Tag Archives: editing

Context Means Everything: Weighing Feedback

Posted on March 12, 2012 | 3 Comments

The other morning my Dear Daughter was in desperate need of an outfit.  She’s tired of wearing the same old-same old for speech and wanted a pair of slacks instead of a skirt.  I dug through my closet and found a pair of (shrunken) dress pants.  She slid them on.

“Mom!” said she as she held the waistband out inches on each side.  “I can’t believe your hips are this big.”

Now, I could have been insulted–especially since I knew those pants fit a little more snugly after their heated run-in with the dryer and my hips’ happy reunion with the salsa jar.  I could have taken personal affront at her comment and chastised her for speaking rudely.

However, she wasn’t trying to be rude.  She was actually giving me a compliment.  Regardless, her cheeks flushed and she continued, “It’s just that they don’t look that big.”

In defense of her, they don’t–generally.  Because I also have broad shoulders.  So, when taken in as part of the “big picture”, my hips are proportionate to the rest of me.  It’s only when studied alone, via a tape measure or a skinny girl in too-big-of-pants, that my hips can be classified as…uhm, wide.  Solid child-bearing hips, they be.

FAST FACT: Anything can hurt when taken out of context.  Over-sensitive types can blow things out of proportion, while narrowly focused folks tend to hone in on one aspect of the big picture.  Both of these traits can make us fail to see the positive side of something that otherwise feels negative.

Seriously, if we really wanted to, we could turn even the most caring and helpful statement into a tragedy.

What am I talking about?

Critiques, feedback from professionals and rejection letters.

Over the years, I’ve watched a fair number of writers (myself included) react to critiques from writing groups, partners, betas or rejection letters.  More recently, I see the same thing in the speech kids I coach when they get their critiques back from judges after a round.

FAST FACT: People have a tendency to focus on the perceived negative.  The one point that makes them really consider themselves, their writing or their performance in a way they absolutely do not want to.

Then, they twist this feedback into something ugly and hurtful and demeaning.  They toss it out as worthless and hateful.  They stick it in the shredder and refuse to acknowledge its existence.  In essence, they let their emotions get the best of them and they lose the opportunity to really consider the merit behind the words.

FAST FACT: If we would calm down and let our initial reactions take a walk around the block, we would see the big picture instead of an isolated statement or two.  We would put comments into context, giving us a better understanding of what the beta reader, judge, agent, editor, parent, speech coach or Dear Daughter really meant.

We would pause for a moment when confronted with loose waistbands and realize that wide might not be a synonym for fat like we first thought.  And while I get that we don’t always have the benefit of flushed cheeks and further commentary to clarify a critiquer’s meaning, we still need to consider each individual statement within the context of our work, the rest of the critique and the critiquers themselves.

Are you like me, occasionally guilty of taking feedback out of context?  Of totally dismissing an idea out of hand because the critiquer just didn’t get it?  How does this affect your writing and editing?  How do you give space to critique-induced emotions, and how do you know when you’re ready to evaluate the big picture of a critique rather one or two seemingly negative comments?  Have you ever come back to a critique or feedback of any kind and realized–despite your initial reaction–the judgment was correct? 

Curious minds want to know.

PS. Is “critiquer” really not a word?  WordPress Spell Check doesn’t think so.

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Editing Is Like a Winter Storm

Posted on March 1, 2012 | 8 Comments

After the freezing rain, my back yard is captivating.  Grasses bend under the weight of their icy accessories–tiny crystal beads that coat their parched stems.  A light dusting of snow covers the rock and dirt and brown detritus of fall, creating the illusion of unblemished beauty.  In one night, my yard has been transformed into a magical place.

I’ve been known to feel this way about my manuscripts.  But only after I’ve survived the sleet, the blizzards and the sub par temps of editing.

You see, editing can be a gruelling process.  It’s a journey into winter, where hell can/and does freeze over.  Where chilling winds sweep across the landscape of your novel and leave some parts bare.   Where a writer can get lost in the mounting drifts of plot and character and setting, and lose sight of home.

Editing is a dangerous season that can kill dreams as surely as it kills car batteries.  It saps the energy from writers and throws them into combat against the elements.  Only a determined few ever reach the other side of the storm.

Editing is gruelling, but I love it.

What about you, dear writers?  How do you prepare for the task of editing?  What tips can you share to help other writers survive the pitfalls along the way?  How do you know when your manuscript is ready to send out? 

And most importantly, how do you prepare for the next storm?  Because, inevitably, there will be more rewrites along the publishing path.  Though hopefully with the guidance of an agent or an editor.

Curious minds want to know.

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Leaping Over This Post!

Posted on February 29, 2012 | 2 Comments

Sorry, my dear readers, writers, family and friends.  I am leaping over this day and concentrating on my writing.  Tweaking a few things for my agent on my MG novel, ABIGAIL BINDLE AND THE SLAM BOOK SCAM.

