Category Archives: editing

Please Write Badly

by
Charlotte Firbank-King


When we start writing, almost all of us write badly. I have never seen a baby that looks now like it will fifteen or twenty years down the line—some beautiful babies turn into ugly adults and visa-versa. A baby gabbles nonsensically, and toddlers string garbled words together that often don’t make sense, but they’re learning. Regardless at how adept they are at using the language, kids are painfully honest. They express their emotional truth without apology.

More often than not, the first stories we write contains major flaws in the grammar or technique, yet they often have the same strange innocence and honesty expressed by children.

At around thirteen, girls learn how to put on makeup. Later, they may use plastic surgery and dress to hide impurities—and they learn how to deceive and hide personality defects.

Equate this to writing. As we grow, we add even more adjectives and adverbs, and we indulge in “clever” writing to fool the reader. Instead of striving for natural perfection, we embellish.

At adulthood, people who are willing to grow and become real learn how to accept their perceived physical flaws and concentrate instead on becoming better human beings. However, this metamorphosis into honest awareness of self may only happen years later—and sometimes it never happens, and those adults live under the illusion of being good and beautiful.

Writers are the same. Some grow and learn and become better. But others live under the illusion of being good writers despite repeated rejections from publishers and readers.

Hopefully, growth does happen, and that’s when we get real as writers. We strip off the makeup and get down to living—really living/writing. We learn to trust that our inner beauty is what counts—we learn to trust our writing. We also learn that readers aren’t stupid, that they get it without us explaining every last detail and describing every scene as though they lack imagination.

It’s okay to start out ugly. Write from the heart—just write like you used to—write badly. Forget about the silly concept of writer’s block—that’s a cop-out. Just write without embellishments/makeup.

Now, take that horrible writing and edit it, then repeat the process another hundred times or more. The only obligations we have as writers is to be honest with ourselves and grow so that we can entertain readers. This road to honesty and self-awareness is a lonely one and only we can travel it.

Love it or hate it, we know our own face, and we can only work with what we know. So it is with writing—work with what you know. If you know nothing about politics or forensics, then don’t go down that rabbit hole unless you’re prepared to do a mountain of research/plastic surgery—knowing that even with all the research, you still stand the danger of not ringing true, just as a face covered by plastic surgery is not the real you.

So write badly about what you know and be honest. Readers will love you more for being you and entertaining them with what feels real. Don’t get me wrong. Writing is all about smoke and mirrors, but it’s how you do it that counts. Just as charisma and personality can make a person with a plain face shine and force us to see beyond the physical.

Write badly, but then polish it until all we see is the charisma and personality.

The After-Conference Afterglow: Seven Ways to Keep the Creative Fires Burning

by
Rhonda Browning-White

You’ve put your life on hold for a weekend, a week, or even longer. You’ve attended a fabulous writers’ conference, and you’ve come home with a load of books, handouts, and scribbled notes. You’ve made dozens of new best friends who actually get you, who understand that it’s okay to have morning coffee with the voices in your head. You’ve found your tribe, and you’re inspired to write, write, write!

And then there’s the laundry. And the grocery shopping. And the kids and pets. And the day job.

How will you ever maintain the momentum and apply the advice you garnered at The World’s Greatest Writers’ Event, when you have to face the real world?

Here’s a list of sure-fire ways to keep that exciting energy flowing from your mind to your manuscript. Let me know how they work for you!

1. Sleep. Yes, this sounds counterproductive. However, chances are good that you rose early, stayed up late, and have jet lag or are road weary. You’ve also been away from your family and friends, and if you want their support throughout your writing career (you’ll need it!) then you must revive and reconnect. Twenty-four hours of R & R won’t sideline your journey to the bestseller list. In fact, once your brain is rested, you’ll be more productive, and since you’ve caught up with all that’s happened in your family’s life, you’ll feel good about shutting the door to your home office while you get some serious writing done.

2. Sort. All those notes, handouts, and manuscript suggestions need an organized home. If you don’t have a folder for handouts, make one now. If you have several handouts, consider sorting them by topic: characterization, plotting, publishing advice, and so on. Hopefully you thought ahead and took a notebook with you, so all your snippets of advice are in one handy place. If not, transcribe the best notes into a notebook or onto index cards, so you’ll have them at your fingertips when you revise your work. Then gather all the business cards and contact lists you’ve received, and set them aside. (We’ll get to those later.) Lastly, if you’ve been lucky enough to attend a conference with a workshop, sort all the critiqued copies of your manuscript by page number (all page ones in one stack, page twos in another stack, etc.). Then, when you revise your manuscript, you can work through one page at a time on your computer, applying what you wish to use in your story, then discard the rest.

