How I Edit

I edit others work. A lot. A lot, a lot. Did I mention I do edits a lot? No? Well I do. I’ve always loved going over others work, combing through it, making it better.  Helping great writers get even greater. (And in the process it makes me a better writer too) It’s awesome. And so, I thought today I would share how I edit.  I’ll be demonstrating how I crit using an entry from the ‘On Thin Ice’ Flash Fiction Contest’ I hosted back in January.

This piece is by one of my lovely followers. Rae Ann. Who asked me to critique her piece for her, and was lovely enough to volunteer to be featured in this post. You can find her blog  HERE.

The first thing I do when reading a manuscript is do line edits. Oh how I LOVE LINE EDITS! (Some of you call them track changes). The thing is, I don’t like doing just global editing. Sure global editing is important, but if I can’t get all the little nuances out-of-the-way how can I focus? So, I go in and do cross outs, (add a comma or period here and there), but mostly, as I go I make comments about mood, character, and what I’m feeling (or worse, not feeling) while reading here is a photo of Rae Ann’s piece all marked up (you can select the photo for a zoom in):

To get a better look at what my line edits look like i’ll give you some specific examples:

EX 1:

Like pins and needles, it stabbed, pricked and pierced * into my  feet. it seared through my soles and to the nerves,** slowly but mercilessly ***scorching my spine, burning into every fiber of my body.

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And this is what I said about my edits in the comments:

*I would use only one of these. Using all of them adds a lot of bulk to the sentence that it doesn’t need.

**If your saying that it’s making her feet prickle/stab/ etc. then they are obviously tender. I would recommend cutting this.

***I would choice either slowly or mercilessly both of them make the sentence sound too clunky in my opinion.

EX 2:

My muscles squealed with a throbbing ache* as I forced myself **to take a few more steps. The cottage swam shakily into view, and I blinked my eyes a few times to make sure that it was still there.

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I chose this one because it gives a good example of how I add in writerly tid-bits. I always feel like I should put one of those cheesy “tips” columns in like they do in how-to books when I write something like this. These are the corresponding comments:

*Not sure how I feel about this sentence. I would cut or change it. It reads awkwardly to me.

** Sorry… freaked for a minute there, but you want to stay away from using as if at all possible. As it stutters the ‘time stream’ that I was talking about earlier. As, is… well, how do I explain this?

As says that your character is doing something at the same time as they are doing something else, usually this isn’t good to put in because it causes the reader to have to add something to their mental image, instead of naturally flowing into the next sentence… does that make sense? I hope so… I’m not very good at explaining this am I?\

Anyway, after I do line edits/track changes, I always do an ‘Overview’ letter. If I’m doing a novel edit I sometimes do this for each chapter. Basically this is where I try to lay out the big picture issues and high points of the novel/story. This needs work, but this is awesome, kind of thing.  Here is what Rae Ann’s overview letter looked like. It was rather short since I only had four pages to edit.

I guess that’s about it.

How do you all do edits? Any tips?

NaNo: Reflecting on Collaborating

Yesterday, Carolyn and I had a brainstorm session. For those of you don’t know Carolyn is my fabulous critique partner/friend/co-author of my NaNo novel this year. Any-who, we decided this past week that our NaNo novel (That which we are referring to as ABLAZE) needed some serious back story/plotting help and so we drove over to our local library. Which by the way has awesome coffee seating area on the second floor. With extremely comfy very, java/hipster-esque chairs.

Carolyn & I looking a bit too smiley

And can I just say that writing a novel with one of your best friends is possibly one of the FUNNEST EXPERIENCES I’VE EVER HAD! Seriously, Carolyn and I are very much on the same page. Plotting with another person (one with awesome tastes in books) is a lot like discussing an insanely awesome already written book.

I swear to you there were ideas flying left and right. As soon as I had something to say, she had another thing to add-on or, another way of looking at it that was just as amazing (if not more so). And… yeah I’d like to think it went both ways. Haha!

