Tag: Editing and Writing (Page 5 of 5)

Quality Matters

July 3, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 5 Comments

As we’re kicking off our Evolved Publishing effort, I’ve been interested–and confused, and frustrated, and saddened–by several online discussions about the need for, and efficacy of, independent editing of an author’s manuscript.

As Kristine Rusch so often states (you should be following her KrisWrites blog, by the way), self-published authors need to think more like independent businesspeople—because that’s what we are.

Certain universal rules apply to business, and here’s one of the biggies: VALUE sells. The variable equation for VALUE, assuming a constant need or desire, is a simple Quality:Price ratio. The first variable in that equation is… well, the first part. Fail there, and the second part becomes irrelevant.

No matter how attractive your price, you, Dear Seller, will not persuade most potential buyers if your quality has not met at least minimum standards in a past sale, or if you’ve established a reputation for poor quality.

This applies when you sell a car, a refrigerator, a pair of shoes… or a book.

Sure, you may get customers to buy your product once, but disappoint them on your quality obligation, and those customers will never buy your product again. Authors make a living when they generate positive word-of-mouth and a steady stream of loyal book buyers (repeat customers). Fail to deliver quality, and your business is finished almost before it begins.

Many self-published authors say, “But I just can’t afford an editor.” Most such authors doom themselves to failure. Listen, if you, as an aspiring author, have no money to pay an editor the full fee up front, then work with them on a smaller up-front fee + commission basis, or on a larger, straight commission basis. Get creative, but be prepared to be generous to an editor (or cover artist, or anyone else who assists you on a commission basis) who is willing to assume that risk. And make no mistake: they’re taking a big gamble. If your piece doesn’t sell well, they just worked for nothing.

The evolutionary state of the publishing industry offers many challenges, to be sure, but also many opportunities. Be creative in your approach. Come on, you’re a writer, an artist! Draw on all that creativity when approaching the business aspect of your writing career. Don’t take the easy, cheap, lazy (or all of the above) way out. Don’t doom yourself to failure.

Do you need an editor for your book? Yes. Every writer needs an independent, objective pair of eyes to weed out their nasty little habits, those recurring bugaboos to which we’re psychologically blinded, even if we think we know what we’re doing.

Resist this temptation: “Hey, I’m a good writer. I’ve studied. I’ve learned. I can do it on my own.”

Your book will be the worse for it. I promise.

No business survives for long that does not offer VALUE (Quality:Price). A robust quality assurance program is essential to all businesses, and your business as a writer is not unique, not immune to that requirement.

We at Evolved Publishing are trying to work as a team, to assure first ourselves, and ultimately our readers, that we have produced a high quality, professional product. Perhaps we’re a good fit for you. Perhaps not.

But please… don’t dash your dreams on the rocks by clinging to the stubborn insistence that you can do it all on your own. A well-coordinated team always outperforms the individual. Always.

And quality matters. Always. Especially when you’re competing as a raindrop in a hurricane of options.

www.EvolvedPub.com

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

Self-Publishing – The “Quality” Dilemma

June 18, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

If I were going to offer a sub-title for this post, it would be this: Hire an editor, damn it! Pardon the language, but seriously….

DISCLOSURE: Yes, I am a freelance editor, among other things. HOWEVER: No, I am not accepting new clients for at least the foreseeable future. (I just needed to be clear that this post is not about me pushing my service.)

Self-publishing, traditionally referred to as the Vanity Press, languishes under a long-suffering reputation. For good reason. Most self-published material, at least historically, has been… well… terrible. Anyone with an adequate checking account or credit card could publish their work—no peer review was required, no editorial process, no professional guidelines or standards.

Thus, most self-published books were unworthy of readers’ hard-earned dollars. Not all of them, mind you (one could find an occasional gem in the rough), only 98-99% of them.

Now, with the eBook revolution gaining momentum, even the financial barriers to self-publishing are crumbling. The inevitable result is that poorly written swill, the so-called “white noise,” is flooding the marketplace.