3. Write. Yes, you have a stack of signed books you can’t wait to read. Yes, you still have laundry to do. But before you do any of those things, take fifteen minutes (or two hours, if you’ve got it) and write! Tell yourself that this is a requirement for your conference. Use a prompt from a class that you didn’t have time to work on during the event. Or go ahead and begin tackling those revisions to your story.

Sometimes we return home intimidated by the amount of work we think we need to do in order to make our manuscripts publishable. The truth is, however, that unless you start working on your writing, those manuscripts will remain unpublishable! Start where you are right now. Don’t worry: if you mess up, your computer has a delete key.

4. Say “Thank you!” That perfect snippet of advice you received about transitioning from one scene to another? The recommendation a published writer made to his editor? The handout that you plan to post on your bulletin board as a roadmap to finish your novel? Say thanks! Pull out those business cards you collected, and drop a handwritten thank-you note in the mail. Don’t have a street address? Send a thoughtful, personalized email thanking the presenter or mentor who shined a light on your writing path.

5. Connect. While you have those business cards, presenter list, and workshop critique schedule in hand, update your social media accounts. Add to your Facebook friends list, follow your new connections on Twitter, and update your Instagram. Be sure to follow the blogs of your favorite presenters, authors, and new friends. If you’ve become especially good friends with a few of your fellow attendees, ask them to return the favor and follow your blog, as well.

6. Read. Finally! You’ve caught up on the business end of writing, so before you nod off to sleep, grab a book from the stack you’ve brought home from your conference. When you’ve finished each novel or book, be sure to review it in at least two or three places, such as on Amazon, Goodreads, or Facebook. Better still, write a formal review and submit it to a literary magazine or newspaper. If it’s accepted for publication, you’ll have yet another byline for your bio!

7. Now, back to work! While we’d love to get lost in reading the great works of our peers and researching details for our stories, our job—first and foremost—is writing. Build off the momentum you gained at the conference. Remind yourself that another conference awaits you in a few months, or next year, and you’ll want to have a polished manuscript to present when that time arrives. If an agent or editor has asked to see your work, be sure to have it professionally proofread or edited (Inspiration For Writers, Inc. can help with that!), and send it out as soon as you can. Include a note reminding the agent that she requested your manuscript at XYZ Writers’ Conference. Then, once it’s out the door, get back to work! It’s time to start your next story!

Writing, Not Writing

by
Jessica Nelson


It’s that time of the year when everything gets hectic beyond belief. There’s barely a moment to catch your breath, let alone sit down and get some good writing done. It gets harder and harder to follow that timeless advice that all writers get:

Write every day.

Every time I hear that, I feel guilty, because I don’t write every day. The guilt gets even worse during November when other people are kicking out entire novels for NaNoWriMo.

So today I’m pulling a page out of Rhonda Browning White’s book. Last week she wrote a blog entitled “The Hiatus: Taking a Break from Writing” on her personal blog. That post inspired this one, because she made an excellent point: writers are always writing.

This idea that a writer is always writing in their heads is what I have deemed “writing, not writing.” It’s a little like “sorry, not sorry” which is what you say/feel when you should be sorry for something but you really aren’t.

“Writing, not writing” is two-fold. On the one hand, it describes when we should be writing, but we aren’t. On the other, it describes when a writer is writing, though they may not be physically typing on a computer or putting pen to paper.

I am notorious for “writing, not writing.” It feels like I rarely get anything written down. But I find there’s a certain freedom in “writing, not writing.” I’m the kind of writer who likes to get it right the first time I put it on paper. I get attached to my words, and it pains me to do deletions and rewrites. So when I write something that I don’t really like, I feel as if I’ve wasted valuable writing time, which isn’t something I get very often.

But when I’m “writing, not writing” in my head, I can redo the scene a hundred times over, trying every permutation of action and dialogue, perfecting every little detail—and I’m not wasting time. Well, okay, so maybe I waste a little time. But it is totally worth it.

