One of the key pieces of advice I received early on in my
writing career was get a professional to give you feedback on your manuscript.
I was like “But, I don’t know any writers!”
Well, I’ve been fortunate enough to have found some great
critique partners and I have paid for manuscript to be edited by someone who
offered an editing service. One of my critique partners, Aimee Salter, has an
editing service, so today she is going to share some wisdom of the importance
of having someone with a writing background look over your work before you send
it off to agents and publishers. But she's dishes out some free advice here, as well as on
Writing Teen Novels. AND, one lucky will be given the chance to win
a chapter critique from Aimee on my personal blog
Down Under Wonderings. There's also a $15 B&N e-voucher up for grabs.
Sharon: Why do you believe
it’s important that writers get a professional to look over their manuscript
before submitting it to agents or publishers?
Aimee: Because without it, it’s very difficult to move your
writing talent forward. No matter what level your natural talent, all of us can
improve. Without someone who’s studied or professionally experienced, we just
don’t realize how much we don’t know.
And, on a practical level, since the recession there are
more and more people unemployed or under-employed and doing what they can to
follow their dream and get published. There’s a literal ocean of options out
there for agents and editors. If you aren’t in the top one percent in terms of
your premise, your delivery, and your
plot, you won’t get a look in.
I believe it takes more than one person in the mix to bring
any book to its absolute potential. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to
pay someone. But it can be difficult to find people willing and able to
critically analyse your entire manuscript without a fee.
Sharon: What are three of
the most common mistakes you come across when editing manuscripts and how can
writers avoid them?
Aimee: I should make an important point here: What I do is
called “critiquing”. Although it’s a form of editing, it isn’t the same as what
you’d experience at a publishing house.
As a critiquer (I guess you can call me a professional,
because I get paid to do it) my work falls more on the substantive edits side.
That means in terms of a publishing model, I’m the early-eyes. I focus on the
story arc, character arc, foundational writing, structure and plot. What I do
is intended to get the author thinking and make suggestions for improvement.
While I will identify ‘clunky’ phrasing, or basic grammar / punctuation errors,
my work focuses more on the creative side of story-telling.
Critiques are designed to show the writer how a technically
skilled reader views the story, the
writing, the characters, etc. Not to be confused with an editor who, in the
traditional publishing model, anyway, will have a much greater investment in,
and influence on your story at every level.
But you asked about common mistakes. There are lots, to be
honest (and I make them myself. So do many traditionally published authors.
None of us writes perfectly, especially in that first draft!). But I think the
most common mistakes I see are:
Wordiness: An
inability to identify the most efficient way to phrase something.
It’s a skill that has to be learned by most writers. As far
as avoiding this, I think you need to be edited / critiqued by someone whose
writing isn’t wordy – allow them to show you how to make
your sentences more streamlined, your scenes more focused.
Unfortunately,
I think a lot of writers confuse instruction with judgement of their creative
talent. I say "unfortunately " because I really believe that learning
the craft actually unleashes creativity – it equips you to better deliver the
vision in your head.
Telling: Most novice writers "tell " because
they don't actually realize they're doing it.
Avoiding
this is much harder until you can develop the analytical skill to identify it.
But one example I see a lot, that you can specifically look for in your own
writing, is a first person point of view character (or third person, limited)
telling the reader what's going on in another character's head, or telling the
reader how to interpret their body language.
Words that
often crop up in these moments are
"as if ", "seem" in all its variations (seemed to,
seemingly, seems), or the name of an emotion (I.e. “Something told me Carl was
angry.”).
Writers
need to learn to trust the reader to gather what's implied in dialogue and body-language.
And one personal note: if you remove this kind of telling from your manuscript and
the reader can't follow what people are feeling / thinking, the problem is in
your showing. So fix that, rather than adding narrative.
Implausibility: Of all the things I see in manuscripts, this is
the one that bothers me the most (especially when I’m guilty of it, I might
add). It ranges from unlikely dialogue right through to plot points that defy
sense. The reality is you can do anything
in a book. But there has to be a plausible foundation in the
world-building, character motivations, and plot.
