Category: Editing Rant

Editing Rant: Copper Pennies

Erin Penn

Fingers Holding A Penny Stock Photo

Image Courtesy of Gualberto107 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What do your characters know?

So last editing rant I went off about Know Your Topic. You don’t want to lose readers because you presented parasailing or embroidery incorrectly. If you don’t know the topic find someone who does: topic experts, beta readers, at least a research librarian whom you are keeping in chocolates and coffee.

Equally important be aware of what you character knows.

This isn’t limited to the more common Point of View (POV) main character (MC) limitations; you may know character B dyed her hair yesterday, but MC doesn’t know yet so describes character B as a blonde. Don’t get me wrong, as an author making certain you only let your MC work from the information known to them rather than to you as the writer is essential. And challenging.

But you also need to limit them on what they are familiar with. Having a twenty-fourth century engineer know how to use a twentieth century keyboard to input information into a computer system is improbable.

Or a twenty-something person forty years after the zombie Apocalypse comparing the scent of blood to new pennies. Yes, this is a common comparison to the point of being clique. But someone born after coins stopped being minted isn’t likely to know what new pennies smelled like.

A person who has never seen the shore would not understand what the salty breeze meant.

Someone who had never been off a spaceship isn’t only going to be shocked by no sky – no walls is as big an issue. And the ship isn’t breathing. Could they even sleep at night? No mechanical noise means “we are all about to die”. How long does it take for the panic to wear off?

Back to the Smell of Blood – as an editor I couldn’t rewrite the line about new pennies. But I did find an article on the scent of blood. If you are describing lycanthropes, vampires, or just have splashes of blood throughout your manuscript you may want to follow the link to Writeworld – “Describing the Smell of Blood”. (AMENDMENT  on 10/24/2019 (original post 11/8/2016) – The link for the Writeworld article  is now dead. Search on “describing the smell of blood”, there are a lot of resources now.)

(sigh) … And it is research like this that puts writers on watch lists.

WRITING EXERCISE: Create a scene (500 words or less) where your WIP character describes a common day item on your desk s/he is not familiar with and what the actions are taken to discover its use.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words June 25, 2012

Erin Penn

Eraser On Pencil Stock Art

Image courtesy of DigitalArt at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Helpful Advice in Editing

If everything is going as I hope it will (I am writing this in June), I am elbows deep in NaNo again. I wanted all the blog postings prepped so I can concentrate on writing, therefore I went through the Magical Words archives. There I ran across Carrie Ryan’s obscurely titled post “Not that … but that”.

It’s on editing. The very thing I am trying really hard not to do. It’s a NaNo no-no during November…and my biggest weakness to meet the word counts.

When editing others, I’ve made a lot of tough calls. Should I provide another possible word or just tell the author to find a new word? Do I say information seems to be missing or do specifically state what I want added? If there is a hole, do I point out the hole (example: primary love interest is passive) or provide the author the shovel to fix the hole (example: add another love interest to fight)? In one case, I may be stepping on the author’s voice and creativity, and, in the other case, I work with a lot of new authors who are having enough headaches being edited I find giving vague solutions is more of a problem than a help. Should I provide both then – but editing is always on a tight schedule, most of the time I can only write one line and move on.

I love the “a-ha” moment Ms. Ryan shares on her first editing feedback. The editor tells her to add something which ended up sounding really strange to her, until she asked the editor “What problem does <making this change> fix?” Once she knew what the problem was, she was able to fix the issue her own way.

If you attend critique groups as a participant, receive editing feedback, or review beta reads, (as reader, editor, or writer) I highly recommend this blog. Again the link is here: http://www.magicalwords.net/carrie-ryan/not-that-but-that/

Second takeaway from the blog – don’t be afraid to ask for clarification. Stand up for yourself. That is not to say fight your editor, but remember to be a participant in the partnership to make your book better.

And if you are participating in NaNo – good luck!

WRITING EXERCISE: Specifically approach someone you trust to be honest and ask them to beta read, critique, or edit something you wrote (at least 500 words and no more than 3,000), letting them know you are using this for practice of the editing process. After taking a day or two to look over their responses and get over the grief stage (see blog here on critique grief), practice asking for clarification without confrontation. Once completing the clarification portion, ask for feedback from your reviewer on how you did.

READING EXERCISE: Read a short story and write a critique or edit the story. Set it aside for two days. Come back and now pretend to be the author. Where do you think the author would like clarification on your critique.

Editing Rant: Rosemary

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Rosemary Stock Photo

Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius Photography at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Know Your Topic

Oh for the love of … if you write about something common from a historical setting that still is used today, at least get it right.

“She stripped rosemary leaves off a plant and dropped them into a woven basket.”

Leaves? Really? Rosemary Sprigs, yes – rosemary needles, yes. Leaves – no.

And in one sentence the author has thrown all cooks and gardeners out of the story. Amazing how simple it is to put in an epic fail into a book. With herbalist ability a popular part of magic and also historic medicines, I would recommend writers either find a Beta reader familiar with the material or study up on the topic.

This goes for all topics actually. A male friend of my mine had the misfortune to write a gun battle where a character thumbed off the glock’s safety. He didn’t know, his editor didn’t know, and his proofreader didn’t know. But his audience let him know loud and clear glocks do not have external safeties.

