Yet another misplaced modifier, this one affecting a cast of MILLIONS.

I have an endless supply of these revision-needed sentences, so I'm going to continue to harangue you. :) 

In longer sentences, you will often have several nouns and several verbs, and some of those will have modifying words, phrases, and clauses. Here's one:

Let's not elect high-level government officials who make decisions for millions who have clear ethical issues. 

Question: WHO HAS THE ETHICAL ISSUES?

The officials, presumably. Or maybe it's "the millions"? 

The verbs don't help. Sometimes the "number" (singular or plural) form of a noun can help us figure it out--

If this were:

Let's not elect A high-level government OFFICIAL who MAKES decisions for millions who HAS clear ethical issues. 

Because "a" and "official" and  "makes" and "has" all mean "one person", we can assume that "has clear ethical issues" refers to the "official". 

We can assume... but the writer shouldn't rely on OUR superior understanding of subject-verb agreement to make sense of the sentence. Better would be:

Let's not elect A high-level government OFFICIAL who HAS clear ethical issues who MAKES decisions for millions.

Now if you read that aloud, you would probably mentally edit that to get rid of the second "who" and maybe the first too--

Let's not elect A high-level government OFFICIAL with clear ethical issues to MAKE decisions for millions.

Here we reduce a clause {"who has clear ethical issues" and "who makes decisions" are both relative clauses with a subject --who-- and a verb) to a phrase ("with" starts a prespositional phrase here, and "to make" starts an infinitive phrase). Reducing the, shall we call it "syntactical complexity", of a modifier usually makes the sentence clearer, as it's more obvious what the main subject/verb unit is (Let's not elect). 

So... back to the original sentence. 

Let's not elect high-level government officials who make decisions for millions who have clear ethical issues. 

The quickest fix is moving the "who have" clause to be adjacent to the word it modifies:

Let's not elect high-level government officials who have clear ethical issues 

Then again we are going to have to go with an infinitive (to make) because now those stacked "whos" don't work--

Let's not elect high-level government officials with clear ethical issues to make decisions for millions.

I'm not pretending this is a great sentence. But it's a grammatical sentence that clearly conveys exactly what the author meant.

Another episode of  read and revise like an editor. :) 

Correctly Placing Misplaced Modifiers

 Alas, I constantly edit, even when I'm not being paid for it, the author didn't ask for it, and I can't actually share it. It's just a compulsion that happens as I read, especially news stories that have presumably already been edited. 

And heck, why not share the compulsion here? Maybe someone will learn from it. I do 'revision sessions' sometimes with students, just editing on-screen and explaining as I go, and this misplaced modifier problem is one of the most common and also one of the most easily fixed mistakes.

In a sentence, a "modifier" is a word or phrase or clause which "modifies" or deepens or narrows the meaning of another part of the sentence. The most common modifiers are the one-word adjectives and adverbs which add to the meaning of a noun or verb, like: The girl's outfit proudly proclaimed her Ukrainian heritage.

But often the modifier can be an entire phrase: 

• The play took place in the old Gem Theater. 
• He was waiting for the bus to come. 
• The morning before the party, the dog got sick.

Or the modifier can be an entire clause (with a noun and verb):

• He didn't notice the shocked silence that fell across the room when he wrote his name on the board.
• The more you remember, the more you have to forget.
• --

Some modifiers are "bound"-- that is, they have to be in a particular position, like just before the noun they modify. You know-- The pink dress. (Not --  The dress pink.) These "bound" modifiers are usually single words or short phrases that modify a noun (that is, they are "adjectival," which means "modifies the noun" :). 

Usually, however, modifiers are unbound, especially the phrase and clause ones, and therein lies the problem. An unbound modifier can "legally" be moved around to different parts of the sentence, but what's possible isn't always what you mean. Sometimes being too free-range with modifiers creates the horrific crime of a dangler, where impossible and sometimes painful things happen:

One day she hunted for a moose wearing diamond earrings.

Decisively blocking the knife, her eyes narrowed with purpose.

Ouch.

I have a lot of examples of this kind of mistake, but just for now, let's fix an easy one, adapted from a sentence in a major mag article:

She admitted her enjoyment of the bullying on Facebook last year. 

Many misplaced phrases have to do with time or place-- the "where and when" of the sentence. I see this most often when there are more than one actions in the sentence, as here:

She /admitted /her enjoyment /of the bullying. (Ignore the "on Facebook" and "last year" for a moment so we can focus on the kernel sentence.)

Subject/Verb/direct object/prepositional adjectival phrase.

We usually think of action as being represented by the sentence verb (here, admitted), but actions can also be shown in nouns (participation, bullying). So here there are three actions, all of which took place but perhaps not all at once. 

Actions take place somewhere sometime, and "somewhere sometime" are often important "condition markers" to add to a sentence. (I mean, these words and phrases mark an important condition that changes or specifies something about HOW the action happens.)

But while the position of where/when modifiers might be moveable, the reality isn't: SOMETHING happened last year. SOMETHING happened on Facebook. 

Options:

1. The admission.

She admitted last year...

And/or-

She admitted on Facebook...

2. Her enjoyment.

...  her enjoyment on Facebook...

and/or-

...  her enjoyment last year...

3. The bullying.

...of the bullying on Facebook.

and/or-

...of the bullying last year.

(I know it's not a great sentence because I modified it to protect the guilty. :)

Because the author placed the where/when modifiers at the end of the sentence, right after "bullying", readers will be forced to assume that the bullying took place last year on Facebook. And that might be exactly what happened (although it's not in this case).

But... what if that's not right? What if the bullying took place last year at school, and she enjoyed viewing a video about it last week, and is only admitting it on Facebook?

What happened on Facebook?

What happened last year?

(Some of this info might have been revealed in previous sentences, though not in this case. And still, that's no excuse for imprecision in this sentence. When all it takes is a moment to get it right, make it right. :)

What's a revision which makes those very clear so that the readers won't be confused about what happened when and where?

On Facebook, she admitted her enjoyment of the bullying last year.

or

She admitted on Facebook her enjoyment of the bullying last year.

Sometimes it helps to "bind" a modifier to the modified word so that there's absolutely no question--

She admitted on Facebook her enjoyment of last year's bullying.

==

This is just one sentence and one set of facts, and one point of misplacement. Though I will try, there's no way to identify every possible opportunity for imprecision. 

There are as many options as there are possible permutations of actions and actors and conditions in any sentence. But ONLY ONE IS CORRECT. This isn't about delicate subtext or deliberate ambiguity or debated issues. This is just about placing factual information in the correct place in the sentence. You can get it right as easily as you can get it wrong. But you have to recognize when it's wrong, and then make it right.

Anyhoo, point is: Be sensitive to the meaning you create when you put a modifier somewhere in the sentence. Stop and think about the various interpretations the readers might make of this placement, and whether moving the modifier might make more sense. Time and/or place modifiers are especially tricky.

So if I mean the ADMISSION, not the enjoyment or the bullying, took place on Facebook, I have two easy options (the first being optimal). While we're at it, let's make clear it was the bullying and not the admission that took place last year.

On Facebook, she admitted her enjoyment in the bullying last year.

She admitted on Facebook her enjoyment in last year's bullying.

I have a bunch more examples that I'll post and fix in the future. Usually in order not to shame the writers and editors (who, grumble grumble, should know better), I'll change the words and keep the construction.

This is what passes for giggly gossip in my life. :)

A blast from the past-

The columnist James Kilpatrick used to devote his first column of the year to the many ways you can place and misplace the word "only" as a modifier in a sentence, and used this example to show the difference in meaning:

1. Only John hit Peter in the nose.
2. John hit only Peter in the nose.
3. John hit Peter only in the nose.
4. John only hit Peter in the nose.

(Wouldn't you say "ON the nose"? I would. I'm not sure how deep I would want to hit IN the nose.)

"Almost" and "already" and "just" are other common modifiers that can be moved almost anywhere, but each placement means something different.

