Writers often ask me

I’ve heard that literary agents and commercial publishers don’t want to see a book until it’s already edited and ready for production. And if I decide to self-publish, I’m out on a limb by myself. So when during the process of writing a book do I need an editor?

Three phases of writing

There are three distinct phases of the writing process when a developmental editor can make a big difference in the outcome of your book: In the planning stage, while you’re writing, and once you’re done.

Professional feedback and developmental editing are important at each of these three stages.  However, when and how this collaboration occurs can vary, depending on the individual creative process and collaborative relationships. Most successful fiction and non-fiction writers work with developmental editors, with very few exceptions. Here’s how it works:

1. Before writing the first draft

Many authors consult me as they begin their creative process, at a point when there may be only a germ of an idea, a few pages of a preliminary draft, or perhaps a rough outline. We both take careful notes and authors are welcome to record the consultation. Lately, several authors have recorded our Skype video consultations.

We discuss core questions like:

• What’s this book about? In the case of fiction, like a mystery, thriller, romance, sci-fi, or YA, could this be the first of a series? In a memoir, on which part of your life do you want to focus? In nonfiction, what’s the premise, the main take-away, the point of the book?

• Who are the main characters? Who are the essential secondary characters?

• Is this book a work of passion or a deliberate attempt to craft something for the commercial market?  Or is this book intended to enhance a business, individual career, or academic position? How should that impact the focus and organization?

• Deciding on the point of view. Should the narrative voice be an “I” first person or omniscient third person?

• Where to begin, how to incorporate the backstory? Is it essential to have some strategic flashbacks?

• How should it end?

We resolve these issues and put together a working plan, a penultimate outline that usually evolves as the work progresses, but most importantly provides a useful blueprint for launching the writing.

2. While you’re writing

Authors often want and need feedback while producing the first few chapters of their book, since these pages are frequently the hardest to write and require the most revision. It’s like clearing your throat, getting into a groove, finding the right tone, pitch, and pacing. I encourage writers to take the time to be sure they’re on the right track before going any further, since these preliminary problems don’t self-correct and shouldn’t be left unresolved.

Another big reason for consulting a developmental editor while writing the book is if the writer is getting stuck. The original impulse, or even an outline, can go off the track. You may lose interest or passion for a character or element of the plot. You may wonder if more backstory is needed and if so, how and where to bring it in. The ending may no longer make sense.

Help! Call 911! This is when rapid response and a creative partnership with an editor can be invaluable.

3. When the manuscript is finished

There are two distinct circumstances when I see a finished manuscript.

An author may send me a book that we’ve been working on together from the outset for one final read through, since it may need some additional polish to make it as good as it can be.

Or, authors submit completed manuscripts which I see for the first time, seeking assistance before sending to a literary agent or in preparation for self-publishing. If I see fundamental flaws, such as a core problem in the structure, a wrong turn in the plot, characters that require a radical makeover, or the need to change the narrative voice, I’ll usually suggest a consultation rather than a developmental edit. In such a consultation, I offer specific constructive solutions to incorporate in a new draft before the manuscript can be ready for a full edit.

The good news is that it’s never too late to make a book better.

In a full developmental edit, I go through the entire manuscript several times, offering specific page-by-page recommendations, alterations in the plot, concept, character development and visual descriptions, small and large structural shifts, fine tuning the pacing and literary style. I insert tracked changes that indicate deletions within the sentence, or entire paragraphs, sections or chapters. I suggest new language for polish and clarity. And in cases of historical fiction and non-fiction, I do my own research to become more familiar with the background and context.

When completed, I return the manuscript with its tracked changes, along with a lengthy letter that both summarizes and explains the editorial work. I include a subsequent hour consultation with the author by phone or in person to go over remaining questions and brainstorm any new options that may arise. Authors may disagree with or modify the recommendations I’ve made, which usually leads to an even more creative solution.

Finding your own editor

What happens when you first send your work to a prospective developmental editor? Keeping in mind that all editors have individual styles, here’s how I handle submissions: First I request the entire manuscript, which I read start-to-finish without charge. I evaluate the complexity and level of work required, the time it would take, and whether we’re a good fit. Only then do I provide an accurate estimate of cost.

I believe this initial assessment of the whole book, rather than reading only a chapter or two, is the best way to see how the author sustains the narrative arc — creates the premise, develops the action, resolves the problem – and brings the reader to some kind of satisfying personal experience, an emotional landing place, whether it’s inspiring, happy, tragic or just plain informative. I’m essentially previewing the experience any reader will have, and that gives me valuable information about the book’s weaknesses and strengths.

A good editor brings to the relationship both literary skills and human sensitivity. An editor watches your back and anticipates when there’s trouble ahead. But the author is the boss, in the driver’s seat. It’s not the editor’s book, so my job is always to enter the creative world of the author and help fulfill this vision.

I also advise that before investing in an editor, be sure you’re working with someone experienced with a track record of producing books that have succeeded. You should also expect the editor to be available and to complete the edit within an agreed-upon schedule. For more detail, here’s an earlier post with my advice on how to evaluate the best editor for your book.

What about you?

Have you worked with a developmental editor?  Anything you’d care to share about the process?  I’ll watch for any questions, so fire away!

Here’s a situation that

But after a little while the scenes become repetitious, the characters and their machinations turn formulaic — and reading becomes a chore.

Books that keep readers awake

A good book, whether it’s a novel, memoir, biography, history, or narrative non-fiction, must take readers somewhere new and end up far from where they started. Readers want to identify, engage, and be inspired by what happens to people they can care about.

Scroll down for DIY tips to thicken a plot

Story as transformative journey

The idea of story content as a transformative journey goes back to the earliest Greek and Roman classical literature. In Homer’s Odyssey, written around 850 BC, Odysseus, also known as Ulysses, has to win the Trojan War, escape the Lotus Eaters, defeat the Cyclops, avoid the Sirens and overcome many other deathly metaphorical temptations to return home to his faithful wife, a wiser and better man.

