Tag Archives: editing

Pointers from the Pros: Editor Marilyn Brigham Offers Insight into the Editor’s Eye

Posted in Pointers from the Pros by

“Pointers from the Pros” gives tips from authors and publishing industry professionals on everything from craft to querying to their experiences on the road to publication.*

I attended the 2011 SCBWI MD/DE/WV’s Spring into Action conference in Buckeystown, Md., with some of my favorite-evers. As usual, I took a ton of notes at all the faboo sessions I was lucky enough to attend—and I’m sharing some of those tips with my lovely blog readers. (Thanks for being so fabulous, BTW!)

Here are some of Marshall Cavendish editor Marilyn Brigham’s tips from her session, “The Editor’s Eye: Powerful Word Choice & Sentence Structure”:

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN REVISING

  • Repetition
    • Of words or phrases (betas & crit partners can be of great help with this)
    • Single word repeated on the same page or in the same paragraph (this is what she finds to be the most common)
    • Search for these words in particular, which she says tend to be repeated a lot:
      • just
      • then
      • so
      • anyway
      • even
      • but
      • really
      • very
    • “Echoed” words can be a repetitive too:
      • unfair, unfairness
      • though, although
      • like, dislike
    • Other tired phrases:
      • of course
      • I was like
      • I couldn’t help but wonder
    • You can repeat ideas as well—remember: don’t hit your readers over the head with it
  • Adult language
    • It depends what is appropriate for the book, age group, story, etc.
    • Be on the lookout for out-of-date language/stuff that makes it sound like an adult writing for kids (i.e., HUNK vs. HOTTIE or “Being with Mike is WONDERFUL” = meh—find a more kid-friendly way to say it)
    • Sometimes you should bring it down & sometimes you should elevate it
  • Clichés
    • Just don’t!
  • Clutter
    • Adverbs!  (most are unnecessary—if you choose a stronger verb, you render the adverbs redundant)
    • Here’s why:

“The radio blared loudly.”

Blared is strong enough a verb on its own.  It’s redundant with the adverb loudly.

  • Too many adjectives!
    • This is what we call “purple prose”
    • It speaks down to the reader
  • Unnecessary prepositions:

“Slowed down traffic”

When you’re slowing something, the “down” is implied.

WHAT CAN YOU ADD TO MAKE YOUR WRITING STRONGER?

  • Take cues from the genre
    • In a book about soccer, use a metaphor that relates to soccer—it adds flavor:

“I danced around like I won the World Cup.”

  • Take cues from the narrator
    • What would the narrator notice?
    • How would he or she say it?
  • Use parallel structure in some sentences—it can add extra punch:

I came. I saw. I conquered.

  • Use active voice:

Passive: The letter way mailed by dad.

Active: Dad mailed the letter.

WHAT IS MARKETABLE RIGHT NOW?

  • In YA: dystopian
  • In picture books: “Going to sleep” books”
  • In all of juvenile lit: perennial subjects

—

For a complete recap of the conference, see author Laura Bowers’s post here.

 

The Making of a Printz-Winner

Posted in The Recovering English Teacher, Writing by

I’ve been locked in my fortress of edit-tude, trying to finish before my trip this week, so I’m kind of saving all my brilliance for that. Heh. 🙂

But, in between scenes, I’ve been catching up on blogs from the week, and I ran across the below video blog from one of my absolute faves, made of awesome young adult author John Green.

In it, he discusses the evolution of his Printz-Award-winning debut novel, Looking for Alaska—and how many of the best-loved parts of the book came out in revisions. *After* being accepted by an editor.  So interesting!! He also talks about all the ways a ton of people helped give him ideas for the book. Even the title (which is something I’ve been struggling with)!

Makes me feel like I’m on the right track with my own writing—and a little less intimidated as I finish my pre-query revisions.

Maybe I’ve got a Printz-winner on my hands after all!  😉

Where Else Am I? Inky Fresh Press Guest Post #4 on Formatting

Posted in Where Else Am I?, Writing by

This month, I’m Inky Fresh Press’s guest blogger, and I’m doing a series on editing (for post NaNoWriters and those looking to polish their non-NaNo manuscripts alike).

Last week, Inky Fresh Press posted the third in the series: Editfication: Revision Tips for Getting Your Work Read & Represented.

The final post is on formatting.  Check it out!

I hope you enjoyed the series!

—

The rest in the series:

Where Else Am I? Inky Fresh Press Guest Post #3 on Grammar

Posted in Where Else Am I?, Writing by

This month, I’m Inky Fresh Press’s guest blogger, and I’m doing a series on editing (for post NaNoWriters and those looking to polish their non-NaNo manuscripts alike).

