Whether you hope to interest a traditional publisher or you’re publishing independently, you know you need professional editing before you submit your manuscript.
But how do you know if the editor you found is a good fit for you?
In my last post (read it here), I discussed how a sample edit can do three things:
It show you a particular editor’s knowledge and ability,
It helps the editor determine the amount of work your manuscript needs to make it as professional as possible, and
It gives you the opportunity to see how that editor believes he or she can improve your book.
Erik John Baker (be sure to check out his blog here) left this comment:
I think it’s also important to find an editor who listens, both [to] the writer and to the writer’s voice.”
Bingo! We all expect an editor to be good with the written word, but it is equally important that someone who is part of your team is a good listener and honors your authorial voice. Let’s discuss the “good listener” part.
After author JH Mae commented on my post “Critique Groups for Self Editing,” I asked her to share her thoughts about Scribophile, the online critique group she uses. JH was gracious enough to not only write a great guest post, but she also arranged for a special giveaway from its founder, Alex Cabal. Without further ado, here’s JH: Continue reading “Online Critique Karma: Scribophile”
In the past few weeks I’ve received queries from several writers about my editing services. “How much do you charge to edit a 110,000 word novel?” and “What will it cost to copyedit my nonfiction book. It’s about 300 pages.”
These seem like perfectly reasonable questions, don’t they? The problem for me, as an editor, is that they are too vague. Editing is a very broad term that covers every function from development through line editing to proofreading—soup to nuts in editorial services, so to speak.
When you’re on a budget (and really, who isn’t?), it’s important to plan for your upcoming expenses. Your editorial budget should not be an exception!
All writers who publish—whether traditionally, independently, or through assisted publishing—will need some level of editorial services. When you plan to seek an agent or query publishers directly, you should use at least one professional editor before you submit. In the case of self-publishing, the responsibility for editing falls entirely on your shoulders, and you may want to seriously consider a wider range of editorial services before your work goes live.
Present Tense: Breathlessly Waiting to Read About What’s Already Happened
Several months ago I wrote “Present Tense: Breathlessly Waiting to Read About What’s Already Happened,” in which I posited that writing in present tense is difficult for most writers to do effectively. Two fellow bloggers commented that they felt their stories worked best using present tense, and I invited each of them to write a guest blog about this to share with us.
In the past week I came across two websites that offer unusual editing services. Unusual isn’t bad, but in these particular cases, unusual is definitely NOT good for authors.
One of these companies is a membership site that proposes to save authors money on professional editing by trading editing with other members; in other words, you and another writer edit each other’s books, thereby eliminating the cost of having your manuscript professionally edited.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing, as long as you understand that the chances of having a professional edit your work are slim to none. In reality, this service is a beta-reader service, which is very useful in its own right—but let’s call it what it is. And it is no substitute for professional editing or proofreading.
As I mentioned in my post announcing the drawing for FREE EDITING, I love to start each day by reading other bloggers’ posts and anything related to writing and publishing. I usually find at least one gem to post on my Facebook page, and I love sharing with all of you.
I wanted to encourage more people to “like” my Facebook page, and I also wanted to thank those who are already followers, so I decided to give away FREE EDITING to someone from each group.
“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”
Writer, actor, and tall person John Cleese is my inspiration for today’s blog. (And thanks to Jon Winokur at Advice to Writers.com for the tweets that got me to thinking about this.)
When I began this blog, I set a goal for myself to blog twice a week about something that is relevant to writers. That sounded easy . . . except “blogging day” keeps coming around. (“Didn’t I just post a blog yesterday?”)
How difficult can it be to write something that is interesting and helpful for writers and then polish it up every Wednesday and Sunday?
How difficult? That depends on the week, as every blogger who reads this post can attest. My hat is off to those bloggers I follow who manage two, three, or even four posts a week—you are a true inspiration! But as John Cleese said, the fear of making a mistake can keep even the most prolific writer from actually putting words on paper.