Here is a nice British professor who does a great job of showing how to determine what a modifier modifies and how it works in a sentence. 

You can find some good examples of misplaced modifiers at this Guelph University site. 

Either/or== Must we choose between proper mechanics and creativity?

I'm asking this because this is a question that comes up a lot: "So someone submits a perfectly clean manuscript, every comma in the right place, but it's boring. And someone submits a manuscript with a lot of grammar mistakes, but it's a great story. Which would you take?"

Hmm. That's a toughie. It's especially tough because in my experience, good creativity and good mechanics are NOT mutually exclusive. Far from it. Language is the way we present our stories, and the presentation is important for getting the story right.

To tell you the truth, I seldom see a "great story with terrible mechanics." (I have seen a few perfect manuscripts with boring stories, a few fairly good stories with terrible mechanics... mostly I've see okay stories with okay mechanics, alas.)

First, I guess I'd like to say-- no editor is looking for a perfect manuscript. Editors assume that there will be a few typos, a few infelicitous phrasings, some small format problems. No editor starts hyperventilating at the prospect of working with a writer who is a little less than perfect on every page. Got to justify existence, don't we? Perfect writers don't need editors!

So never worry that the editor is going to read 200 pages and on page 201 discover that misspelling and decide to reject. That won't happen. But what if there are four misspellings on the first page? What should the editor do then? (When encountering a lot of mechanical problems right away, I started sending back the submission without reading further, and saying, politely I hope, "I know you would like another chance to edit so that this is easier for me to consider." Generally, the writers have all thanked me for the chance, though who knows what they're really thinking. :)

One thing I do have to point out is that there really isn't an either/or here. Creativity might be messy at the creation stage, but I know very well there is no need for a good story to be messy at the submission stage. Most good stories go along with at least adequate mechanics, because the writer cares enough about presentation and narration to work hard at things like sentences and paragraphing. Most good writers don't assume that "story" is just "idea," but understand that ideas are developed in scenes which are made up of causally linked passages which are made up of paragraphs and sentences.

A mechanically inept manuscript is, in my experience, more correlated to inept development of the central idea or plot. I might see, in a mess of a manuscript, a good plot idea, or a glimmer of brilliant characterization. But that's usually all there is-- an idea, a glimmer. The execution and development aren't done well, particularly at the scene level. Why, well, interestingly, I think, there is "story grammar" and "scene syntax." Just as in a sentence or paragraph, stories and scenes have relationships that are shown in the structure or design. If the writer doesn't get that this pair of sentences shows a causal relationship:
He lurched forward, his mouth open.
I got out of the way.
Then probably the same writer isn't going to design a scene developing the cause/effect relationship between bigger events, although those events might be terrific.

Have I ever seen a great story with lousy mechanics? Yes, but mostly with my college students. If they come from a storytelling family or culture, often they get the story grammar talent with mother's milk. They've been surrounded by great stories all their lives. But usually this is oral storytelling, and often their ability to write it down is limited. We see this a whole lot with non-native speakers, especially those who left their home culture before high school, so that they aren't "writingly fluent" in their native language either.
We also see this in native speakers who didn't have adequate educational experiences (or who weren't paying attention... the class clown comes to mind-- usually he's a great storyteller.) The issues are usually spelling and punctuation, not sentences-- that is, it's really the -writing- stuff, the letters and punctuation marks which aren't clear in spoken English that cause the problem. Sometimes word choice is lacking too, especially in non-native speakers-- they just don't yet have the vocabulary. But they do have the ability to describe setting and people, to design scenes for maximum drama, to select the telling detail.

I had two students like this in one semester. They both would have gotten an A if I taught speech. As it was, one got an A, the woman who wrote very affectingly about her grandmother being diagnosed with Alzheimers the same week the writer found out she was pregnant, and how that baby ended up helping the grandmother keep her speech long into the illness. She worked closely with me and a tutor to find the mechanical problems that got in the way of the story presentation.

The other was a young man who wrote (this was a kind of emotionally wrenching semester) about getting to the hospital just a few moments after his mother died, so he couldn't say goodbye. The urgency of the journey across town -- wow. Beautifully structured with great suspense. But he didn't have the time to transform this great story into a great paper, and didn't get as good a grade (though I made sure he knew that he had all the right stuff and just needed to go this additional step, and I hope he did in the future).

So I know it's possible to have great story/bad mechanics-- but I have to point out that these were students in freshman composition, each coming out of an oral tradition that rewarded great story design and impressive vocal performance (which they had-- as I said, they both would have gotten As in a speech class). Transferring that to written language is a separate process.

But if you're submitting a written manuscript to a book publisher, well, it's expected that you are as adept at the tools of the craft. Those students might not know so much about punctuation and other elements of written language, but they did know how to use vocal expression and pauses and body language as they told their story. (They weren't so great at first at transferring that to writing, but they really did have the vocal tools for storytelling.) If you choose to write this story, it's kind of expected that you would use the written-language tools adequately.

Now, as I said, minor errors are not the issue here, and I think writers who get upset when I say I want a mechanically adept manuscript might think I mean no typos. But what I mean is-- well, truth is, most of you would be shocked to see a story with dialogue like this:

He said "Joni Im sorry about your cat's.
She said don't worry about it. There probably hiding in the garage"

That's not actually the sort of "messiness" that goes with creativity and great ideas. But that is what we see a lot. And that sort of leaden presentation means the voice is usually leaden too. Voice isn't just about word choice-- it's developed through sentencing and punctuating too.

So... let's say you are like my students, trained by tradition and upbringing and talent to be a great storyteller but not a great practitioner of the written discourse? You know what I'd suggest you do? I'd suggest you dictate your story into your phone recorder, and hire a good secretary or transcriber to type it. (If anyone knows of a speech-to-text app which does a good job, let me know. My "twalking" -- talk-walking- recordings always end up as gibberish as text.)

Many transcribers have been, uh, quietly editing their clients' prose for years, and know how to turn your dictation into an fairly adequate manuscript. (When I worked at the late lamented Grammar Hotline, most of our callers were secretaries who were interested in getting the grammar right, or in proving to their boss they were right, and they usually were.:) If the problem is getting it from oral language to written language, it's probably easier and cheaper to hire someone to make the transfer yourself.

Now that I think of it, the corollary -- the perfect manuscript and boring story-- happens more often. That's because you can hire someone to turn oral language into written language -- same words, after all, and it will still be YOUR story, not the transcriber's. But if you hire someone to design your scenes, deepen the characterization, create a suspenseful tone, structure the events-- it's not really your story, is it? All those things ARE story. (And that is why people hire ghostwriters, I guess.)

Thinking back on perfectpunctators/lousystorytellers... I have seen that too. I used to write Regency novels, a subgenre that attracted a lot of English teachers and librarians (it's set in the time of Austen, see). And when I'd judge a Regency contest, I'd frequently get an entry that was well-written on the basic word level, but lacking in story grammar. They knew how to write a sentence, but couldn't flesh out a character. They knew how to punctuate dialogue, but not how to make it sound authentic. The story would never be insane (that's much more likely with the messy manuscript, and yeah, I've seen that a lot too), but it would be "by the numbers," often using conventional situations (ballroom scenes, mistaken identity) with nothing fresh added.

In a contest, this would often score sort of on the high end of mediocre, but never win. And really, I don't have a quick solution ("hire someone to type it") here. The problem is more global, more personal-- that is, the writer probably doesn't have a great imagination and/or an innate or learned sense of story grammar, and you just can't hire that. (But I do think these would be great transcribers for the oral storytellers out there! :)

So... which of the two (messy but good story, clean but boring story) would be more likely to be published? Hmm. Well, of course, when we pick up a published book, we're seeing an edited version, not the original submission. So there might be plenty of previously-messy books that have been wrestled into rightness by a pair of editors and a proofreader, and we'll never know unless we get the editor drunk. ("You know that writer of mine who made the NYTimes list last week. Boy, you should have seen the manuscript when it came to me. One long sentence, the whole first chapter. I kid you not. You're buying the next round, right?") Notice that this requires a lot of time and energy from the editors and money commitment from the publisher, so a damn good story is required, not just a good story, to elicit that much effort.

