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Role of the Editor: Part II
July 24, 2014
Last week, we looked at what an editor does not do for you. This week we look at what an editor does do for you, or at least should – I write should because boundaries may vary with editors. But this is what we (at Busybird) consider the principle guidelines for our editors, and what we instruct our assistant editors and interns.
Something important to note here is that editing’s not just about the practical duties required, i.e. editing the text. Good editing goes beyond that. The text is a reflection of the author, so in being an editor, the editor also needs to understand the author they’re working with, and what they’re trying to accomplish.
So let’s begin …
An editor does develop a relationship with their author
How do they do that? Wine them? Dine them? Well, I’ve had clients who have wanted to sit down for a coffee, or a meal, to get a feel for me and my outlook. Sometimes, this isn’t possible. You can have clients from remote regions, interstate, or even internationally.
The best way of developing a relationship with an author is by demonstrating that you’re listening to them, and that you’re there to help them get the best out of their work. This is important for both parties. The author needs to understand what the editor is going to bring to their work, whilst the editor needs to understand – beyond the text itself – where the author’s coming from.
An editor does get inside the voice of the author
Every author has a voice that is unique to them and it’s paramount that the editor appreciates this. We’ve seen editors who’ve highlighted passages and offered perfectly valid suggestions – suggestions that are great, but when you look at the highlighted passages, you see that’s fine also, but the editor’s wanted to do it their way.
So an editor needs to respect the way the author’s doing things. Additionally, an editor has to come from the same place as the author, even if the author is writing in a style, prose, voice that the editor might not usually familiarise themselves with.
For example, if we have a paragraph such as
- Bob jogged into the forest and down the beaten track. Wind rustled through the leaves of the pines.
we should recognise the author’s style is simple. Therefore, it’s not a worthwhile suggestion to do something like:
- Perhaps consider adding more description. E.g. ‘Bob jogged into the majesty of the forest and down a sinuous track that had been beaten by decades of wearied woodland travellers. A cruel, biting wind rustled through the shy leaves of towering pines that reached unassailably into the sky.
That is not recognising the voice of the author. That’s asking the author to become somebody else. The editor should try to get on the same wavelength as the author, and suggestions should be in the same voice.
An editor should correct spelling, punctuation, typos, grammar, etc.
Structural editing won’t always involve this step, since work returning from a structural edit is going to be revised (by the author), which would likely introduce a whole raft of new errors.
But if you’re receiving a copyedit, an editor should not only provide these services, but also educate you on any habitual errors you’re committing. Some authors don’t care about being educated, preferring to leave that to the editor, but I always think it’s worth the effort because, in the long run, it can save the author the expense of having an editor needing to work longer because there’s more things to fix, not to mention the editor the time of having to make these same corrections.
An editor should introduce consistency throughout the text
Was it ‘colour’ on page 3, but ‘color’ on page 20? Did the author refer to the state as ‘State’ on page 2, but ‘state’ on page 9? Is one heading written as ‘This Is The Heading Here’ and another ‘This is the heading there’? They’re just little things, but authors can be inconsistent. An editor needs to be aware of stylistic conventions within a document and either standardise them, or query the author as to which they prefer.
An editor provides suggestions on improving content
If it is a structural edit, an editor should look at things like plot, characterisations, pacing, the way the story is structured, etc. Does it take too long to get into it? Is it repetitive? There are so many facets that constitute a story, and an editor should examine whether they all function in conjunction with one another; whether they’re overdeveloped or underdeveloped; and what work’s required.
The good editor should also explain why they’ve cited passages and, if possible, make suggestions. A comment of, ‘This character doesn’t work’ doesn’t help the author at all. How does the character not work? Are they too two-dimensional? Are they unmotivated? What exactly is it about them that doesn’t work? Explain it.
If possible, a good editor should suggest how to fix it. E.g. ‘It’s hard to believe this character would take this violent course of action. Perhaps consider earlier establishing that they do have violent tendencies – maybe in that encounter with their neighbour, there might be a flare of suppressed anger.’
And it should be just a suggestion. A comment such as, ‘It’s hard to believe this character would take this violent course of action. Fix it’ is confrontational and tyrannical, and most authors – like most people – don’t want to be ordered around like disobedient children. It’s the best way to antagonise an author.
An editor does not comment for the sake of commenting
Some might think this belongs in last week’s list of things not to do. No, this is something editors need to do.
