To Hell with Editing!

by

William C Prentice

As the author of a poorly-edited self-published novel, I am definitely biased. Louise’s offer to let me state my case regarding editing is a great opportunity to rationalize my own behavior. Even if this were not a convenient forum for defending myself, it seems clear to me that we have evolved well beyond the need to hold editing, as a process and an objective, in the same high regard it once was.

The bulk of my professional and business career has been in the energy industry, and I have written literally thousands of business plans, offering memoranda, feasibility studies and technical papers. It was unthinkable to “launch” any such document if it had errors, but it still happened. I can remember catching a significant error on one proposal that had already been printed for shipment to the prospective client – it took a day to correct the page in a way that it ended on the correct word and line, and changing it out in all 35 hard-copies being shipped. I can also remember catching errors in such documents after they had already shipped, and having to issue an erratum sheet to follow it out the door. I can also remember catching one significant error after we had already been awarded the contract – nobody cared!

Back in the day of typed letters, it was equally unthinkable to let a piece of correspondence go out with an error. It was humiliating both to the professional sending the letter and the assistant who had typed it, and if the error was one that materially altered the intended meaning of the correspondence in a way that hurt the organization, then it could be a career limiting event. If you received a letter from someone with obvious errors, it was just cause to have a negative opinion of that person and his organization.

In other words, we were all extremely anal about it. I for one remained anal about it even after the world started to change, and I fought a losing battle against the growing flood of poorly edited material we are inundated with daily. The IT revolution has changed communications forever – we went from making a few calls, checking the mailbox, and getting a telex now and then to a world where a virtual fire-hose of communications hits us in the face constantly. That fire-hose has permanently destroyed the distinction between informal verbal communications, with its errors, mistakes and colloquialisms, and formal written communications.

One of my losing battles was a pet peeve of mine – the misuse of the three words their, they’re and there. I probably receive at least one text or email a day that violates this rule, and I rarely notice it unless it makes the meaning of the message unclear. The same could be said for just about all of the “rules” that we used to live by – Strunk and White is obviously not sitting out on anyone’s desk any longer. 

The villain here is efficiency. The objective of our communications is to convey information, or elicit information, or otherwise create understanding on the part of the recipient of the communications. With the growing need to respond to others and react to the need to convey understanding to others, perfecting any single communication robs you of the ability to participate on a timely basis with all of the other communications you need to participate in. The need has shifted from having to send out one or two “perfect” letters a day, to the need to originate or respond to several hundred calls, texts or emails a day. 

Our tolerance for errors in those communications had evolved. It is better to receive a poorly written text in response to a request or comment than it is to wait around for someone to have the time to properly draft and edit it. The rules have changed.
What about a book? I know I used to feel the same way about books. I once bought a promising paperback action novel in a bookstore at O’Hare, and I gave it away on the plane after finding a really stupid mistake about a firearm on page two. You expected better from a publisher who was going to send a manuscript out for a first printing of several thousand would have done a better job. 

But books aren’t like that any longer. The distance from your keyboard to the readers’ eyes has been shortened to virtually nothing. You can finish up a novel in the morning, format it and get it out there on Kindle within a matter of hours, or self-publish hardcopy that can be in a reader’s hands as quickly as it can be printed out and slipped into an envelope.

It takes time to edit a novel. Someone has to sit down and read it and mark it up. Then the author has to go through it and agree to changes or not, or rewrite or not. Or if you are going to self-edit, that means setting it aside for at least a day or two so that you don’t just pretend to edit because it is too fresh in your mind. While you are self-editing, the ideas for the next work that were fresh in your mind when you were wrapping your book up are all starving for attention in some part of your head, and some of those ideas may die.

All of this gets in the way of the same efficiencies that have changed communications in general. All of this gets between you and your readers, your customers.

In my opinion, the same tolerance for minor editing errors that has emerged in other areas of communications is still alive in the reader when he picks up your book. If you have self-edited enough that you are confident that the story you want to tell is being told correctly, and that any remaining errors are not material to the story, then further editing is a violation of the law of diminishing returns.

At that point, you should get it into the market and start working on something else. If you go back and find a lot of errors later on, then go ahead and edit it and then publish a second edition when you have a chance. When you are really famous your first editions with all the errors will have become a collector’s item.

Storytelling and Editing: navigating the tricky waters

by 

Shelly Frome

Years ago, in order to earn some extra credit, I took a course in creative writing at a little college in Miami. There I discovered women who were working on a novel and had signed up for the same course over and over again. Not only that, but they were still working on their first chapter. As encouragement, the instructor and fellow classmates would make comments like, “I see so much improvement. Those hibiscus bushes are becoming more and more vivid with each draft.” At that juncture I promised myself if I myself ever tackled a novel, I would never get stuck in the hibiscus bushes. Nor would I try to please a group of very pleasant well-wishers. I wasn’t sure I’d try to please any group at all.

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But even on your own, there’s the left part of the brain that monitors and judges and the right hemisphere that just wants to carry on and be given free rein. Moreover, how on earth do you bridge the gap between what you think or hope you’re creating and the needs and responses of the publishing world?

And so, on my first pass, trying my darnedest to cram in as much information as possible so the reader would see there’s really a lot going on here, Scott Meredith, the noted New York agent, told me you can’t do that. No reader could possibly take it all in. Later on, I read the advice of the late novelist and college instructor John Gardner. He noted that you should always think of it as carefully feeding a hammer mill. At the same time, a popular author wrote a guide revealing his secret: you spring forward and then fall back to gradually let the reader in on what’s going on. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott claims you should keep going until the very end. Accept the fact you’re going to wind up with a lousy first draft which the editor inside you can tackle and fix. One best selling writer believes it’s like taking a car trip in the dark: using the headlights, knowing more or less where you’re headed but allowing yourself to turn off at any time to find what’s really out there.