Similarly, in the third century BC, Apollonius of Rhodes wrote about Jason and his Argonauts, who had to defeat Amazons, the Harpies, the Clashing Rocks, and then harness the fire-breathing Oxen to win the Golden Fleece.

George Lucas told the same basic story in his six Star Wars films.

The names and places are always new, but the core story line doesn’t change. The hero or heroine of any good story, whether it’s a novel, memoir, or narrative non-fiction, must endure a series of symbolic events that precipitate a life changing degree of development and change.

How an editor can help

When I’m working with a promising but incomplete story, I suggest specific line-by-line additions for new plot development that add depth, pacing, and flesh out the details that accelerate big changes in the lives of the major characters.

I may also suggest deletions when dialog or an action is repetitious or digressive. This can be painful. “It was like drowning your kittens,” one writer said mournfully. “But it was the right thing to do.”

An editor shouldn’t advise you to sweeten up a Hollywood climax. An unhappy ending is OK, if the reader can say “yes, that’s life” and put the book down at the end with emotional satisfaction.

If you’re interested in working with a developmental editor, here’s my advice on finding a good one.

If your book is getting rejected

If your manuscript has been receiving rejections accompanied by vacant stares and long yawns, check out these red flags and solutions.

Remember:  Readers need plot!  Or they doze off.

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DIY plot thickening

Red flag #1: No compelling leading character

You need characters with whom the reader can get involved. Don’t give readers only big losers or unattractive predators. They need to feel either joy or empathic sorrow at what happens to the person they carry around in their head for days.

Take care not to introduce too many characters. Diluting the reader’s focus of engagement is one of the biggest problems I see in early drafts. Pick a couple of core characters to expand and reduce the rest to essential supporting roles.

Red flag #2: Repetition

Circling around the same behaviors and actions again and again is the bane, the curse, the kiss of death for any story.

We need variety: not just the same experience or emotional desire over and over, but progressive challenges, successes and failures, gradual changes, and ultimate maturity or at least hope for the future. Or not. Again, failure and tragedy works too, if it’s honest, credible and moving.

So make your points and move on. Get out the red ink and prune down to just what moves the plot toward a meaningful ending.

Red flag #3: No change

The main characters should develop dramatically for better or worse, winding up in quite a different situation than they were at the beginning regarding their identities, relationship, thoughts and feelings. This substantial transformation is what the story is about. It’s the promise, the takeaway for your reader.

Be ready to add substantial new scenes that introduce difficult challenges that alter the characters’ lives, and provoke their evolution.

Red flag #4: No ending

The ending must represent the climax of a series of events, each of which show incremental change, step-by-step, with significant action and interaction reaching a meaningful conclusion. This is the kind of ultimate engagement, identification, information and inspiration that a reader wants and deserves.

Before you start writing or revising an existing draft, figure out the end. You can revise and modify this as you go along but it’s extremely helpful to have a good sense of what happens to each chapter that is moving the characters towards their big change.

Avoid an ending that relies on an abrupt stop action, interrupted dialogue, or cliffhanger. These may work for an occasional chapter ending but will not ultimately give the reader a satisfying close to the book.

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What about you?

Are you working on a story that isn’t quite there yet?  Try some of the troubleshooting tips here, and see what happens. Any questions?  Fire away!  And please weigh in with your thoughts and ideas here in comments.

A: Authors need to respect their readers and allow them their own reactions to the narrative.

This issue comes up frequently for authors at the early stages of writing a novel, memoir, or non-fiction narrative. The writer wonders: “How present should I be in the story?”

What’s wrong with explaining?

The original motivation for an author is usually to illuminate a story that the reader can easily identify with and care about. So what’s wrong with underlining an idea or focusing on the intentional meaning of what’s going on?

What’s wrong is what I see frequently as a developmental editor. Authors who insert themselves intrusively into the story in a misguided effort to explain the meaning of what’s happening and control how the reader responds to the characters and action.

A guiding principle

Have you ever been to a movie where there’s an annoying voiceover narration that keeps commenting without adding anything to what you’re seeing on the screen?

That’s equivalent to an excessive explanation that an author inserts unnecessarily.

Far better to let the story tell itself.

Don’t do this

“’Goodbye forever, you creep!’ Emily screamed hysterically, slamming the door. George was devastated, coiling a strand of his hair around his finger desperately and pulling on it violently in an act of existential anguish until it tore a raw, blood-seeping chunk out of his poor and innocent scalp.”

Do we need all those adjectives and adverbs to help us understand what’s happening here? Not really. We get it. Emily left him. George is upset.

Don’t do this either

At the other extreme, I sometimes see prose stripped down to terse action and minimalist dialogue, like “Emily walked out. George pulled his hair.”

It’s a style that can be so self-consciously diminished it becomes annoying. As a developmental editor, I might suggest new language to add a bit of color, attitude, and a sense of human feelings.

How much should writers reveal themselves?

Should writers reveal themselves as the omniscient puppeteers behind the curtain, or remain completely in the background, totally invisible?

My view has always been that less is better. Let your readers have their own experiences with your book. As readers ourselves, we know that we bring to the book our own perspective, our own unique response to the characters and their stories.

In the first sample above, for example, some readers may resent the author’s apparent intention to make us feel sorry for George, preferring Emily’s point of view. Others may feel otherwise. That’s what is wonderful about reading a book — or experiencing any work of art, including music, painting, film — our own emotional and psychological backstories and personal, intimate temperaments influence profoundly how we respond to what’s written.