Empty margins scare some editors. It makes them think that the author will think they’re not doing their job if nothing’s marked up or commented on, so they comment for the sake of commenting, to mark the emptiness in the margins and prove they’re doing their job.
A good editor should recognise when not to comment. It’s a strong and confident editor who learns that they do need to respect that there are times nothing needs to be done.
An editor does alert an author of copyright issues they may be aware of
This might seem contrary to last week’s advice, but if an editor does recognise something’s been quoted or reproduced from external material, an editor should alert the author they will need to seek permission. Of course, they mightn’t recognise foreign material, so sometimes a simple heads up that this process is required is nice, too.
Editing’s often a thankless, anonymous job. You can name bestselling and/or famous authors, but can you name their editors? How many editors can you name overall? The answer, for most, will be none.
The good editor is a shepherd. They’re not out to harm what they’re shepherding, but get it to its destination in the best condition possible.
LZ.
The Comfort Zone
July 22, 2014
The eleventh issue of page seventeen is starting to take form, slowly but surely.
But I wouldn’t be a head editor of a collection without airing some gripe from the process, would I? As blasé as it is, there is something that occurred to me while reading some of the page seventeen submissions – something that I’d like to highlight here.
For all the writers reading this – whether you’re short story writers or poets – it might even be an exercise of sorts. Look back on the most recent additions to your folio of work – say, the last year or two worth. Have a quick read-through, and consider what each piece is about. Look at the plot, the characters used, the settings, the consistent style and the use of wordplay.
How many of those qualities are near-identical across the majority of your pieces? And, moreover, did you know those patterns existed in your work?
A writer’s comfort zone is a sacred place. It’s the type of content that comes most naturally, and resonates with the writer’s own emotions and state of mind most clearly.
When reviewing the short stories and poems submitted to page seventeen, I noticed the work of writers I have read before, as well as multiple submissions by a single author, that stuck a note of familiarity in its content. I obviously can’t be too specific, but in these cases where I could compare several works from the same author, I often noticed that they would:
- Use a wordplay gimmick in almost exactly the same way across two or more works.
- Write a story with a noticeably similar premise or centrepiece scene – a domestic dispute, an awkward encounter, etc – which doesn’t separate itself enough from previous embodiments.
- Replicate a previous piece’s use of structure, style or themes, based on its success in the past.
It should be stressed that none of these works are bad. Some of them are great. And if it’s the approach or style that got you published in the past, of course it makes sense to stick to a winning formula. But unfortunately, the diminishing returns are inevitable. And if I noticed the patterns, then other readers (and editors) will notice them as well – if they haven’t already.
Does this sound like you? Then remember that, technically, you’re not doing anything wrong. But your growth as a writer will be stymied if you don’t take some risks in your work. If it seems like your last batch of work was all about domestic turmoil, or featured essentially the same lead character with cosmetic changes, then make an effort to break that rut. If it seems that your current work is being modelled off a previous success, you can still work with a winning formula but don’t allow your work to regress into a folio full of echoes.
If you’re not sure how to start edging out of your comfort zone, one straightforward way is the game of ‘Wikipedia Roulette’. Set a limit – maybe 5 article jumps – and use the ‘random article’ function on Wikipedia. Then you have to use one of the articles within that set limit as a basis for character, theme or setting in a new story or poem. Alternatively, you might seek out magazines or competitions with set themes outside your normal modus operandi, and use that as a challenge as well as a unique publishing opportunity.
Everyone has patterns and habits that they fall into, often without realising it. It may not be damaging the quality of your work, but unchecked these patterns may drag your new work down until it is a shade of the freshness and originality that made your earlier work engaging in the first place.
Whether you’ve identified these patterns in your work or not, the sentiment is the same: your strongest pattern should be the tendency to broaden your horizons with genres, settings and characters that fall outside your comfort zone. (And workshop all of it – even the hokey attempt at romance. There’s no point pushing your boundaries if you don’t learn anything from the experience.) Not every resulting work will be a success, but they will all contribute to your learning process as a writer.
Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen
Role of the Editor: Part I
July 17, 2014
Lots of authors have misconceptions about the role of an editor. This can lead to issues when an author thinks an editor hasn’t fulfilled one (or more) of their duties or, conversely, when they might’ve overstepped their bounds. It’s important to be clear on an editor’s responsibilities, and their boundaries.