This will make things extremely difficult for serious writers, those who hope to make writing a well-paying career—professional authors—who want to take advantage of these new eSelf-Publishing opportunities. (Is eSelf-Publishing a recognized word? It is now. :D)

Yet one beacon of hope remains, one stubborn truth: Cream rises to the top.

Look, traditional publishing has always been an extraordinarily tough nut to crack, and it’s even more daunting in the current economic and industry climates. eSelf-Publishing offers authors fantastic new possibilities, yet it presents its challenges.

Achieving a fair income-producing level of success will be as difficult, and as simple, as ever: You just have to be better than the rest.

The key driver in the new eBook market has already identified itself. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Word of Mouth, formerly of Prominent Shelf Space fame. If you want to succeed, you’ll have to rely on readers sending forth Word of Mouth. They must post positive reviews, an easy task in the new online environment. They’ll also need to spread the word everywhere they have a presence, which means not just the traditional real-world, tell-a-friend gossip, but also the new virtual-world, have-you-heard platforms. Social media—not just yours, but theirs—offers you great potential.

How do you coax your readers to participate in your marketing effort? You give them a well-written, professional-grade, enjoyable book. Plain and simple.

If you think you can do that without an editor, you are, if I may be blunt, sadly mistaken. Hey, I’m an editor, and I wouldn’t think of publishing my own book without an independent, objective editor first giving it a once-over.

ALL professional writers use editors; those who don’t remain amateurs. And in this new environment, freelance editors are popping up all over the place. Be creative in your dealings with them. Pay a flat, up-front fee for the service, or pay a commission of sales, or offer some combination of both. Surely, you’ll find someone who will work with you in an affordable, mutually beneficial way. (For more on how to choose between them, see this article: Freelance Editors: A Reemerging Profession.)

Now, as if it’s not bad enough having to compete for readers’ attention with writers who don’t dedicate the time and resources necessary to produce a professional product (the “white noise” generators), we must compete with spammers: Spam clogging Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing.

Dedicate yourself. Be a professional. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll achieve all your goals.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-

ePublishing Gatekeepers (for Self-Published eBooks)

June 15, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

One of the things my partner, D.T. Conklin, and I have been talking about as we develop Evolved Publishing, is the need for “gatekeepers” in the eBook realm. Indeed, we have chosen to be, along with our various team members, gatekeepers.

Of whose work? Well, of our team’s work, to start with. However, we can easily imagine going on to offer reviewing services for works outside our core group.

We’ve talked about this before, but the issue is simple: How can a reader be reasonably assured that a particular piece meets professional standards? Well, one will be the appearance somewhere on the book’s cover of these simple words: An Evolved Publishing Recommendation.

And why is that important? For answers, visit Joe Konrath’s website, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, and read this article by a writer I’ve long admired: Guest Post by Stephen Leather

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-

Hark! And beware! I must exclaim!

May 28, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 4 Comments

You may have gleamed from the title of this post that I would tackle the use–more specifically, the overuse–of exclamation points. And you would be right.

I believe this occurs when a writer is not confident in his narrative. He feels he must cram the high action and tension, the drama and suspense, even the dialogue volume, down the readers’ throats, lest the readers, whom the writer apparently believes are dullards and idiots, simply don’t get it.

We can insult the intelligence of our readers via many methods, yet few are more irritating than the constant use of exclamation points, as if every other sentence is practically the end of the world.

Please, dear author, show a little confidence that:

1. Your story structure and your narrative voice will properly convey the emotional content.

2. Your readers are intelligent, literate people who will be able to follow your story and cull the emotion from it.

Frankly, if you think you’ve failed at #1 above, tossing in excessive exclamation points will not help. It’s akin to responding to the dying man, who says he’s too weak to stand up, by beating him repeatedly about the head and shoulders and yelling, “Stand up, you weak bastard!”

