents and a couple friends of ours—six adults in a wee flat of one bathroom + two beds + one punctured aerobed screamed nightmare to me, so I took my parents to the Cotswolds for most of the overlap while my husband hosted our friends. Problem solved.

Well, it turns out that I’m fleeing to the countryside yet again during my father-in-law’s present visit. Something about telling my husband, “If your father hasn’t decided on his dates yet, late August is out because I’m going on a writer’s retreat in the wake of our insane spring and summer,” got lost in translation, so he’d emailed his dad that late August still worked great. Great.

So here he is, and here I am packing up to leave on Sunday for five nights in Cornwall.

Could I have canceled? Sure.
Was there a chance in hell I was going to? No sir.
Do I feel a little bad about that? Of course!

But maybe this is a good time to mention that we’ve hosted over thirty (30) different people in less than three years since moving to London. And hosting is particularly problematic for those like me who work from home. And whose office is also the guest bedroom. In all fairness, though, this guest is super easy and independent, and we’ve given him the master bedroom so I can access my computer.

Nonetheless, after doing a little more basic math for this year alone, I estimate 30% of 2011 will have been spent hosting, traveling, and visiting home. Which leaves a lot of everyday life to be crammed into that remaining 70%. Which leaves not a lot of time for a reclusive writing life. (And I don’t even have kids!! How do you writers with children do it all??!!)

So I’m going, to a cage aaall to myself. No work, no hosting, undoubtedly a little hiking, but primarily writing. Selfishness has never tasted so delicious. See you in a week or so.

And how about you? How have you made a point to prioritize your writing, to give yourself some space to think, imagine, and create?

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Monkey Miscellany

24 August 2011

Oh, Okay Fine. May as Well.

By thefallenmonkey

It seems inevitable that part of the aspiring author’s procrastination from writing consists of farting around with mocking up potential cover art. I suppose I might have sort of maybe done this myself before…in which case, oh, okay fine. May as well share with ya.

I came up with two possibilities for my first ms. No, I’m not sharing my title yet (too irrationally afraid to), and, yes, I’ve used stock images with watermarks still on them (too cheap to pay for them). Whatever. Do you like them or not? Sorry, that came out more antagonistic than I’d intended. And I’m also sorry that I for whatever reason didn’t keep a file that would’ve allowed me to just delete (versus hideously black out) the title in the 2nd image. So just to be clear, my title is not “Graphic Leftovers.” 😉

  – OR –  

Have you ever done this, too? I’d love to see ’em!

16 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Novel

19 August 2011

Is the Baby Still in the Bathtub?

By thefallenmonkey

I heard once at a writing seminar that every time we read, it’s an investment in our writing. So in light of that, we shouldn’t feel guilty when we spend our time reading someone else’s writing instead of working on our own.

When I do read someone else’s story, on one level of consciousness I’m processing how they’ve approached its construction and shaped its language, which helps me likewise reflect on my own projects. I still lose myself in the experience of the book, yet today was one of those when I did snap out of someone else’s story-world to reenter my own—because it had just smacked me upside the head, somewhere in the middle of the book I was reading, that I needed to work more on the beginning of the book I am writing. Seemingly out of nowhere, but I think my subconscious has known all along and something I read must have finally dislodged that. Not merely the revelation of what I probably need to do, but my acceptance of it. I think I’ve known for a long while what I should do but have been nurturing my precious poopsies, running the warm water over them and adding more bubble bath.

I’ve only done some cursory restructuring so far, but looks like my manuscript needs to be run like a conveyor belt in reverse again, backing it up another couple chapters to start at even later one. If I do this, I must be mindful of what had happened last time and ensure the babies of characterization and exposition don’t get thrown out with the bath water in the interest of moving plot forward a bit faster. And it really isn’t so much that I’m trying to get a move-on with the story line; the more I look at those opening chapters, the more I realize that I was still finding my way into the story with them; it doesn’t all have to be scratched, but it needs to be tightened through rearranging. So as I try to look at the story elements in those chapters more strategically right now—isolating the “need to haves” from the “nice to haves”—it’s like they’re all lined up before me, beads of sweat glistening at their brows and sweaty palms wringing behind their backs as they try to stand tall, stand proud with chins up but lips quivering, and some surely wetting their pants.

I shall place the little dears in the foster care of my archives and keep faith they’ll find a good home in a short story or other novel some day. Until that time of weaning, I’m letting them push their little rubber duckies through the suds, scrubbing them extra clean behind the ears before tucking them into bed for the night all clean and sweet-smelling and raisin-fingered…who knows, perhaps after I sleep on it, too, I’ll change my mind.

I’m curious to hear about YOUR babies—it’s inevitable that some of them get chucked out the window, but have you actually had success reusing them elsewhere? How so?

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Musings on Writing, Novel

10 August 2011

Editing Out the Editor

By thefallenmonkey

This shit editing is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Hey, Editors, are ya there? Editors? Editors? Bueller? Bueller?…

I recently saw this editorial, “The Price of Typos,” which comments on how “typos are everywhere” now—in large part because publishers are employing less editorial staff and rushing to publish books ever faster. And modern authors are playing their part in it, too:

“Use of the word processor has resulted in a substantial decline in author discipline and attention. Manuscripts are much longer than they were 25 years ago, much more casually assembled, and beyond spell check (and not even then; and of course it will miss typos if the word is a word) it is amazing how little review seems to have occurred before the text is sent to the editor. Seriously, you have no idea how sloppy some of these things are.”