I was really nervous about doing a collaboration novel, just because I was scared that I would lose control. Or that the novel would turn into something I didn’t like, or I didn’t feel like it was something I would pick myself. And some of the stuff isn’t. It isn’t stuff I would have thought of. But it’s good. It’s damn good! *pardon my french* But, the thing is, is that this novel is my project, it is both of us. Honestly, I think a lot of what has made this work out so far is that Carolyn and I have known each other all our lives, (so we are kind of in sync) and also that we have very similar tastes in books, and music.  I guess you could say that blending our two styles, and ideas was a lot easier because of that.

I really think that collaborating (thus far) has been a really positive experience for me as a writer. I have always liked bouncing my ideas off others, and being able to have constant streams of ideas going in and out, has really allowed me to focus on the structure of my writing, and less on the details.

It seems a lot easier for me to talk through my ideas first, and yesterday at the library we were just ON FIRE. (haha you know what I’m talking about Carolyn 🙂) I’m feeling really good about our novel, even if we are a little behind on word count, I definitely think we’ll finish up this draft and cont’ to work on it in the future.

I just wanted to let you all know what was going on. How is NaNo, or just November treating you all?

Will We Work?- Critique Relationships

Some people are just difficult. There is no way of getting around it.Through out our lives, we all have to work with people we’d rather push into the mall fountain, but fortunately that isn’t so with Critique Relationships. You have complete control over who you work with, how the relationship will go, and for how long.

But, how do you know if you should work with a writer? How do you know if it will be a good match for you?

That is what we’ll be addressing here.

You see, I’ve critiqued quite a few manuscripts thus far in my life (a very hefty volume if you compare it to my age), and I’ve discovered a couple of ways to avoid getting involved with writers who you’d rather see all soggy in some seriously penny tainted water.

My friend Gabby over at her amazing BLOG (that you should go check out if you have not yet!) had some issues with this recently and it got me thinking that I should share what I know, and so here it is.

First off, let me say that critique relationships are a lot like friend relationships in person. You are not going to become friends with someone you know nothing about, so before you consider critiquing someones work, check them out. Follow their blog, send some emails, talk on Skype. develop a base relationship! This will let you know if your personalities are compatible. Even though, critiquing someones work doesn’t require you to be E-harmony soul mates, it does require a certain level of common ground. After all, it’s a lot easier to take criticism from someone you like than from someone you know nothing about, or worse, don’t like at all. This makes the relationship flow a lot smoother both ways. They like you, you like them!

So, you are acquainted , great! The next step is to look at their writing. ask for the synopsis of their novel that you’ll be looking at. Not only will the actual writing tell you a lot about the person’s skill level, and show you if they know their way around a keyboard,(i.e. if they have issues with grammar, or just generally don’t have a grip on craft). but it will tell you a lot about the person themselves.

If the person acts professional, and sends the email promptly with a polite response, you can pretty much assume that the rest of the critique relationship will be a happy professional experience. professionalism is definitely something you want to look for in a person you’ll be critiquing, as these people will be the ones who take criticism well, and try to apply it as best they can instead of making excuses, and generally being un-accepting of any critique you give.

What i’m saying is that if you get an email that looks like this:

Hiiii!!!

Im supr exxcited to do this myy novel is awesome and here is the synopsis it be in the attach file up thr. I hpe you like it lotzz!

Suzay

END IT THERE.

Okay, you now have their synopsis, and you are feeling pretty good. You like the premise, and the person seems professional and nice.By this point, if red lights are going to be flashing they would, but I have one more thing I do before fully committing to the relationship. I have them send me their, novel, but tell them that I will send them the first edited chapter within in 2-7 days, and that they can look over it. If there are any issues, and things just aren’t working, I make it clear that we can end the relationship there, no hard feelings. This not only gives you a chance to look over what you will actually be working with, but it also gives the author a chance to give you a pass/fail and helps them to feel comfortable with you working on their piece.

These are just my tips for working with others. Anybody have critique relationship troubles before? Have any tips that have helped you out?

PS: Sister’s Red review should be up by tomorrow night.