I’d like to say something really important—especially to all the writers who get crazy busy: it’s okay if you don’t write every day.

Let me say that again.

It’s okay if you don’t write every day.

Do a little “writing, not writing” instead. It’s still productive, and it still exercises those creative muscles. You can do it anytime, anywhere. Even while you’re fixing a holiday meal. (Just be careful not to burn anything.)

Tell us your favorite way/place to do “writing, not writing” in the comments!

Writer Cocktail

by
Charlotte Firbank-King

Writers are a cocktail of madness. We’re psychotic, bent on killing those we love with as much impunity as those we hate. We wallow in death, misery, and general mayhem. Couple that with being pathological liars and master manipulators, then top it off with a dash of perpetual fried-brain and, oh, did I mention that we also have scant regard for laws and rules—of the English language or of social etiquette, that is. We fabricate words and foist them on unsuspecting readers who can’t even refer to a dictionary or Google to find out what the words mean. So that also makes us narcissistic deceivers. But we really don’t care as long as what we write is believable—and even that isn’t a given—we don’t care if it isn’t believable, because we will turn the reader into a believer.

Writers are a lone species of Homo sapiens. Okay, maybe we aren’t actually human.

Alice was an amateur when it comes to disappearing down rabbit holes. We probably shouldn’t marry and should definitely be neutered. The truth is, there’s no room in a writer’s life for anything except the characters we live through vicariously. But we gird our loins and periodically return to real-life like a meteorite hitting Earth. Our family will re-introduce themselves as we try not to call them by our characters’ names or warn them of some impending disaster that’s about to ruin their lives—note to self—that’s your daughter, idiot, not the character.

When we’re on a roll, we writers have this odd habit of ignoring dress code. We leap out of bed with ideas fermenting in our deranged, but very fertile brains, and head for the laptop or pen and paper. The only thing we may do en route is switch on the coffee machine. Five hours later, we’re surrounded by books, along with empty and full coffee cups ranging from cold to hot, and we’re still in our pajamas. We happily beat away on the PC, birthing new characters or killing off others in the most inventive ways. We transport ourselves to a thousand years back or a thousand years ahead. We go to countries and planets never heard of—we live in the realm of the impossible made possible through words. Sigh. What a divine place we live in.

Writers will discuss their characters as if they are real, and to us, they very much are. A conversation between writers could go like this:

Writer 1: “I don’t know what to do about Joe. He wants to head the narc operation, but he’s not ready and he’s too weak.”

Writer 2 understands completely and gives a sage nod: “I agree, he’s spineless. Kill him off.”

Writer 1 runs fingers distractedly through tousled hair and bites lip: “He wasn’t supposed to be a wimp—he’s the damn hero.”

Writer 2 sighs: “I know. It’s a pain in the arse when they won’t behave. My Mary was supposed to be the wilting damsel in distress, and now the slag is taking control. I might have to shoot her. I tried to get Mark to do it, but he’s not cooperating because the stupid sod thinks he’s in love with her.”

If non-writers happen to overhear this rather bizarre conversation, they may think they’ve landed in some sort of twilight zone. And they have—that’s where writers live.

Writers have long since learned to ignore certain responses to questions people ask. Usually starting with, “What do you do?”

“I write.”

“Wow, I’ve never met a writer.” Their brow furrows as they process the information. “Is that a real job?”

“Eh? It isn’t a job!”

“Oh.” Eyebrows rise. “Then how do you make a living?”

“What? Damn, dude, that question is so not relevant.”

Confusion reigns. “Not relevant?”

The person will get a long, direct look as we size them up—how will they fit into the next novel? That one predatory look usually has them backing off nervously, especially when you mutter that they would be a good fit for the villain you need to kill off in the next book. Some people don’t back down, but rush in and tell us about their lives or a friend’s life. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

People need to understand that writers don’t operate in the same realm as say, a stockbroker, but we sure can write about one.

If one unobtrusively observes a writer, one may see them making faces or speaking to themselves in odd voices. Even getting themselves into weird physical positions. Writers are known for doing crazy things like crawling into a snake pit just to see how it feels—maybe that’s a little extreme, but they may sit at the bottom of a pool to see what it’s like to drown. Writers will certainly cut themselves to see what blood tastes or smells like. All experiments are toward one end—instilling realism into a story.