A general rule of thumb

1. If you have more than 1 exclamation point for every 500 words of text, you PROBABLY have too many.

2. If you have more than 1 exclamation point for every 250 words of text, you ABSOLUTELY have too many.

Once you complete a short piece, or a section of a larger piece, use your word processing program function to find all instances—and provide a tally—of your exclamation points. Apply the guidelines above to determine if you should self-edit before moving on.

Most of the time, if you’re writing effectively, you’ll use more exclamation points in dialogue, which includes a character’s monologue (inner thoughts, expressed by italicized text), than you will in the main narrative, where they should be rare.

Having said that, remember that exclamation points are most effective when they convey not just volume, but emotion. If you wish to make the point that a character is yelling, for example, do so in the dialogue tag or, better yet (I hate heavy dialogue tags), in a lead-in sentence. See the following examples.

Bad: “Jerry, come on down from the roof! We’re heading into town for lunch!” Frank yelled at the top of his lungs.

Good: Frank yelled loud enough for Jerry to hear him up on the roof. “Jerry, come on down. We’re heading into town for lunch.”

REASON: Volume is clearly an issue here, but there is no particular emotion conveyed by Frank. Thus, in the good example, I explain the circumstances prior to the dialogue, in that simple lead-in sentence. Task completed.

Bad: “Tom, get up here on the roof. The bear will get you down there on the ground,” Sue screamed at her husband in absolute terror.

Good: Sue leaned over the edge of the roof and motioned to her husband, who stood on the ground below her. “Tom, get up here! The bear will get you down there!”

REASON: In this case, the exclamation points not only convey the volume, which the reader can easily infer, but they also convey Sue’s obvious emotions. They do so without awkward, heavy-handed dialogue tags. Task completed.

You best utilize exclamation points:

1. In a strong command or curse. curse(kurs) v. To exclaim violently in anger.

2. To convey heightened emotions—fear, anger, anxiety, excitement—that typically imply heightened volume, as well, when used in dialogue.

3. Better yet, to do both #1 and #2.

Finally, if excessive exclamation points are bad for serious fiction (and they are), then doubling or tripling them at a single point is evil incarnate. Don’t do it. Ever! One exclamation point is always enough (at best), and often too much as it is. Two or three or four are ridiculous, the sure sign that an amateur is at work.

The same is true of combining exclamation points with question marks (?!), which is a clear signal that the writer doesn’t know if she’s asking a question or making an exclamation. In her confusion, she does both. Not good. She should build the emotion prior to that moment, so she can simply use the question mark. Editors see this and immediately think, “Geez, another beginner who doesn’t even know the basic rules of punctuation.” They are unlikely to give her work further consideration, other than to reach for the stack of rejection slips at the corner of their desks.

In closing, let me make clear that well-placed exclamation points are a powerful tool for writers. Yet we render them meaningless if we toss them around like monkeys in a poop fight—ineffective, and they really stink after a while. Ironically, writers use exclamation points to drive tension and drama, but when they overuse them, it becomes comical, farcical—the exact opposite of what the writer intended.

Let your language and your story structure do their jobs. Don’t weigh them down with excess baggage.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-

Rarely Does a Cart Lead the Horse to Good Effect

May 9, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 1 Comment

When I work with my editing clients, I often implore them to adhere to this commandment of effective writing: Keep it strong and direct. In other words: Let the horse lead the cart.

Standard sentence structure is standard for good reason. It works. It relates back to how we all learn to read in the first place. More than that, however, it plays to our innate psychological response to the written word.

Somebody does something, perhaps to someone/something else, possibly in a certain way or in a particular setting. Thus, the standard sentence structure: Subject, Action, Object.

We often dress that up a bit, adding a descriptive or two, character motivation, setting—the how, why, when and where of it. Nonetheless, we typically sandwich the action between the subject committing the act and the object on whom the act is committed—in that order.