But we certainly all read boring but well-written books. They're well-written enough that we don't take them back to the bookstore and demand our money back, or post nasty reviews on Amazon. We don't feel passionate enough about them for that level of response. Meh... we sort of wonder why this book was chosen out of the many the editor must have read that month. (Probably the original book for that slot didn't come in on time, so they needed a book to fill the gap, a book that didn't require much work to make presentable, and this one landed very cleanly on the desk at just the right moment. See why it's a good idea always to send in a clean manuscript? "Doesn't need much editing" is maybe not the fulsome compliment you were hoping for, but there are times when that's exactly what the publisher wants in a book.)

Well, anyway, we should all strive for great story/great mechanics. Figure out our weakness and what to work on to overcome it, but maintain our strengths too.

I'm remembering a query I got from one of those meticulous types, the one that made me really WANT to buy out of pity-- "I always make deadlines. I always deliver a clean manuscript. I have worked as a proofreader for a decade"-- it was sort of sad. Imagine an epitaph: "She always made her deadlines, including this one."

Alicia
Writing articles

When You Have Too Many Words....

I was just asked for a few tips on cutting big bunches of words. You know, you were aiming for a nice 75K novel, only this ended up at 95K words.  And from your perspective, it works! But it's too long for the line or the editor or the type of story, right? So how can you trim words without deleting meaning? 

It's hard. It can be done. I had to cut 35K from one of my books once, and it was hard, but I don't think afterwards the reader could tell what was missing. (Okay, okay. Theresa did most of the cutting. I did most of the whining and whimpering.)

While the plan here is not to go back, it can really help to think that nothing you're doing is permanent, that if you realize you cut something important, you can restore it. So be sure to 

 save the original version first, then save the version-to-be-cut under another filename. Just in case you want to UNcut later!

But here are some tips if you want to cut 20K words:

1) The first option is to cut a whole scene. That's a broadsword rather than a scalpel approach, but let's say you wrote this book in a white heat during Nanowrimo. There are probably scenes you wrote or started to write which ended up as unimportant or irrelevant, or you later did a better version and both versions are still in there. 

A whole scene might well be 5,000 words. That's a pretty good cut! And cutting it might make for a stronger, tighter plot. Then again, you might accidentally cut out something essential like a clue, or an important step on your character's journey, or the satisfying "reunion" scene the reader has been waiting for. 

To do this, however, you have to look at scenes not as groups of words but as part of the action of the plot. So try this: Outline the book as you have it. Yep, a scene outline. List -- in order they occur, every chapter, and every scene or scenelet or passage (complete or not) within each chapter. 

Then you can evaluate if there are scenes that can be deleted without causing plot/emotion problems.  

2. Look also for adjacent scenes that can be combined.  That will let you delete some of the set up and transition between scenes. Be watching for "single-purpose" scenes, especially several in a row-- a scene where he argues with his brother, and then a scene were he discovers a clue to the mystery, and then a scene where he travels to where the robbery took place. You could combine those into one scene where he argues with his brother, leaves and discovers the clue, and ends with him deciding to go to the robbery site. Really, once you start looking at what happens from scene to scene, you might find several which can be combined.

3.  If you can't cut a whole scene, look for passages (especially at the beginning) which are mostly set-up. That's where I found the most opportunities to trim, at the start of scenes, where I might have spent a couple pages describing the setting and establishing what the characters are doing there. 

Here are some other "cutting" options:

4) Look for mini-scenes (I call them "scenelets"-- 1-2 page bridges usually from one important event to the next) that don't much matter. Often these involve a main character interacting with a minor character or a "walk-ons" like a waiter who will never be seen again in the book. An example might be a cab ride to the convention hotel. There might be good character interplay with the cabdriver and give a good sense of the main character's mood, but if you want to cut, that's an example of a good 'non-essential' scenelet. Usually these aren't full scenes but intros to more important scene passages. You can always argue how this bit is important or clever or enlightening, but you know, you have to trim something, and a scene without an event to change the plot is usually trimmable.

5) Try the Jane Austen tactic-- in dialogue, if there's no conflict, do narrative summary. (They reminisced for a few minutes, then she remembered, and said insultingly, " ". :) There are going to be parts of scenes the reader needs that might have no conflict (like a moment of grace where two characters share a cigarette), but those are best kept fairly short and fairly rare. 

6) Look for those passages where there's nothing-dialogue-- often when there's some movement from one setting to another. ("Let's go into the den and watch TV/What do you want to watch?/ I thought this season of The Voice was starting. Did you record that?/No, the last one was so annoying, I didn't bother. But we can probably get it on-demand." :) No, I never actually wrote that passage, but that's the sort of "transition conversation" that's usually easy to cut away.

7) Also look for long passages of introspection where a character is thinking. Sometimes these are important, and the way they think is important to show, but the deeper we get into the story, the less long introspection is needed. (The reader knows more about the character by the middle of the book, and probably just needs a hint of what they're thinking, or only introspection when something unexpected is felt and needs explanation.)

8) Try my ruthless technique: Decide on a page goal, like "cut 50 words out of this page". This takes awhile, but it's usually easy to find at least 20 words to cut. Or "cut one sentence or sentence part out of each paragraph". Or "trim two sentences and combine them into one shorter sentence". This is actually my favorite thing. :)

9) Even more ruthless: If you know there are words you over-use (for me, it's "then" and "just"), do a "find" for them and for each one, decide whether it's needed. Delete if not. A friend of mine cut two pages out just by getting rid of justs. :)

Because all this is so "voice-centric," it's probably best to do it yourself first and see how much you can cut. That way you'll still have control of the scenes and the interactions between characters and how that's presented. 

Then again, an outsider might be able to be more objective, as Theresa was with my over-long book.

I can tell you from experience, trimming is hard to get started, and painful, but after awhile, it's easier to see where something can be discarded, or  how scenes or sentences can be combined.

Broadsword/scalpel experiences you can share? 

Alicia

Editing today

I was asked for advice on becoming a book editor, and of course, as a young friend calls me, I'm the dreamkiller. I go around being "realistic" and/or "negative" and killing people's dreams. It's a thankless job, but maybe someone will thank me someday. SO THIS IS JUST MY OWN EXPERIENCE! OTHERS MIGHT BE FAR MORE POSITIVE AND HELPFUL!

Anyway, there aren't many editing jobs in the old traditional ways, frankly. New York is full of laid-off book editors. So most now are working free-lance, doing copy editing, proofreading, rather than acquiring and taking a book into production for a publishing company. (Those jobs still exist, but there aren't as many as in the heyday of the 90s. It will help, no doubt, to be young and cheap and willing to live in an outer borough.)

As for me, my advice to a student thinking of a career in editing who still wants one even if there aren't many jobs in the traditional book publishing sense:

1. Absolutely take a couple advanced grammar classes, especially those which deal with syntax, if you're going to be doing mostly actual editing (and not the whole book acquisition-production process). Editing is a valuable skill, and in some demand, but you really have to understand how written communication works to fix it when it doesn't. 

2. Get familiar with the sort of editing required for web-based writing (like websites), as that's where much of the work is going to be. If I were going to do it all over again, I'd study document design too-- not coding, really, but laying out the text on a page, choosing graphics, all that, just like they used to do for magazines.

3. Free-lance editors generally work for authors, not publishers, and on a free-lance basis (no benefits, no guarantee). That is, the authors are trying to get the book ready for submission to a publisher, or ready to self-publish. You have no power to say, "This is good enough" or "You're rejected." You have to work with what they send you. This requires a level of interpersonal skill that equals the level of technical skill required.   Most authors think what they write is wonderful, and maybe it's not, but they're the boss. You have to make it as good as you can, knowing that often you're not going to end up with a great book. And you have to "fix" without being critical. It's a lot harder than editing used to be, when editors could just reject books they didn't think were good enough.