The most
common implausibilities I encounter are:
1. Vital information or item falls into protagonist’s lap via means they
didn’t anticipate or fight for.
Literally: Previously unknown character shows up and says “You know how
you need three acres of land before Saturday so you can throw those
para-Olympics before little Johnny dies? Well, I have four acres, and you can
use it.”
You have to get clever with these situations. More importantly, your protagonist has to get clever. They have
to earn the answers, or discover the
vital item(s) through intentional pursuit.
2. Character One explains things to Character Two that Character Two
already knows – but the reader doesn’t.
These conversations often start with something like “I know you know
this…” or “I’ve already told you…”. The worst offenders have both characters explaining
things they both know to each other, or finishing each other’s thoughts.
The only fix is to sprinkle pieces of information into the internal narration
(or dialogue) as the book goes along. Don’t try to give the reader everything
at once. And definitely don’t try to fill in backstory within the first 25-30
pages. Let the reader get hooked by the current action first.
3. Character makes a decision not to
ask a question, or not to follow a lead, or not to explore something which very
obviously could provide answers to the story question.
I.e. Maddie has just learned she can heal wounds supernaturally. Johnnie
mentions that his Grandmother told him stories about people who could do that
when she was a child. Instead of asking to talk to the Grandmother, Maddie
googles “healers”… Yet at the end of the book, it’s the Grandmother who has all
the answers.
The trick is to put sensible obstacles
in front of the protagonist that either force them to cut a conversation off
before too much is revealed (if it’s vital to have some info given at that
stage of the book), or stops them following up a lead they’ve been given. (In
the above scenario, for example, they could visit the Grandmother who appears
to be mental and a dead-end in terms of information. But they keep going back.
And the author can foreshadow that Granny is tricking them, trying to keep
herself safe from the people who’ll kill them all if they find out Maddie can
heal and Grandma knows why…)
Alternatively, you can present competing priorities. If you can create
two or more seemingly equally important tasks, then the protag is initially forced
to follow one and not the other. The protag can choose to follow the lead that
will only provide half the answers.
In all
these cases, if you aren’t sure whether your book / writing / plot falls into
implausibility, consider this: If someone reads it and you have to explain the
motivation, it probably isn’t sensible. If there is an easier, or more likely
solution available that is being ignored, it probably isn’t plausible. If you
(the author) have to decide “The Character is just that way” to make a decision
make sense… it doesn’t make sense.
Sharon: What trends are
you seeing in YA novels that you wish aspiring writers would avoid?
Aimee: This is a much more subjective question. So I’ll give you
my opinion, but there might be many who disagree.
My biggest pet-peeve at the moment is “Insta-Love”. You
know, seemingly Normal-Girl meets Hawt-Guy and they are inexplicably drawn to
each other with such force, neither of them can deny it (though they’ll try
really hard – or at least, one of them will).
In my opinion it’s been done to death. I’d like to see
hot-and-heavy romances that have an actual foundation.
SHATTER ME by Tahereh Mafi is a perfect example of what I
like. Though the attraction between the two characters is introduced almost
immediately, it’s because they have mutual history. It’s a history you don’t
learn right away, but it provides a very plausible and much more satisfying
beginning to their relationship (in my opinion).
Sharon: What book do you
wish you had edited and why?
Aimee: Definitely the BARELY BREATHING series, by Rebecca Donovan.
The books were self-published before they were ready. But the story was compelling in a way that changed my
reading habits.
Of course, she’s since been picked up by an agent and a
publisher’s going to come in and edit the books and make them even more amazing.
I wish I’d been with her in the early days to solve those
“little” problems you mentioned at the opening of this interview. The books might
have picked up an agent even more quickly.
In my opinion, good ‘editorial’ advice doesn’t usually
involve drastic changes (though it can). It’s usually about simply clearing the
way for the reader – removing anything that will either break the read, or slow
it down too much. It’s about helping an author let readers fall into their
worlds and stories without realizing they’re not real.
Thanks Aimee!
So YAtopians, what's your editing tips?