Mistrust is at the heart of the question

Consequently, I believe all writers should avoid the mistrust at the heart of engineering artificially authorized feelings. Instead I recommend an author include only what’s necessary to achieve a proper balance between the quick and the dead, the hollow shell of rapid surface events and the overwrought laboring of an author preaching from a soapbox.

Here’s a good example of such a subtle balance from a very good short story by Tessa Hadley called Clever Girl that recently appeared in the New Yorker magazine:

“Our new garden, which my window overlooked in blind indifference, was only a rectangle of clay, marked off with fence posts and wire from the clay rectangle belonging to the other houses.”

Hardly any explicit emotional direction here. “Blind indifference” is the only clue of where the author might be coming from, but the author hasn’t chosen the words: It’s a first-person narrative.

Meanwhile, the bare description and repeating appearance of the clay rectangle again and again sent a shudder down my spine, evoking, for me at least, desolation, dread, isolation, vulnerability and fear. All very powerful in this story, which is narrated by an unhappy ten-year-old girl who has just moved to the suburbs with her mother and unwelcome new stepfather.

The  debate between too much and too little

There are no sure-fire formulas for great writing, however. The debate continues.

For example, Aine Greaney an Irish-born author and essayist wrote a piece on the website Gently Read Literature which addresses this problem entitled The Ghost Behind the Page.

“In my author-school days, Rule Number 1 was to never insert yourself between the story and the reader. Yet, I believe that too many modern fiction authors eclipse themselves completely from the work. As we read their books, we cannot sense the presence of an author-ghost behind the pages. While the story is clever or exciting or readable, the narrative provides no window into that author’s sensibilities or philosophies or attitudes. Quite simply, there’s no author there.”

Here’s a different approach from best-selling author Abraham Verghese, who sets out explicit meaning and explanation for the story that he’s going to tell at the opening of his novel Cutting for Stone.

“We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot. I grew up and found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much to heal myself.”

Very nice. Well written. Pretty much tells us what the book is going to be about. Not every author, however, has the literary skill or story-telling ability of Verghese.

What about you?

What kind of balance between explaining and trusting the readers are you choosing? Send in your examples and thoughts on these subtle but critical literary choices.

A: You might have too much action and not enough content. If that’s the problem, you need to punctuate any rapid fire twists and turns with dialogue, description, and the kind of pacing that’s easier to understand and more meaningful.

Dan Brown Syndrome

You’re not the only writer struggling with an over-plotted story. I’ve noticed a trend lately in submissions suffering from Dan Brown Syndrome.

Dan Brown is of course a highly regarded and hugely successful author, whose stories hold readers rapt through dozens of fast-speed fabulous surprises and a large cast of amazing characters who can evoke our cheers or catcalls.

But in his wake, we see too many authors producing stories with bewildering upsets and spins, a cast of characters larger than Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and dense, confusing plots that stumble back and forth in time and point of view. There’s often not a moment’s pause so we poor readers can catch our breath to figure out who’s who and what’s going on.

What Dan knows and so should you

It’s not a good idea to rush through the plot, chewing and churning up more and more material. Your story needs pacing and literary punctuation, breathing room, a space to interrupt and set off the action.

How an editor can help

When I find myself re-reading or tracing back a deluge of bewildering actions to figure out what’s going on, it’s time to suggest specific spots in the text for editorial intervention.

An author working with an experienced editor on detangling a plot should expect line-by-line recommendations for surgical pruning, and adding new dialogue and description in order to slow down the action so it’s understandable and more readable.

That’s what I provide my writer clients.

Best practices for storytelling

To engage readers in a story you need to limit the number of characters they identify with and care about enough to find out what happens to them. Pick two or three. We also want a discernable goal to the story, but not more than one, please, so we can follow the narrative arc from problem to development to solution. These aren’t rules set in stone, but general principles or best practices for storytelling.

So for example, if your heroine finds a dead body in the first scene, then suddenly another in scene two, and two more with no connection or explanation in scene three, yikes, please, take a break.

Tell us more about her, where she is, what she looks like. Let her speak to someone in words we can understand. Feather in some of her backstory and personality. Give us enough of a portrait so she becomes real and sympathetic; we’ll begin to worry about her safety. Even if she’s a villainess, we need to be fascinated, curious, to engage with her on some level.

A story needs focus and depth

This kind of dense, breathless pacing is not an uncommon phenomenon. I’ve worked on some very serious books that skittered across too many intentions and themes – political, historical, biographical, personal memoir – without resting enough to provide the details needed to make the book readable or meaningful.

In such cases, it often turns out to be a case of the writer not being able to decide which way to go, and plunging ahead in several directions at once without enough focus or depth.

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DIY plot pruning

If your latest draft feels stuck or has been having no luck getting an agent or publisher, read it through and check out the following symptoms and suggested solutions:

Symptom #1:  Dense movement from crisis to crisis

Solution: Slow down the pace and pause between actions. Breathe some air into the plot. Add space for dialogue, visual description, other ways of making the story come alive like small elements of character development and back story, plus random odors, surprising sounds, the grit or polish of how an object or person feels when touched by another.

Symptom #2: Constant flashes back and forth in time

Solution: Stay in one time zone for a while. Try a whole chapter. Now consider limiting the number of basic periods of time in the entire story.

Symptom #3:  Rapid accumulation of dead bodies

Solution: Reduce the number in the first chapter to just one. Then stop to expand context, describe either the killer or whomever discovers the body . Have at least two more scenes of non-violent activity before another body turns up.

Symptom #4: Multiple narrative voices

Solution: Stick to one or two at the most. My favorite is first person, but you can shift to another first person or omniscient third person that focuses on one other character’s perspective. That’s my preference.

Symptom #5: Different story threads leading to various separate endings

Solution: Prune to one. Keep it simple. Find the Holy Grail, the true love, the lethal killer.