Last week, Inky Fresh Press posted the third in the series: Editfication: Revision Tips for Getting Your Work Read & Represented.

The latest one is on grammar.  Check it out!

Where Else Am I? Inky Fresh Press Guest Post #2 on Editing/Revision

Posted in Where Else Am I?, Writing by

This month, I’m Inky Fresh Press’s guest blogger, and I’m doing a series on editing (for post NaNoWriters and those looking to polish their non-NaNo manuscripts alike).

Today, Inky Fresh Press posted the second in the series: Editfication: Revision Tips for Getting Your Work Read & Represented.

This one’s on style.  Check it out!

—

The rest in the series:

Where Else Am I? My Guest Post Series on Editing (at Inky Fresh Press)

Posted in Where Else Am I?, Writing by

This month, I’m Inky Fresh Press’s guest blogger, and I’m doing a series on editing (for post NaNoWriters and those looking to polish their non-NaNo manuscripts alike).

Today, Inky Fresh Press posted the first in the series: Editfication: Revision Tips for Getting Your Work Read & Represented.

Check it out!

—

The rest in the series:

In the Blogosphere: 9/20-10/15

Posted in This Week in the Blogosphere by

“In the Blogosphere” is a series, which lists links to writing-related blogs I’ve stumbled upon throughout a given week (usually).

I’m admittedly behind with my Blogosphere posts—I have about 50 links saved, dating all the way back to May/June-ish (oh noes!)—but they are all still worth a look.  I’ll catch up eventually, right?

AGENT STUFF

Author and D4EO agent Mandy Hubbard gives a bit of unorthodox advice . . . about how one line can change your career.

Here, another agent-turned-author, the fabulous Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown, Ltd., talks about “undercooking” a novel.

Here, Bookends, LLC, agent Jessica Faust offers some query don’ts.


CRAFT & MANUSCRIPT PREP

Over at Write Anything, Annie Evett did a nice little series on voice and dialogue.  Here’s the last of those posts, that contains links to the others in the series.

At League of Extraordinary Writers, Angie Smibert discusses handling readers’ baggage and creating the appearance of truth that readers can find believable.

At Novel Matters, Patti Hill demonstrates how to weed your manuscript.

One of my favorite features over at YA Highway, Amanda Hannah talks about passive sentences one “Sentence Strengthening Sunday” (you don’t have to be a YA writer to appreciate the fabulosity of this) right here.

Confused about manuscript formatting?  Author Louise Wise gives you a crash course here.

Here, YA author Jamie Harrington talks about constructive criticism.  Can you handle it?

Middle-grade author Janice Hardy discusses a subject near and dear to my heart—grammar.  Just what are the basics everyone needs to know?

PEP TALKS

We all need a good writerly pep talk now and again.

Here’s one from YA author Elana Johnson.

Here’s another from freelancer Heather Trese, for good measure.

EXTRAS

You’ve got just over a week left to enter my scary story contest—freak me out in 1,000 words of less!

Over at Savvy B2B Marketing, Wendy Thomas discusses a subject that fascinates me these days: online writing vs. old school journalism (being that I used to teach journalism . . . and now I do a good bit of online writing!).

Here, Writer’s Digest Books’ own Robert Lee Brewer offers a Twitter cheat sheet for those not “hip” to all the “lingo” (hehe) or not quite sure how to optimize your use.

In the Blogosphere: 9/12-9/17

Posted in This Week in the Blogosphere by

“In the Blogosphere” is a series, which lists links to writing-related blogs I’ve stumbled upon throughout a given week (usually).

I’m admittedly behind with my Blogosphere posts—I have about 50 links saved, dating all the way back to June (oh noes!)—but they are all still worth a look.  I’ll catch up eventually, right?

GET WRITING!

My weekend plans fell through, so now I will be sitting at home [probably with all the lights on all weekend because this will be the first time I’m staying home alone at my house—how lame am I?] with my computer and my beagle.  Which, as much as I love them both, can also both be time sucks!  But I’m buzzing on my WIP right now and would LOVE to get to 30,000 words by Sunday.  It will be a bit of a challenge, but I’m up for it.

Adorable little baby time suck. And a bunch of crap she'd dragged out everywhere and was chewing up. (And my husband's foot.)

All-grown-up time suck. 🙂

That said, here are some resources—some of which I’ve used and some of which I haven’t yet but might have to employ this weekend, in order to get words written.