My personal crucible is the desire to write something that is practical, informative, interesting, and so good that everyone who reads it wants to follow my blog and share the post. Because I’m hoping to appeal to writers who might someday need editing services, I feel the need to be extremely careful—to not make mistakes—and that really can stifle the creative process.
So my advice today to every writer who reads this, and most especially to myself, is
Just Do It
If you’re one of the thousands of writers participating in NaNoWriMo this month, and you find yourself spending too much time coming up with the perfect word or a character name that feels right, make a pledge to yourself: no matter how much editing you might need to do later, get the words out now, because you can always come back and polish. Don’t wait for the right time or the right mood; if you have something to say, write it down—just do it!
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes had this to say:
“If you’re afraid you can’t write, the answer is to write. Every sentence you construct adds weight to the balance pan. If you’re afraid of what other people will think of your efforts, don’t show them until you write your way beyond your fear. If writing a book is impossible, write a chapter. If writing a chapter is impossible, write a page. If writing a page is impossible, write a paragraph. If writing a paragraph is impossible, write a sentence. If writing even a sentence is impossible, write a word and teach yourself everything there is to know about that word and then write another, connected word and see where their connection leads. A page a day is a book a year.”
So yay for me—this is ready to post tomorrow, and it’s only Saturday night! Heck, I’m going to go completely crazy and post it early. Not that anyone else will notice, but I’m just happy to be writing. What about you?
“Irish can bumfuzzle any team” – headline about the Notre Dame “Fighting Irish” football team,Chicago Tribune, October 27, 2002
About the Word:
Bumfuzzle may have begun asdumfound, which was then altered first into dumfoozle and then into bumfoozle. Dumfound (or dumbfound) remains a common word today, but bumfuzzle unfortunately is extremely rare.
Image courtesy of markuso at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I thought I was a pretty good writer when I was in college. I probably was, at least as far as making my argument was concerned. But unfortunately, I didn’t learn until after I graduated that I was guilty of a common writing error: I overused passive writing because I thought it sounded “literary.”
Boy, was I wrong! Yet I had plenty of company, and I can even point to a couple of good reasons why it happened and why writers continue to overwrite using the passive voice.
Let me explain. In the active voice, the subject performs the action; in passive writing, the subject receives the action. It’s that simple. For example:
Active voice: Candace wrote a new blog about passive writing.
Passive voice: A new blog about passive writing was written by Candace.
In passive writing, the subject might even disappear from the sentence, like this:
A new blog about passive writing was written and posted.
In most cases, you want to emphasize the subject that does the action (active voice); in the passive voice, the subject receives the action. And because passive writing is often wordier than active writing, writers should always be looking for ways to craft a cleaner, more concise sentence.
While it is preferable to use an active voice most of the time, there is a time and place for passive writing. Daily Writing Tips puts it this way: “Passive writing is common in scientific papers because it lets the writers avoid using the words I or we, to avoid saying where their ideas came from That’s why some teachers think that passive voice sounds more educated. Usually, though, it’s simply less definite . . . but in the real world, when they have something to say, even scientists don’t have the luxury of not being definite.” And in A Writer’s Reference, author Diane Hacker writes,
“The passive voice is appropriate if you wish to emphasize the receiver of the action or to minimize the importance of the actor.”
Passive writing is tricky, though, and something you should work to avoid in most cases. Absolutewrite.com offers:
“It takes time and practice to eliminate such problems as expository dialogue and passive writing from your work. But the payoff for your hard work and diligence will be a smoother style and a heightened ability to create remarkable stories.”
That sounds like a goal worth pursuing! So don’t try to sound “literary” or “educated” by overusing the passive voice when you write. If your grammar checker flags a passive sentence, take a careful look to be sure you’ve written it that way for a good reason. If not, it’s time for a revision.
A final word: in the classic Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, author Patricia T. O’Connor writes, “If you have something to say, be direct about it. As in geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” That’s good advice for all of us, so the next time you self-edit, say it the way you mean it and work to construct your sentences so they are direct and active.
manuscript.