If you find a person watching you intently at an airport, shopping mall, or any public place, it may not be a psychotic stalker—not that there’s much difference—but it’s probably a writer, especially if he is making notes on any available scrap of paper. Cause a scene and make his day.

Writers will buy books worth hundreds of dollars for one paragraph of information. The books will probably sit on a shelf for the rest of the writer’s life. We don’t part with books—ever, especially reference books. You’d have to kill us first.

The moral of this convoluted discourse is: don’t become a writer if you value your sanity.

Humbling Homonyms Part 1

by
Wilma Acree

As an avid reader, I sometimes chuckle and often cringe at errors I see in print. Just this morning, I cringed when I read this headline: 22 Dear Killed in North Hills Hunt. Yes, I am sure those deer were dear to others in their herd, but really!

If you are confused about dear/deer, make up some nonsensical rules to retain the meanings. For example, you might want to lean your ear against someone dear, but you would not do so to a wild animal (deer).

Other misuses I’ve encountered lately are shoo/shoe and waste/waist.

To shoo means to drive away. A shoe is something that covers your foot. Imagine my mental images when a writer wrote about “shoeing a fly.” An image of a fly wearing four tiny red shoes flitted across my mental screen. If only I could draw that . . . Alas, my artistic skills are nil.

If waste/waist gives you trouble, associate waste with the proverb: Haste makes waste. Or use the sentence: If I eat the food my children waste, my waist will increase. Imagine a thin person scraping plates over a waste can versus a person of increasing girth eating food from several plates.

Spell checkers or even grammar checkers will not catch homonym errors. You must rely upon your own brain, a language expert, or a trained editor. Better still, all three! None of us are infallible, but publishing a novel or even an article with homophone errors decreases your credibility and makes your reader wonder about your reliability.

Gawking Characters

by
Jessica Murphy

A “gawking character” is a narrator who tells the reader what happens in a scene instead of letting the reader experience it directly. This is called narrator intrusion, and it robs the reader of the full experience, thus distancing him from the story. A gawking character looks like this:

Gawking: Adam saw the orange glow and the rolling black smoke in the sky from where he stood on the corner of the block. As he jogged down the sidewalk toward it, he felt a cool breeze and smelled burning wood. He ducked under the branch of a tree and saw the burning house. From where he stood, he felt the intense heat and heard the flames roar and pop. Adam stepped forward toward the open front door but felt the searing heat from the sidewalk that drove him back.

The bold words show you where the narrator steps between the reader and the action and tells the reader what happens. This detracts from the reader’s experience. A scene must allow the reader to experience the action directly in order to grab him. Would you prefer to watch a friend eat a hot fudge sundae and tell you how sweet it tastes, or would you want to eat it yourself?

A gawking character is also redundant. If the scene is told from the character’s perspective, we already know that he experiences what we read. We don’t need to say the same thing twice. Here is the same sentence without the gawking character:

Direct: Adam glanced up from the corner of Kingwood and Beechurst. The starlit sky glowed orange, and thick smoke rolled across it. He spun on one heel, crunching grit on the sidewalk beneath his shoes, and ran down the street. The cool autumn breeze carried sparks and the smell the burning wood. As Adam brushed the branches of a tree out of his face, the burning house appeared.

A rushing roar filled Adam’s ears, and a wave of heat lifted the hairs on his tan arms. Shading his blue eyes with his right hand, he squinted against the blinding light. Flames engulfed every inch of the house and licked at the cloudless sky. Pops and crackles from inside the house echoed down the empty street. Adam rushed toward the front porch, but the heat seared his face and drove him back.

This time, the narrator does not water down the scene. We see no “Adam felt,” “Adam saw,” “Adam heard.” Instead, the reader is the one standing on the sidewalk, the one who sees the flames, feels their heat, hears their roar. This kind of direct experience captivates the reader and keeps him interested.

Nonphysical Gawking

A gawking character can also filter internal experiences, such as thoughts or emotions. Again, if the scene is being told from the character’s perspective, we can assume that any thoughts belong to that character (unless he or she can read thoughts or sense emotions).

Gawking: Blood soaked through the fabric, and Preston realized he had plunged the blade into Jack’s side.
This scene is told from Preston’s point of view, so he must be the one realizing something. We don’t need to state the obvious.

