Category: Editing Rant

Editing Rant: Roller Coaster

Erin Penn

Photo by Elle Edwards on Unsplash

Wow, the slush read I just finished had an amazing opening, and then total crash and burn. I’m going to have to reject it.

So boss (Falstaff Publishing), opened up submissions to slush. What that means is we have a TON of submissions from unknown authors seeking their first publication credit and not everyone is ready for prime time. Actually, very, very, VERY few are ready for prime time, and I have hundreds to read.

Plus side, I’m going to have Editing Rants for years to come.

Minus is turning people down for stuff that is good, just needs serious but doable work. The one I read is the poster child of this dilemma. Working with the author, the manuscript can be fixed. It would take awhile but could be fixed. Problem is I got space for only three in the publication schedule and two hundred entries. “Needs serious work” isn’t going to make it. But I don’t want the author to quit writing. They are good. They are capable of being even better.

I can’t “fix” two hundred manuscripts. That is what the Editing Rants are about – getting writers to be even better without me developmentally editing 20,000,000 words. I love my job, but I don’t have time for that.

Back to this particular editing rant.

The first chapter was amazing. Jumped me right into the action, immersed over my head. Then … chapter two.

Switch point-of-view (POV) character who ALSO is waking up.

Yep, the first chapter was amazing even with the POV just waking up. The action started immediately and within two seconds the reader is right there with the character. In chapter two, with the second character, all the story background gets dumped as the character goes about the normal day. One lonnnnng infodump.

So what I want to talk about is the roller coaster ride of plotting.

Roller coasters are built to have a giant drop at the very beginning. They start with a rush. Maybe have a slow, frightening build to the promised drop – click, click, click as the carts climb higher and higher. Then BANG. Off to the races.

Later, there are slower parts to build tension again, and twists and turns, but the opening is a huge rush to put the rider into the roller coaster experience, removing people from their ordinary lives and investing them in the ride.

Genre fiction – science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, mystery, even romance – the start of the story is to introduce the rider to the ride and remove them from their ordinary lives. It should never slow down to a complete stop. Information sharing should be short and sweet, followed by a quick snap turn left and right into dialogue or action.

Build your plot like a roller coaster and remember to start the ride with immersion.

Editing Rant: Artificial Crisis

Erin Penn

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Second “artificial crisis” – in as many manuscripts being read. Already in the middle of a major crisis, the author adds an artificial mystery or tear-jerking addition that adds NOTHING to the plot. Ugh.

Artificial crisis are things like a “mystery”, where the character knows what is happening but isn’t sharing it with the reader. Folks, a fake-mystery isn’t even an unreliable narrator but an obstructionist narrator. If the story’s narrator story isn’t sharing the story with the reader, why is the reader going to bother reading the book?

A tear-jerk addition is like when the puppy gets sick … and while at the vet, the main character doesn’t answer the phone and the romantic interest thinks they no longer care and doesn’t met them. Now, it can be a great story when the puppy gets sick … but if the main plot is a ticking clock of the criminals about to transfer dozen of illegal immigrant (domestic slavery), an artificial crisis is unnecessary, especially one that takes away from the present emotional investment.

Subplot, yes, all day long. But do not destroy the emotional ride of the main story. Crisis should impact the story and complement it, not distract from it.

Make any crisis natural to the story. Torture your characters. BUT!!! the crisis should never feel like “the author needed to create tension at this story beat according to the format they are following so they stuck this conflict in.”

No, no, no.

Editing Rant: Per My Last Email

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of the internet Hivemind

What … again?

Breathe Erin, breathe. This person is a new person and doesn’t know the emails you sent out to the other dozen people contacting the publisher.

You know what, I’m going to put the response on my blog under editing rants so at least y’all don’t write this email or a variation thereof. My blood pressure needs to have less wide-eyed innocents hoping to jump to the end without doing the work.

I was really nice in this response and went overboard on the explanation because of the writer’s age. The adults, especially those who mention degrees in Fine Arts or teaching English for decades, grind my gears. How did they get to the age they are without learning the basics of networking and doing background research in an industry you want to enter?

***

Cold Contact: I am working on a book series. I was wondering if you could tell me what I would have to do in order to have my book published. I am fifteen and plan on having 1,500 pages. I think it will need to be published in two books. Please, I would be grateful for any tips you may have.  (Note: specifics identifying the contact, such as phone number, have been removed.)

Response

Hello (fill in the blank),

My name is Erin Penn, and I am one of the editors at Falstaff Publishing.

The first step of getting published is exactly what you are doing – writing. So many adults skip that step and just try to sell us an idea. Publishers need a finished product, not an assembly kit from Ikea.

Second is introducing yourself to the community of writers and publishing, like you are doing right now. Networking is important on every job, whether trying to break into McDonalds or Penguin Random House Publishing.