  • Write or Die—You can set your word count and your time goals, and this interface will get IN YOUR FACE [well, if you set it that way] until you reach your targets.
  • WriteRoom—This is for Mac users.  It’s a full-screen writing environment that rids you of the “clutter” of word processing programs.  [Referred to by The New York Times as the “ultimate spartan writing utopia.”]

  • WordWatchers—This has been working for me this month—and this isn’t just shameless self-promotion, as a number of writers have been getting tremendous amounts of work done using this writing program.  It’s through The Write-Brained Network and, like its sister weight-loss program, is something each individual designs to fit his or her lifestyle.  All us Write-Brainiacs participating have set challenging goals, and while we haven’t all been hitting them each week [guilty!] we have been getting tons of work done. And, some people have finished entire projects or gotten over slumps, due to the prodding encouragement of others.

QUERYING & SUCH

Here, literary agent Jennifer Laughran busts publishing industry myths that most writers believe or have heard.

Yeah, but this is real, though.

Two takes on the 5 stages of querying:

  • The first, a guest post by writer Anne Gallagher on the Guide to Literary Agents blog
  • The second, by the inimitable Tahareh

When when those rejections come, Holen Mathews at GotYA offers some constructive questions you need to ask yourself.

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPPAGE

Social media got you down? [If you’re Greyhaus Literary’s Scott Eagan, then yes.] Author Jody Hedlund offers some advice on how to use it effectively without allowing it to take over your life—and writing time.

And here, Daily Writing Tips lists 40 Twitter hashtags for writers.

CRAFT

I was going through my saved posts for “In the Blogospheres” today and came across this little jobby, by Heather Trese at See Heather Write, on the importance of having a pitch . . .

. . . which goes hand in hand with the post I wrote this week on plot vs. situation.

It was really hard to narrow down which picture I found to be the chachiest. So I went with this one.

Here is a lovely post by Christina Mandelski over at Will Write for Cake wherein she discusses the importance of setting in a story.

And here, Writing for Digital talks about the value of a good editor.  One edit quite possibly changed the entire course of American history!

FANGIRL LOVE

I heart you, John Green.

I heart you, Meg Cabot. [the Allie Finkle #6, Blast from the Past, review she links to at the end of this post is MINE!]

PLUG!

Inky Fresh Press interviewed little ol’ me!

Grounding is important.

Happy weekend, everyone! Come harass me on the WB or Twitter and make sure I’m getting my words written!

In the Blogosphere: 7/26-8/6

Posted in This Week in the Blogosphere by

“In the Blogosphere” is a series, which lists links to writing-related blogs I’ve stumbled upon throughout a given week (usually).

I’m admittedly behind with my Blogosphere posts—I have about 50 links saved, dating all the way back to May/June-ish (oh noes!)—but they are all still worth a look.  I’ll catch up eventually, right?

THE STRAIGHT DOPE ON CONFERENCES

There have been a ton of conferences this summer, but more are just around the corner.

Not sure what to bring to a writers’ conference?  Over on her blog, See Heather Write, writer/editor and aspiring YA novelist Heather Trese gives the basics on what to pack and what to leave home—via this vlog.

Have you never been to one of these events?  Check out this post at The Bluestocking Blog, which details one writer’s lessons learned from her very first conference.

This is an oldie-but-very-goodie post from guest blogger Leah Odze Epstein over at Adventures in Children’s Publishing.  Epstein took great notes at SCBWI Metro New York and was nice enough to share them in a conference round-up.

By the way—WriteOnCon, the FREE online kids’ lit conference, is next week.  Click here to register!

THE NEXT STEPS

So, I’m good on querying and getting and agent and everything—but what happens after that?

Sixteen-year-old Australian YA author Steph Bowe demystifies what happens after you get a book deal in this post on her blog, Hey! Teenager of the Year.

And, here, the ever-fabulous Rachelle Gardner of WordServe Literary explains what is in a publishing contract.

EDITING & CRITIQUING

My SW(IRL) group began critiquing this summer, and some of our members were a bit resistant to it.  I do hope they’ll check out these links!

Here, Jodi Cleghorn of Write for Your Life talks critique etiquette.

In her guest post at Genreality, debut YA dystopian author Jamie Harrington gives a feedback pep talk during which she explains what getting feedback means, why it’s important, and how we need to get over ourselves and get some!

Over at her fantastic blog, author Jody Hedlund offers suggestions of what to do with positive and negative feedback.

And at YA Highway, Amanda Hannah gives us a checklist of what we need in order to get cracking on those revisions.