We can mix it up on occasion, to break up the rhythm and pace of the prose (preventing the “Lullaby Effect”), or to provide emphasis—a punch—to a particular segment. Yet those exceptions work in large part because they stand out from the rule that guides most of our writing. If those exceptions become the rule of your prose, they lose their effectiveness, their panache. The writing then strikes the reader as a sloppy, choppy, stop-and-start, out-of-order mess.

I offer this example from one of my clients (names changed to protect the not-so-innocent).

ORIGINAL (Bad): Against snow clouds that hid the afternoon sun, Albert saw a gray cliff’s distant summit. A pine forest sprang dark from the foreground. Promising abundance, the forest embraced the nomadic hunters. ver fallen log’s rough bark, slowly turning white, red deer leapt.

REVISED (Good – 1st Alternative): The gray cliff of a distant summit rose against snow clouds that hid the afternoon sun. A pine forest sprang dark from the foreground. The forest embraced the nomadic hunters and promised abundance. Red deer leapt over the rough, whitened bark of a fallen log.

NOTES

1. I reordered the first sentence, placing the horse firmly before the cart.
2. I eliminated the “Albert saw” reference. This is not only TELLING (as opposed to SHOWING), but it is unnecessary given that we’re in Albert’s POV in this segment.
3. I left the second sentence unchanged.
4. I reordered the third sentence. It’s generally bad form to begin a sentence with an Infinite Verb Phrase (“Promising abundance”). Think of it as an act without an actor.
5. I reordered the final sentence.
6. The following alternative also works. It’s a matter of stylistic preference, and of which pace works better at that specific point in the story.

REVISED (Good – 2nd Alternative – slightly different pacing): The gray cliff of a distant summit rose against snow clouds that hid the afternoon sun. A pine forest sprang dark from the foreground, embracing the nomadic hunters and promising abundance. Red deer leapt over the rough, whitened bark of a fallen log.

In the example below, culled from the same story, the author and I agree to violate the rule in the final, underlined segment.

EXCEPTION: Every animal cast its nose upward. They jittered and hesitated, until survival instinct drove them to bolt for safety within the trees to the east. In the forest to the west, and emitting a foul, warning stench, a most deadly predator approached.

This works because of the manner in which the suspense builds throughout the paragraph, and the way in which the final segment reveals the cause of that tension. The author builds the suspense, causes the reader to anticipate with some anxiety the revelation.

Absent a final revelation that packs a punch (the literary device we call “Tension”), this structure would not work. In that case, stick with standard structure. If you try to force it, to create high tension where none exists simply by restructuring your sentences, you will come off as melodramatic, cheesy and amateurish.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

Sleep-Writing

April 26, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

I often awake in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning, with my brain ablaze with new ideas about how to advance a piece I’m working on. Tick-tock goes the clock. Snore, snore, and snore some more. And pow! I have it—the next step in my story.

The subconscious mind works even as our bodies rest, a point on which Sarah Maurer elaborates in “Zen & the Science of Effortless Prose,” an article in the May/June 2011 issue of Writer’s Digest.

If you’re a writer, you already know this, of course. Yet the point of the article by Ms. Maurer is not just to explain that it happens, but to encourage all of us to promote the process—to feed it. If you’re willing to plant a seed, and then walk away from it, the seed may well take root when you least expect. Such as when you’re sleeping, as it does with me.

Those writers who claim to work “on the clock” fascinate me. They punch in at 8:00 am, for example, and write until noon, and then move on to other pursuits. It amazes me because, no matter how determined I may be, I cannot pull that off. For me, writing requires a flash of inspiration. I may be able to prod it a bit, but just as often, I’ll end up staring at the screen—soon distracted and on to other things.

On the other hand, when an idea hits me, an itching, burning need to sit at the computer and punch out the story, I may end up writing for hours. 1,500 words? Easy. 2,000 words? Probably. 3,000 words? Occasionally. 5,000 words? It happens.

What fascinates me most is how often I start that process fresh from bed, with my brain on fire after doing so much of the heavy lifting while I slept.

Thank you, brain.

