Get An Editor by @vizprod (Andy Christofferson)

Here's another great guest post by an indie author Andy Christofferson (@vizprod). Check out his blog and his book The Peace Corpse. He explains the importance of having an editor in this post, which I firmly believe as an editor and writer. Enjoy~

I wrote a book. I thought my book was pretty good. Like so many naive writers, I assumed that it was 'done' just because it didn't have any major typos or grammatical errors. I even had my parents and sister go through it just to be sure. A lot of people have gone out of their way to tell me that they’ve enjoyed it, and I’m still proud of that. But there was a few complaints about the pacing and some of the description. The thing is: those are the kinds of things a good editor would catch.

What most self-published people don't seem to realize is that editing isn't just about fixing typos. It encompasses pacing, characterization, voice, description, and all major and minor issues that can turn a merely good story into a GREAT one.

Yes, I've sold a few books. That is nice, but maybe I could've had a breakout hit if I'd just made that one-time, initial investment of hiring an editor. Well, that, and actually having a decent cover. But that’s beside the point.

For my next book, a high fantasy novella, I was determined to do things right. So I wrote and revised and had my family go through and look for typos, and then I looked for an editor. I found someone on Twitter who was offering a free two-page edit/critique, and I liked the job he did so much I asked him to edit the entire manuscript. He even gave me a discount.

When I got my manuscript back, there were red marks on every single page. Wordiness, excessive use of adverbs, inconsistent point of view, too much exposition, melodrama, lack of description, overly detailed backstories, and so on. He said he enjoyed the story itself and even complimented me on my writing (in terms of grammar and sentence structure, at least), but I know I would be doing a gross injustice to readers if I put my story up for sale without fixing the aforementioned items.

I am a professional technical writer and freelance editor—of scientific publications. I’m pretty confident in my ability to write grammatically correct sentences with few typos. That does not mean, however, that I can write perfect fiction without help. It isn’t easy to be objective with my own writing, especially when I’m too emotionally attached. After all, if I didn’t think every single sentence was perfect exactly the way I wrote it, I wouldn’t have written it that way.

This is why writers need editors. It’s critical that the work go through the scrutiny of someone who is not emotionally vested and who can provide an honest, objective feedback. Having an editor is an indispensable part of creating a book because writers are often extremely subjective in their opinion, even if they don’t want to admit it.

With the rise of self-publishing, many Indie writers seem to think that editing is merely fixing typos. That is the job of proofreaders, not editors. I think this trend is really a shame. There is a significant number of Indie books out there that would’ve been exceptionally good if the author had just bothered with the one-time investment of hiring an editor. In the end, that could’ve made all the difference.

Revision by Lee Prewett The Editor (Guest Post)

Lee Prewett is a wonderful tweep and an excellent editor. If you need his help or service, look below for his info. Enjoy his post on revision.

Dear Editor, please make my story perfect!

Novice writers often assume revision and editing are synonymous when in fact they represent two discrete functions. Revision deals with storyline, accuracy, fact checking, and word choice, while editing addresses grammar, mechanics, and formatting. Without the former, the latter is a complete waste of time. 

Though editors differ, I never read for storyline and mechanics at the same time. Until the storyline is final, what would be the purpose of locating mechanics glitches and dealing with formatting? Moreover, kind authors attempt to rid their pieces of mechanical errors before the file hits the editor’s screen.

Seasoned authors know revision is not a cursory activity, but rather one usually taking longer than writing the story in the first place. Writing a novel is easy and anyone can do it. Making it something worth reading means careful and painstaking revision. No one produces perfection with the first draft.

After writers have done their own exhaustive revision and rewriting, they typically use beta readers to test the piece’s readiness. Beta readers may very well be editors, but more importantly they must be honest enough to tell authors the truth about their pieces. Quality authors want Simon Cowell, not Paula Abdul. Remember a written piece is a product and not one’s baby.

A good beta reader can assess a piece written in any genre because the genre is immaterial to a quality story. If authors have to explain anything about your story before, during, or after a beta reading, they have reworking to do because their pieces are not ready for the editor. 

In revision, the first consideration should be whether the plot makes sense and whether it is well paced. Characters and characterization come next, followed by the setting. These essential parts of the story’s architecture must be solid and consistent. From there, my laundry list as a reader/editor is exhaustive. 

Passive narration (was walking) plummets interest, kills voice, and spikes the boredom factor. Use action verbs (walked) wherever possible to carry the story. Telling writing (She looked beautiful.) causes tune out. Use imagery to show elements to your reader with one caveat: do not fall into the trap of becoming a sensory detail junkie because that can obliterate the plot. Imprecise or general adjectives also deaden the senses. 

Precision and correctness matter. Can an author write about the hustle and bustle of New York without having experienced it directly? If the Mustang a character drives is blood red, why not look up the paint codes for that year and get the real name? If a character’s name has a common spelling USE IT! Creative spellings of established names (e.g. Dillon, Dillan, Dillian for Dylan) make it seem the author does not know the correct spelling and therefore that the piece is flawed.