The breakdown for types of editing, from an author's perspective:

There's the story (content or main) editing, which identifies problems in the story structure, like that the hero tends to whine and the heroine sometimes acts irrationally, and that there are these two big scenes that

ought to pack a punch and don't, and that there are three endings and no beginning. This will be examining things like motivation, logic,conflict, and drama. Plot, character, structure, scene, sequence.

There's the line-editing, where prose problems are identified and fixed, particularly on the sentence and paragraph level-- things like making all those darned one-sentence paragraphs into, you know, actual paragraphs; and determining which fragments add to the conversational aspect of the voice and which just annoy; and replacing static and vague verbs with stronger ones. This is probably the most time-consuming aspect, and the one most likely to result in conflict, because this very much involves the author voice.

There's copy-editing, which is where the Chicago Manual comes in. :) This is the step that readies the manuscript for publication, where grammar mistakes are rectified if they weren't in the line edit, where potential mistakes are identified ("Didn't she have blue eyes in Chapter 2?"), formatting is standardized (all chapter headings the same), and research is questioned and checked. 

Then of course, there's proofreading, to find and fix typos, duplicated or dropped words, formatting errors.

The last two are what authors often seem to think are "editing," and yet,when they come to an editor, they aren't clear about that being all they want. I recently was talking to a writer who said that she wanted her

book "edited" and was shocked when I said for a "full edit" she'd be looking at maybe 5 cents a word. (Of course, many editors work for much less.) As we talked, though, I realized she only wanted copy-editing and proofing, which don't do much to change the story or voice. She didn't WANT to change the story or voice, and so shouldn't go out and hire someone who is going to make a bunch of suggestions she won't want to follow. (Whether she ought to make big changes is another story... but it's her book, and she should decide.)

As writers, we should get to know our process, and our strengths and weaknesses before we send the book out.  And an editor is sometimes not what we need to help us with those weaknesses. Probably most writers do need a copy-edit and proofread, just because those involve fairly arcane decisions and training, and it's next to impossible to do that close a reading of our own work. But not all need story-editing. Not all need line-editing. I would say I don't actually need line-editing, as I'm pretty strong on the prose level. But

I can never tell when the tension has dropped in my plotting, or when I love characters a tad too much so that readers will be alienated. So at the story level, I often need help, which is why I have a great critique

group, and brainstorm a lot with several discerning friends. 

Great storytellers are not always great writers. But a great storyteller probably doesn't need a content editor-- she already has good "story grammar," knowing how to pace and dramatize and characterize. She might need help, however, making the prose match the story.

"Wordsmiths" might not need much line-editing, as they already experiment and edit sentences as they write. They might, however, benefit from story-editing, because they can't always see the big picture of plot and

character and scene. 

Free-lance editors have to get authors to state what editing they want, and they're in charge because they're paying.

I work mostly free lance these days, but of course those who work for a publisher or a company are having different experiences (and probably vacation and sick time too).

Alicia

Back in the saddle-- Non-American spelling

Hi, it's only been a month! Who knows where the time goes. Nowhere productive, I'd say.

Anyway, back again. I'll try and post more. I really want to post about what I call the Tyrannosauruses, the powerful industry professionals who are still powerful as the industry changes. But that will come later. Now I'm thinking about something much more trivial-- non-American spelling and formatting.

An Australian author who has been "dinged" in writing contests for her Australian word choice and formatting asked if she should try to standardize everything for American readers, or trust that they really can read English that isn't American. Good question!


 I think there are realities at issue here. First, of course Americans are perfectly capable of reading other forms of English, and publishers' worries about that are generally unfounded. Harry Potter, after all, managed to sell fairly well despite the terrible handicap of a British author using British terms. :)

American Publishers
However, those publishers will say, "We have a house style. We're not going to change that style (including spelling, punctuation, formatting) just for one author." And they're right too. Their editors and copyeditors and proofreaders and software are all geared to their own country's style. So if you sell a story to an American publisher and use "colour" instead of "color", expect it to be changed. No big deal. House style almost always rules. Even Harry Potter, after all, showed up in the US edition with double apostrophes for quotations! The publisher might be wrong about the ability of American readers to figure things out, but
there you have it. Those of us who have spent decades battling with "house style" tend to counsel choosing your battles when it comes to the copy edit. You know, "Okay, so they made Grandma into a friendly cocker spaniel. And they Americanized my spelling. Which should I go to the mat for?" :)

A couple thoughts-- will writing the story in your own style cause a publisher to reject you? Probably not, especially if the story is set in Australia. But don't be surprised if after buying the book, an American publisher sets the copy editor on all the URs. Probably they'll be gentle with your wordchoice (torch instead of flashlight), but monstrous on your punctuation. Just keep reminding yourself that JK Rowling had to put up with this too. (AS Byatt once wrote a funny article about having her British book Possession Americanized, with the pallid hero kind of Rambo-ized because the publisher assumed that American readers couldn't
abide a "slight" hero.)

Independent Publishing
And what if you're not going through a publisher but publishing it yourself? Well, then I'd say, go with what makes for a better experience for the reader, who is the only other person to consider then. Most readers who look for indie-pubbed books are very experienced readers who appreciate an author's voice, so don't worry that they'll be upset-- they're probably the least likely people to object to this. I would probably in the subtitle of the book or description make sure "Australian" is in there, like (title): An Australian Love Story, or in the description, this story, set in Australia.... the author, a native Aussie.... That is, give them a signal that this isn't Amy American's book. Then they have fair warning that if they are offended by non-American spelling, they should steer clear.

Contests 
As far as contests, really-- ignore any comments that don't make sense to you. And I say this as a chronic judge. Sometimes judges comment on things just to have something to comment on, and they don't mean for it to be taken as holy writ. And sometimes they DO mean for it to be taken as holy writ, but they're wrong or this is some individual issue they care about and no one else does (I have a lot of those ). If what they say sounds wrong to you, just ignore it.
And if you're being scored down for this, I'd complain to the coordinator of the contest.

I'm one of those who loves the slightly different "taste" of British books and those single quote marks, so go for it.
Alicia

An ongoing discussion

Okay, so, here's the background on this post. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have noticed that I'm detail-oriented. (I prefer "detail-oriented" to "OCD about everything inside the four corners," thank you very much.) Some time ago, in response to a post of mine about how to manipulate details within settings, another editor challenged me (privately, and no, I won't tell you which editor) by claiming that none of that kind of detail matters. Only the plot matters. If the plot works, the book works.

This has led to an ongoing, behind the scenes debate about whether a book with a good plot and bad mechanics can still be deemed good. Obviously, I disagree with her position. I believe that plot is just one of many story and narrative elements that must work in order for the book as a whole will work.

And I think I have found the book that will allow me to declare permanent victory in this debate. I'm not going to humiliate the author here, because I'm not into that sort of thing. But here's the short rundown on the good aspects of this book --

-- I cannot fault the plot. If I were editing this book, I would have only one plot note to make, and that has to do with a secret that should be revealed a bit earlier. You know the old saying -- if a conflict can be resolved with an honest conversation, it's not a real conflict. This book has one of those, but it is not the only conflict, so resolving it early would free up the plot to focus on the real conflicts. This is a fairly minor plot note, and fairly routine. The fact that it is the only plot note speaks pretty well of the plot.

-- In fact, the other aspects of the plot are sort of fascinating. The amazon comments that give the book 4 and 5 stars all focus on these aspects of the book, these plot aspects and the mystery angle. It works, and it works well. The book has sold semi-decent numbers, and I suspect it's on the strength of this aspect of the story alone.

Those are the pros. Here are the cons.

