Greener Pastries

It pays to self-edit fast in our family group chat, because if you don't, they'll jump on ya.

To be honest, I'm not sure what greener pastries might be either. Maybe something for St. Patrick's Day?

Don't Blame Me; I Didn't Write It

So I stumbled across this interesting little bit of editor/editorial gatekeeping this morning.

Basically, the argument is that if a reader has not seen the original manuscript or other obscure bits of manuscript-related matter that the editor saw before the work began, the reader does not have the right to criticize the editing.

As an editor friend put it on Facebook: "Hogswallop."

This editor writes:

I do understand the impulse. It’s a shorthand for saying the book is bloated or sloppy. In a famously conflict averse industry, it seems easier to blame a faceless editor than it is to pin it on the author. It’s a way of seeming savvy about the way the business works.

Here’s the thing: Unless you saw the raw original manuscript and the editors’ edits and editorial letter, you have absolutely no idea how well or poorly a book was edited.

Sometimes manuscripts arrive in total shambles and it takes a herculean effort to get them in even passable shape. You think the final book was rough? “Well,” the editor will likely say, “you should have seen it before I got to it.”

Here's the argument, summed up:

I will admit I'm reading a book right now that might fit that category: Terry Pratchett's last book, "The Shepherd's Crown." There's something missing from this novel. It feels empty and hollow. And while Pratchett's people have been open about the fact that the novel didn't quite get the polish Pratchett typically puts on his books because of his Parkinson's disease, the lesson to be learned here is that the exception doesn't make the rule.

But there's a real Hobson's choice here: Be responsible for putting out a mediocre last novel, or be the booger-brained editor who refused to publish the last novel of a granted literary titan because it wasn't up to snuff. Here, I might agree with Bransford in saying since the manuscript had trouble, it was not the fault of the editor or that the editor has little to no gatekeeping power once a manuscript is accepted.

But I have read plenty of books out there where the editing left in bloat, slop, and clutter that a braver editor would have cut out. And I can say this from the perspective of a writer who tends towards bloat, clutter, and slop -- a good editor can and should have more influence on the project's end result. And if the editor drops the ball on that, the reader has every right to say ew.

JK Rowling's writing, for example, became much more bloated as her popularity soared. The first books were tightly edited and I think were better for it. The latter books had a lot of fluff that no one dared cut about because Rowling.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series is an epic example of bloat and clutter left too alone by editors.

John Crowley's "Little, Big" . . . the less said about this the better. A good editor would have said, "John, you can cut at least the first 100 pages of the novel and nothing's really lost from your story, bub." But apparently it wasn't said loudly enough.

Then there's Gentry Lee taking on the Rama "series" from Arthur C. Clarke. A good editor would have said, "Nah, this is garbage. Rama's fans didn't necessarily expect there to be two more ships coming, though Clarke hinted at it. And yikes, does EVERYONE have to die in Rama II?" I guess editors are called on to make silk purses out of sow's ears on occasion, but again I don't think the exception makes the rule. Bransford doesn't really make this clear -- if publishers are pushing for a book, it's the silk purse/sow's ear on occasion. But I don't think you can hold editors blameless. Maybe pity them in their trade, but other than that . . . 

And while authors might have originally made the typos, if they get past the editor, well, I'm going to question the skills of more than just the author.

And while I can find exceptions and exemptions, the idea that a reader may not criticize a book's editing because they didn't see the manuscript's original state is off. Writing and editing, in my experience, work together. They may not always want to work together, but it's part of the deal. And readers can and ought to recognize when the deal is broken. Maybe the news ought to get to writers that their choices are making the editor's job difficult, and that they -- the readers, the ones paying for the books -- notice.

Editing Is . . .

Editing is:

 

Eyes.

Time.

Rhythm.

Reaction.

 

And practice.

I know he's talking about film editing, but I think quite a bit of this applies to editing novels as well. If we want to write cinematically, that is.

Chapter Twenty-One: Whoso Is Simple, Let Him Turn In Hither

NOTE: Editing continues on Doleful Creatures. This is a possible new chapter, shaping a character whose presentation has shifted quite a bit in this edit. Manuscript formatting stuck in the copy/paste, so I'm leaving it in.

Chapter Twenty-One: Whoso Is Simple, Let Him Turn In Hither

Aloysius hated being the fool.And fool is what Landi would call him.

“But who’s more foolish? The one dead, or the one alive?” he growled. And his world remained dark and small.

“She has forsaken the foolish,” he said quietly. “She deserved the wise.”