NaNo 3 Tips on Day 3

NaNo has begun, and it’s been going great for me 🙂 As you all know I’m doing a collaboration novel with my critique partner Carolyn (something I’ve never even dreamed of attempting) and am loving it!

we’ve set it up so that we each do a chapter/section every other day (meeting the word count) and then send it back to the other via email. It’s working out really well, and having somebody else depending on your pages forces you to write!

Sadly not everybody has that to motivate them to write and so for you single NaNo goers I’ve decided to hand out my top three NaNo tips:

1) Get ahead on your word count. No, seriously, don’t look at me like I have three heads. I realize you already have to write over 1,600 words a day. What I recommend is just writing an extra two or three hundred words. I know that doesn’t seem like much but after a few days those will add up, so if you miss a day you won’t be behind. look at it this way, if you write an extra three hundred words for the first week that gives you an extra 2,100 words! That leaves you getting done a day and hale early, do that every day and you could be done four even five days early!

2) Don’t skip writing. Just because you apply point number one, and happen to have an extra 4,000 words in week two does NOT mean you can skip a day. This is the fastest way to lose NaNo. Believe me, I know. If you decide to take a break one day, you will give yourself a second day. NaNo is all about consistancy. Don’t get yourself out of that mind set, or you will most likely be doomed to fail. (I know what your thinking…. ‘she has to be fun at parties‘)

3)Delete your Internet short cut. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying ‘there’s many a slip twixt the cup and lip’. Well, during NaNo it is more like, ‘there  is many a web page between You and WORD’. It’s easy to just click on your browser when booting up the computer to start writing. A fleeting whim to Google, or check your email will often pass your mind when things get sticky in Microsoft, and that page is looking awful, or when you just don’t want to write. Deleting your browser shortcut makes it harder to answer that impulse. If you delete  the shortcut you have to go through the start menu and programs just to boot up the internet. It will seem much less appealing then. I SWEAR it will not kill you to do this! It’s a small thing, but you will get a lot more done. And, you can always go back after November.

Those were my tips for the day! How is November (NaNo or not going for you all?)

Don’t Deliver Half-Baked Pizza

When your writing a novel its easy to get ahead of yourself. Especially when you have eager betas, and friends. People who want to read said novel. But, you don’t want to give them a half baked pizza to look over.

What am I saying here? I’m saying that your novel needs to be done to your complete satisfaction before you hand it over to betas. You don’t hand it over to betas because you don’t want to write another draft, or because they’re begging to read draft three instead of waiting for draft four. Just like you don’t deliver a half baked pizza because the customer is hungry or because your too lazy to finish making it.

The Pizza has to be finished. You only want to hand it over to friends/betas when you are completely sure that you have done all you personally can do to make it better. Even if that means breaking a few promises.

I for instance have been promising “The Shadows That Fell” to a few betas by December, but if I’m not happy with the manuscript in December (0r happy enough to not redraft without feedback) then the manuscript simply won’t be sent out.

I know that not sending it our will surely disappoint someone, but its better than them be disappointed by the actual writing. You want your betas to say “hey I had to wait a little while longer, but man that was good!” rather than “Gosh it was on time, but that was about all it had going for it!”

In other words don’t half bake manuscripts for your betas!

The “Surprise Baby”

Just finished my bit of writing on BTE for today. Got over 1600 words done in the last hour, so not feeling too bad. Though, I’m slowly realizing that it needs so much fine tuning its crazy. Actually, I think it just needs to be totally pitched, which it will be by the way, there is no questioning that.

I think that the rewrite will be 20x better though. Right now the whole thing is nothing like what draft two will look like. So many scenes are being scrapped, characters are being taken out, names are changing, the tech of the world is getting totally rewired (haha pun intended), and the whole draft is getting, like I said, scraped and rewritten.

I just wrote a scene, that I’m thinking I’ll pitch anyway, but my first drafts are more like experiments than actual drafts. I mostly end up with failure, but it leads to success later, and there are a few salvageable bits here and there.