Returning to the Writer’s Digest article by Sarah Maurer, she and her interviewees offer suggestions on how to promote that process. Read it. Take the suggestions (indeed, take the entire premise) to heart. It works, and you must take advantage of every opportunity.

The brain remains the last frontier in human physiology. Be bold, and explore just a fraction more of what it offers.

As you prepare to settle down for the night, think about your novel/memoir/short story/poem/article. What has held you up? What is it that needs fixing? Focus not on the solutions, but the problems.

Then, lie down. Go to sleep. You’ve planted the seed. Now let your brain do the hard work while you rest.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

A Supreme Lazy Word: “Very”

April 15, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 1 Comment

I recently discussed the problem of lazy/weak/overused words with a couple of my editing clients. One that has always threatened to make my head pop like a thirteen-year-old’s week-old zit is the useless “very.”

Not 48 hours after that last discussion, I came across this tidbit in the May 2011 issue of The Writer, in an article by Erika Dreifus entitled “2 Takes on the Power of a Single Word”:

…novelist Brock Clarke’s entry on “very”:

“Is there a weaker, sadder, more futile

word in the English language than very?

Is there another word as fully guaranteed

to prove the opposite of what its speaker

or writer intends to prove? Is there

another word that so clearly states, on

the speaker’s or writer’s behalf, ‘I’m not

even going to try to find the right word,’ or

‘No matter how hard I try, I’m not going to

find the right word’? Is there a less

specific, less helpful, less necessary, less

potent word in our vocabulary?” Already,

before completing a full page, Clarke has

convinced us: “There is not.”

Can I have an “Amen!”

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-

Those SOB verbs are a real #$%&#$!

April 13, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 4 Comments

The subject of State-Of-Being verbs has occupied a large swath of both my writing and my editing radars lately.

The culprits: Am, is, are, was, were, to be, had been, etc.

These dullards convey no action at all. They simply are. They convey a state of being, and nothing more. Say it with me now: Boring!

Let’s not forget the SOB verbs’ evil cousins, the DIA verbs (Dull InActive verbs).

The culprits: Did, had, went, came, got, took, kept, made, put, had*, etc. *Exception: The necessary use of “had” in Past Perfect Tense.

When employing these verbs, you’re indicating that something is happening, but that something evokes no imagery in the reader’s mind, no sense of action or urgency. Dull!

The reason these inactive verbs remain so anathema to effective writing relates to one of the primary commandments of writing: SHOW; DON’T TELL.

A reader enjoys most what she sees in her mind’s eye. If your prose evokes no imagery, if you fail to paint a picture with your words, the reader will never enter the scene as if she were a spectator or, better yet, living vicariously through the characters.

If you fail in this regard, you offer only the fictional equivalent of a lecture. Bluch!

Therein lurks the danger of SOB and DIA verbs. Yes, they are occasionally required, but I’ll bet a dollar to your dime that you can eliminate half of them from your manuscript. You must challenge yourself, and exercise the creativity that drove you to write in the first place. Evoke an image by using a verb that conveys action.

To do so, you’ll have to rethink your sentence structure—perhaps the entire paragraph. So what? Your job—indeed, your covenant with the reader—is to bring her into a fictional world where she can escape her real-worldly burdens for a while. Why else would she read your story? Your continued success rests on how well you meet your obligation.

Remember this as you restructure your sentences to make them active: Keep it strong and direct! No Passive Voice allowed. Why trade one weak sentence for another?

So get busy searching your document for all those nasty SOB and DIA verbs. Count them (let your software’s “find” function do that) and list the numbers now, and again after you’re revised the manuscript. How many did you cut?

I’ll visit the related subject of weak/lazy/overused words in the near future. Geez! This writing thing is hard.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-

Inside Your Characters

March 29, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 2 Comments

I’ve often wondered why one book will grab me by the heart and soul and never let go, while another one fails to do so, even when both stories entertain me. For me, at least, it’s simple: it’s all about the characters.