HILARITY ENSUES

I believe this oldie-but-goodie post was the first I had ever seen of the now-infamous Tahereh (T.H. Mafi), over at Got YA—in which she tells us what the QueryShark herself, Janet Reid, is really thinking.

If You Missed the SWO LIVE CHAT . . .

Posted in The WriteBrained Network, WB Live Chat Recaps, Writing by

. . . you weren’t alone.

For those new to the blog, I just had to move my online writing group from Ning to Grou.ps, and the new network is buggy: I tried to send a reminder about the chat to all SWO members today to no avail (I found out that feature has been defunct the last two days—grr!), one of my regular attendees couldn’t access the network at the time of the chat, as well as a host of other wonky things with the new site.

Eeeeeeeeh - the site is buggy, Doc!

Overall, I’ve been impressed with Grou.ps.  After all, it can’t be easy for them to accommodate the Great Ning Exodus of 2010.  They have a tech support group for administrators, which has been helpful to me, and they seem to be actively taking care of buggy things as people report them.  However, don’t mess with my chat!

I suspect they’ll have all the kinks worked out before the May chat.  (I hope! I hope!)

THE GIST

If you missed our chat on revision and rewriting tonight for whatever reason, here are the highlights:

  • Re: Revision & Rewriting: What’s Your Process & How Do You Know When to Stop?
    • We discussed a method of editing I use: editor Bobbie Christmas’s “Find and Refine Method” as outlined in her out-of-print book, Write in Style: Using Your Word Processor and Other Techniques to Improve Your Writing
      • In the book, Christmas discusses how to tighten your writing and lists words and phrases you can search for within your manuscript to quickly find the problematic areas—all using your word processor’s “find” function (i.e., passive verbs, adverbs, certain words and phrases writers often overuse, etc.)
    • One member mentioned a CD called Writer’s Mind, which is designed to engage patterns of your own EEG and stimulate your creativity
    • We talked about reading your manuscript aloud
      • Doing this not only makes others think you are strange, but it also enables you to catch spelling/grammar mistakes as well as pinpoint problematic syntax, etc.
    • We touched how allowing space/distance between yourself and your manuscript is key
      • If you are too close, you’re not going to catch as many errors—your brain kind of fills in missed words, etc.
      • We debated how much space one needs—how much distance—and this, of course, is subjective
        • Some felt sleeping on it and revisiting the manuscript the next day was sufficient
        • One person suggested you not live, touch, or breathe the MS for at least a month before editing
        • Some mentioned sending the piece to beta readers and working on something else to get your mind off said manuscript
          • By the time the betas have read it, you should be sufficiently recharged

    Make like Michael Strahan's front teeth, and get some space between you and your MS!

  • This led to a discussion about beta readers—Re: where to find them and how to know if you can “trust” someone to give you constructive feedback
    • Some places suggested to find beta readers included: listservs, online writing groups, writer friends you make at conferences, etc.
      • One of my favorite comments of the chat: “Beta readers = fellow writers. Avid readers. Not Mom, Not Dad. No one you’ve slept with.” 🙂
    • Re: How to know if the betas are going to be any good
      • We pretty much agreed that it’s a crap shoot
      • You want to be on the lookout for someone with a “good eye”
        • You might establish this by getting a feel for the person through e-mails, chats—get to know them—see if they’re a good fit—research them.  THEN, make your decision.
        • One member said he has his betas complete a questionnaire so he can elicit constructive feedback—a very interesting way to guide the beta reader to focus on whatever you need them to focus on!

You could also pick up a beta at a pet store for, like, a dollar.

  • Re: How to know when to stop editing
    • We pretty much said it can be kind of a gut thing
    • My rule:  When you’ve revised so many times that you hate yourself—and your manuscript—and you feel like you might physically die if someone made you look at it again, then you *might* be done . . . but you should probably still have someone else look at it at that point.  Get that distance we mentioned.

Rappers from the '90s have surprisingly good advice for revising. (It was a toss up between this and one with "Stop - Hammertime" spray-painted on it.)

  • Re: Miscellaneous
    • We discovered that the new chat has awesome—but random—emoticons that we just stumbled upon
      • For example, by typing “(rain)”, a raincloud appears in place of the words—WHA?
      • This distracted us several times.
    • We discussed light versus edgy YA, as a few of us learned we had been hearing similar comments from agents about our MSS.
    • Marice decided she’s going to host a writing conference at her place Down Under. 😉
    • I invited myself to Australia, Los Angeles, and Macon, Ga.

Now, it’s your turn.  Anything to add to the conversation?