Finally, use Flesch-Kincaid readability tests (Google) to determine the grade level and ease of your writing. If an author is a YA author and the grade level of the piece is 12 and F-K reading ease is 40, the author has problem.

No matter what, keep writing and working your writing!

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Lee Prewett is a career educator, author, editor, and photographer. He lives in Bakersfield, California. He is currently readying the novel The Salton Sea Chronicles: Avenger for publication and is revising/editing The Salton Sea Chronicles: Violator.

Follow Him On Twitter or Visit His Blog

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"Oh father of the four winds, fill my

sails to cross the sea of years with no provision but an open face along

the straits of fear." Robert Plant

Thanks for visiting my blog. Please check out my editing services here. Happy writing~

"No Writing Track" A Guest Post by a Writer/Musician Derek Flynn

Derek is an intriguing writer in that he doesn't use any writing track while he writes. Neither do I. I NEED to be in the mood of the characters or the story, and some songs are wrong for that. Well...except for his wonderful music on his blog, which is quiet helpful if you're writing a dystopian. My point is, we both play music; he plays contemporary and I play classics. Yet we don't have writing tracks. This post will explain a little about why that is. Enjoy!

Writers get asked the same questions by non-writers all the time: “Where do you get your ideas from?” or “How do you just make stuff up out of your head?” Or, “Why are you talking to yourself?” (Oh, that last one might just be me). However, we don’t get asked these questions by other writers. Naturally, really, because we already know the answers. But there’s more to it than that. Writers don’t ask each other these questions because they’re not the questions other writers are interested in. As a writer, I don’t care where you get your ideas from; what I do want to know is how you go about writing. Do you do it at a desk? (Or standing up, like Hemingway) (Or lying down, like Truman Capote) Do you write in the morning, evening, or all night?

Writer’s writing habits – that’s what writers want to know about.

So, when Su asked me to do a guest blog – knowing that I’m a writer AND a musician – one of the first things she said to me was, “Most writers have writing tracks to help them write. It would be fascinating to know what a musician/writer does.” See? Writing habits. 

But, of course, it is interesting because the fact is I don’t have tracks that I write to. And it’s not just that I don’t have music that I write to, it’s that I can’t write while listening to music. But I’m a musician. Yeah, go figure. Now, when I say music, I actually mean music with lyrics. I find it impossible to write while I’m hearing someone else’s words in my head. I could listen to instrumentals while writing. (Indeed, on days when my neighbour decides to pump his stereo up, I have been known to strap on a set of headphones and listen to Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, or some such album). But for some reason, I don’t. Of course, I listen to music all the time when I’m not writing. And I play music all the time when I’m not writing. But when I’m writing, my space is a music-free zone.

Another thing that often interests people is the fact that I have to keep the two activities separate. That is, I can’t finish writing a chapter and pick up the guitar and start writing a song, or vice versa. It requires – for me, at least – a whole different mindset. It’s not surprising really, I don’t think. After all, most musicians focus solely on their music and their lyrics and most authors focus solely on their prose. They don’t need to turn their attention to another discipline. When you do have to, you need to divorce yourself completely from the other discipline.

All in all, there are as many similarities as there are differences between writing music and writing prose, and that’s one of the things that I hope to examine on my new blog, ‘Rant, with Occasional Music’(You can also hear some of my original music over there). Hope you can all join me!

Derek Flynn is an Irish writer and musician. He has an Honours Degree in English Literature and Philosophy. He’s been published in a number of publications, including The Irish Times, and was First Runner-Up in the 2011 J. G. Farrell Award for Best Novel-In-Progress. His writing/music blog – ‘Rant, with Occasional Music’ – can be found here: http://derekflynn.wordpress.com and on Twitter, he can be found here: http://twitter.com/#!/derekf03

Thanks you for visiting my blog. Please check out my editor website for your editing needs. Happy writing~

Guest Post by Tim Kane: Is Your Productivity Turning into a Time Suck?

After several excruciatingly painful minutes of my bothering him, Tim Kane (who is signed with an agency now) finally agreed to do a guest post. Plus, he owed me. And if you're not following him on Twitter, I strongly suggest you do. He's a great writer and a nice tweeter. You may also want to visit his blog. The links are at the end of the post. Enjoy!

Is Your Productivity Turning into a Time Suck?

We all look for excuses. I’m a school teacher. Trust me, I know how to avoid doing my work. Sometimes it seems like I’ll be buried under teetering towers of grading. Yet in a creative venue like writing, some endeavors disguise themselves as productivity. 

Blogging

Yes, what I’m doing right now. This is fun, and it stretches different writing muscles. Yet it does not write my novel for me.

It’s so easy to fall into the blogging trap under the auspice of marketing and building a platform. You want readers, right? Hook them with your blogging skills, and they’ll transition over to your fiction. Really, what’s that? Fiction. You haven’t finished writing that novel yet. Step away from the blogsphere and get some serious words slapped on pages.