Most of us started really connecting at conventions. I see by your area code you are somewhere in TX. I used to live in Waco Texas myself. One of my favorite writers’ convention in that area was ConDFW which happens in Fort Worth TX. This year’s guests of honor for this science-fiction and fantasy writing convention are Charlaine Harris and Yoon Ha Lee. The URL is here: (NOTE as of 4/26/2024: ConDFW is no more – 2019 was the last year, they were not able to recover from the 2020 cancelation.)

The convention is scheduled for February, so you don’t have a long wait if you want to go. Attend as many of the writing panels as you have interest in.

Also of interest is finding a good critique group. In every art, creative people need feedback to get better. Sure you can do it on your own, but if someone has already walked that path can give you a road map, it makes the trip much faster. The challenge is finding the right people to give you the map. Someone giving you a map on how to write the next Great Gatsby novel when you want to write Twilight Zone episode screenplays isn’t going to be helpful. Listen to their feedback and see if they are providing directions to where YOU want to go with your writing. Personally I’ve gone through several groups as my needs have changed, with the first one being a bad fit.

Once you have people you trust to give your feedback, real feedback, that won’t hurt you too much (it will hurt some no matter what), start sharing your work and listening.

Do not submit to a publisher until you have at least three people who are not related to you and are the age range you are aiming the book at – if YA, teenagers, if adults, then adults – and given you feedback, and you have make the changes they have recommended IF THEY MAKE SENSE. Don’t change something from green eyes to brown eyes just because one of the readers liked brown eyes; do change it if you had every female character have green eyes (which recently happened with an adult book under contract I edited).

After getting things looked over, now it is time to do a proofread. This is where a good English teacher can come in handy. If you got one in your school, have him or her help you go over things. You will learn about things like sentence splices, independent clauses, the Oxford comma, and conjunctions. Again, do what makes sense. Sometimes writing is about breaking the rules. Break them. Bend them. Make them sing.

Now you have something a publisher can look at. And that convention you went to, whether condfw or a different one, you might have rubbed elbows with some publishers. Take their cards and now send in your work as they instruct on their webpage. Follow the submission guidelines, all of them. It’s like a job interview; if you can’t follow the directions on a website, the publisher can be confident you won’t be able to follow editing directions on your work. Don’t fail the job interview. If you attend a panel on editing, that will be the most common theme: follow submission guidelines.

So to sum up: write, network, feedback, self-editing your draft, then use your networking to send to a publisher.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Good luck,

Erin Penn

Editing Rant: Clean Up #3 – Chapter Headings

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

What to Clean Up before Sending Your Manuscript to Your Editor #3 – Chapter Headings

First – Numbering

Verify all your chapters are numbered right. Please – no missing chapters, no double chapters. The one I am editing has two chapter 18s.

About 10 to 15% of the books I have edited have chapter counting errors. This issue is common enough it is on my check every time list. If you are paying me for my time and writing out the problems with the manuscript, do you want to be paying me for telling you there are two chapter 18s? I know, yes, if it is the case, but I’m sure you rather have caught that before you sent it for a professional read.

Second – Titles

Get the capitalization right for the titles – or at least consistent. Also the punctuation. Don’t capitalize all the words in one chapter title and then have a full sentence with a period for the next. Your editor usually won’t care what you choose, so long as it is consistent. You don’t even need chapter titles at all – but if you do have one chapter with a title, they all have to have it.

Three – Returns after Chapter Header

Do you have one or two line returns between the Chapter Header and the start of the document? Be consistent. Your editor usually won’t care what you choose, so long as it is consistent.

Four – New Page Start

Most publishers want chapters to start on a new page. Put a hard page break in there, not a dozen returns until it’s at the top of a new page. Your publisher might have different printer settings, and the pages may change by one line each, destroying the manually created page returns. For Microsoft Word, go to the Insert Tab, then Pages section, Page Break. Check on the submission page if you have a question – and even if you don’t. Always check the submission page in case the rules change. You never know when a publisher will have a software upgrade or downgrade.

Five – Formatting

Many people work each chapter in a separate file – to prevent massive data loss and also because the bigger the file, the longer saves take. They then need to assemble everything into one file for sending the manuscript out. This leads to inconsistent formatting including, but not limited to: font size changes, font changes, margin adjustments, and paragraph indenting variations.

In this case, your editor does care what the formatting is – it needs to be consistent with the publisher’s submission guidelines – in every.single.chapter.

If you have to strip the formatting and redo it, that is better than getting your submission rejected because your margins changed in width from one inch to two inches then went to half an inch before returning to one inch. While you might not like dealing with the formatting errors, your publisher REALLY doesn’t want to deal with it while uploading to three different types of eBooks, plus juggling the paperback and hardback printing. Which is why manuscripts with this type of problem get rejected early in the submission process. Don’t be in that statistic.

Other posts in the Clean Up series
#1 – Commas
#2 – Double Spaces
#3 – Chapter Headings