As he walked he studied his feet. Quick march down the muddy path, claws raking the dirt. Brush aside the wet grass and fallen branches with his forehead and snout, rarely slowing, always going. Brambles stuck in the fur on his head, and sometimes an eye scratched by a bent nettle.

“Fool,” he whispered.

“A fool you are not,” Landi said.

Aloysius’ eyes stung as he heard her speak.

“You are wise, like your father. Like your father taught you to be. He was no fool. Stubborn, yes, the both of you. But not foolish. Never,” Landi said. “When the ice dam threatened to flood the setts closes to the stream, your father showed his wisdom. Those who didn’t listen and didn’t move are the fools. The poor, drowned fools. They will listen to you, the wise ones. Talk to them, please.”

“But it is Jarrod they love.”

“Nonsense,” Landi replied. “You’ve lived with these beavers longer than Jarrod. They know you. They trust you. And if they love Jarrod, perhaps it is because when they say good morning to him, he replies good morning back, rather than grunt a reply or not reply at all. It is in that you are foolish.”

“My father never taught me to suffer fools.”

“Yet he suffered them all the time, Aloysius.”

“They came to him for advice and he chased them away!”

“As was his way. But he went to find them after, even after your mother died, and they were always glad of it.”

“They always came back. Even if he bit them.”

“I know Jarrod is your friend,” Landi said. “He is dear to me. But the beavers will listen to you as well. They are being foolish, with this scheme of theirs. You know it. Building a dam that big will bring the humans here, and you know what humans can do. Tell them. Tell them and they’ll listen.”

“They will hate me,” he said. “They want this. I hear them talk every night of the deep water. The wide ponds.”

“They may well hate you. But only for a little while.”

“Or for a long time. They fill their heads with deep water, water where the mud settles and where they can swim clear with their eyes open. They will say I, an outsider – even a beloved outsider – robbed them of what could have been.”

“Or revere you for preventing what could happen.”

“Could. Could. Not will. There will always be that regret, in the backs of some minds. The wonder if they had built the dam that long, that tall, and let the ponds fill that wide and that deep; the wonder that man might not come at all and leave them in the deep peace they desire.”

“Will you let them have Jarrod as a hero?”

They both laughed. Timid Jarrod, afraid of the water. Rebekah would dive with the beavers and swim, if only briefly, with the badgers, as fearlessly as she flew with the hawks. But Jarrod jumped still at his own shadow and cried warning if so much as a sparrow flew unannounced over the heads of the kits.

But he flew. Even though he flew neither as high nor in as dangerous company as Rebekah, he flew. And he was male – something the beavers regarded as supernal in a leader. And he told them of man – what little he knew watching the sleepy denizens of Purdy Farm halfheartedly plow and sow and harvest – and allayed their fears that man would come if they pursued their dream of the dam and the pond it would hold.

Aloysius growled and shook his head.If he were here now.

How many times had he tried to kill that flying skunk?

And how many times, at the last moment, had he proved to be a fool and let the magpie live?

“Do we let things live,” his father asked, “Or is it He who lets us live?”

Sparrows shouted alarms and darted from the lower branches as Aloysius again shook his head.

Revenge, he recalled his father saying, is the path that leads from the smoke to the forest fire.

Yet had he talked, they might yet be alive. His Landi might yet be alive . . .

Aloysius felt the smoke in his eyes. It curled about him, whispered in his ears and showered his back with soot as if in a gentle summer rain. He felt each drop, each flake of ash, fall through his fur to wet or burn his skin.

Forsake the foolish, and live. Go in the way of understanding.

His walking slowed as he felt the smoke, the ash, tugging at his skin, pulling on his limbs.

He shook himself yet again but the smoke clung to his fur. As the bellows and screams and laments clung to his ears.

That he had spoken.

That he had spoken.

“Shame,” he said to himself. “Shame and blot!” He rubbed his paws, darted through the brush and stumbled into the creek, rubbing and rubbing his paws. “Shame and blot,” he echoed. “Shame and blot.”

In the reflection in the water, he saw Landi. “Come,” she said. “Eat of my bread, and drink – ”

“Shame and blot!” he bellowed and splashed out of the water back into the brush. “Shame and blot.”

Read. It. Again.

Here is why you read books over and over and over again, especially if you’re a writer: You notice the hooptedoodle and how it adds, or detracts, from the story.

First, a reminder of what hooptedoodle is. From Steinbeck:

”I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

This gem comes from the prologue to “Sweet Thursday.”

