Why do I do this to myself? Did a slush read for “that” author. You know the one you don’t want to be. The whiny “my story is great and you don’t know it”; “how can you reject it so quickly” (after I devoted a Friday night and Saturday morning to it), “you aren’t a writer so you don’t know how much rejects hurt”, …. etc.
I knew, knew from the cover letter, this one was going to be a problem. Why did I even ask for a full manuscript?
Oh, yeah, the person actually wrote three good chapters and had a great concept.
Too bad I will never read anything else from the slush pile from this writer again. Hope they learn (ie actually read the comments I sent back and use them – yes, I sent comments and still got a 20-question whine).
Don’t be that author!
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The same day I got “Just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to consider my manuscript and thanks for the feedback!”
Oh, yeah. That is why I do this. Because of “that” author. Be that one.
When I decided to start taking my writing seriously, I started writing a book review for every book I read in order to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Part of the process is if I reviewed a book worth only one or two stars, I had to figure out how to “fix” the book.
What went wrong and could it be corrected.
I read a book where all the characters were power-hungry, manipulative, and unlikeable. BUT the genre was romantic, young adult fantasy inspired by the Wizard of Oz. This did not mesh.
As an editor, one challenge I often face is remaining true to the book the author created as much as possible. To fit the genre, normally this book as-is would need to be thrown out and restarted. It didn’t even do the homage to the Wizard of Oz right.
But could it be fixed without a rewrite??? … below is part of my book review with the characters changed to protect the guilty.
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How would I fix this book if I was editing it? It’s complicated, plot-driven, and lots of character details. Short of a total rewrite to make the characters likeable, how would I change it?
Well, what genres can have unlikeable characters (not romance or young-adult fantasy with a strong side of romance) … let’s think … hmmm … horror, … and mystery.
Oh, make this a murder mystery!
So many characters who are capable of killing and have unlikeable parts to their personality and reasons to commit murder: a fae prince (tin-man), a cursed beast (Lion), a dark angel (scarecrow), a wicked witch, an amoral con-man (the Wizard), the king of winged monkeys, the three gossips manipulating everyone “for their own good”, the list just goes on and on.
Have Dorothy arrive in the tornado and the fake death of a witch when the house lands lead to discovering the real murder of the Good Witch Glenda. Add this storyline on top of everything. Glenda the Good was mauled or chopped up – sword or claws. (Was it the Tin Man or the Lion? Maybe the Winged Monkey?)
In the end, we discover one of the gossips had arranged the death when another gossip confronts her, but the magical-gossip delivers her line of “not making a worse fate”.
“But she is dead!” the second gossip answers.
The fae-queen-magical-gossip responds with “there are fates worse than death”.
Other gossip then goes “Oh …oh.” with a far-off look “I see.”
But the full mystery still needs to be solved for the reader. Who was the fae-queen’s tool for the murder – initially I thought the “cute and cuddly” lion, but in the end I realized it would need to be the tin-man. His mother would congratulate him on using his ex-lover ability to manipulate time to freeze the body so it looked fresh when people found it, never suspecting the fae who had the perfect alibi, and he admitted that forcing himself to fall through the cursed mirror of Iron had been one of the hardest things he had done. His mother then says he has graduated and he was no longer her heir, but now royal successor as she abdicates.
Having this fourth storyline put on top of everything there then makes having a host of unlikeable characters forgivable, because everyone is a suspect.
Even better, not a word already there needs to be changed or removed. The author just adds a bit more on top. That would be my editorial solution.
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This is a peek into developmental editing. I usually work with fairly new authors. What I do is (1) tell them in general terms what is wrong with the book and why it is wrong. Then (2) provide one or two solutions (in this case add a fourth storyline on top of everything from a different genre). And, finally, (3) remind the author that it is THEIR story – my suggestions are just that, suggestions. Examples are just examples.
75% of the time the author considers my suggestion, but doesn’t use my example. Which I am more than fine with. They are the author. The other 20% of the time they make the change inspired by the example. And the final 5% of the time they decide to keep things as is.
***
I really pleased with the solution I came up with to “fix” this published book. I never considered changing the genre of a book before. In my head, that has always been fixed. When I came up with the “murder mystery” everything else immediately fell into place and I could see what the story could have been in my head, and it was amazing. A murder mystery, Wizard of Oz homage, romance, YA fantasy – great stuff. Oh, well.
As is, unlikeable characters, toxic tropes, and a side of poor continuity destroyed the book for me.