Direct: A red stain spread across Jack’s gut, matting the shirt to his skin. The silver blade glinted from where Preston had plunged it in Jack’s side.

The same holds true for emotions:

Gawking: I felt worried, but a breeze made me feel a little better.

This is told in first person point of view, so the narrator must be the one who felt worried. After all, he cannot feel another character’s emotions. So, stating what the narrator felt is redundant.

Direct: My stomach churned, but the crisp air cooled my feverish skin and the nausea settled for the moment.

If you take out the gawking character, the reader can experience every scene directly. Any less cheats him out of the story and, in the end, loses him.

Guilty!

by
Charlotte Firbank-King


As a new or accomplished writer, what are you guilty of?

Are you guilty of being arrogant? Is your reader the enemy you’re writing at because you really need to put your brilliant prose on paper? Of course, ninety-nine point nine percent of readers are about as bright as an amoeba on a bad cell day, so your genius is totally wasted. But this is about you and your obsession to write. Right? —WRONG.

Are you guilty of being clever? You use words, scientific or otherwise, that have readers paging through a dictionary like a chipmunk on crack to understand what the heck you’re talking about. For example: Cavernulous – just say porous already. Otherwise, you’ve killed the flow and probably the reader’s enthusiasm to read your story.

Are you guilty of gimmick writing? You write everything in the present tense because it suits your literary genius. Or you exclude a word you hate from the entire manuscript, like that, said or had. I’m all for cutting down on these words, but sometimes they’re needed. Do you omit punctuation or new paragraphs, or remove dialogue all together and just narrate? It can work, but you have to be inventive to hold the reader’s interest. There are many versions of artifices that only stroke the author’s ego and cause the reader to tear out his hair. All you do is make the experience of reading your story uncomfortable. You put a barrier between the reader and the story until all they see is the author intruding into their pleasure of the story.

At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself if you value your reader. Do you really want your reader scratching his head, paging back to try to understand what you’re saying, or skipping paragraphs that are annoying? Is your aim to make him think about the deep meaning of your story, or to make your reader feel dense?

A reader may not remember all the details of a story, but he will always remember how you made him feel. Readers want to laugh, cry, hold their breaths, or sigh with relief. Are you guilty of not evoking any of these emotions?

Are you guilty of telling the reader a character is being funny or sarcastic? Like, writing, “she teased lightly,” or “his words dripped with sarcasm.” Make your writing speak with actions, emotions, and dialogue.

Are you guilty of swamping the reader with details that don’t add to the story or of repeating information in case he “didn’t get it” the first time round? Giving readers every detail of what characters are doing is tiresome. Readers are smart. They will fill in details like characters needing to put on shoes and a jacket and fetching an umbrella before going into a howling rain storm. It’s okay for them to just shrug into a jacket and go—have them flick open the umbrella as they walk out. In short, don’t make shopping lists of actions and don’t give readers every detail from the socks to the hat to the brushing of his teeth.

Are you guilty of not editing, editing, and editing multiple times before sending the manuscript to an editor or launching it on Amazon? Can you be sure there are no plot flaws, typos, or grammatical errors? Show respect for your reader—and editor, for that matter, and EDIT, over and over before releasing the manuscript.

Are you guilty of creating too many coincidences to make your plot work? Every action and scene that leads to the climax must be believable. If a character says, “I can’t believe that happened!” the reader will probably be thinking me neither. If it’s improbable, set it up ahead of time. She fell off the mountain and a piton caught her jacket, saving her. Show us the piton long before it catches on her jacket—set it up, make it feel probable.

Are you guilty of throwing readers constant curveballs, then leaving then hanging while you move on to another scene? You can get away with this once, but not in every chapter. They want to know if the gun fired at the character killed them or not—and they want to know in this chapter. They don’t want to wait three chapters to find out, while the second character is hanging from a cliff by their jacket in the next chapter. It’s all about seamless flow—making it a great reading experience.

Are you guilty of misleading the reader with a “hook” in the first paragraph of the first chapter that doesn’t fit the plot? Your story is a thriller and the lead characters are making out in a park while their children play on the swings. Sonny Jim disappears and a frantic hunt ensues. If your book is about kidnapping or some other dark plot about kids being snatched, then you have the right hook. But if these characters never again show up in the book and your story is actually about an affair at an office, you’ve got the wrong hook.