That, and I should shower at some point today!

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I Speech: Tapping into Your “Writer’s Ear”

Posted on February 20, 2012 | 6 Comments

On Saturday, I judged a speech meet.  Over the course of the day, I listened to teens present on various topics.  Some speakers were confident.  Others were self-conscious.  Some students were articulate while others spoke haltingly.  Some presentations were filled with emotion and character, while others felt well-rehearsed, though disconnected.  Often, all these characteristics were present within one single speech alone.

Just like they can show up over the course of a single manuscript.  I’m firmly convinced that all writers should witness a speech meet.  It is a great place to tap into your Writer’s Ear.

So, what is Writer’s Ear?

Writer’s Ear is a condition that allows us to “hear” our words, not just read them.  Writing can be technically correct, yet sound stilted.  It can be filled with alliteration in a way that comes off as juvenile.  It can have misplaced rhymes, a word that doesn’t quite convey our intentions or sentences that are so similar in structure they could be used as sleeping pills.

The words we put on paper are more than their immediate dictionary meanings.  They are nuanced and emotion inducing.  Some are difficult to pronounce while others roll off the tongue.  The way we string them together can make us cringe in near-physical pain or sigh with pleasure.

Tapping into our Writer’s Ears is extremely important for children’s lit and books that might be read aloud in the classroom or as bedtime stories.  Each word must be well-chosen and serve a distinct purpose.  Above all else, it must ”sound” exactly right.

By listening to our writing, we can tweak our manuscripts to go beyond a great plot.  We can make them a work of art.

How do you tap into your Writer’s Ear?

Curious mind want to know.

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Intelligent Writing–Whether You’re Smart or Not

Posted on February 15, 2012 | 2 Comments

Our writing reflects not only our ideas, but also our intelligence.  Mistakes can peg us as unprofessional, lazy, stupid or uninformed.

“We fix duel exhaust.”  Really, well I don’t have two knights battling it out in my trunk right now.

“My work experience is vast and in compass’ everything you’re looking for.”  Except mastery of your native tongue.

“I will definately be there.”  I definitely won’t.

I’m not saying you can’t make mistakes from time to time.  We all do.  Spell check is not infallible, nor is our grasp of every single word and every single grammar rule.

But, when it matters, it can make the difference between selling your product–whether it’s dual exhaust services or yourself as a job candidate.  So, don’t sell yourself short by writing carelessly.

  • Read your work out loud.  Or better yet, have someone else read it to you.  The ear can pick up mistakes the eyes can’t.  A fun trick that works quite well is having your e-reader do the talking.  This automated voice system pauses on every comma and rushes (as much as computers do) through sentences without punctuation.  It physically hurts to hear them read a poorly constructed passage.
  • Use spell check on all those squiggly-lined words.
  • Check the dictionary to make sure you’re using the right word at the right time.  Sounds like isn’t close enough.
  • Grab a friend to look over your work.  Because, trust me, everyone else will be looking…and pointing and laughing.
  • If it’s really important, grab a professional.  Freelance writers/editors are everywhere and can help you catch the mistakes that make you look bad.

You don’t have to be smart to write smart.  But, writing poorly can make a genius sound uneducated.

How picky are you at checking over the things you write?  Do you have other read your important emails or do you self-edit everything?  Have you ever used a professional editor?  If so, what was that experience like?  Would you do it again?  Have you ever sent something cringe-worthy into the world?  How did you remedy that?

Curious minds want to know.

 

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Novel Failings of a Non-Baking Mom

Posted on January 20, 2012 | 10 Comments

Middle was asked to go to a friend’s house.  He excitedly relayed a fond memory from sleep-overs past at this particular home.  Namely that the mom makes dessert.

This triggered a memory for me: one in which Eldest told my sister (after he spent the night there baking dozens of cookies) that his mom (ie, me) didn’t know how to make cookies, only buy them.

For the record, I do know how to bake and can whip up a mean pumpkin pie–homemade crust and all.  I also only ever buy Oreos for my kids,  even though Eldest made it sound like our pantry is filled with boxes and bags and containers of these sugar-filled treats.

Early on in our marriage, Dear Hubby and I simply ate our meals sans dessert.  It was a habit we haven’t broken.  Neither of us are huge cookie fans, so batches of them mold well before they are consumed.  Ditto for cake.

In fact, we don’t even make cake for birthdays anymore because nobody in our house really eats them.

I’m a bad mom.  A failed mom.  A dessertless mom.

But…but, none of our kids are chubby, they devour zucchini and think that pomegranates are candy.  They are deprived, but not too much, as every once in a while, I will bake as a special treat.  They eat a little of it and we usually throw the rest away.

In other words, while they like desserts, their love for them is more ideological than real.