Affect is usually a verb meaning “to produce an effect upon,” as in “the weather affected his mood.” Effect is usually a noun meaning “a change that results when something is done or happens,” as in “computers have had a huge effect on our lives.” There are exceptions, but if you think of affect as a verb and effect as a noun, you’ll be right a majority of the time.
I had a teenager writer ask me about what a PLOT actually is a couple-few years ago (went looking for the date and found it: 7/12/2019). This is the very long email I sent in response.
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So there are two videos that I watched recently which may help with defining plot.
Let’s take Miss Independent by Kelly Clarkson and Fighter by Christina Aguilera.
Miss Independent – the song lyrics – has a journey of change. (google search “Miss Independent by Kelly Clarkson Lyrics”) Miss Independent starts defining the character, and foreshadows her change of character. Next verse is her hesitation to change. Final verse and chorus is her deciding to give love a chance.
Miss Independent – the video (see below). Is more of a news report than a story, though most news reporting attempts story-like elements for engagement. You start with the end, where you see the party aftermath, then see party scenes – silly string, karaoke, pool time, and other fun things. Every now and again you get the hint of the guy. BUT this is more just like a bunch of disconnected scenes – you don’t get a romantic payoff, you have no character growth, no decisions are made, nothing changes. You can see that there COULD be a plot there if emotional transitions were added and the scenes connected, but right now it is a video hodgepodge. Cool but not a plot – maybe a story-idea, but no plot. Plot has a structure.
So for Miss Independent you have a plot in the song but not one in the video.
The reverse is true for Fighter, where the song doesn’t really have a strong plot, but the video does.
I wanted to really bring Fighter to your attention because of the Mermaid and Monster short story we were discussing last night. That story was a metaphor story both heavy-handed (nearly laying out everything word for word in case you couldn’t get who was the “mermaid” and who the “monster”) and didn’t really carry the metaphor well, because even with all that you were still asking what was the point the writer tried to get across.
Fighter’s video is incredibly surreal, and carries a metaphor storyline well.
For the lyrics (google “Fighter Christina Aguilera lyrics” and remember to open it up to get all the verses), you have a background-infodump more than a plotline. No one is changing and there is no clear beginning, middle or end (just like in the Miss Independent video – where we got a middle and end, but no beginning). Fighter is also an emotional character study – part of the reason there is no change of the characters. So Background-History and Character-Sketch, even good Worldbuilding, but no Plot.
Then you hit the video, where the plot is metamorphosis, again a change. It reflects an abused woman escaping her abuse to come into her true self by creating a metaphor with butterfly collection where the characters are stuck behind glass and pinned down, to eventually flying free after pulling out the pins and throwing them away.
A complicated two-layer linked metaphor – with the dancers creating a metaphor to butterflies, then the butterflies creating a metaphor of an abused woman transforming to strong woman. Beginning starts in the glass, middle is throwing off the pins, ending is transforming to a stunning white butterfly / and a red skirted fighter capable of walking.
Change needed for Plots – This is a fun video for me “Road Trip” by VoicePlay (I like Acapella).
Initially, you would think that the plot is a road trip, after all that is the title of the video. And that is where the story starts, but a road trip is just a type of action sequence getting a person (or group) from point A to point B.
That is not where the CHANGE is happening. The change is the music selection in the front seat. The beginning is just turning the music on and getting an unacceptable song. Middle of the plot is conflict, mediation with help of the back seat –SIDE PLOT BREAK (with a beginning, middle, and resolution there too) – and finally a full-circle ending of acceptance what cannot be changed.
I really enjoy VoicePlay for their ability to mime a full plot-driven story with a song collection. This one is not only a story, but several side-plots with an opening vignette story of trying to get into the car, and other side items which are not stories like the “aerosol” can and buckling the seatbelt.
I am going to define a plot for a story as (1) beginning, middle, end; (2) a structure, (3) something changes.
Webster’s Dictionary: the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.
SEQUENCE and INTERRELATED are the important parts of this definition. (sequence = beginning, middle, end; interrelated = structure)
I should mention this includes the plot where the beginning and end are the same, but you have a middle with changes – this is the “full circle” type of plot device. So after the entire story, there is no change if you only look at the start and end – but there is power in choosing not to change after something acted upon the character. In the case of the Road Trip – which is a one version of full circle, they start and end up on the same song, the characters’ middle with conflict changed them from rejecting the song to accepting it.
Well, I hope this helps. I had fun figuring out examples on the way home and will be making a blog out of it.