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Develop your rhythm

Ultimately you need to develop a good rhythm, a beat, a balance between the quick and the still, the action and the time for absorbing, observing the details, ruminating. If you have too much going on at once, you’ll burn out the reader and lose your audience.

Do you have a tangled plot?

Do you recognize any of the issues here?  I’ll do my best to answer questions, so fire away!

Think about it: You – the writer – embody the second POV. You stand behind the curtain of literary creativity, directing everything that happens in the story; what to include and what not, what other characters say to your “I” narrator, what action happens on camera and what doesn’t.

As the invisible puppeteer, you pull all the strings. You have the power to present this character as you wish. With every decision you can go far beyond what the character may want to reveal at any given moment.

A solution to the restrictions of the “I” narrative

For the novelist or writer of YA fiction, memoir and other narrative non-fiction, the “I” narrative, first-person POV offers tremendous possibilities for an authentic personal voice that sees everything from inside your central character’s perspective — the deepest feelings, the fond or dreaded memories, the secret desires. This approach quickly engages readers with the “I” narrator, and compels us to care about what happens next.

But many writers feel restricted when writing in the first person.  They struggle with how to get in all the back story, the crucial action that’s happening elsewhere, the real, nuanced personality of your main character that she herself doesn’t realize or understand — without pulling away and inserting a third-person omniscient narrator who explains it all and interprets for the reader the truth about what’s really happening in the story.

So it’s important to keep in mind the parallel existence of two actual points of view within one “I” narrative when writing a novel or memoir. It brings us to the core of literary art. You, the writer, are creating a character, fictional or autobiographical, whom we know only through what you put on the page.

Jonathan Franzen’s brilliant construction

Here’s an example. I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Franzen’s new best-selling novel Freedom, a contemporary family drama that I found immensely readable. It also contains a brilliant construction of two points of view within a single “I” narrative.

The book appears to be a third-person account written to a therapist about one of her patients. We realize eventually, however, that in fact we’re reading an “I” narrative, a journal written entirely from inside the mind of the book’s main character Patty Berglund, a woman struggling for love, significant work, and meaning in her life.

Franzen weaves painful self-revelation and embarrassing dialogue into this double narrative, creating a portrait of Patty that’s far from flattering. He could have stuck strictly to her mercurial mood-swings from denial to self-loathing. But his “second” POV, informing his behind-the-scenes choices, balances the  two perspectives – his and hers — to create a deeply moving and highly nuanced character.

Franzen goes beyond the first-person narrative to include occasional third-person scenes.  The complexity creates some unnecessary confusion.  Were I his editor, I would have made some surgical cuts and suggested new language to clarify the sequence of events.

Shaping a memoir

Here’s another example.  I’m working with a writer on a memoir in which the “I” narrator suffers through years of physical and emotional abuse from her husband before ultimately finding the strength and maturity to leave him.  The author wanted to shift to third person to show how the central character’s parents had been role models for her awful marriage and how her husband had been unfaithful. She thought about citing statistics and psychological theory to support her premise.

But as her editor, I suggested it was far more effective to read just the heroine’s perspective as she first accepts and then rejects the carefully selected incidents of her transformation. It was the author’s parallel POV that determined what specific dialogue and meaningful action best revealed the reason for her escape.

What’s your experience?

Please share your opinions about and experience using the “I” narrator. What techniques and solutions have helped you tell your unique story?

A: That’s easy. Focus on the content of your book. There’s nothing more important.

Content is king

Before all else, keep your attention on the core concept and execution of your book — the writing, the story, the characters, the point and the purpose.

That’s what we acquiring editors and publishers care most about.

For writers who are feeling ignored or rejected by agents or publishers, with no response whatsoever to a query or only a vague but worrisome note like, Not a good fit…We liked it but there wasn’t enough enthusiasm…I have this advice: Remember that these very same agents and editors are searching eagerly for writers every day, scouring print and online sources, hunting for new ideas, trying to discover the next hot debut author.

We can’t survive without you.

So to improve your chances of attracting us and landing a book deal, consider these aspects of producing the best possible work:

Writing well

It’s the best revenge, right? Not every writer can be the next Saul Bellow or J.D. Sallinger, not to mention Henry James or F. Scott Fitzgerald. But that doesn’t mean you can’t write as well as your hardest-working most demanding self. Your own best writing takes — and you knew this was coming – rewriting. It may take a dozen times or more. And if you sustain a consistent, authentic voice of your own, well, hey, that’s you writing, that’s who you are.

Remember that not all the great story tellers are actually the greatest writers, as Dan Brown and Stephanie Myers would probably agree, and so would my one-time author Robert Ludlum, were he still around. These very successful writers keep their characters in motion, and keep us on the edges of our chairs with cliffhangers galore, chapter ending after chapter ending, like this one from Dan Brown in the The Da Vinci Code:

“Do not react to this message, said the fearful whisper of the voice mail. Just listen calmly. You are in danger right now. Follow my directions very carefully.”

Who could put that down?

Creating characters we care about

Give us heroines and heroes who are admirable and with whom we can easily identify.  Villains who are compelling and fascinating even if loathsome. Readers want to care about what happens to your characters. This is true in fiction or nonfiction narrative like memoir, history, and biography.

Successful authors have learned that it’s not just the story, but specifically the fate of the main characters that keeps readers glued to the page.

Read your dialogue out loud. Do your characters have distinct voices? Listen to people around you and find those unique linguistic acrobatics we use every day. Even identical twins sound different from each other. How your characters speak is crucial to telling a great story.  For more ideas, jump to this earlier post,  Writer’s Toolkit: Eavesdropping for dialogue.

Telling an emotionally satisfying story

Even if it’s not a happy-ending story, it needs catharsis and epiphany. You want your readers breathing sighs of relief or shaking their heads in dismay at a tragic denouement. Rainbows or thunderstorms can provide equal closure. The point is to bring down the curtain and send the audience home with some kind of insight, inspiration, new found learning or even wisdom.