-- The pov fluctuates wildly. It took me about 30 pages before I knew who the heroine was, mainly because of the way the pov bounced around secondary characters at the beginning of the book. The character I assumed was the heroine died in the second chapter. Some of the 1 and 2 star reviews on amazon complain about their inability to connect to the characters, and I blame the pov for this. It's hard to cheer for a protagonist you can't even identify, and it's hard to relate to characters who keep bouncing in and out of the text and dying off.

-- Each page contains at least one, and usually several, strikingly difficult and awkward sentences. Nobody line edited this thing, I promise you. It's a mess. Again, the weak amazon reviews sometimes refer to this by talking about how they had to re-read passages to understand them. "Confusing" is a word that comes up over and over again in the bad reviews.

-- There are far, far too many characters, and at least half of them don't matter at all. One amazon reviewer spent a very long paragraph trying to explain the relationships between all these secondary characters, complete with lots of ??? and !!!. It's too much, and it's confusing. (This is aggravated by the fact that so many of these secondaries have pov sequences.)

-- The description was almost comically bad. Several poor reviews note the clumsy handling of setting descriptions and the strange fascination with describing body parts that aren't usually described at all, let alone in such detail and with such frequency.

-- Typos and mechanical errors abound, and the reviewers mock many of them. With good reason. Some of the homonym errors, in particular, are laughably bad. I can guarantee that this book was not edited properly.

-- The pacing was disastrous. I lost count of the number of reviews that said they'd skipped over major chunks of text or had read only dialogue or only the first line of each paragraph. Even some of these complainants mentioned that they enjoyed the plot, but found it took too long to unfold.

-- The major characters were a bit wobbly. Most readers approved of the heroine (once we all knew who she was), and most of them found the villain to be cartoonish and clumsy. I didn't see any criticism of the hero, not even in the good reviews, but I also didn't see any praise for him. He read like a placeholder to me, a character with a clear plot function but not much else. Both the hero and the villain needed revision.

Several of the reviews noted that they had received the book for free but would never download anything else by this author. Several of them noted that they had been unable to finish the book. I could go on, but will spare you. My point is mainly to show that I am not the only one reacting to the book this way. It doesn't take an educated reader to spot the flaws and still see that the plot is good. The bottom line? I win the debate. A good plot cannot save an otherwise bad book. So this is the part where I throw down the mic, yo.

Theresa

Last Revision Before Submission

I'm going to start a checklist for writers who are about to submit, just a checklist for the most common grammar and usage errors. So help! Any additions? I'm sort of concentrating on what I find most annoying, but you know me. I find it all very annoying. :) I do like a pristine manuscript. Make use of grammar sites (particularly university writing centers) on the web, or grammar textbooks (there are many, and often available cheap at used bookstores-- just choose one that explains things in ways you like). There is no excuse these days for mechanical mistakes in submissions.

1. Check for apostrophe problems. Apostrophes are used in possessive nouns and in contractions, and their proper use is a signal to the editor that you know what you're doing with words and sentences. You want to show that you understand what words mean-- that this noun is a possessive, or that this word has letters left out to make a contraction. Here's a good site to help with apostrophe use. Apostrophe mistakes are a real "mark of the amateur"(TM) for me, and I doubt I'm the only editor who cringes at "Shirleys mom really believes in marriage: She has had five husband's herself."

2. Check for commas after introductory elements. This comma isn't always needed, but in my experience, most house stylebooks call for it. So most editors will read a submission and make mental note of each intro element that needs a following comma, as they will have to fix this if you don't. You don't want the editor making mental notes of how much work your manuscript will require if bought. So:
If she had her way, Joey would have gone to college and become an engineer.
All things considered, he would have been happier then.
Unfortunately, there wasn't enough money to pay for school.

3. Check for misused words, including homophones ("sound-alikes") and misspellings that get past spell-check (that is, they are words, just not the right words). More than a couple uses of wrong words tells the editor that you aren't reading your own sentences for meaning, or you'd notice that you mention "the blogger form Indiana". And if you don't read your own work for meaning, real meaning is likely to be a haphazard process. Read ALOUD. You will hear the sentences as sentences, not as collections of words. And then you'll figure out if there are any wrong words, because the sentence won't mean what you want it to mean.
For more on homophones, see Commonly Misused Words.

4. Check for run-on sentences. You thought I was going to say fragments, didn't you? Well, check for them too. But fragments can be used occasionally to good effect, while run-on sentences are usually another sign that you're not reading carefully. (I've seen run-ons used to good effect in action scenes, and sometimes in highly emotional scenes and love scenes-- but that intensity is seldom created by accident, and most run-on sentences are... accidents.)

5. Check for sentence length and complexity. There's no actual right or wrong here, of course. Just check the sentences against the effect you're trying to achieve to make sure you're not undercutting (like a series of short sentences won't give that lush feeling you want as the heroine relaxes in the hammock).

6. Check for transitions in time and space. If the characters move or if time passes, show it in the narrative. It doesn't take much, maybe a few words at the start of the new sentence, but it makes all the difference. If you use these transitions (like now, across the room, a few days later, when she got into bed), the editor will get a sense of flow in your paragraphs, and also follow the action better.

7. Check for dangling modifiers. These tend to be invisible to the writer but jump right out at an editor. I'd start by checking every participial phrase, as those are the ones most likely to dangle. Then look at prepositional phrases. Almost any adjectival phrase can wind up dangling. Again, reading aloud is your best revision technique at this point. LISTEN to your narration.

What else? I mean just mechanical things. I'll add more when I am feeling more inspired, or exasperated. :)

Alicia

Sentence simplification

Here's another thrilling editing experience (we editors do have exciting jobs!):

"I mostly make dinner at home. I'm not that great a chef," she said, "but at least no one has to tip me."

I made up the sentence, but it's modeled on one I came across in editing.

Now I probably wouldn't edit this in someone else's copy, but I would in my own story. I want sentences that are clear and decisive. And the "no one" clumsily adds another "character" to the line. There's "I" the cook, and presumably "no one" is a reference to the family who is eating that mediocre meal. But the family isn't in there. Not a big deal, but if I'm going for clarity (that is, any ambiguity is intentional, not accidental), the subjects and verbs should match up and the pronouns especially (and "no one" is sort of a pronoun here) should have an antecedent earlier in the paragraph.

How would I fix this? I'd probably make the whole sentence about "I"--

"I mostly make dinner at home. I'm not that great a chef," she said, "but at least I don't expect a tip."

That way, the sentence is unified-- it's all about "I", and there isn't the introduction of someone (okay, "no one") else in the second clause.

Just a minor point. But sentence-consciousness is a valuable approach to self-editing. What does your sentence SAY? And what might trip readers up, if only momentarily?
Alicia

Authors v. C.E.s

A few days ago, a well-known author ranted on her blog about a recent round of copy edits. I don't draw your attention to this post because there's anything unusual in its content. There is not. In fact, it's commonness (is that a word?) was more or less what made it interesting. I've had to mediate a few rounds between authors and copy editors, and there is one predominant pattern in these arguments. The authors talk about voice, and the copy editors cite rules. If you read the comments on La Jenny's blog, you'll see what I mean. It's just more of the same, and almost any of those comments has had its mirror in my inbox at one time or another.

Based on my experiences (and not on Jenny's post or comments), here are some of the hallmarks of an author-versus-copy-editor battle.

"I Am Freaking Out!"

The author gets emotional. I may be able to understand and even empathize, but I probably can't get anywhere productive until we get past the yelling part. Just remember, all that venting might feel great and help you cope, but it probably won't bring us closer to the solution. Yell if you need to, but then cool it and work with me.

"But It's My Voice!"

The author talks a lot about her voice. Frequently, she can't articulate a reason for doing it her way except that she thinks it's her voice.

I never share these comments with the copy editor (or editor, on those rare occasions when I must mediate a disagreement between editor and author) because that would be a great disservice to the authors. There are two reasons for this. First, the author might not understand her own voice. This is both common and understandable. It's hard to get sufficient distance from your own work to analyze your voice.