I’m re-reading Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama” (don’t get me started on the Gentry Lee collaborations in later Rama books) and the hooptedoodle really stands out in this one. Not that he’s got much there, but it is there, and when I mention it, those who have read Rama through the eyes of a writer will know immeidately what I’m talking about: The simps. Superchimps. Mentioned in one chapter, then only fleetingly in the book. Not essential to the story or plot at all. Even the simps’ caretaker disappears from the book. So the simps are hooptedoodle. And the book would be just fine without them. Yes, they are a bit of good science fiction (explaining the monkeys are there for cooking, housecleaning, etc., able to do the work of 2.75 men per simp), but it’s science fiction hooptedoodle nonetheless.

I have no idea how many times I’ve read this book (I enjoy it immensely for its speculative story). This is the first time I’ve noticed the hoopetedoodle, though. I don’t know why it stood out this time. Perhaps because I’m editing a book of my own and noticing it’s riddled with hooptedoodle.

Recognize hooptedoodle in others’ writing so you can find it and kill it, when necessary, in your own.

Sadder But Wiser: Revision Follow-Up

I realized over the weekend that I left my “Rebuking the Wise Man” post a little flat at the end, neglecting to explain further why I brought Meredith Wilson’s “Sadder but Wiser Girl” into the mix.

I said:

Revision makes us wiser. And yes, sometimes sadder. 

But Meredith Wilson has an anthem for revision: 

I flinch, I shy, when the lass with the delicate air goes by

I smile, I grin, when the gal with a touch of sin walks in

I hope, I pray, for Hester to win just one more A

The sadder but wiser girl for me!

What do I mean when I say revision sometimes makes us sadder?

It’s more than cutting scenes or killing characters – although that can be essential. It’s realizing that, sometimes, the story we set out to write is not the one we were writing when we finished the first draft. Or the third draft. Or the tenth. Revision is much more proof of evolution than anything I’ve seen in the natural world. The story you thought you had is not the one you end up with – unless you’re far more disciplined a writer than I am, which is not outside the realm of possibility.

But just as Hester has that, ahem, experience Harold Hill so likes, a writer keen on revision has studies his or her story to the point he knows where the flaws lie, and has a general sense of how to correct them, and goes on to do so, whether the task is pleasant or not. The sadder but wiser revisionist plods on, though some of what he or she has experienced isn’t all that pleasant and results in “winning just one more A” from time to time.

Editing, or "What Lack I Yet?"

With the week winding down a little bit, maybe this will jump-start a conversation on the Three Cluttered Pigs.

Obviously, TCP is an exercise in editing. But what kind of editing? (And, yes, there are many different kinds of editing.)

In the technical writing world where I work, we talk about no fewer than ten kinds of editing. I won't bore you with them because most of them don't apply to the kind of writing we're doing and I kind of get glazy-eyed just thinking about them where they DO apply. For the kind of writing we're interested in, there are three "levels of editing" to consider:

1. Macro editing. This kind of editing involves looking at the big picture: Does my thesis make sense? Does the evidence I offer support my thesis? Have I included enough detail? Have I taken shortcuts that will confuse the reader? Have I left in material that's extraneous to my point and will confuse or bore the reader?

2. Line editing. Did I spell names correctly? Did I clearly indicate where I am quoting another person? Am I accurate in my summaries? If I read this aloud, are there any passages that sound awkward and thus should be re-written?

3. Copy editing. Have I eliminated as many typos as possible? Did I use the right verb tense? Why did my word processor underline that word with a squiggle? How does the formatting look?

With each level of edit, we get closer to the actual words. And each level of edit requires a different kind of thinking to accomplish. And you should do each of these levels of edit for everything you write. Everything. Every time.

Here's a few tips on how to do this efficiently:

1. Leave copy editing for last. Absolutely last. It's the easiest of the levels to do, and should come only after you've fixed any bigger issues with what you've written. I have mentioned before that I have re-written my current novel-in-progress eight times. Although I have caught typos and other small errors along the way and fixed them, I have yet to do a copy edit of my novel. Too much is changing right now to make that worthwhile.

2. Don't do all of the levels at once. Start with the macro editing, the big picture, and make sure you're satisfied with the overall big picture before you move on to another level.

3. Identify where your editing weakness lies. I know my weakness lies in macro editing, which is why I keep doing it over and over again with my novel. Each time, I think it gets better. And this is where I bring in others to read it. I tell them I'm not interested in them finding typos (if they do, that's great; less work for me later) but I tell them "Look at the big picture. Is this a story you want to read? If not, WHY?!" Fixing the macro problems will make the line edit and copy edit go a lot more smoothly.

