Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

This is the time of the year when most individuals sit down to write out their goals, or their resolutions for the upcoming year. From my own experience as an author and an editor, I know that many writers’ resolutions start out with a list, which might include some or all of the following: 
  • Write a novel
  • Attend a writer’s conference
  • Learn to market

These goals are noteworthy, inspiring, and, well, a bit daunting. To tell the truth, I’m finished before I ever begin this small list. I’ve looked at the entire picture, and I’m lost in a swamp called, “I Don’t Know Where to Begin.” Translated: I’m as lost as those poor saps who went down in the plane on the popular television show from a few years back.

Don’t toss those goals away, though. They’ll make for a great end to a journey that starts this coming year. Like every good trip, getting there should be part of the fun, and that’s why breaking the lofty goals into smaller steps will help an author focus on the entire picture without breaking into a sweat and giving up before getting started.

I placed “write a novel” purposely at the top of the goals because I believe that’s where many new writers or even more advanced writers who have never published, and well, some published writers, want to place most of the focus.

The truth is, the other two goals mentioned need to be accomplished before or while a novel is being written. For example there are steps to producing a novel. Research may have to be done. Plotting or laying out the premise of the work should be completed before the writing begins. When the basic structure seems in place, a writer may need to look for a writers’ group, critique group, or partner to help sharpen the prose.

Finding both a writers’ group and a critique group that matches a writer’s needs, and a place where the writer can prove equally helpful to other members, isn’t something done overnight. Time should be taken by a writer to target such groups for not only a match in genre or writing or critique styles, but also personalities. Nothing destroys new relationships like personality clashes.

Break “writing a novel” into several goals, including research, plotting, planning, finding groups or individuals to assist, etc.

Then there’s the goal on many author’s hearts, and so it should be. Writers’ conferences are where authors meet agents and editors and other industry professionals and get a foot in the door. However, it might surprise some authors who have never attended conferences that not all venues are created equal and not all such events suit the needs of every writer.

Some conferences make an author feel as if they’re the little servant girl invited to the prince’s gala, and the royalty are the editors and agents who wish to meet the writer to whom their glass slippers fit. Other conferences may invite the same editors and agents, but the ambiance there is down-to-earth friendly, and writers come away from the conference feeling as if they’ve made friends in the industry. Some conferences focus solely on fiction. Others on non-fiction, and still others on both sides of the coin.

What works for you? That needs to be considered as a writer sets smaller goals for the overall resolution of attending a conference. Put in some research. Even the servant girl benefited from her time at the prince’s ball, but if you’re intimidated by that type of gathering, avoid it. Writers should attend conferences where they will meet their targeted editors and agents in an atmosphere that is conducive to making the writer comfortable. 

Next in our list of worthwhile goals is marketing. Authors often realize they need to attend conferences so that when their work is completed, they may have doors opened to them to send the work along. Many new authors, and some of us older ones, fail to realize that marketing is just as important at the beginning of the novel-writing stage as finding a venue for the work.

Marketing groups are a great way to learn how to get the word out about your product. While writing the novel, authors should research what works and does not work in promotion. Marketing groups may or may not be what an author needs. A writer might be surprised at the unscrupulous or annoying behavior of certain groups or practices touted. Spend time during the year researching what works in marketing for your genre. Then work toward possibly finding a like-minded group and learning how to build a platform that will raise your product above the rest. This may include setting a goal to begin a blog or finding blogs that welcome guest bloggers. Again, though, break this into tiny steps. Target your audience with interesting and worthwhile posts.

Goals are great to set, and writers should be encouraged to set viable resolutions and work toward success. Write out the larger goals first. Put a deadline sometimes in the future, say by the end of the year. In between now and then, write down smaller steps that will help to accomplish the greater resolutions in the time set.

Small steps conquer big challenges.

God bless you in the New Year and may you follow God's path for your life not only in the upcoming year but for years to come.

And happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.

Summer in a national park
A flat tire
A mural on the side of a building

Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

Christmas is around the corner. After Christmas is the time when I stock up on books on my three favorite subjects: storytelling, grammar, and punctuation. So, for your bookseller gift-card buying spree, may I recommend the following:

Recommended Reading
Punctuation and Grammar

Nitty-Gritty Grammar (A Not-So-Serious Guide to Clear Punctuation)
Edith H. Fine and Judith P. Josephson
§
Painless Grammar
Rebecca Elliott, Ph.D.
§
The Elements of Style
William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White
§
Merriam Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style
§
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
Renni Browne and Dave King
§
Punctuation: Plain and Simple
Edgar C. Alwaard and Jean A. Alward
§
The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier
Bonnie Trenga
§
Lapsing Into a Comma
Bill Walsh
§
Write (Or Is That “Right”?) Every Time
Lottie Stride
§
Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Trips for Better Writing
Mignon Fogarty
§
Grammar by Diagram (Book and Workbook)
City L. Vitto
§
A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation
Noah Lukeman

Recommended Reading
The Writing Craft

Point of View
Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View
Jill Elizabeth Nelson
§
The Power of Point of View: Make Your Story Come to Life
Alicia Rasley
§
Showing vs. Telling, Dialogue, Characters, Conflict & Pacing
Writing Fiction for Dummies
Randy Ingermanson
§
Plot and Structure,
Revision and Self-Editing and
Conflict and Suspense
James Scott Bell
§
The Fire in Fiction
Writing the Next Break-Through Novel (Book and Workbook)
Donald Maass
§
Getting into Character
Brandilyn Collins
§
Creating Characters
Techniques of the Selling Writer
Dwight V. Swain
§
Building Believable Characters
Marc McCutcheon
§
The Plot Thickens
The First Five Pages
Noah Lukeman


 Happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.