This week, we look at what an editor does not do for you.
An editor is not out to harm your work
Seriously, why would we? Your writing is a reflection of our employer or our services, which are then a reflection of our business. Sabotaging you would be sabotaging ourselves. Our goal is to make your work the best it can be, which in turn makes us look the best we can be. So why would we harm your work? We would harm ourselves.
The editor/author relationship is a symbiotic process. An editor’s suggestions are made with the intent of improving your work. If they have misunderstood something, or don’t get something, explain it to them. A good editor is not arbitrary. They will always explain why they’ve made the suggestion they have, and their suggestions will be in the vein of what you’re attempting to do.
And that, in itself, is the most important thing to remember – a good editor suggests, not demands, and they definitely don’t simply overwrite you.
An editor will not rewrite you or write for you
Our editors are instructed that under no circumstances are they to go into the author’s work, and rewrite them (unless it’s to correct spelling or a typo or something of that nature). We will cite (and highlight) passages that might have issues and suggest examples of how to repair them.
This is an important point. If your work contains a clunky sentence, or an overwritten paragraph that could be diluted to a sentence, don’t send it to us in the belief that we’ll fix it by doing the actual writing for you. Whilst subeditors at newspapers might have this role, fiction and nonfiction editors at publishers and journals do not.
It is neither our job to rewrite you, nor to write for you, and if you have an editor performing this duty for you, then they’re actually ghostwriting.
An editor will not solve all your issues
If you’ve written something and you think it could do with some work, as well as a spellcheck but, hey, it’s pretty okay as it is so maybe, just maybe, it’ll win over the reader at the other end, and they’ll address any and all issues, well, you’re kidding yourself and deserve a punch in the nose.
Regular readers to this blog will know how often we advocate revision. Don’t send your work out until you have gotten the very best out of it. It’s not an editor’s job to fix everything for you because you’re too lazy or disinterested to address it yourself, or because you think it’s brilliant enough as it is, so it’ll win your reader over.
Believe me, one of an editor’s greatest frustrations is recognising an author’s been haphazard about their work because of the misguided belief we’ll correct everything on our end. In all likelihood (likelierhood), you’ll just piss us off.
An editor will not check your permissions
If you’ve written a novel and quoted song lyrics, or written a nonfiction book and quoted extracts from other books, you need to get permission to use that material. Permissions are a minefield. Generally, when you quote a small amount, you should be okay (as long as it’s properly accredited). Should. But the copyright holder of that material (the author or the publisher of the material) may take issue, particularly if the material is intellectual property synonymous with them (or their branding).
An editor might flag such material or point out that you should seek permission to use it, but it’s up to you to get permission to use that material (approaching the author or the publisher – many publishers have permissions departments, or permissions forms downloadable from their websites).
This is not us abrogating responsibility either. Even if you submitted to a multinational publisher, they are going to request that you get all the permissions for any material you’ve quoted. They won’t do it for you. And there’s a chance if you’ve unwittingly quoted something without accrediting it, your editor or publisher won’t even recognise it as foreign material.
An editor will not always recognise plagiarism within your work
If you’re writing a book on important historical figures and for the chapter on, say, Paul Revere, you simply copy and paste the entry from Wikipedia, changing a word here and there, then are later sued for breach of copyright, don’t blame the editor for not warning you about your plagiarism. You should know you’re plagiarising without needing to have it pointed out to you.
For example, there is a sentence in the Wikipedia entry on Paul Revere that reads:
- Revere’s father died in 1754, when Paul was legally too young to officially be the master of the family silver shop.
Don’t think doing this
- In 1754, Revere’s father died, when Paul was legally too young to officially be the master of the family silver shop.
satisfies the demands of legal propriety. You’re not in Year 7 English, writing a report where you can juggle a word or two and nobody is the wiser. Your work is (in this digital age) intended for a global audience, so there’s a good chance somebody’s going to pick up the plagiarism. Plagiarism like this is blatant and illegal, and (as with the case of the permissions above) an editor will not always recognise that the writing has simply been copied from an external source.
Don’t plagiarise. It’s never acceptable, and juggling a word or two in a passage doesn’t constitute originality.