I’m really just trying to ride out this week with some serious elbow grease. I MUST RESIST EDITING! Or, that is what I keep telling myself. I know if I don’t draft one will not get done this week, and that is the goal. One I think is very definitely finishable if only I put my mind to it.

The real thing I’m looking forward to is starting CARVE! eeeeepppp. I have most of it plotted out in my head, a lot more than I did with BTE, which was a NANOWRIMO “brilliant inspiration” type idea.

I figure BTE is like the “surprise baby” you get (AKA the “oopps but I love it anyway”one) and CARVE will be the planned baby (AKA the “i’ve been waiting for you forever one”)

If my metaphor freaks you out I recommend you stop reading my blog now, as I will only get weirder when editing comes around… A LOT weirder.

Anyway, I’ll be putting my heart and soul into finishing that this week. Carrie (my awesome crit partner)is coming over tomorrow so I’m sure I’ll have some craziness to report tomorrow.

How are your projects going? Anybody have a “surprise baby” project? 😀

CoFA Countdown : Top 24 Till Midnight

Hey everyone back from Atlanta with a surprise my entry along with Carolyns, and Tessas, ALL made the top 24 entries for Wovenstrands CoFA costume contest! Out of over 6,020 entry’s we made the top 24! Snap, I’m all excited now.

 ALL THREE too?! Can you belive that?  I sure can’t. If you want to look at Carolyn’s, Tessa’s, and My entry you can see them HERE. At my CoFA Entry Post.

If you want to see the other 24 top picks you can see them HERE on woven strands blog.

The winner will be revealed tonight at Midnight (ominous right?) So be there or be square. Even though I hope I win I think everyone did great, and I think we all deserve a prize!

I’d like to thank WovenStrands for hosting the contest!

It’s So Hard to Find Good Help These Days~ Finding Crit. Partners & Groups

This wasn't the kind of help I was thinking about...

I was thinking today about critique partners/groups today, and realized that I’ve never really talked about them. Sure, I’ve mentioned my AMAZING FREAKISHLY GOOD crit. Partner Carrie. But, I’ve never really talked about how you can get involved in crit. Relationships.

Funny, considering I’ve seen others talking about trying to find good crit partners or groups on the net all the time. Especially on wordpress. Even in my own subscription circle! So, today I’ll be starting a series about critique partners.

Today’s topic: how to find crit partners/groups. After all, “it’s so hard to find good help these days.”

This is something that I think baffles’ a lot of people. The actual process of finding a group or person to work with. It’s a huge task, and there is a lot of ground to cover.

Not only do you have your own circle of friends/family, but you have the internet! The internet is one vast place, let me tell you! So, where should you go? And how do you approach someone about a crit relationship.

Face to Face –

My crit relationship with Carrie is a face to face kind of relationship. Carolyn is not only one of my best friends but also my aunt. We ended up working together during NaNoWriMo. I mentioned something about trying to do a NaNo novel, and she jumped right on board. We did NaNo together, and we’ve been swapping ideas, and writing ever since.

Granted this situation was rather serendipitous, but looking within you own circle of  friends and family is a great way to find a critique partner. As these people are usually more readily available and easier to keep in contact with. (They also tend to put up with you better.)

Of course the negatives of having a friend or family member work with you need to be considered too. One of the most prominent ones is the fact that they love you.

People who care about you, and your feelings, tend to be overly kind toward your work. Having someone praise your work ALL the time is not necessarily a good thing. The whole point of having a critique partner is to “CRITIQUE” your work, and make it better. Just make sure that if you have a family member or close friend look at your work, that they will be honest, and give you the tough love that you need!

Internet Connections-

Along with Carolyn, I also participate in a group called The Write Net. (A small crit. Group composed of some wordpress writers.) Having feed back from a group can help you see the main problems with your writing, and decide whether certain crits to your writing are just personal taste or a real issue.

Finding people on the internet is a great way to expose yourself to criticism while making it less personal.