Readers are not reading the story to admire your literary genius—they want to be entertained. It’s all about them and what they want and need. After all, they PAID for the book.

Above all, clothe yourself in humility. Realize that as a writer you are nothing more than a servant applying your skill to please your master—the reader.

Picture a world where you’re surrounded by people who can’t read. Would you still write?

Some pearls of wisdom:

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

—Oscar Wilde

It’s the rare writer who excels at all aspects of the craft. There are masterful stylists who, at bottom, have remarkably little to say. And there are vigorous thinkers whose sentences plod along like the lumbering steps of a draft horse.

 —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

—William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

 

Believe It or Not, Editors Aren’t Born Writers

by
Charlotte Firbank-King

A month ago—in South Africa, just to ground the reader—I had to pack up my house and studio in Port Elizabeth and relocate to Durban. In the process, I came across stuff I’d written when I was about eighteen. All the writing from my early teenage days must have been binned at some point, since, at eighteen, I was clearly past rubbish writing. I do recall being convinced that my romance novel, grandly titled, Inner Flame, was going to be a best seller—no question about that. One look at this title and you realize it doesn’t get much more purple than that. God help the poor soul who dares venture between those pages, but I can laugh at myself and did indeed go there. Let’s say it wasn’t really a venture, but rather a stumble over purple prose, a million adjectives and adverbs, and fat grammatical and spelling errors (no spellcheck back then). The head-hopping alone made my head spin.

Then I got married and nothing much happened because I was too busy breeding. I found more manuscripts, written when I was about thirty. I was clearly done with procreation, and I had a divorce under my belt. This second stab at writing was an improvement, but still no cigar for good writing.

The point of this trip into the past? Editors aren’t born writing with skill.

To be honest, if Inner Flame came across my desk now, I would probably send the writer every tutorial IFW has, including a thousand writing links on Google, and then tell them to go hide in a cave and learn to string at least one coherent sentence together before wasting their money on an editor.

Here are a few pearls from Inner Flame. I left the spelling errors in, even though MS Word kindly changed them for me. I must have been fixated on the size of the room, since I sure didn’t need full stops. This was all handwritten before I finally scored a wondrous typewriter.

Felicity walk down the wide stairs to the room below, it was a vast ball room hung extravigantly with chandeliers, the floor was glossy marble, Victorian furniture was arranged in it a large grand piano of oak stood at the far end of the room like a majestic queen of furniture, heavy curtains of deep red velvet adorned massive windows and french doors.

The chandeliers must have smiled from above to see this pink whisp of a girl almost float accross the huge room, she might have been a thistledown in a field for all she compared in size to the room.

Here is another gem:

Felicity was a long time in falling asleep, she lay between the soft linen sheets staring out of huge windows at the moon, clouds drifted like silver ships across her face, as round as a disc.

I could go on, but I would hate to hear a reader had died from laughing. The head-hopping examples of my eighteen year-old brilliance will take too much space, so I won’t bore you with those pearls of delight. You will just have to trust me that they’re there with oak-leaf clusters.

I now challenge our other editors to expose their badly-written-gems’ bellies to the public.

Surely, if we once wrote this poorly, there’s hope for you. If you need help bringing your writing up to the next level, email us at IFWeditors@gmail.com. Besides simply editing your work, we explain why we’ve made the suggestions we make so you learn as you go. Need even more help? We offer coaching, which is a personalized tutoring service that teaches you the things we’ve learned over the years. One client told us she learned more from one of our edits than an entire MFA program in creative writing. We’re here to help. All you have to do is ask. 