Or, second, the author is in danger of branding herself as someone who is trying to build her voice on bad grammar and bad style. (Handy tip: You don't want to do that.) Part of my job is making our authors look like the brilliant, colorful butterflies they are. Sometimes this means listening, withholding judgment, and preserving confidence -- and when an author just doesn't understand a rule, I would rather educate her than expose her.

"That's Not a Rule!"

The author doesn't understand the rule that led to the change. This doesn't count against the author until after the rule has been explained. By that I mean that nobody understands everything perfectly. I don't expect to know everything, and I don't expect the people around me to know everything. But I do expect a certain openness to learning.

Many years ago, long before my days with Red Sage, I was freelance editing a manuscript for a very new author. Her manuscript was loaded with laughable dangling modifiers. ("Relaxing on the patio, the ice cream tasted delicious.") I wrote her a detailed explanation of what a dangling modifier is and how to avoid writing them. She sent me back a one-line email: "That's not a rule."

Well, yes, actually, it is a rule in every grammar system I know. I could forgive her for not knowing it in the first place, but her refusal to learn meant that I never took another editing project from her. All of which is to say, when you're getting ready to do nine rounds over what you see as an objectionable edit, remember that you might not understand the rule. And if someone takes the time to educate you, do them the courtesy of trying to learn something.


Now that we've seen some of what happens on the author's side of this battle, let's look at the copy editors. Oh, yeah, we're going there.

"But This Expert Says...."

Every copy editor worth her paycheck can cite house style guides, multiple grammar books, dictionaries, AP/APA/MLA/Chicago, and so on. They might know things you've never dreamed of, such as who Richard Lanham is, and if they're also content editors, they might also have opinions on how and when to apply Lanham's theories. (This is why it's dangerous to join a table full of editors at a cocktail party. You will have to listen to this sort of thing. And then you will cry. Though those might be tears of boredom rather than frustration.)

All of this education means that they've been thoroughly trained in competing and contradictory philosophies of style, usage, and grammar. And if they're left to choose their own solutions, they might just choose one you don't want. The most common problem I see in fiction editing -- and this is more or less what La Jenny was complaining about on her blog -- is a copy editor scorning generative grammar principles in favor of more formal classical grammar. (Fictive grammar generally draws from both schools.) (Also -- and this might just be my particular bias, but it's formed from experience -- it seems that the more educated an editor is, the more scornful she is of generative grammar.)

"But The Style Guide Says...."

The thing about copy editors is that, despite this incredible wealth of information at their disposal, they're really not paid to exercise editorial judgment. They're paid to apply a chosen system of rules to the material at hand. The house supplies the rules, and the copy editor follows them. This is what we expect them to do, and most of them do it brilliantly.

Knowing when not to apply a particular rule is a bit of an art, and it's one best left to other hands. So as long as the CE is following the rules she's supposed to follow, she's on safe ground, even if her result might sound funny. So cut her some slack if she turns in an odd change.

"But The Style Guide Is Wrong!"

Just as I've had authors explode over changes to their manuscripts, I've seen editors explode over changes to the style guide. Editors and copy editors alike become deeply wedded to certain principles -- and if they are also writers? Look out! You know how we sometimes joke about The Great Semicolon Debate of '08? That actually happened. And it's still happening to this day. Just last week I got an email from someone in-house about the damned semicolons, may they all burn in hell. And then got another one from the person on the other side of the argument. Never ends, I swear.

Some rules of grammar are constant from one system to another. Adjectives modify nouns, and progressive tenses signal ongoing action, and periods come at the ends of declarative sentences. Those sorts of things will never change.

Then there are matters of style and usage, which can vary somewhat. It's these variables that can cause the most squabbling on my side of the desk. Of course, most of us on this side of the desk are just twisted enough to think that kind of squabbling is super fun.


So what happens, really, when a disagreement forms over copy edits? I have to mediate between a copy editor with incredible knowledge (but not always the judgment we want to see) and an author who is in a panic (sometimes for good reason, even though she might not be able to articulate the reason). The end result is that both sides claim to be grateful for the resolution while secretly sticking pins into their Theresa dolls. And then I pour myself a stiff drink. There's your HEA!

Theresa

ps. Jenny, I adore your books and your charming self. This post is not about you. It was just inspired by you.

Theresa column

This might get lost on the right side navigation bar, because we have so many archive subjects, but Theresa's got a column here. Check it out!

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Re comments about revision

Great comments to last thread--- go and read! Here are parts of a few, but they're all important and thoughtful.

Stephen
Thus I think that as long as the parties are open with each other and the agent is trying to be helpful, an author would be foolish not to seriously consider the suggestions.

Laura
I could always go back to the version I had pre-editorial changes, and I'd like to think I'd have learned a good deal through the process.

Pat W
I guess I'm wondering why an agent/editor would put a writer through multiple rounds of revision, only to turn it down. If the writer wasn't doing a good job with the revisions, wouldn't the process have stopped much earlier?

HW
So, while I'm sure you're great at your job, and a real asset to the authors you work with, there does come a time where I think you need to assess if your revisions are tailoring the book to the needs of you and your house. If so, I think it's fair for you to contract the book before those revisions happen. Because another editor might be turned off by what's cut or added at your request.


But, as Laura said, the author can always go back to the original, can't she?

A couple comments makes me realize that what I might consider "free advice", many writers will consider "unasked for interference without a contract."

The downside is, of course, that if I have to send out a contract before it's "right," I'll turn down stories that I think have promise, because I can't gamble on the author being able to reach that potential, and I won't go to contract before I know that. So... I think if Stephen's suggestion is helpful-- be absolutely upfront about what your expectations are.

But I also think the AUTHOR has to be the one to broach this, as it's clear many authors are happy to get free editorial advice whether or not it leads to a contract. (And most editors assume that, I think.) So if we editors have the perhaps silly notion that any feedback is helpful, the writer might say, "I'm happy to do this revision round, but after that (whatever)."

Now the question is, how would editors react to that. I probably would respond (having been through the whole contract/revision refusal situation) that I have no idea if this story will be right until I see all the suggestions enacted, and thanks and good luck placing it elsewhere, and you don't need to worry that I'll send a bill for my advice, because I did offer it freely. :)

That is, if I were a writer who really wanted to sell to this publisher or this editor, or to be represented by this agent, I wouldn't make any ultimatums. But if this was the book of my heart, one I couldn't imagine changing, especially for market reasons, I wouldn't even do one round of revisions, probably. I think I'd even be a bit resentful if the editor suggested I change something about the plot or characters, because if I love it Just Like This, I don't want to hear suggestion for improvement. And I have a book, actually, that I love Just Like This, and I won't change a word, and that could be why it's never sold.

What I'm doing now is asking with the initial rejection letter (and only when I can identify some aspect for improvement that isn't "write better" -- I mean, something useful-- "I have some suggestions on how to improve the (aspect), so let me know if you want that advice."

So I'd only give advice if it is asked for. So far, everyone's asked for it.