Organizing the plot

Where to begin: The happy turning point? The devastating crisis? Birth? Death? And what about all that backstory, the context of everything that’s come before? Flashbacks? Flashbacks within flashbacks? There’s no formula, only careful choices to make. Simplicity is usually the best policy, but if you can avoid incoherence and confusion when juggling the chronology of events, go for it.  For more help, take a look at this earlier post on Seven Techniques for a Dynamite Plot.

Keeping the narrative voice clear as a bell

It’s usually a good idea to have one point of view in fiction or non-fiction narrative. It’s not only young adult novels that benefit from that authentic, irresistible “I” narrator. Nevertheless, more than one point of view is common, workable and even essential for some stories. For example, despite the dangers of head hopping from one character to another, multiple shifts in POV can be employed with craft and artistry as in the recent House Rules by Jodi Picoult, and don’t forget it worked for Tolstoy. I ordinarily advise, however, one or two POV’s at the most, with a switch from first person to omniscient third person to fill in the details and provide perspective. It’s your call.  For more detail on the subject, check out this earlier post, Do Publishers have Rules about POV?

Surprising the reader

Avoid predictability. Even essential elements can be postponed and manipulated. Keep the reader guessing. This is true not only for mysteries and literary novels, but all forms of non-fiction narrative.

Drilling down to the essential ingredients

Choosing what to not to say is the art of storytelling. Less is always better, and it’s actually fun to choose among all that’s happened to create a unique and insightful way of seeing things. Leave out everything you possibly can.

Getting smart feedback

You don’t get second chances when submitting to agents and publishers.

Publishing professionals are flooded with queries, proposals and manuscripts every day and consequently don’t take more than a few minutes to read anything that doesn’t get their strong interest on the first page, which is a rare event indeed. So much of what we get isn’t cooked yet, fully formed, focused, or thought out carefully. Too many authors are in such a hurry to knock our socks off that they skip over the core content and jump ahead with grandiose, unrealistic marketing campaigns, and other premature plans that should come only after they have nailed the best possible concept and execution of the book itself.

So get objective, professional critique and developmental editing first.  For anyone seeking guidance, here’s my advice: Choosing a Freelance Editor: What You Need to Know

Make sense? Anything to add from your own experience? I welcome your comments.

A:  Many writers struggle with blending in historical context and a who’s who of key characters from the past whose influence has led up to their protagonist’s current dilemma — and how to do it seamlessly, without creating confusion or burdening the reader with too many details.

They grapple with how to work in the immigrant ancestors. Or how to explain about the bra-burning grandma or the parent with no boundaries.  Or the moody kindergarten teacher. Or the sadistic vocal coach. Or the tragic first lover who drank himself to oblivion.

Scroll down for a list of six suggested technical solutions.

What the reader needs to know

Every story has to start somewhere in time and space. But what came before?

There’s so much stuff the reader needs to know! How can a writer weave in the backstory details that are essential to understanding the story?

All authors of narrative fiction and non-fiction deal with these questions — whether they’re writing an adult literary novel, young adult or middle grade fiction, fantasy, sci-fi fantasy, romance, or narrative nonfiction like a memoir, history, or other complex true story.

Successful writers experiment with different technical solutions

There’s no one solution or formula.

Every rule you hear about can be, and often is, broken. Here are some of the options that make good storytelling so interesting but hard to achieve.

6 backstory techniques

1. Start in the past

Begin with a summary of the historical background as a prologue to the present time.

One example of this is the first chapter of A Tale of Two Cities, in which Charles Dickens famously begins “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” and proceeds majestically to portray the Kings and Queens of England and France, and describe the Norwegian wood that would be eventually be made into the guillotine that decapitates Sidney Carton, the book’s hero.

But such prologue material doesn’t always work.

In the original version of The Great Gatsby, for example, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a lengthy biography of the title character. His editor Maxwell Perkins suggested he delete this slow beginning, which Fitzgerald did.  He later rewrote the text as the excellent short story Absolution.

As in that case, a danger of this technique is producing too many pages with more information than a reader can possibly remember. So if you try this technique, keep it short.

2. Start in the present, then flashback in time

Begin with a dramatic moment in the here-and-now in chapter one. Then in chapter two, jump back to an equally compelling moment that took place in the past. This can be effective but again, the danger is in getting trapped in too much explanation.

Even more problematic is a flashback within the flashback, something I see frequently.  A double-whammy like that can leave readers scratching their heads in bewilderment.

3. Go back and forth in time

Here’s an example of how to structure a narrative around shifts in time: Chapter one takes place in the present. Then chapter two takes place in the past. Chapter three is back in the present, four in the past, and so forth, creating parallel tracks.

I worked with author Katherine Neville on her bestselling novel The Eight, a great example of two apparently separate plots that meet ingeniously in a surprise ending.

But Katherine’s book was an exception, and this structure can become tedious if not executed brilliantly.

4. Insert memories

In a common but tricky technique, the heroine may think to herself, “She promised me that necklace, I’m sure of it…”

Or a memory is dropped into the dialogue.  The protagonist may say to another character: “Listen, David, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but…”

This can work, but the writer must take special care, because it can also become clumsy and intrusive.

5. Shift perspective

In Moby Dick, Herman Melville starts with an “I” narrator Ishmael, but later shifts the point of view to a third person narrator, then moves occasionally to Ahab himself, then back again at the end to Ishmael.

If done skillfully and with discretion, shifting voices can work, but in general I don’t recommend “head hopping” from character to character in order to fit in backstory information.

6. Include footnotes

In The Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig includes dozens of footnotes that analyze psychoanalytic theory relating to the characters, and other fictional footnotes that expand and explain the story.