Though editors arguably have more work cut out for them in light of the above (man, don’t I know it firsthand!), when I read traditionally published books I’ve wondered the same: where are the editors? How did that typo get through? I’ve always said that I’ve never read a book without a typo, which is fine—annoying but fine, as I understand how that can happen maybe once or twice—but lately I see several mistakes, and it’s not just typos anymore.

Back when I read the Twilight series (disclaimer: my Freshman Year students were squealing about it incessantly and kept begging to write book reports on it, so I felt it my duty to understand what they were talking about…and obsessively read all four books, and joined Team Edward, and watched all the movies so far, and…), and, I’m sorry, where was I? Oh, so when I read Stephanie Meyer’s decent storytelling but crappy writing, her overuse of words like “guffaw” and “mutter” bored a hole in my head as they plunk, plunk, plunked against my skull like water torture. Where was the editor to chuck a thesaurus at her and make her vary word choice? [See Also: “Sloppy YA Editing: Tic Words“]  And when each book got longer than the previous (and not in a good JK Rowling way), when plot didn’t thicken so much as stretch like taffy and read like a fanfiction of her own work, I asked myself, where was the editor to hack out those paragraphs and pages of redundancy and filler?

So maybe Twilight is an unsurprising example, but I was in a bit of despair when I read the most recent book of one of my new favorite authors: The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. I loved her first two books in a way I hadn’t anything that I’d read in such a long time, and while I still enjoyed this third one, it needed a good, solid edit. The thread of an interesting story was there for me, which did keep me reading, but I found myself in a frustrated “get on with it” mode—and this from someone who can totally nurture the slow-going and character-based. I don’t need action and rapid pace, really I don’t, but I also don’t need constant dancing around with dazzling wordsmithing and every detail about yet another thunderstorm raging outside while, go figure, conflict between characters is on the rise, too. That’s my two cents, but here’s a sample of what I saw at Amazon as well:

“What on earth went wrong with this book? Was there no editor involved?”

“[T]oo long and too repetitive. A great deal of the fault lies with the editors.”

“What did this book lack? An editor!”

“This seems to be a problem with modern publishing…some way down the line in an author’s output either the editors stop thinking they need to edit or they believe it OK to drop an earlier piece of work on an unsuspecting readership who naively expect new books to be better books.”

Hear, hear! to that last one; I really do think publishers think we’re chumps when it comes to best-selling authors. I don’t read much Philippa Gregory, so maybe she’s been doing this all along in her historical novel series, but I recently read her The White Queen and, while her writing style otherwise does keep a good pace (especially considering the mammoth amount of factual history she manages to distill), I felt little explosions in my head every time I chanced on passages like this:

“More importantly, I think, but I do not say, not even to Elizabeth, that once we are living in a private house quietly, my boy Richard might be able to join us. As we are stripped of our royalty my son might be with me again. When he is no longer a prince, I might get him back. He has been Peter, a boy living with a poor family in Tournai. He could be Peter, a visitor to my house at Grafton, my favorite page boy, my constant companion, my heart, my joy.”

Listen, I know there’s merit to lyrically using repetition for emphasis, but it loses its efficacy when this sort of thing is done over and over and over again for the length of a novel. I mean, seriously, this reads like she wrote the same thing a handful of different ways in brainstorming which she wanted to use and just forgot to scratch out the losing options.

And by this point, you’re probably all wishing I had an editor to keep this post concise. 🙂 But before I go, I leave you with this: eliminating redundancies might be a subjective task, but spelling and grammar are not. An editing colleague recently emailed this sentence:

“A woman without her man is nothing”

Evidently, an English professor wrote this for students to then punctuate. Most of the boys wrote:

“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

Most of the girls wrote:

“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

The power of punctuation! Never underestimate the importance of attention to detail—the importance of EDITING!

 

15 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Musings on Editing, Novel

27 June 2011

Self-Promotion: A Spreadsheet to Spread Your Sh*t ;)

By thefallenmonkey

Okay, so the weather is too warm and pretty in London to concentrate at the computer very long today. These days need to be seized, as my skin cells have been deprived of Vitamin D for too long, I say. I could practically hear my legs shreak, “It burns!” the second they were freed from perpetual cover…right before they gave a satisfied “Ahhh” as they gulped the fresh air down.

Anyway, just popping in to share with you a nugget that crossed my path a few days ago—it might be the daily recommended dose of Vitamin D that your promotion efforts need, where “D” is for “Domino.” Say wha’? Okay. A friend alerted me to Seth Godin, marketing guru, and a new venture he’s undertaken called The Domino Project. I’m still exploring what all this is about (it’s sponsored by Amazon.com), but it’s clearly in response to the rapidly changing landscape of publishing in light of e-publishing, self-publishing, and social media that places great responsibility on authors to self-promote. As every writing seminar I attend says time and time again, even the traditionally published must take on this burden, so it seems Seth is a proponent of authors marketing themselves as if they’re self-published regardless.

And so, author Jenny Blake has shared with The Domino Project a spreadsheet she’s developed “as a way of organizing the hundreds of things an author thinks about on the road to book launch.” Comprised of 15 different tabs, it’s nothing to sneeze at and certainly worth reviewing to get in the mindset of what it takes to successfully promote your book. This kick-ass resource can be found at the link below:

“A Spreadsheet for the Self-Published“

Happy perusing, and keep your smelling salts nearby—it’s a tad overwhelming but a good dose of reality when it comes to the business of publishing and building your presence in the market, step by step. The domino effect can only happen after you’ve already laid your pieces down one at a time, so take it in stride…

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Monkey Miscellany

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