The job of an editor is to polish a story, not paint their own. To take out the rough edges, to bring out the shine, to make flaws into items of interest, to shape the rock into a gem. When editing (developmental), you don’t decide the science fiction should be a romance, but you might want to point out to the author there was a romantic element buried in the story and it would work better if these two romantic tropes were added among the science fiction tropes. When editing (line), you don’t get to decide that the choice of French is wrong for the magic system and substitute in Latin. When editing (proofreading), you don’t decide that the English/UK version spellings like axe, judgement, and grey make more sense than the American spellings of ax, judgment, and gray even if the story is set in the UK, if the book is written by an American to be published in America.
It’s their gem you are polishing, not yours.
An example I run into a lot is repeated sentence starts. I have dropped this line in more than once into developmental and line editing: “You have three (or more) sentences in a row starting with “She” (or “He” or “It”), sometimes this is wanted to create a beat or an emotion. I am just checking in on this one. You don’t have to change anything, but I wanted to make sure you are aware that you are doing this repeat.”
Many times I don’t feel the need to point out the repeat sentence starts, when it is clearly in the brawling or emotional breakdown stage where someone would be repeating themselves or being very choppy. “I didn’t know. I couldn’t. How did that happen. I did it. I can’t imagine.” These are obvious about being part of the story.
But other times, well, the author may want the repeat, or she may not be aware of the situation (half the time they are not). Hence making a note; but I don’t get to say “delete this.” It isn’t my story.
I am a writer, at least I write things. For non-creators, I’m told editing is easier. But for me, I must remember at all times it is their story, not mine.
If you are an editor, put away the creative paints and only bring the polishing cloths to the editing table. You are doing a different task than writing and need different tools.
If you are a writer, remember it is your rock being made into a gemstone. You are the primary creator. Realize that a lot of the suggestions are good, even great. They will make your gemstone sparkle and shine. Sometimes it will hurt as they burnish an edge, sanding down an area. The process isn’t easy. Still, don’t let anyone paint over your voice; it is your story being told.
Polish, not paint.
Only allow polish if you are a writer being edited; only polish if you are an editor.
Remember, readers have an easier time of visualizing what is there rather than what is removed.
In a recent edit:
As the youth spell turned back time, his hair changed to tar black and most wrinkles were removed from his face.
Recommended change:
…and a few wrinkles remained on his face.
Give your readers clear visualizations.
Don’t write: an object was missing from the desk.
Write: a cleared space in the dust indicated something was missing.
Your readers can’t see the missing object, but they can see the results of it missing.
Don’t write: John realized there was an invisible person in the room with him.
Write: John eyes said nothing was there, but his ears heard a shuffle.
(Okay, both the Write and Don’t Write suggested above have filtering problems…let’s try the invisibility unfiltered.)
Don’t write: The invisible lad tiptoed through the room.
Write: Little creaks crackled the wood flooring from the bedroom to where the cookies were cooling in the kitchen. John tracked the mischievous child with his ears.
If the readers (and the point of view character) can’t see it, tell us what they either can see or provide details through other senses. Stop giving descriptions like someone handing out rural driving directions. Have you ever gotten directions like “Turn at the barn that burned down last year.”? This is useless. It’s useless in writing too. Direct your readers better. Write what the Readers CAN experience.
(This suggestion does not help me, but it might help others. Learn as many techniques as you can if you are an editor, so you can meet your author where they are.)
I don’t have the bandwidth today to do a deep dive into this. I had been thinking about saving Filtering for a writing exercise, but I’m just done at the moment. No brain left, so here goes words to rip out of the manuscript.
First draft (or zero draft, however you count), you will write a lot of “he saw”, “I felt”, “she heard,” letting a reader know what the point of view (POV) character witnessed. You might even see a lot of this in my fiction writing here on the blog, since I post mostly flashes – which means first draft stuff.
Anyway, during the second draft these need to come out.
Don’t put a barrier between the reader and what is happening.
“I heard the engine coming down the track, the long whistle blowing.”
Well, the reader knows if something is happening, the POV is witnessing it, less needs to be said about the process of witnessing.
“Clicky-clack, the engine is coming down the track. The long whistle blowing it’s mournful cry.”
With which sentence do you hear the engine and whistle more clearly?
Get rid of the filter words.
And don’t just take my word for it – here is a vlog from Alyssa Matesic (Cut these words now) – start at 1:10:
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Okay, had a night’s sleep, now back to this editing rant. I’ve said a LOT about filtering words here on this blog over the years. Editing rants based on book reviews, slush reads, and so, so many edits, but part of this one was directed at me. Yes, all the editing and I still need to yell at myself about filtering words.
Recently, I wrote a four thousand plus word Flash to fill in a 2000-word flash hole in my 2024 line up called “Water Finds a Way” (9/29/2024). (I’ve been doing really good this year in cleaning up my backlog.)
The story was based on a dream I had that previous night. Very vivid – the water over the tiled pool room with a keystone design, the crawling up and down the missing stairs, seeing the approaching pirates through the magic window, the light house, the betrayal, the lightning flashing in the pool after I threw the clerical charm in there and seeing the silhouette of the monster in the waters. The challenge was to make that dream a reality on paper.