Every time I sit down to edit, I'm reminded of a story from the New Testament, where a man approaches Jesus and asks what he has to do to attain eternal life(Matthew 19:16-23):

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

When I put on my editing hat, I ask myself, "what lack I yet?" I know I started with some good ideas and put together some thoughts that will help my reader understand my point of view, or tell my story. But I know I'm not perfect, so I ask, "what lack I yet." And sometimes when I'm reading, I get that beautifully blunt answer, similar to what Jesus offered: I lack a lot. More macro editing. But because I want to prove I can pass through the eye of a needle, I keep working.

A Rough Day of Editing

Last night, I was thrilled that in editing Doleful Creatures, I’d gotten the word count back up to its original 75,000 before the Great Kill of Revision Six.

Today, after writing more than a thousand words while editing the next few chapters, that word count is barely clinging to those coveted 75,000 words.

I cut a lot. I probably should have cut more. And the cutting, even after the revision six bloddletting, was painful. But again, I’m getting a better story out of it. I got rid of some stuff that was redundant even with the adjacent chapter, so that’s got to be good news.

Twelve chapters to go, and I’ll finish revision seven. I’m optimistic I could still hit 80,000 words, as I’ve added a lot of storyline that still needs to be wrapped up before the story is done. And it’s good storyline that bolsters the good storyline I had beforehand.

But still, there is doubt . . .

Four be the things I’d been better without:

Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

-- Dorothy Parker

I Said It, Now I Gotta Do It

So I've been putting it off long enough. And that last post, eschewing NaNoWriMo in order to edit Doleful Creatures clinched it. It's time to get the manuscript and the ol' red pen out.

But I'm going about it differently this time. The last revisions I've done entirely on the computer. And that's worked to a point. But this time around, I'm working with a printed manuscript so I can more physically "see" how things need to be moved, cut, assembled -- calling on the vocabulary from Alfred Hitchcock here -- to make this book better than it is now.

It just dawned on me I've got this great blank wall in the study -- just put up the drywall on the ceiling today so I won't have insulation falling on my head any more. I think I'll use it as some sort of physical representation of where the novel needs to go, pinning up things on the wall as I edit them, indicating with arrows and such where things need to be added. I'm hopeful having a more visual representation of the story to work on will help me organize it better.



Taking a little inspiration from Harold and Crockett Johnson as I go about this new editing approach.

My hope is that the moon will sail along with me.

The Dangers of Revision

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

--Bilbo Baggins

Alert readers of this blog may be aware that I recently finished another draft of my novel Doleful Creatures. I realized, as I was revising, that this quote from Bilbo Baggins is quite appropriate to the revision process – once you start, you never quite know where you’re going to end up. You might end up with a draft that is, in many ways, stronger than the one you started with. It’s also entirely possible to end up with a draft that is worse. I think what most often happens is something in the middle: Parts of it get better, and parts of it – mostly the new stuff – makes it worse. And by worse, I mean a lot of the new stuff is still technically first-draft material, and it sometimes doesn’t mesh with what was written previously. So, where’s the sweet spot? I made this wonderful illustrative chart to help me find it.
All writers have been on every bit of this chart. Some charts may start out in the red, with a writer coming back to a manuscript thinking it total crap. But I don’t buy that. You wouldn’t come back to a manuscript if it was total yuck. There’s always going to be some green there to attract your attention.

I noticed on Draft Three of Doleful Creatures that I was, at first, careful with revisions and new material, always keeping in mind the big picture: Continuity and improvement. That works incrementally. Then that wonderful spot comes when you think you’ve got it and get back to the freewheeling days of writing that first draft. You’ve fallen in love with the story and the characters all over again. Then comes the sweet spot. The “Danger Will Robinson!” spot.


Go beyond that first sign of caution. This is where you go out your door. Just keep your feet and you might end up somewhere great. Your story might go in an interesting direction. You might fix that critical bit at the end, stretching yourself beyond the spot where you’re comfortable tinkering. How far you get swept off will determine how long your next revision will take. Hit that sweet spot. Go a little further. Just don’t fall off. And when you do fall off – and we all fall off – just plan the next revision.


Should we be afraid of falling off? Not at all. I fell off at Revision 3 – and it’s got me pumped to do Revision 4. And I think Revision 4 will be a shorter one, with less of a chance of falling.