I should say there are two basic scenarios where I'd ask for major revisions:

1) There's some big issue that if the writer can fix, then the story will work for me. For example, a lot of writers start with a chapter or a scene which really is disposable-- it adds very little to the story, and maybe even detracts or sends the wrong initial message to the reader, like "this is going to be a book about two girlfriends and their bond," when it's really an action/adventure novel. This is very common, and it's also pretty easily fixable, because the story will go on very well without it, or maybe with just a bit of that first-scene information sprinkled in. In that case, if it's a pretty easy fix, I would suggest that and say that I'd like another look afterwards. And if it comes back, and I think it works, I'll probably offer a contract, and might say that further revisions could be needed, but we can get to that after the contract. The danger is, of course, what if what I think of as a minor revision after the contract-- and I'll be reading the book again (and doing the line edit) after that, and I might then notice other problems... it does happen-- might be a dealbreaker for the writer. And breaking the deal AFTER the contract is a pain for all concerned. But that's never happened yet, though I have had a couple painful post-contract wrangles that made me think, "I don't want to go through this again." :)

2) But just as common is a story that has promise, but needs a lot of work, and I doubt one round will do it. Maybe the writer has a great voice, but the plot is too contrived or over-complicated, or too much of the action is committed by secondary characters, or there's no control of point of view. I know this is going to take real advanced work on the writer's part to fix, and he might not get it perfect the first time-- or maybe ever. If I say, for example, that he's headhopping a lot, and he needs to get control over his POV, well, he might be one of those writers who need only to have this pointed out to them to suddenly grasp POV and make it work. Or he could need a couple manuscripts to practice on before he gets POV right. I don't know. And he might fix the POV, but in doing so, make a character unsympathetic (nothing like internalization to reveal unpleasant personality aspects, huh?). Or he might have terrific deep POV in one scene, and then the rest of the scenes are distant, making for a jarring contrast. So at any point here, I really can't know if the manuscript's going to end up as something I want to contract. And I must remember, I'm employed by my publisher, not by the submitter, and my job is to bring to contract only manuscripts she'll want to publish-- not to reward writers for their hard work with a contract. We can both work very hard on a manuscript and it's still not going to be ready for our contract (though of course, another publisher might be happy with it). So what then?

I just know this-- I can't offer a contract without being sure it's right or shortly to be right. It wouldn't be fair to the publisher, whose reputation, not to mention money, is on the line.

So suggestions? Thoughts? I really wonder if it makes a difference where you are in your career. If you're starting out, maybe it's true, all feedback is welcomed, but maybe later, you are not as eager to take advice because you are more confident? Or more savvy about the market, knowing that what one publisher wants "fixed" (say, Harry Potter), another might want as is?

Now that I think of it, I'm far more likely to trust in the ability of a well-published veteran to do revisions-- and to know what a contract means in terms of revision-- that is, it's not a contract to publish whatever the author wants to send me.

I know I have several times told a submitter that what is needed to make it work for me would change the book too much-- often, by the way, that's what "not right for us" really means, that it's not right for us. There is a difference between "a terrific book that we just can't publish because of subject matter or innovative style or genre considerations," and "a book that might be terrific for us except for these PROBLEMS." And maybe that should be made clearer-- well, actually, I meant to address that in the next post, because often this is a matter of the submission being in the wrong-but-closely-related category, and thus both "fixable" by my estimation while "just right" by the author's estimation. (And we're both right. But not, perhaps, right for each other.)

Alicia

A Submission Puzzler

One of the more complicated issues in submitting to publishers is the revise-and-resubmit letter. I've had a couple exchanges recently that raised puzzling questions in my mind, and I thought I'd share them with you.

Many, if not most, of the good submissions I get could be right for us, but only with some work. Generally the disqualifying issue isn't mechanical-- if the manuscript has a lot of grammar and punctuation errors, I return it with a cheery note that I know the writer must want another chance to edit before submitting it, and when she does go through the manuscript again, she should look especially for (most egregious errors 1 and 2).

Fortunately most submitters aren't in that situation, or at least the first reader at my house snares most of them and rejects them before I can even see them. :) But often there's some structural or presentation issue, and, if that is fixed well, the ms will be more in line with what we publish, and I can evaluate it without going with that quick dismissal, "Not right for us, thanks."

Anyway, here are a couple recent exchanges that illuminate the complications of this "between not there and there" position (I'll do the first here, and then another post on the second, because I have a meeting to go to)--

First, I had an interesting submission with a lot of pluses-- clever premise, effective style, and just the right length (which is important right now). But there were some development lapses-- that is, some threads weren't really pulled through, some characterization was inconsistent, some later scenes weren't set up, and the opening was one of those "protagonist and best friend talking about the situation" scenes which can almost always be deleted without pain. Except for the last, each of these revisions required a fair amount of work. That is, if you have in Chapter 9 the revelation of an internal issue, you might need to go back and "seed" that in Chapter 2, and that's more than a matter of sticking in a new paragraph.

Of course, the original revision letter took a lot of time, and then when the revised version came back, I noticed some other aspects that could be deepened or expanded or set up, and in all, I think there were three revisions. A lot of work for both of us. After the second, the submitter asked, and I don't blame her, if this meant I would buy the story once everything had been fixed, as she had never done so much work before contract. I was a tiny bit stung-- I thought we were having fun :)-- and replied with something like, "Well, you get what you pay for." That is, I thought she was getting free editorial advice, and how lucky was that, huh? And whether or not we went to contract, the story would be better for my input. That's what I thought, anyway. She quickly responded that of course she was happy to do the revisions, and she did, and we did go to contract with a story I think will please us both (and will please customers).

This revision-before-contract process was a direct result of a couple experiences where we took a story to contract with a mere promise to revise afterwards-- and then the author had trouble doing the revisions, or was unhappy with the issues raised. I decided that with new-to-me authors, I'd really rather fight that battle beforehand rather than do it after the publisher had already committed money and contract. And if a writer doesn't want to do revisions, or is incapable of doing them, I want to know before I send a contract offer.

(Now this might not apply to authors whose revision history I know already. I'm more likely to go to contract on a promise from an author I've worked with before, and so far that hasn't been a problem.)

Getting the book nearly perfect for us before contract has ended up being the most effective process for me the editor. But let me toss this out for discussion. How does it feel to writers? Consider that you're asked to revise and resubmit, and the revision requests are fairly extensive, and the letter comes with not a promise of a contract, just a promise to take another look. What's your reaction to that? Would you feel differently if you were, say, previously published than if this were your first submission, or if you'd submitted a lot, but hadn't sold yet?

Now let's say you happily do the revision and resubmit, and the editor comes back with even more suggestions. What's your reaction?

At what point (if any) do you demand that the editor fish or cut bait?

Hey! I actually had a similar-- well, not really, but it was illustrative of how dim I can be when it comes to my own business-- experience as a writer! Someone emailed me-- on recommendation from a friend of mine-- asking if I'd consider ghostwriting a book. The money dangled was pretty good, and I can always be bought, you know. Anyway, I said sure, and they wanted credentials, which I sent happily, and then they wanted a sample --published-- of my work, so I sent them a copy of a book, and then they wanted to see how I'd fix a chapter, and so I fixed one of their chapters. And sometime about here I realized-- or they revealed-- that there were THREE OTHER people vying for this job, and dumb me, I hadn't realized I was competing. And I had this flash memory of some guy who had advertised for editorial help, and as an "audition," he sent a chapter of his book to each of 20 applicants. A -different- chapter. After the audition chapters came in, lo and behold, he had the whole book edited, as he'd planned all along. And of course he never hired anyone-- he didn't have to-- though I've always wondered how well all those differently-edited pieces fit together. Editors, like writers, have voices.
So I told the writers about this experience and asked straight out if this is what they were doing. They weren't-- everyone had gotten the same chapter-- and by their lights, they were simply interviewing different applicants for a job and using tests to determine who was best. By my lights, of course, I'd already done a lot of work for nothing, and I said I wasn't going to do anything more, that they had enough information to make a decision. (I guess they did... I never heard from them again.)
Not really the same thing, in that it wasn't a story but my skill and future work that was going to be bought, and so there was never any moment of certainty-- "Here! It's right!" But I know the frustration that came of that back-and-forth. The difference is, of course, I had nothing to show for it-- there was no improved story for me to take elsewhere.

Hmm. That's another question. I assume that my suggestions will improve the story, or at least that the process of working through my suggestions will help the writer learn more about the story or more about writing. And that even if we never go to contract, the writer hasn't wasted her time, and I haven't either-- I didn't get paid for my work if we don't go to contract, but heck, I've built up some karma points by helping, right?

But what if I'm wrong? (The next post will deal with a situation where the writer disagreed with the revision suggestions, btw.) What if after all this, we don't go to contract, and you secretly think-- I do hope you refrain from telling me this :) -- that it was a whole lot better before I mucked with it? Do you think of the time as wasted, as I did with my unsuccessful foray into ghostwriting? Or what?