In my mind, great novels are zucchini and pomegranates.  They are roast beef and baby baked potatoes, chicken breasts and salads.  They are rare desserts on special occasions.

All the way from word choice to plot points and characterization, stable and steady is the key.  Solid, filling, healthy.  Then when we use an adverb, it really packs a punch.

Desserts–love them or hate them–too much is never a good thing.

As a reader, what do you consider the dessert of a novel?  What little things sweeten the books you love?  What makes a novel hard to choke down?

As a writer, what is your stand-by dessert, the one that usually needs cut to lean up your manuscript?

One of my shortcomings is packing too much into a tiny space.  Because I write about heavy issues, I have to be very careful not to make my novels issue heavy.

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Posted in Parenting, Real Life, Writing is Like...

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Edit Your Writing Warts

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 12 Comments

Both my older boys spent some time in the doctor’s office this afternoon getting warts removed.  When their fingers had been sufficiently frozen, the doctor let Middle Son dump the liquid nitrogen onto the office floor.

It spilled from the container and hit the carpet like a tiny bomb, radiating out in concentric circles of frozen fog.  They little boys were impressed–as was I.  It was like a mini magic show.

Sometimes I wish I could liquid nitrogen my writing warts.

A drop onto “that” and a squirt over “nodded”, “grinned” and “shrugged.”

Make no mistake, my writing has plenty of warts.

Does yours?  What words or phrases infect your manuscript and how do you go about erradicating them from your manuscript?

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Writing Precision and Marching Band

Posted on September 21, 2011 | 4 Comments

We’re gearing up for another weekend of marching band.  Saturday will be packed with a parade performance in the morning, a noon field show and a second field show competition in the evening.  The kids will be gone from 7:45am until midnight.  Hopefully they’ll come home with a few new trophies.

Last Saturday they won first in their class…out of two bands.  This Saturday evening, they will again be in a class (A) with two bands.  Maybe first doesn’t sound so impressive when thought of this way, but consider the following.

Last year at this same evening competition, they outperformed every band except two–including the bands in AA and AAA–and garnered the third highest score out of 15 against schools much bigger than theirs.  Now that is impressive.

Traditionally, our tiny band from our tiny town rules the field.  One year, we tied for fifth place in the finals at a multi-state event.  To even earn a spot in the finals, we had to score in the top ten out of 37 bands.  Our band of 60 outperformed bands with 200 marchers.  Another year at another competition, we won the sweepstakes award, which means outscoring every band in the competition regardless of class.

I could belabor the point, taking you through our trophies–which number so many the showcase broke under the weight a year or so back–but I think you get the point.  Quantity doesn’t matter.  Quality does.

Not just on the field, but also in our writing.

We won those trophies through precision.  Our music was crisp.  Our marching in sync.  Our color guard snappy.  The overall flow was perfect.

Likewise, writers do not get agents with sloppy sentences, wordy passages and poorly developed characters.  Authors do not get publishing contracts without honing their skills.  Books do not get buzz without compelling storylines.

Our marching band pulls 40 hour weeks in the summer.  Once school starts, they beat the teachers to school and march outside in the cold fall temps before the sun rises.  They continue to put in about 15 hours of practice each week.

Let me ask you, dear writers, how much time do you devote to your craft?  Are you out to win the trophy?  If so, how do you create precision in your words?  Does the success of others drive you to succeed, or does someone else’s good news make you aware of your own shortfalls?  How do you combat the urge to throw in the flag and march off the field for good?

Curious minds want to know.

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Manuscript Overgrown. Hidden Gems Found.

Posted on September 19, 2011 | 5 Comments

My lilac is overgrown…obviously.  This Dwarf Korean Lilac should only grow four to five feet tall.  We’ve pruned it, but the extra care only makes it come back stronger, fuller and taller.  Needless to say, the lilac is on its way out.

Sometimes our manuscripts can get overgrown as well.  We tweak  a phrase here or there, replace passive verbs with active ones and cut a handful of adjective and adverbs.

In the end, however, we are reluctant to cut too much and struggle to know what to keep and what to throw.

A beautiful turn of phrase.  A tense scene with great characterization.  Drama, action, romance, description, dialogue…sheesh, we wrote those things for a reason and now you’re asking us to pull out the shears?

Yeah, that happens.  I know, because I just cut an entire chapter, leaving only two paragraphs in tact.  Quite honestly, it was one of my favorite chapters.  I’d loved the interplay between my two leading characters.  I loved the tension.  I loved so much about it, but upon an astute observation by Agent Awesome, I realized I gained nothing that other chapters didn’t already cover.  They just did so differently.

As much as I hated the idea of ruthlessly chopping this section, the first three chapters are much stronger.  I’d stripped my manuscript  of the non-essentials and pared it down to find the gems hidden among the bulk.