An editor is not at your beck and call
Believe it or not, editors will usually not be working exclusively on your piece. They might be juggling an assortment of jobs. Show some understanding for your editor. Don’t think you’re their only client, you’re their reason for existing, and that when you need something, they have nothing else on so they can attend your needs immediately and exclusively.
That is a basic checklist. If you have any queries, feel free to leave a comment or shoot us an email.
Next week, we look at what an editor does do for you.
LZ.
The Three Profiles of Fiction
July 15, 2014
In an earlier post, ‘No Offence?’ I touched on the idea of certain modes of storytelling, and how important the ‘profile’ of certain content can be to determining its effectiveness as a piece of prose.
This isn’t just some jargon I made up to feel self-important. This is a direct reference to a method that I often use in my own fiction to help in identifying what kind of story I’m telling. It’s one of the first questions I ask myself when I’m determining the focus of the story and its content: Which one of the three profiles of fiction am I using?
My perspective on profiles doesn’t have anything to do with the oft-cited ‘seven kinds of stories’ or any other element of writing directly related to plot and methodology. By ‘profile’ I’m referring to a specific focus that any piece of fiction has. Of the three basic profiles below, all fiction wears the garb of one of these profiles – or mixes and matches accordingly. I believe that any fiction can be strengthened or shattered based on how it incorporates these three profiles. (As a side note, poetry can potentially be modelled off the same principles, but this is more of a general fiction practice.)
To freshen up the lecture a little, let’s give these profiles some identity. Let’s build their archetypes in a way based on some classic characters that would make closet role-playing fans proud. Without further adieu, I introduce you to the warrior, the thief and the mage.
The Warrior
This is the plot profile. Hack, slash, save the princess and kill the dragon – oh and carve through some of that weighty exposition while you’re at it. There’s no time for scrolling through text-blocks of conversation! The quest must be completed!
In their purest form, these stories are the swashbuckling adventures that are most commonly found in airport newsagencies and on top of bedside tables. Warrior stories often shy away from meaningful character or theme development because what matters most is the plot, and the sheer momentum of stuff happening. Any character arcs or themes are in direct service to the progression of the story’s events.
This is the most common way to write a story, and often the most effective when it comes to captivating an audience quickly and effectively right from the opening sentence. It also suffers the most from the incessant ‘popular v literary’ debate, usually being firmly entrenched in the popular end of the divide.
With such a position on the divided line, warrior stories can often be labelled as dumb or shallow – sometimes justifiably, but sometimes unfairly.
The Thief
The character profile. The thief lives for rewarding interactions and the quieter moments – while that muscle-brained warrior is storming on ahead and getting himself into constant trouble with dragons, the thief lingers and learns a little more about what’s going on. A good thief cases the surrounding world and lives in an environment where people are assessed – their importance, threat or benefit is carefully logged.
Thief stories are very much in vogue these days – these stories don’t necessarily lack plot, but they have made a conscious decision to focus more on relationships and character development. They are often cerebral, slower-paced and rely on the numerous interactions between characters to further the story. The modern tag of ‘contemporary fiction’ is often used for novels that seek to blend deep character interaction with a serviceable but non-sensationalist plot.
This can be a rich and engaging profile, but also a risky one. A common tag in Melbourne is ‘the Carlton café novel’. This refers to the notion of a book that self-important authors might write as a thinly-veiled way of placing themselves in stories that favour style over substance. It’s a narrow assessment, but it summarises the inherent risks of writing in this profile. A good thief won’t get caught in ‘navel-gazing’ or redundant conversations.
The Mage
The theme profile. This is all about the esoteric – the mind over matter, and the application of higher principles. That dragon doesn’t need to be ‘slain’ – maybe it doesn’t even need to be encountered at all. Or even more, maybe it’s a metaphor for greed or perhaps anti-feminism (has anyone ever considered whether the princess wants or needs saving?). Reality itself is a construct, and there’s something greater lying behind the materialism that the mage uses to full effect.
In other words, the mage profile doesn’t care about events or people as much as it cares about the ideas and non-material aspects of the surrounding world.
It goes without saying that this is the most difficult form of fiction to make both engaging and entertaining. Mage stories are often considered the most socially relevant or the most intellectually rewarding, but it’s also the profile most likely to blow up in the writer’s face – like when a wizard in a movie botches a spell and turns some poor kid into a field mouse.