What do you think is fair here?

Alicia

I sneaked/snuck in some past tense here

Commenters asked about "kneeled" and "snuck" as past tense forms of the verbs.

These are just variants, and both are generally acceptable. (I say "snuck" all the time—perfectly good word, though children use it to make dirty limericks, so it's good not to let them use it, I guess!)

But notice the difference. "Snuck" is an old form, from old English, when past tense was usually signified by a change in the central vowel (sing/sang, sneak/snuck, kneel/knelt). Think about why that is useful—the change is so clear that there's no doubt when you say "sang" that you mean it happened in the past. (The –ed form is NOT as sonically clear, and notice how often we do without it—we often slip into present tense, just as I did there!) This was probably helpful when the language was still being formed and you wouldn't always know whether the person in the next county could understand your accent—they would notice a big vowel change like that. I have seen that even those irregular verbs that have a sort of –ed sometimes do it with the harder "t" along with a vowel change—KEPT and KNELT—again, the harder sound there would make it easier for a stranger to "hear" the past tense even if he didn't quite understand your accent otherwise.

(Did you know that the prefix y- before a t-ending past word was the way a lot of verbs made past participles? I think the only surviving such word is yclept, which means "(something) has been named or identified." and I only remember it because it's so weird.)

Irregular verbs (those that conjugate past and/or past participle with something other than -ed) are usually among the oldest verbs in the language, often called "strong verbs," perhaps because they are so "strong" they have resisted change and standardization for a thousand years. These are often the most important verbs, the ones in most common use—go and come and bring and is and have and get and forget and think and know and wake and sleep, and a couple dozen more. These are the ones children and non-native speakers have trouble with because they logically assume that you add –ed to make past tense: "I already goed to class."

Believe it or not, formation of past tense has profound linguistic and even philosophical effects, which I won't attempt to explain (have you ever noticed that the word "Chomsky" is a synonym for "difficult?"). But here's an article about Stephen Pinker's exploration of this past tense issue. (Warning-- .pdf file takes a while to load.)

So what happened? Well, there was the Norman conquest in 1066, after which, for a couple hundred years, Norman French became the language of court and the courts (which is why bailiffs still call out "Oyez, oyez," to open courts in a lot of states). While most Brits still clung to their native tongues (the Welsh and Scots, of course, are British but have their own languages even now), French words entered the English language, often existing right beside the old word, sometimes being seen as the "classier" term ("beef" is French; "cow" is English). Most "Latinate" words – 70% or so of our vocabulary, but more nouns than verbs!—came into English through French (a "romance" language—that is, based like Italian and Spanish on Latin), but our syntax (sentence structure mostly) is still Teutonic (Germanic), from a much earlier contribution/invasion.

Okay, as I recall, somewhere around 1400 was "The Great Vowel Shift," where the vowels (especially those in the middle of the word) became more long—shifting from the middle of the mouth more to the front – "ah" became "ay". This had something to do with social dislocations from the Black Plague, but really, linguistics class was a LONG time ago. So those same vowels which changed to mark tense were changing, and maybe the distinction between the forms was getting muddy. Anyway, after that, came the great trend towards standardization, imposed by dictionary writers and teachers and preachers too. This is when the –ed for past caught hold. (You'll see very few –ed past tense verbs in Chaucer, but lots in Shakespeare.) The London accent became the preferred accent, and the London way of word formation became pre-eminent. But English is a great and flexible language, and here we are, 400 years later, and "standard" still has little hold on us, does it? That's especially true with verbs, which are not as subject to change in context as nouns because, well, "the action of going" hasn't changed as much as "the method of going" (i.e., carriage to car to plane).

So we have in common English, and even accepted "standard" English, all sorts of irregular verbs. Most verbs went compliantly enough towards the standard, and we find that we walked and talked (though not "runned" or "speaked" or "sayed") without too much complaining. But sometimes, the attempt to standardize an old verb hasn't really worked, so that we have the new –ed version right along side the old version. Kneeled/knelt and sneaked/snuck are examples. There isn't a lot of reason, or for that matter rhyme, to which ends up preferred. For example, most of us would say dived, not dove, is preferred, but what about drived vs. drove? If your child said, "Daddy drived me to school," you'd probably make a gentle correction, "No, honey, Daddy DROVE you to school."

For some of these verbs, one form or the other won out, and for others of these verbs, both forms still exist as acceptable (though often one is preferred-- usually the -ed form, like "dived" rather than "dove"). This is happening right now, with plenty of debate, and it's actually a great example of where dictionaries are often trying to dictate the more logical way (-ed) and usage keeps the old way in action. (Some verbs actually went backwards—I read that "dived" is older than "dove," for example. But that's unusual.)

How do you know which is right? (And keep in mind that the British often have different preferences. I have never seen the word whilst used by a modern American writer, but the British use it instead of while.) Choose a good dictionary that identifies the preferred version in American or British English—that is, if you're American and writing for American audiences, use Websters, not the OED (and, uh, this is why we rebelled in 1776! Didn't you see that in the Declaration of Independence? "Wherefore they want us to say 'whilst,' we don't wanna?"). If you're British, use the OED, but often the OED comes down on the "descriptive" side of the description/prescription debate (do we just describe the major usages, or prescribe the "right" way to use the word?), and so often just trying to figure out dived vs. dove turns into a four-hour (but very pleasant) session in checking and cross-referencing different words and sources. I don't know about Aussies and Kiwis and Canadians and "post-colonials"—you tell me? Which dictionary do you use?

(One thing I love about watching BBC shows is the variety of accents—the British, for a much smaller nation, have many, many more accents than we do, and some, like the Glaswegian Scots, are just about incomprehensible to me. But then, I grew up in SW Virginia, and I stopped to get gas at a SE Virginia – swamp country—station, and couldn't understand a word of the man next to me. The cashier, a young local African-American woman, was bilingual—I mean, she could understand me and speak to me in my "dialect," and then turn to the white local man and start speaking that other language that I guess was how they speak English in the Dismal Swamp! Anyway, I could really get then why profound changes in sound to signify important things like positive and negative, past and present, would be helpful when communicating outside your own region.)

Now as for whether and when you can use the non-preferred term without the editor changing it... well, first, remember "house style" dictates, and if you want to dispute that, take it up with the publisher, not your poor editor, okay? Understand that, absent a house-style ruling, we will usually opt for whatever the dictionary we use specifies as "preferred," and really, how much of a fight do you want over "sneaked/snuck?" Save your ammo for when I change your character's deep dark secret from "he murdered his grandmother in cold blood" to "one evening, he didn't go by his grandmother's room to read the Bible to her as he always did, because he was exhausted from working 16 hours to earn enough to keep her in a decent nursing home and he fell asleep and slept through till morning, and poor Grandma had a heart attack in the middle of the night and he's always blamed himself even though she was 94 and had a heart condition."

Pick your battles, and I'd think "kneeled" vs. "knelt" isn't a hill you want to waste too much of your infantry on.

Okay, let's say you're a total sweetheart, a dream to edit, and you want to make this manuscript so clean the editor won't have to change a word? Ask the editor what dictionary the house uses, and work with that. (Edition will often matter here, because this "standardization" is still going on. In my childhood, "snuck" was perfectly acceptable, and it's actually still what I say if not write, but it's not the "preferred" form in current dictionaries.) BTW, the preferred form is listed first in the dictionary entry of the present tense word, so in the "sneak" entry, the past tense will be listed as "sneaked, also snuck." That indicates that "sneaked" is preferred.

Now, when the narrative is in character voice (deep POV) and in dialogue, use what the character would say. But if most of the narrative is in your voice, educated, intellectual, erudite, elegant, and then suddenly Their father drived the kids to school, well, don't tell me that one verb is "character voice". Character voice isn't just a word here and there. And if you are really in character voice, I'll know whether the words fit the voice. In fact, I'm likely to note, "Would he actually think the term erudite? Or would he think smart-assed?"

Alicia