Finding people to work with is easier than ever! Try going to writing crit. Sites like critters.org or critiquecircle.com and meeting people in the forums and through short story critiques. Most people will be happy to at least give the relationship a shot!

You can also try reading other peoples writing blogs. Often times, those who are looking for writing partners or groups will mention something about it on their blog or site.

If you look for them, you’ll find them.

But how do you know if your partner is a good match? I’ll be posting the answer to this question in the next installment of what I’m naming “The Good Help Series”.

How have you guys found your crit. Groups or partners? Or are you looking for them?

An Interview with My Critique Partner

So as I had promised I am now going to share with you some words from the ever so lovely Mrs. Carolyn Strassell AKA my critique partner (and owner of my sister blog “The Waters Edge”.)

I hope you enjoy my interview!

Hello there fellow writer how are you today?

🙂 Wonderful!

How long have you been writing?

since as far back as I can remember! about 6 I think

What are you writing right now?
The key word here is Trying;) to write A YA fiction called Afflatus.

Could you give us a little teaser of what you are writing now? Pretty Please!

LOL ok:

“Kale Gripped the hard jagged rock wall in her small hands, She could feel herself slipping, and it wasn’t just from the rock. Taking a harsh breath in she moved her foot trying to find a stronger edge to rest herself on.”Just, keep going” She said aloud. Pressing her face against the hot rock “Don’t stop”. Pulling all the strength that she had from somewhere inside her she pushed up the last few feet to the top. letting out a sigh of relief once her feet hit the level ground. Gazing over the wooded terrain below Kale’s eyes took in what had once been a place that held the feeling of safety this place held the lingering air of death. Feeling the hair stand up on the back of her neck, she moved her hand to the sword the hung from a leather belt around the waist. the hard metal felt cool as she gripped the handle.
Suddenly a shrill ring filled the air, the alarm, a call to war. Tearing her eyes from the valley before her Kale made her way from the clearing into the dense forest. As she neared the trees began to move. This would have not been strange had there been wind…….there wasn’t any, not even a breeze. Pushing forward Kale laid her hand once again on her sword. The battle was coming, even the trees knew it as they continued to sway from side to side. Almost like they were trying to run from the on coming storm.”

Who are some of the writers that inspire you? What aspects of their writing do you try to apply your own? How?

My Friend Katie Wiland, Mark Twain, Jane Austin, ect….They Truly bring the people in their books to life, and that is what I hope to do. Leave you with a little sad feeling that the book is over because the characters were so real you grew to love them.

Some author’s say they have to get to know there characters before they write, do you feel you have to do this? If you do what do you do to accomplish this?

I feel that I get to know my people as I write about them, it’s just like going to visit someone that lives far away. The more you visit the more you know them.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?
I like to write the more complex characters. Ones that you never quite get till the end of the book.

Do you write with music? If you do why and what is your “theme” song right now?
Most of the time yes. Right now its “Send me a Song ” by Lisa Kelly it is like the them song for the end of my book. Sweet and sad at the same time.

Do you write other things while writing your novel? Flash fiction/other books?

Yes. It helps to get out of the story that you have been working on 24/7. You get a new out look on things.

What is the hardest thing for you to personally write?

The middle! I HATE writing the middle of the book 😛 Ha

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I tend to get up and walk around the room, write something…walk around the room…and so on.

A lot of people think that writers get there ideas from the magical glitter that falls from the sky when we sleep, Where do you get your ideas?

A little bit of everywhere, mostly in my strange mind.

When you’re writing do you have to do a lot of research? What do you use to research? What have you researched recently?

Yes, I just finished doing some on weapons of the 1400’s.

What do you enjoy most about writing?

The freedom that we have to create our own world! It’s truly magic!

When do you think your current novel will be complete?
With any luck….Late summer of 2011!

Finally I just have to ask how bad do first drafts suck?! How are you going to go about editing yours? How does your first draft compare to your finished writing?

YUCK!!! Oh I can’t stand them,  but they have to be apart of the whole book deal. LOTS of red pencils.

My first and final draft are like night and day! The first is like a whole different book from the final draft.