Another edit I had a person performed CPR on a character gasping for breath. CPR is to start a heart, not breathing.

Obviously a writer cannot know everything they write about, which is why a good stable of beta readers from a variety of backgrounds is essential. The worse things are the things you think you know about, but you don’t or they have changed since you learned them. 

Not everything is important to get prefect. Don’t know guns, then don’t be specific about guns. Not everyone is a gun owner. And really in the middle of a fight what does a character care if a 22 or 34 is aimed at them – there is a gun aimed at them. Details really don’t matter.

On the other hand – FOOD – food you need to get right. I have yet to meet a reader who does not eat.

Good luck.

WRITING EXERCISE: This one is a little different; learn something new … not through reading or YouTube. Take a class from a person. The class can be a one-hour course but needs direct interaction with a subject matter expert. Comb through your local newsletter, your town’s webpage, “what’s happening” at your library, the local gardening club, free classes offered at the community college or high school, or other sources and find something you think a WIP character of yours may need to know. 

READING EXERCISE: Read two non-fiction books on a subject related to your most recent Read-In-Progress. Examples: Reading about pirates in space – read about Chinese women pirates or Blackbeard; your present Urban Fantasy has Knight Templar, read about them; the mystery centers around monks in an herb garden – study herb gardening. Children books from the library’s non-fiction section have some really good information.

Editing Rant: Where did the POV go?

Erin Penn

Cartoon Businessman Under Pile Of Paper In Graveyard

Image Courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What happens after the POV leaves? (hint: nothing the reader knows about)

Okay, fearless blog followers, today’s lesson is POV (Point of View). Most people write genre fiction from either first person or close third person POV. First person allows for intense feelings to be expressed, opinions to be shared, and a focused story. Third person allows some POV changes, the ability to pull back from the action (example a battle the person is in) etc.

In either case, be aware when your POV character leaves the scene – that is it, done. Nothing else can be known about that scene unless another POV character is used. Omniscient POV would allow the scene to continue, but the present market has trained readers to dislike omniscient POV. Therefore, the scene is ended, dead, buried by the removal of the POV. Move along, nothing more to be seen here.

The lesson takeout is be aware who your point of view is in a scene – be aware that nothing is known (to the reader) until the POV character shows up and nothing is known (to the reader) after the POV leaves. The “camera” does not stay behind.

Yes, I know you want to show the group’s reaction to the POV storming off. But a first-person POV doesn’t work that way. Writing has rules. … Yes, rules are made to be broken. But first one needs to know the rules and why they exist before deciding why THIS manuscript should be the exception to the rule. Usually the answer, once the rule is understood, is “well, I just want to be lazy about the rule” or “I wanted the readers to enjoy my Darling scene.” (kill the Darlings – more on this another editing rant)

Anyone have examples they want to share of when POV rules were broken? Did it help the story or feel like a cop-out? Why or why not?

Editing Rant: Be a Dear

Erin Penn

People Speaking POV Stock Photo

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Characters need to sound different.

After everything is written down in the initial spew of words – go back over the dialogue and decide how the characters sound. Are they from different parts of the county? Different education levels? Different jobs? How do they communicate? Is one a leader? Get a feel for who they are, write down a few quirks, then go back over the dialogue.

Character speaking quirks also applies to nicknames – not everyone uses them, and they definitely should not be the same for everyone. One book I edited had males and females, whether 70, 40 or 20, use the endearment “Dear”. Everyone. Every.single.character. Not “sweetie”, “hon”, “lovey”, “buddy”, but every affectionate diminutive between lovers, parent-child, or pals was “dear”.

People are different – do more than just hair color, eye color and height!

Patterns of speech are driven by many different aspects of a character. You can give insight to a character or situation just through dialogue. 

What assumptions would a reader make about the following?

“Hey hon, what’s ya order?”

“Sir. Are you ready to order?”

In both cases, someone is taking a food order at an eating establishment. Both start with an attention getting mannerism, followed by a request. Yet I bet you have totally different visions on how the food server is dressed, what they are holding to take the order, what the restaurant looks like, maybe even how their hair looks and what type of napkins are on the table. All from 5 or 6 words of dialogue.

Book Cover for Honestly

In Honestly, after I was finished the initial pass I went back and decided to create some differences so people could know who was speaking without any dialogue tags. Troy does not use contractions, being bi (tri or quad) lingual adds a precision to his communication. He is naturally very formal. The only time you will see him use contraction is speaking one-on-one with a child.

On the other hand Terrell’s speaking is explosive and highly related to either understanding something or sharing information. I changed some of the more complicated words he used to simpler constructs, plus adjusted the languages of those people talking directly to the young child.

As for the main character, Kassandra uses different terms of endearments when speaking with her son and her lover. I adjusted language for age of the characters, cultural backgrounds, and education levels. While doing that some of the actions of the characters changed as I discovered education levels and different upbringings. Learning how my characters talked taught me more about who they are.

WRITING EXERCISE: For you present work-in-progress (WIP) choose a chapter and review the dialogue. Or write about 200 words with two characters talking. Do their word choices match their profession? How about their age? How about whether they grew up in a rural or urban environment?

READING EXERCISE: For the book you are reading find a section of mostly dialogue. Based on the two or three pages what information do you learn about the characters based on their speaking word choices alone.