Similarly, in his monumental novel Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace includes more than 400 endnotes to break up the linear chronology and to supplement and clarify the core text.

This is a very special technique and difficult to pull off, needless to say, but has absolutely worked for great literary writers and provides a splendid model for all.

Struggling with this? You’re in good company

If you’re struggling with the backstory blues, you’re in good company. Remember different strategies have worked for different writers, each with their own special strengths.

For example, my esteemed friend Tom Robbins frequently jumps around in time with impunity in many of his wonderful novels, including Skinny Legs and Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates.

Also, Leo Tolstoy wrote many versions of War and Peace, each of which kept moving further back in time. He ultimately decided to start at an even earlier point in time, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, which included what he felt was the necessary historical context.

How an editor works with a writer to resolve backstory problems

The issue of how to best integrate backstory details emerges frequently in my own work as a developmental editor. Here are a couple of recent examples.

Stitching in a family secret

In one case, an author and I replaced a 14-page prologue with three less repetitious and more powerful internal memories and one passage of quoted dialogue that conveyed a family secret, hidden for years, then suddenly revealed in present time.

Adding a flashback chapter

For another book, the writer and I identified a crucial past moment in the heroine’s coming of age, then developed it fully with dramatic action as the second chapter of the book.  We didn’t need to resort to another flashback for the rest of the story.

What has worked for you?

I look forward to hearing from you with reports of your own backstory solutions.  What have you found especially challenging?

Have you managed to avoid the dreaded information dump?  Please pass along any suggestions to fellow writers!

Q: Someone in my writers group complained that my plot is hard to follow. Can you help?

A: You might need to work on the transitions — the glue that makes a seamless narrative.  You might need to add a few words of clarification or entire new passages to bridge the gaps.

Your reader could be bewildered because those critical transitions  between the scenes and events of the story are missing or insufficient.

The narrative could read along pretty well but suddenly there’s a bump in the road, a jarring hiccup from one scene to the next that leaves the reader perplexed, confused, disoriented and up in the air: “Wait a minute,” the reader thinks. “This doesn’t make sense! Where are we? What’s happening? What did I miss?”

As an acquisitions and developmental editor, I see this all the time. It’s a very common problem, and easy to fix. Consider some of these types of transitions depending on the specific needs of your draft manuscript:

Types of Transitions and Bridges

1. Date and location headings

A specific date, including month, day and year, like April 7th, 1941 set in caps or italics on its own line at the beginning of a scene or chapter can be an effective way to keep the time straight, especially in a work of fiction or non-fiction that spans many years. You can even spell out the location, like December 25th, 2009, Portland, Oregon, to eliminate the need to explain it elsewhere in the text.

2. A few words of orientation in time and space

Getting the reader from one scene to the next in a coherent manner can be as simple as including some words of orientation, such as “Early the next morning…” or “Three days later…” This discrete addition may save the narrative from disintegrating and make it easier to follow.

3. Third-person narration

Some form of third-person narration can often fill the missing link, like “Alice decided not to wait for the letter to come but made plans to leave on her own. She found herself standing on the platform at the train station the next morning, with only an overnight bag and the Lonely Planet guide to Ecuador…”

4. A character’s inner thoughts

If you’re writing a first-person narrative, you may need to let us into the character’s inner thoughts to explain what’s going on. “I thought about what Dad always said about the true meaning of money, so I….”

5. A new scene or chapter

In many plot-driven stories, memoirs, biographies or histories, the author may have left out an essential piece of the puzzle that can’t be ignored.  This may require the insertion of a full-scale scene or chapter that shows the narrative development from an omniscient perspective, or from another character’s point of view.

The trick is to realize this and locate the precise spot for the new additions.  A good editor can help by identifying not only the location, but also the kind of insertion that’s needed.  Sometimes it’s a new piece of dialogue; sometimes it’s a quick run around the block to see the story from a different point of view.  So read over your manuscript with a critical eye or get some objective professional advice from a teacher or independent editor.

Pruning and planting

Good writers understand that the process of writing and rewriting has to include both pruning and planting. They know it’s essential to take the scalpel to any repetitious sentences or chapters, while at the same time not being so cool and stylish as to bewilder, disorient, and ultimately alienate the reader.

Of course, a writer doesn’t want to be pedantic in tracking the linear sequence of one event after another, whether it’s fiction, memoir, biography or history. Less is often better and an effective literary style should never be based on formulaic step-by-step recitation.

Everyone needs an editor

I’ll bet you can find unnecessary or repetitious words in this post that if removed would make the writing better. And what did I leave out?

Write in with your own experiences and any advice to pass along. I look forward to your comments.

A: Here’s my advice on how you can beat the odds and overcome the biggest reasons most books get rejected.

But first, I’d like to give you an idea of what it’s like behind the scenes at a publishing house, and how acquiring editors go about the business of signing up books.

The reality: Editors are desperate to find books!

Writers often don’t realize that editors are strongly motivated, in fact desperate, to find authors and their books. Editors wake up in the morning with acquisition anxiety!  We’re all under tremendous pressure to find promising new books that will sell.

That’s why we’re out there hounding literary agents, scouring newspapers, magazines and journals, cornering college professors, the local city councilwoman and the 16-year-old tech head from next door – because who knows, just maybe they have a great idea or brilliant new manuscript ready to go.

Given this nervous reality, why do acquiring editors reject so many of the dozens of ideas, proposals, and manuscripts they see each week, often after only a 30-second glance at the first few pages?  Here’s why, and what you can do about it.

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The 5 best ways to improve your chances

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#1  Bulk up your concept

The concept is the core idea of any book project. So we’re disappointed when an author or agent sends us a project with a concept that is weak or inappropriate.