The books that endure in my mind long after I’ve read them, which compel me to read them a second time, or a third, or more, are those with characters that capture not just my imagination, but my love. Or hate. Yes, I even love—err… hate—some truly nasty bad guys. (Come on! So do you. Tell the truth.) Yet I need at least one character to feel like family, or a good friend, or the person I always wanted to know.

I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird four times, not only because Harper Lee crafted this compelling story in such a readable style, but because, at some point, I end up missing Atticus and Scout, and I just have to visit them again. I’ve read Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War four times, because I can easily imagine his protagonist, Allessandro Giuliani, as the grandfather I never had. I just love that old guy.

I’ve read John Steinbeck’s masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath, because I feel for Tom and Ma, for Rose of Sharon and Casey. I hunger with them, suffer with them through their ungodly ordeal, cry with them at their devastating loss. Hell, I can even smell them. I know Tom’s voice, and Ma’s too. I’ve spoken them aloud as I’ve read some of my favorite exchanges. I’ve lived them.

Therein hides the secret for every writer: if you want your readers to live your characters, you must first do so. You must crawl inside their hearts and minds. You must be them.

Some writers can achieve that silently, in perfect stillness, without ever acting out the characters. At least, that’s the rumor. I can’t. I’ve tried, but there always seems to be a little something missing. Not until I seclude myself in a quiet spot, where I needn’t worry about making a fool of myself, as I perform the character as though auditioning for the role of a lifetime, can I truly capture the essence of my characters.

If I can’t hear the distinctiveness of a character’s voice, I’ve failed. If I don’t automatically adopt the body language that would come naturally to the character in a given circumstance, and if I fail to convey that body language on the page, I’ve failed. If I don’t chuckle when the character would laugh, or my eyes don’t water slightly when the character would cry, or my gut doesn’t clench when the character would fear for his life, I’ve failed.

Not until I live the character do I find those instances where I failed, and so create the remedy. If I want to punch my readers in the gut and twist them into a whirlwind of emotions, I must first do so to myself. If I can’t feel it, how can I expect my readers to feel it?

If you’re uncertain of the strength of your characters, try acting them out. If it sounds silly, that’s because it’s a little embarrassing to you, because you’re not a natural performer. No worries. Just find a quiet, secluded place to do it. Fiction is the art of make-believe anyway, so acting it out should come naturally to you, so long as you don’t have that pesky, embarrassing audience. Try it. I guarantee that if you commit to it, you’ll hear and feel things that escape you when merely reading the words.

Come on! What do you have to lose?

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-

Re-Engaged

March 19, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 1 Comment

I’ve been working for the past week or so not just to establish this website, which is getting there, but also to update accordingly all of my other online presences. In the process of doing so, it has occurred to me just how disengaged I’ve been, at least at most of those sites, over the past year or so.

I was so distraught over the state of the publishing business—specifically, the old mainstream, brick and mortar publishing business—and the sheer folly of trying to break into that as a first-time author of thrillers, I just checked out. I told myself I would re-engage when the market recovered. Sure.

Now that I’ve concluded that the old mainstream market wallows in the throes of slow death, and now that I’ve decided to move forward in the e-Publishing arena, I feel positively reinvigorated.

Yes, I have re-engaged. Feels good.

I still have plenty of work to do, not the least of which is a final polish (I swear it’s my last one!) of my manuscript. I just wanted to take one last spin through, and should finish that by the end of April. I also have to finalize the plans I’m kicking around to develop a team, an e-Publishing Group, to maximize the likelihood of success. I’m a bit apprehensive, simply because this is a new arena, yet I’m fired-up for the same reason. I love putting on my troubleshooter’s cap and brainstorming new possibilities. Fun stuff.

I’m a couple weeks away from announcing my full plan (I should say our plan, as I’m working it out with my first teammate) to some select individuals, and possibly opening it up to potential participants (primarily writers with similar goals), but I can’t keep my brain from running a thousand miles per hour.

Man! I should have listened to my own advice, which I offer at the end of all my blog posts:

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

———-