Yet another manuscript of mine–an earlier one–didn’t look so great upon a deep editing look.  It boasted no inherent gems.  On the surface, I’d penned some great prose.  The story flowed well, but the trunk  didn’t support the branches.  My characters we not fully fleshed out.  My plot was a little too predictable.  My solution too pat.  A cliché hidden behind pretty words.  The question still remains: to trunk it or cut it back to the ground and let it regrow from the roots up?

When I scoped out my lilac bush from the back, I found three balls tucked into the branches.  My boys were in heaven.  “Dude, that’s where my football went!”

Editing isn’t much different.  “Dude,” we might say after some careful/vicious pruning, “that’s what I meant to say in the first place!”

Have you ever really peeked inside your manuscript?  If so, what have you found: a rotten trunk with bare branches or unexpected treasures hidden by the fluff of extra words?

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What base is your novel on?

Posted on July 6, 2011 | 11 Comments

As many of you know, Middle Son loves baseball.  The first half of the season was a series of whiffs and misses at the plate.  Sometimes he’d simply watch the ball go by and not swing at all.  Enter the glasses a few weeks ago, and he’s been getting better. 

I think it took him a little time to get acclimated to his new specks and relearn his depth perception.  After all, his eyes had lied to him before and he had to adjust to the land of the seeing.  Over the course of the second half, he’s gotten increasingly more skilled at timing the pitches.

Last night he was up three times in the batting order.  He had two beautiful hits and struck out once.  His second hit sailed through the gap between shortstop and third base and had to be chased down in left field.  By the time he slid into second base, three of his teammates had made it home, tying the game. 

Oh, how a grand slam would have been awesome.  Ultimately, it would have won the game if he could have smashed one to the fence.  Yet, Middle Son is teeny for his age and he’s been relearning to use his eyes.  His hit was a victory in and of itself.

Writing is like that. 

Not every novel has to be a grand slam.  Sometimes we write simply to learn.  We practice our mechanics and experiment with our voice and style.  We learn the nuances of the business and apply this knowledge to our writing.  Along the way, we see the results and position ourselves for a run. 

CAT’S GUIDE TO LOADING THE BASES

  • Strike Out: those first 2,000 words that don’t go anywhere.  They are mere character sketches or inciting incidences written on the spur of the moment in response to events in our own lives.  While this feels like a miss, writing these snippets are essential to learning the craft.  They are practice for future projects.  And without practice, we would never learn to hit.  With luck, these characters or events work their way into other novels. 
  • First Base: finishing a novel.  It’s easy to start a story.  It’s not easy to reach the end of one.  And while finally getting a hit feels like a victory, it’s just the beginning.  Not all books that make it to first base cross home plate.  In fact, many do not.  Instead, they end up back in the dugout, cheering the next batter on.  Hitting a single in writing will always advance a runner (our writing skills) and is well worth our time.
  • Second Base: editing said finished novel.  This is a process often over-looked by beginning writers.  Edits may be rudimentary.  Nothing more than typo checks.  Yet getting a novel polished is much more than that.  It takes time and skill and a whole lot of patience.  Practice.  Practice.  Practice.  Sometimes we stand on second base forever before getting the guts to steal third.  Other times, our beloved manuscripts fall victim to a third out and we find ourselves back in the dugout awaiting our next time at bat. 
  • Third Base: querying/subbing.  I’m not talking about writing the query letter here.  I’m talking about sending it off.  Third base puts us in position to score a run.  It’s the one place in our journey that hurts the most.  We hover on third–debating whether our manuscript is ready–with home plate taunting us from mere yards away.  We can taste victory, but it’s not quite within our reach.  We’ve declared ourselves writers and put ourselves out there for others to accept or reject.  Once we get this far, we are largely at the mercy of agents, editors and the industry trends as a whole.  It is at this stage in the game that we often learn the maturity and grace of being a professional writer. 
  • Home Plate: securing a publishing contract.  We’ve put in the time and run the bases.  Whether we got there with one pitch or a painful series of them, we finally slide into home and earn our place in the writing world.  Someone, somewhere loved our writing enough to take a chance on it.  We have tangible evidence of our hard work.  Yet our work is not done.  We still have to practice.  We still have to edit and write and write and edit.  We market and socialize and learn, all while waiting to win the game.
  • Grand Slam: published novel in hand.  There is no need to expound on this.  However, I feel compelled to remind myself that hitting a grand slam does not mean the game is over. At some point, authors will once again face the pitching mound with a new novel. 

I’m not afraid to step up to the plate.  Strike outs don’t scare me.  Standing forever on third base does.  And the only way I can control that is to just keep swinging.

How about you?  Where are you standing at this moment in time?  Are you just starting  out and hoping for a single, or do you have your eye on home plate?  How many manuscripts has it taken for you to get this far?

 

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