We see too many memoirs, for example, that are motivated by hurt and resentment.  Or books that are clearly calculated efforts to climb on the bandwagon of a perceived hot trend, like cross-over vampire love stories, and terrorist infiltrations of suburban St. Louis. Or quick and easy programs for financial success, satisfying marriage and perfect kids based on no research or track record.  No thanks.

Some concepts reveal a writer who thinks he can make a quick killing in the book business.  Now that’s funny.

Here’s what we’re actually hoping for:

We want to see a concept with a strong premise that has energy, intensity, utility, focus and vision. We want books that will grab readers by the throat, quicken their pulses, and resonate for their own lives.

We want authors who have something new to say about an important subject or story, who bring a fresh voice or unusual perspective on a topic of concern to many people.  Authors who are passionate about their ideas and stories, who bring to their work a maturity, expertise, and a visceral compulsion to write that comes from their hearts.

An editor can usually tell right away if a concept has a new idea or point of view.

It’s also helpful for you or your agent to know as much as possible about any given editor’s special interests or personal biases.

#2  Submit a complete and convincing proposal

I can tell pretty quickly when a submission is canned or formulaic. Beware of clearing your throat with digressive warm up sentences, or hyperbolic claims of grandiose brilliance.  Too many proposals appear to reinvent the wheel without acknowledging the competition. Too many authors are uninformed about the importance of self-marketing. Not enough writers hold themselves to a high enough standard of good writing.

The bare-boned essentials of any book proposal I’d like to receive should include:

• A two or three sentence hook that tells me what the book is about and why you’re the best person to write it.

• If it’s non-fiction, include a chapter outline with a few paragraphs for each, a total of no more than two or three pages. Same thing if it’s fiction: Give me a thorough synopsis of the story.

• Then write about your platform, including education, career status, track record as a writer, past or present appearances in print or broadcast media, current or future plans for websites, blogs, or internet marketing. I also like to see a DVD that shows you talking about the book with no script, either on local TV, at some community event, or even just in your living room.

• A good proposal requires a serious and honest analysis of the competition. Too many submissions dismiss all other books and claim a presumptuous kind of superiority. We prefer respect and acknowledgment of similar books, since it proves there’s a market. What you need to tell us is how your work is different.

• Finally, whether it’s non-fiction or fiction, I want a sparkling example of your writing. Usually the first chapter is best, but if it’s a first novel, send in the entire manuscript. I know conventional rules say start with a query letter, but with a novel, I recommend that you be more assertive and send the whole thing. It’s the best way for us to see what you can do, beginning to end.

For a more thorough discussion, have a look at this earlier post,  The book proposal: what publishers want.

#3  Come in with an agent

You’ve probably heard that unrepresented, unsolicited proposals and manuscripts don’t get the same attention, and it’s true. They end up in the slush pile.

Editors at most publishing houses won’t even open the email or package from someone they don’t know. They want to see a project a respected agent recommends — rather than spend hours going through literally hundreds of emails and packages.

Finding the right agent for your book is crucial. It’s your job to find the best one specifically for you, an agent who knows which editor at what publisher might be interested in what you’re doing.  That agent’s relationship with the editor is also essential for negotiating the best financial terms, since it’s the acquiring editor’s job to pay as little as possible.

It may not be easy to find the right agent, but remember, they’re also looking for you. So go to writers conferences where agents appear, search their websites, find their names in the acknowledgment pages of books you like, find a friend who has a good agent, and subscribe to Publisher’s Marketplace for the latest inside information about which agents have sold what project to which editors.

And beware of any so-called agent who charges you for reading the book. That’s a scam.

#4  Polish your writing to the highest standard

Your proposal, sample pages, or complete manuscript must be held to a high literary standard. Some common problems I see are proposals with disorganized thinking that jumps from idea to idea with no apparent logic or linear sequence. Or the same idea is repeated over and over. Or the writer makes unwarranted assumptions that I’ll be able to understand prose that twists and turns with bewildering shifts in time and place.  Or I see characters who are two-dimensional and all speak in the same voice.

And surprisingly, I see proposals replete with typos and poor grammar. Sure that stuff can be fixed, but it indicates a lack of care and professionalism.

Remember that writing is rewriting. Some fine authors I’ve worked with – Toni Morrison, Tom Robbins, Hunter Thompson – each labor over every word, and are actually never quite satisfied, always feeling it can be better. And it can.

Compare yourself to the best and see how good you can make it. Raise the bar. Be tougher on yourself.  Seek feedback beyond family and friends.  Here are some suggestions:

• Take a writing class that provides discipline and high standards

• Hire a freelance developmental editor (not for spelling or punctuation but content, style, organization) with a track record of published authors.  Here are some tips from an earlier post,  Choosing a freelance editor: what you need to know

• Be prepared to take the time needed to produce well-organized, highly polished prose. Yes, I know Dan Brown can get away with clunky prose, but he’s a master of cliff-hanging and page-turners, despite his writing.

#5  Come with a platform and plan for self-marketing

I’ve seen proposals from writers who say their book will sell itself or that they’re too busy or shy to participate in publicity or marketing.

Ouch. We depend on authors to cooperate and participate in a big way on selling their books. For more specifics, take a look at this earlier post on Building the author platform: 10 tips from a pro

That doesn’t mean every writer who submits a proposal already needs to have a celebrity status platform. Not many new authors have a national TV show or a website that gets a million page views every day.

But your proposal should demonstrate a willingness to understand and be effective at self-marketing. There’s so much an author can do these days to reach their readers directly. Even writers who are intrinsically shy are able to enter an online community that relates to their book and present their information, ideas, and stories.

To give your book the best chance of success these days you must provide your prospective agent or publisher with your own self-marketing plan for the book.

That means starting a website and blog before you even go for the agent or book contract. Get that URL based on your preliminary title, build your website with expert help, and start blogging, commenting on other sites and blogs, and social networking.  Welcome to the 21st century!