Twitter

If I had my druthers, I’d hardwire Twitter to my brain and scan the timeline while I sleep. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I don’t think I’m alone in my addiction. Those @replies have a way of sucking you in and keeping you there.

Twitter gets us addicted through intermittent reinforcement. This type of conditioning is like crack on the brain. Animal trainers use this to effectively indoctrinate their critters. Animals (and people) work harder when the reward isn’t guaranteed. They also continue the trained practice longer once all the rewards are gone.

Think about it. You never know when you’ll get an @reply or a retweet. Because you aren’t guaranteed any reward, you continue to plug away at your timeline, even if nothing’s going on.

The Long Form

Each of these delays is not a substantial time suck in itself. A few minutes here or there. Hardly matters to most creative types. A musician? Tweet between practices. Artist? Whip up a blog as the paint dries. But nearly every other creative type falls in the short form in terms of inception to completion. Novelists writing a manuscript have months, or years, to slave over their work. 

The little time sucks start to add up. Instead of completing your manuscript in six months, it’s pushed off to nine months, or a year. You can easily see how someone could be writing that novel indefinitely. And he might not be mucking around. He might really be trying to complete that novel. Just, things get in the way.

The Solution

I’ve spent this whole time telling you what you’re doing wrong. Come on. There has to be a way around these distractions, right? Let’s unplug the Internet. That should do it. 

Hold on there Tex. The answer is simply budgeting. Keep your blogging and tweeting on a schedule. Limit the time you regularly devote to these endeavors. Of course, there will be occasions where you’ll hit them a little harder. But don’t let it compete with your writing time.

Remember, you can’t bundle up your history of tweets and turn them into a manuscript. And your host of followers can’t read your novel unless you actually write it.

Tim Kane

Bio: Tim Kane researched every major vampire film from the 1931 Dracula to Underworld and Twilight. His study was published in The Changing Vampire of Film and Television, but McFarland Publishers. Visit timkanebooks.com (www.timkanebooks.com) or read his blog at timkanebooks.wordpress.com (http://timkanebooks.wordpress.com/). You can also follow him on Twitter @timkanebooks.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Please visit www.sirraedits.com for my editing services. Happy writing~

Guest Post by Author Patti Larsen on Self Publishing

So many aspiring authors ask themselves if the self-publishing is a way to go to start their writing career. While I don't have any opinion or great knowledge on this subject, my friend and author, Patti Larsen, has a little experience with self-publishing because she has been there and done that. So, I asked her to do a guest post and share some of her experience with me and my blog readers. If you want to find more information on Patti or her books, please visit her blog and her books.


The Great Experiment by Patti Larsen


I’ve fumbled around in the publishing world for years, trying to understand the ins and outs of the industry and process. This is the first time I was willing to do my homework and test out all of the options.


So, while I waited on several novels to be picked up, I decided to try self-publishing. I’m the type of person who wants to know how everything works from the inside out and it seemed like a fantastic opportunity to do so. I had two books that made the rounds with agents. I knew despite the rejections that both were well written and had great merit. They presented the prefect opportunity for my experiment.


My experience broke down into the following:


Pros: I got to do it all myself. This was a heck of a great time, I have to say. I used Lulu.com as my POD (print on demand) publisher as well as Smashwords to distribute through as ebooks. Both are fantastic resources if you decide to self-publish. Neither charges fees, unless you decide you want to pay for one of their editing or design packages (Lulu only) and you get to set your own price. They provide ISPN numbers (think barcodes) for your work.You have total control over your content. I designed both covers myself by purchasing (for cheap) stock photos online and using a very simple graphics program to fancy it up. Once everything was ready, I downloaded, checked the copy for format errors and had it for sale all in one day.


Cons: I had to do it all myself. It’s a lot of prep. I highly recommend you have your work professionally edited (which costs money) to assure you’re putting out the best possible product. And the formatting for some of the readers (Kindle, Nook, iPad) is tricky and needs a great deal of patience. If you’re not creative artistically you may want to have someone do your cover and interior design. Plus, you’re on your own for marketing. Mind you, not many publishers are able to afford much marketing anyway, but you are just another pretty face in a vast ocean of pretty faces (there are about 175,000 books published EVERY YEAR), without only your name behind you.


Since my experiment, I’ve sold two books to traditional publishers—one a small press and the other a digital press focused on ebooks. In my experience, I prefer the traditional publishing model. I enjoyed my foray into self-publishing and learned a great deal, but I found I was spending more time designing, formatting, marketing and networking than I was writing. And while I know I’ll still be doing some of the above no matter what, having a publisher to edit and package my work takes some of the pressure off.


Will I ever self-publish again? Of course I will. But for now, I’m enjoying this new experience of having some of the work done for me.


Although I have so many questions about self-publishing, I didn't want to get in too deep here. There are great websites and forums out there that are very informative and educational. I just wanted to hear someone's actual experience with it and their opinions on the subject. I hope you found this post did just that. Patti's a great writer and mentor. You can follow her on twitter.

Check out my editor website for professional editing services.