This is the realm of allegory and commentary. It’s fine in a controlled dose to add cultural relevance or nuance, but unchecked it can slide into rampant soapboxing – or worse, a story that has lost all sense of storytelling.
Often a single book will slide in and out of different profiles depending on its immediate requirements. A plot-based book will find time to slow down and analyse its characters. A book focused on characters will connect those characterisations to a unifying statement. The best books, of course, know how to cherry-pick from all three profiles to fulfil its purposes. But any individual writer will always have a profile they’re most comfortable with.
So what profile does your writing defer to the most, and why?
Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen
Unnecessary Shortcuts
July 10, 2014
As writers, we are warned not to use clichés in our writing. Clichés are overused phrases which no longer have any real meaning.
- When Gloria left me, she broke my heart.
Really? Your heart literally broke? What does this mean exactly? Beyond our understanding of the cliché itself, how can we empathise with this response, outside of correlating an experience where this might’ve occurred to us ourselves? That’s not our duty as readers, though – the author is meant to infuse us into every aspect of the character, so we experience exactly what they’re experiencing. That’s good writing. Clichés are shallow.
Now there are several words that have devolved to exist in the same strata. They perform a duty expediently yet, when misused, no longer have any resonance.
For example …
‘Suddenly’ has become a cliché in itself.
- Suddenly, a man jumped out with a knife.
It’s used to generate drama, but has now descended into the realms of melodrama, a word much more comfortable in a creative assignment for Year 7 English.
Look for it in whenever you’re reading. It’s become grossly overused, if not abused. If you’re going to use it, keep two things in mind:
- make sure that the action it’s connected to is sudden
- don’t overuse it.
Run a FIND in whatever you’re writing, and see how many times you’ve used ‘suddenly’ (or derivatives, e.g. ‘all of a sudden’). You’ll be surprised.
If you’re going to have a sudden action, see if you can communicate within the prose itself the suddenness of the action occurring, rather than relying on the use of ‘suddenly’. E.g.
- Suddenly, the door opened.
Could be:
- The door crashed open.
Which is better? (And a combination of two is not the answer!)
Arguably, an even lazier word is this:
‘However’ is a formal word, better suited to nonfiction. But wherever it’s used, writers too often rely on it to change tact without needing to provide any sort of logical transition.
- The dog is humping the neighbour’s leg. However, there is a war going on overseas.
Excuse me? The only segue here is the ‘however’ allows us to jump from one subject to the other – that’s an important distinction in itself. It’s not from ‘one subject to the next’, as that implies there’s a logical progression in ideas. It’s two unconnected subjects. Yet the use of ‘however’ makes the crossover almost seem legitimate.
‘However’ can also be used to put forth an opposing idea.
- I believe grammar in English is important. However, some people holiday in the Himalayas.
Um, what? How did we get into the Himalayas from grammar? Lots of non fiction writers fall into this trap. They can explore one idea, then flip-flop onto another simply through the use of ‘however’, and most readers won’t question the narrative’s detour. They’ll accept the visual cue as a segue and just read on.
Again, as occurs with ‘suddenly’, it’s worth considering the way the prose itself progresses in expressing what it has to say. ‘However’ is a shortcut to get from one place to the next. It’s also another word that’s overused.
The final word:
How often have you heard this word used in your life? You never hear a parent chide a child, ‘Don’t you dare exclaim at me!’ or somebody tell a story where they use ‘exclaim’ (‘Oh, before I had a chance to exclaim, he’d stolen my car!’). It exists exclusively in writing, and even there, the bulk of its work is done as an attributor.
- ‘Don’t you dare use me,’ he exclaimed.
This is something we encounter frequently – a character exclaims, whilst the dialogue is punctuated as if it were everyday speech. Surely if somebody’s exclaiming, it’s worthy of an exclamation mark!
- ‘Don’t you dare use me!’ he exclaimed.
That’s befitting, isn’t it? But even with that being the case, doesn’t the existence of the exclamation mark make the attributor of ‘exclaimed’ redundant?
- ‘Don’t you dare use me!’ he said.
Isn’t that an obvious exclamation? What exactly is the point of exclaiming?
When you’re writing, consider the words you’re using, the roles they’re filling, and whether they have a meaningful purpose, or whether they’re placeholders allowing you to shortcut your way through prose.
LZ.
P.S. In case you’re wondering, the bird picture has no relevance to this blog. I just like the picture.