Conventional self-marketing is also still important. Learn to stand on your feet and speak extemporaneously about your book. Seek invitations to appear at professional and community events. Approach local print and broadcast journalists as an expert in your field, or with a great story to tell about your novel. Hire a publicity agent if you can afford it, publishers love to see that kind of commitment. And get to know the owner of your local independent bookstore.  They may be interested if you can pull in 75 people on your personal list for a reading when the time comes.

I know some of you may prefer to remain at home writing, but do it anyway — it works, and it can be fun.

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Motivated writers can navigate the changes in publishing

There’s never been a better time for a writer to navigate the big changes in book publishing. Agents and editors are tearing down old conventions and experimenting with new ideas. No one in the book business knows what the digital revolution or downturn in the economy will bring next.

Everyone realizes that they need creative authors who believe in what they’re doing, hold themselves to a high standard, and are able to reach their readers directly.

Dive in and you’ll have a much better chance of success.

Any questions or tips?

Have questions about any of this?  Tips and suggestions to pass along to fellow writers?  Please post them here in comments.

A : This isn’t unusual. You may have taken a wrong turn early in the story as a result of poor planning. Or you may have painted yourself into a corner. Or you could be suffering from avoidance, procrastination, and other writer’s blocks.

Structural problems and solutions

The inability to finish up a book can often be traced back to a lack of adequate initial planning.  Have you considered the narrative arc and characterizations? The balance of dialogue, visual description and background material?

It’s crucial to define at the outset what the book is about and where you ultimately want to go with it.  That’s why I strongly recommend creating an outline.  The finest writers I’ve worked with, including best selling literary stars, begin with a clear chapter-by-chapter structure that gives them a preliminary map of the steps along the way towards climax and closure.

Ouch. I can hear some of you wincing already. You may have not used an outline since high school. How stifling, how pedantic, you might be thinking. But believe me, an outline is a very useful tool. It’s never carved in stone, however, as things usually do shift and change as you go along and the book develops a life of its own.

But that original map can be your best friend.  It’s a frame of reference that leads to an ending developed organically from everything that has come before.

Reaching emotional closure

The lack of a plan providing a clear progressive structure and a purposeful conclusion leads some writers to resist ending at all, ever.

In one case, an author sent in 3,200 pages that he envisioned as a three-volume boxed set. “I have to publish all of them at once,” he said. “It’s all or nothing at all.”

Another writer couldn’t reach the finish line because he refused to let go of the story. “It’s impossible to know what happens,” he said. “I can’t stop these people from living on and on in my head. ”

OK. Real life can’t always be tied up neatly in a bow. Problems don’t evaporate, decisions don’t usually remain static or final. That’s why reading a good book, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, gives us the chance to return to an alternate universe whenever we pick up the book during the day.  We get to use our imaginations to allow these characters to live on beyond what’s just on the page.

Nevertheless, as a finite object and hopefully a work of creative art, your book needs to reach some emotional finality, a sense of closure, a plateau of events that is emotionally satisfying and allows the reader to take away some sense of ultimate inspiration or enlightenment.

How an editor can help

Here’s an example. I worked recently with a writer whose  story reached a climactic turning point about 400 pages into the manuscript that required the wife, who was pregnant, to leave her husband and strike out on her own.

As the developmental editor, I didn’t think writing another 200 pages to resolve all the loose ends was the best solution, so I suggested flashing forward to a short epilogue about the baby’s first birthday. That showed us everything we needed to know about how the characters resolved their relationships and issues about working and co-parenting.

In another case, a true-crime writer traveled to a distant city to interview a serial killer in prison. He was unable, however, to get past the prison regulations to interview the inmate. To meet our contractual deadline, the author tried to write an alternate ending about how he was forced to stay in town for weeks, about the people he stayed with, the local culture, weather, and sports.

As the publisher, I rejected that ending and suggested instead that he interview everyone else involved with the case.  We ended up replacing the last fifty pages of the book with commentary, transcripts and documents from the trial. This technique ultimately worked just as well as an actual interview and may actually have been more accurate.

Don’t let it come to this!

One writer who had enormous trouble meeting publishing deadlines was my old friend and nemesis, Hunter S. Thompson. Shortly after his initial success he began to fear that he couldn’t sustain the quality of his earlier work, or satisfy the legions of fans who had idealized his persona as a bad boy rebel, a kind of literary James Dean or Marlon Brando. It was a hard act to keep up, requiring all kinds of bad habits and damaging his personal and professional relationships.

In that case, drastic intervention was required that included extracting the text word by word, in a difficult and painful process I recommend only when the end result is really worth it. You can read more about my adventures editing Hunter Thompson here.

Here’s what you can do

Acting out isn’t uncommon in the process of doing the hard work of writing. A fear of failure can lead to psychological depression, anxiety and paralysis. Therefore, as the end of your book approaches, check out how successful writers maintain their self-confidence, also take a look at these habits of well-known writers, and keep the following suggestions in mind.

5 tips for finishing your book

1.  Accept endgame writer’s block as normal and common, something that happens on occasion to all authors, even the best and most experienced.

2.  Reconsider your core idea, your starting-out concept and see if it fulfills your original outline. If you didn’t have an outline to begin with, make one now.

3.  Get help. That’s what editors are for.  Successful writers seek out and listen to professional feedback — from their publisher if they have one, or from a well-qualified trustworthy independent developmental editor.

4.  Dig deep. Be willing to listen to others about your self-defeating behavior. Friends and family, editors, publishers, or on occasion, psychological professionals, can be the source of honest and supportive feedback.

5.  Be patient. Wait it out. The outline and revisions take time. Sometimes this process needs to play out at its own pace to develop traction, take hold, and stick.

Send in your own stories of how you overcame problems finishing your book. I’ll bet you have some great examples and solutions waiting to be told.