There are, of course, no hard and fast rules. For what it’s worth, I myself use a variation. Though I more or less know where I’m going, I can’t seem to take another step until I’ve polished the chapter I’m on. All the while I leave myself open to discover things—what this character’s really like, some twist in direction I wasn’t expecting that’ll necessitate major or minor adjustments. Then I’ll go back and read, say, all the beginning chapters to see if the story really hangs together with a compelling through-line.

In any case, I try not to get stuck in the hibiscus bushes, self-editing so much that I’ll never finish the journey. Never self-edit to the point where I’ll avoid diving into some dicey scene and allowing it to “catch fire” as the playwright Tennessee Williams used to say.

Unfortunately, because of the ease of self-publishing and e-publishing there are countless dilettantes out there skipping over structure and the editing process altogether. Why bother, they say, when you can announce your latest and do a give-away every few months? It reminds me of the heiress Paris Hilton who arranged to get on a series of mindless so-called reality shows and then announced she was retiring. When asked on network TV, From what, Paris? she couldn’t think of a thing.

In real terms, when you’ve done your very best, you send it out there and hopefully find a match with an agent or publisher. Or, just to make doubly sure, you latch on to a reputable, professional editor who has a track record handling your particular material. After he or she gives you the green light, you send it out. Once you’ve finally placed it, more editing will be asked of you.

However, if nothing pans out, you can look into a decent e-publisher, safe in the conviction you have something worthwhile to offer.

In my own case, I spend so much time striving for a solid foundation and trying to satisfy both parts of my brain, more often than not, my independent publisher will accept the final draft. At that point, he’ll assign someone like the wonderful Allyson Gard who, in turn, will make suggestions. Only then will the final draft be truly final and ready to reach readers’ hands.

EDITING – SELF OR OTHERWISE

by

Larry Ivkovich

Editing one’s work, whether it’s for flash fiction, a short story, a novella, or a novel, can be frustrating and time-consuming. But, it’s a necessary evil for all those who want to get their work as polished and professional as possible. And, oftentimes, a much better story will be the result of it.

During my thirty years of serious fiction writing and my tenures in a number of writing/critique groups, an old discussion often comes up. It’s one which I believe has no really right answer although the two schools of thought often clash. That is, should a writer finish whatever he or she is writing and edit afterwards or self-edit as he or she writes?

It seems most writers I talk to and most writing “how-tos” I’ve read favor the former--edit after completing the work. I subscribe to the latter--I edit while I’m writing. The advice I give to beginning writers is to do whatever is comfortable and natural for them. Everyone’s different and has different methods and styles of working. There’s really no right or wrong way to self-edit.

I’ve tried to finish a work and then go back and edit but I just can’t do it. It’s not that I’m compulsive about it or a Type A personality in that regard. I just like to play with what I’ve written previously, to try and improve it or completely change it based on ideas I come up with after I’ve finished writing a particular passage. I don’t outline but I do take notes and jot things down when I think of them but it’s just more fun for me to try an idea out on what I’ve written right away. Writer and editor Anne Lesley Groell remarked at a writers’ conference I attended that this was how she also worked on her writing. So I feel like I’m in good company!

Of course, this is more involved than just line-editing although that, too, is important. Spellcheck and grammar-check are good tools in your word processing software but aren’t always completely successful. My wife told me a story about an old boss of hers who was looking for another job. His office assistant typed up his resume for him on her PC and ran the spellcheck. Now, sometimes, you can misspell a word into a different word that’s completely legitimate. This particular incident happened in the eighties where a style of resume writing allowed you to put down what you did in your spare time. My wife’s boss told his assistant to put down “white water rafting,” as a hobby, which he’d done only once or twice. The assistant transposed the “r” and “f” in the word “rafting,” which the spell check didn’t catch because “farting” is a real word. Well, needless to say, the guy didn’t get the job! But everyone in my wife’s office, after hearing about this through the grapevine, had a good laugh.

So, it’s important for someone else to take a look at your work, whether that person is a professional editor or a fellow writer or a friend. A fresh set of eyes always helps. This is where a writing/critique group comes in handy or someone you trust to be honest with you about the work.

Still--mistakes can happen. An example from my début novel, THE SIXTH PRECEPT, is a pretty glaring one. Despite my own editing and that of my publisher’s editor, we both let a few misspelled words and phrases slip through the cracks, which I discovered after the book had come out. One of my characters is talking about “cruisin’ the Wet.” Say what? It should have been “cruisin’ the net (small case also)”. I still don’t know how that one got by. The mistakes have been corrected in subsequent printings and downloads but it was pretty embarrassing.

One thing that’s helpful to do (whether you self-edit while you write or after) is to put the story, book, article aside for a couple of months (depending on your submission deadline, if any) and then come back to it after you’ve gained some distance. It’s easier to pick out mistakes in both line-editing, plot, structure, etc. once you’re not so close to it.

I recently heard a story of an author who had left the small publishing company who had published his first book because he didn’t like to be edited. That’s a pretty extreme and, ultimately, self-defeating reaction. Writers have to develop a thick skin and be prepared to take criticism. Such comments, no matter how much you may disagree with them, will help your work to become that much better (although, if you feel very strongly the proffered advice isn’t right, then it’s absolutely your prerogative to ignore it). Though writing is often referred to as a “solitary profession,” working with other writers and editors can be a very positive experience and one necessary for future growth.

So, edit yourself any way you want! It’s important but remember you may not catch everything that can drag your work down. Trust in yourself but also in other people to help you in bringing your creative vision to life.