Problems with the story – time to developmentally edit myself:
(One) I chose to do it as first-person because that was how I dreamed it. Sometimes I dream in third person, but most of them are first person. Only the additions I did to make it into a full story instead of an action sequence from the middle of the story (there wasn’t a beginning or end, nothing to set it up and nothing to tie it up, I had been dropped into the story in media res), the backstory for the person operating the lighthouse, made them a less than interesting point-of-view from inside their head. They didn’t know where they had come from, nor did they have strong goals. And they didn’t have anyone to talk to so all the thinking was internal. Boring.
I need a different POV choice for the story. I think third person, where the lighthouse keeper talks to themselves could work, especially if I have one or two of the pirate crew be a second POV. Maybe the apprentice cleric; it would be interesting to compare two people caught up in situations where they are not allowed to leave. Situations which offer safety but at the cost of agency.
(Two) I just pounded out that 4,300 word story over a six-hour day with just one meal break. The ending got cut short by the need to sleep. Everything got tied up quickly, where the impact of the rope goal was just set up. The final two paragraphs would be better as two more pages.
(Three) With the quick write-up without a break, so many filter words were used. What I saw in the story needed to be written out – saw, felt, heard, believed, thought. The whole things need a rewrite to remove the filter words. I need to change description into immersion. Rip the barriers away!
(Four) The magic window, which was WAY COOL in the dream, does not work in the created story. It is a Darling and needs to be killed. Unless I can find a way to keep it. (My precious!)
(Five) I would like this to be a saleable length, so 10k. I had rushed things just to finish the blog in one day and fill a slot, but it is over 4k words already. That is some serious wordage. With a rewrite filling in the rushed descriptions, even with removing filter words, it should easily hit 6k and adding the second POV (Cleo) and a scene or two setting up stuff before the pirates arrived at the lighthouse – let’s see, them on boat where the pirate asks for payment as they race the storm to the mainland and another with them walking up from the pier (instead of the action just being watched from the window), and maybe a third of them loading onto the lifeboats should add another 2k easy. Fixing the ending would add at least another 1k, so doable at 9k without a problem. The final one thousand words can be adding a flash or two at the end, a couple good ones. Have to make it worth 99 cents.
***
Now the question is do I want to do this. Part of me wants to do a WRITING EXERCISE of fixing the filter words. The story can be so much better. But the publisher-selling part of me knows this isn’t in my normal wheelhouse and won’t sell well if at all and that is a lot of words and commitment for a mediocre product. Third part of me, the one part of a new writer’s group is going your goal was to outline a book for sale before the next meeting, this will do it. So here we are. What will happen tomorrow?
If I do rewrite it, I would put PART of the second draft into a Sunday post – equal to the Amazon first 10% rule. After which I would need to continue with the third and fourth draft cleanups for publication. It will be a whole week process. Hmm.
I recently read a book where nearly every chapter ended with the point of view (POV) character asking themselves a question. What’s up with that?
I think the problem is they were told to end chapters on a mini “cliffhanger” to keep the reader moving forward, making the book unputdownable (yes, a word). John Hartness (recent book release of Eternal Winter in his Bubba series)) and Jason Gilbert (Three Dog Knight, which I edited) are masters of this technique; fortunately they write shorter books so you can survive the unputdownable structure and, maybe, get enough sleep that night to work the next day. But why didn’t a pleasure-read book work if this is a valid techinque?
Well, the cliffhanger can work different ways, sometimes it is a beat break within a battle. Sometimes it is a climax of a scene, emotionally or physically, then a switch to a different POV character. Writers master getting the scene to the point where everything is in place, then break to a different stakes in the next chapter. That one gets to the high stakes, then switch back to the original POV character or situation. Then the cruel-writers resolve the problem they had ended on but before they return to the second issues, they raise the rollercoaster back to the edge and leave us hanging again. Rinse and repeat for the second plotline. No sleep at all, but what a ride. Why didn’t this ride work for me?
The other big way to end, rather than continuing action, is with a question. The way to do this is have the POV character be asked a question or ask someone else a question, encapsulating either what had just happened or bringing up something that had been left by the wayside. “Did that seem too easy to you?”; “Should Billy have been here by now?” Both sorts of question interchanges have the reader freezing for a moment going, “oh no!”, and jumping into the next chapter to find the answer. Why doesn’t the character asking themselves a question work?
If the book had been a literary book, with layers of self-reflection, it might have worked, but the book was a middlegrade action-adventure. Asking questions like “What should I do next?” and “Should I return home to find out what happened to my family or continue on my quest?” doesn’t create tension for genre. These are internal questions and slow down the action. Self-reflection is fine to figure things out, but a self-reflection question, even “Should I take a boat down the Rapids of Death?”, at the end of a chapter to create a cliffhanger actually pulls a reader back from the edge and leaves them questioning why is the character questioning themselves instead of acting. Literary is self-reflection; genre books are action. Why ask yourself a question?
Action, dialog, interaction, raising stakes. All these are genre tools to pull the reader through the book and make it unputdownable. Asking questions through dialog is fine. Asking questions of yourself is fine as a place to slow down and contemplate, to have a breather for the reader before returning to the rollercoaster. But using self-reflection questions (which slow things down) as the tension technique to pull the reader through to the next chapter doesn’t work. Do you got that?
Good. Go forth and write something that is unputdownable.