An antique Nativity scene
A silver Christmas tree
A character who hates Christmas, but learns to love it at the end of the story. :)

Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt


Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.

Violin music
A doll bed
A quilted tablerunner 

Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt


Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view. 

A waiting room
Triplets
A broken vending machine

Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

Great beginnings are not written by accident. Authors give much thought before crafting that all-important first scene. Some spend hours on the first line.

A novel doesn’t have to start with an Indiana Jones type opener—you know, Indie in the jungle facing dangers in order to return with the artifact, being chased by a boulder and running into natives with spears, but a novel does need to use the Indiana Jones technique.

A great opener is one that causes the reader to ask, “Why?” “How?” and “What in the world?”

Certain scenarios have been said to be the kiss of death for authors. For instances, we’re told that an author should never open a story with weather. Well, if the opening is simply someone looking out the window at a cloudless day, the author would be smart to back away and think again.

Now, if the character lives on a farm in Kansas, and the opening scene involves a gathering of dark, malicious-looking clouds, and one of those clouds just happens to drop a funnel from the sky, and if that character stands in the window and watches the funnel cut a path through his corn field and toward the house, I think the author has started with a great scene.

Also, authors are told never to start a story with a dream. I pretty much agree with this rule. Why? Because a dream is like an internal thought. A dream has the reader in the psyche of a character the reader hasn’t met. Coming out of the dream will jar the reader.

Yet, if I were to write a story about a man who is dreaming about his life and who awakens to find himself the savior of a future world...Oops, already been done, but I have to wonder if any editor ever picked up that story and said, “Oh, no, another novel starting with a dream” before the work got into the hands of an astute editor.

The next scenario is one that every author should note as something to avoid. Never, ever, ever open the story with back story. If the information contained in the back story is so important that it cannot be layered into the plot in small quantities and in a way that the reader will not recognize it as back story, it is possible that the story has been started in the wrong place.

Likewise, information dumps must be avoided at all costs. They’re easy to spot. They start out by telling the reader everything they need to know about the character, their location, their background, etc. The emphasis is on “telling.” Information should unfold in such a way that the reader does not feel “dumped upon.”

Readers should not have to meander through pleasantries about the weather, a dream that means nothing to them, or through back story and information that does nothing but stop the story cold.

There is a reason that the Adventures of Indiana Jones all start with Indiana in a precarious situation, and it demonstrates a very valuable technique when it comes to opening scenes. All novels should start in a place called “in media res.” This means no matter the genre being written, when readers open up to the first page of a novel, they should find themselves in the middle of the action.


Happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt


Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view. 

A bowl of apples
A shooting star
An urgent request

Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

Self-editing for plot holes might be the most difficult task an author undertakes. Why? Because in an author’s mind, the story is all laid out. The characters are in place. Their relationships are cemented, and the plot is solid in the author’s mind. In other words, author’s get so firmly entrenched in their plot that the holes don’t show up.

What I thought I would do this week is to share with you examples of some of the plot holes and other mistakes I’ve made in my works in progress.

Identity Errors: I recently found a plot hole large enough to drive a tractor trailer through in a work of mine that I have labored on for thirty-five years—yes, thirty-five years (I thought it was twenty-five, but apparently I’m ten years older than I feel). When I stumbled across it, I marveled at how it had gotten past critique partners and me for so long. The problem was in the identity of one of my major characters. Others were not supposed to suspect who she was, but she had the same unusual last name as another character who was related to her. Oops.

Another type of identity error I faced in the past was using a woman’s married name before she was married. This is easy to do because we know the past, present, and future of our characters.

Does the System Really Work Like That? Recently, my editor caught an error with a prison scene in one of my works in progress. She asked me if the system really worked liked that in the state in which my villain was in prison. My only reply to that was, “Great catch.” I was working on what I knew of a local jail system and not a state run prison system. A little research told me I was wrong, and a change in a couple of sentences resolved the problem.

This was a great reminder to me to never take procedure for granted. Some things can be done differently. Research might reveal choices, or it might indicate that there is only one procedure. Authors should not risk the ire of an informed reader by making up their own process.

Realistic Character Arcs: The same editor mentioned above also called me on the arc of a pretty belligerent character who seemed to become angelic overnight. When I reviewed the manuscript, I found that she had a right to question the character’s arc. Tweaking one scene made that change more realistic. Manuscripts should be reviewed with an eye toward locating and remedying any implausible character changes.

Timeline Issues: Only in daytime soap operas where children are born one week and turn twenty-one the next are timelines not an issue. I’ve run across this problem a few times in my works in progress. A good practice is to keep track of timelines as the story develops. Back track and make sure that a logical timeframe has been followed. Check your character’s birth dates. Do they match up with such things as technology? For example: were cell phones in use when the character was a certain age depicted in the book? This is important in contemporary and historical novels.

Even the smallest of plot holes can derail a plot. The identity error I mentioned above is a major problem for my novel, but I’ve been able to fix it with a minor tweak. The other instances mentioned seem like smaller details, but to a reader, they might make or break the plot.

The best practice for seeking out and plugging that hole in your manuscript is to set the story aside for a while. Letting the story cool for a while, stepping back from what you know, and letting a little of that knowledge seep away, and then coming back to it, helps to pinpoint a lot of the problems.

Better yet, put your work into the hands of a beta reader, an editor, or a critique partner who will look at the story as a whole, and ask them to look for any major areas where the plot doesn’t come quite together.


Happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt


Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view. 

A garden cart
A painting of a the seashore
A piece of bubblegum