Editing Companies EXPOSED

by
Sandy Tritt
As the owner of a small editing company, I sometimes scope out our competition to see what they are doing and to make certain we’re competitive. I’ll have to admit, I’ve gotten lazy about this during the last few years, but I recently Googled “fiction editor” and “manuscript editing” and a few other related terms to see who was appearing and what they were offering. And I was shocked. Literally, jaw-dropping, oh-my-goodness, I-can’t-believe-this shock.
The last time I did market research was during the recent recession. At that time, I was surprised at the number of pop-up editing companies. It seemed that many writers who’d lost their day jobs decided to give editing a whirl. They put up a quick website, undercut the experienced editors, and became fly-by-night “editors.” Most of these companies have since gone out of business. So, Valuable Tip Number One: Before you send your work—and definitely before you send your money—check to be sure the company is still in business.
The time before that, my shocking discovery was the number of corporations who assigned editing jobs to the lowest bidder. Unfortunately, there are still a few of these companies out there. If your edit is going to the lowest bidder, I can almost guarantee that you’re not getting a quality job. Valuable Tip Number Two: Whenever a company is more vested in the number of words an editor has edited and the speed with which this editor edits, you can be sure that quality is not the focus.
But this time, I discovered a new low, and it’s all from one “first” company. This “first” company is very aggressive in marketing. Four of the top Google placement ads led directly to their site, and a number of others did so indirectly. I am also bombarded by their pop-up ads and feature ads on just about every website that sells advertising. They must harvest emails, because immediately after I visited the site, I started receiving offers and discounts—several the first few days, and now two a day. The site itself is a bit like a used car (opt for the Arizona Sedan and Limousine – Scottsdale’s top limo service for any kind of special occasions) lot. There are flashing pop-ups with live editors just waiting to “chat” with you. There are free samples—as many as you want. They promise “superior quality, incredible speed, and LOW prices.” And they GUARANTEE your satisfaction! Sounds too good to be true. Which leads us to Valuable Tip Number Three: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
A little more research on their site revealed they edit the following “genres”:
  • Novel Editing
  • Fiction Editing
  • Non-Fiction Editing
  • Book Editing Services
  • First Time Author
  • Christian Editing
  • Black Genre Editing
Yeah. Last time I checked, a novel is fiction. And I don’t have a clue as to which category I’d select if I were a first-time author of Black-genre Christian fiction (what is, by the way, “Black Genre”?). Worse, I clicked on the sample edits provided on their website. First, they missed obvious typos and errors. Worse, they suggested changes in direct opposition to good writing practices. And, perhaps most alarming: the sample edit was done in a version of non-English Word. That’s right. It was a Swedish version of Word. Which tells me the editor was likely not a native English speaker.
Despite the annoying pop-ups, I continued to explore the site. They are aggressively searching for more editors. What are the requirements to edit for them? Well, here’s the list (and note that if you don’t meet the requirements of the first item, you just keep dropping down the list until you match one of the criteria):
  1. Extensive professional editing experience with solid references from previous employers
  2. A doctorate degree
  3. Advanced education – Masters, Bachelors, specific editing courses, proofreading certification, etc.
  4. Affiliation, membership, or participation with editing organizations, writing associations, etc.
  5. An international location which serves a time zone outside of the continental North American market, especially those editors located in New Zealand, Australia, Alaska, or Hawaii
If you still don’t meet their standards, don’t worry. Go ahead and apply anyway. These are just suggestions.
After wiping the dirt off my hands and continuing my research, I clicked on the next Google ad for editing services. This one looked like a decent site. It showed an actual photograph of a real person editing. But when I clicked on a few of the links, something frightening happened: I was back on the website of the “first” editing company. Yes. The one I’m wailing about above. It so happens there are several freelance editors who belong to the “first” family of editing.
By now, I was horrified. So, I followed my own Valuable Tip Number Four: When you want to know the truth about something related to writing, visit the Absolute Write Water Cooler. More specifically, I went to http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=262403. If you’re suffering from low blood pressure and need to get your blood pumping and your arteries compressing, I encourage you to visit this page about “first” editors.
The bottom line: there are still a number of independent, devoted editors out there who are traditionally published with a higher-education degree in writing, editing, or English, who charge a reasonable rate to give you a personal and professional job. Any editing company that doesn’t show photographs of the actual editors—and their individual qualifications—is most likely hiding something. Be sure to do your research, and hire an editing company that has integrity. Valuable Tip Number Five: Before hiring an editor, Google the editor by name and by company name. See how vested the editor is in the writing community. Does he/she have books available? Give writing workshops? Speak at writing conferences?
It is important to hire a professional editor to review your work before you submit it. Please do your homework and choose one who is qualified—one who will make your work better, not worse.
We are here for you. Give us a shout at IFWeditors@gmail.com.

How a No-Good Normal Person Became a Writer

by
Sandy Tritt

I thought I was a good writer. All through school and college, I got A’s in English and Creative Writing and the dozens of literature classes that filled my schedule. My friends all said I was a good writer. People I didn’t know made positive comments about my stories, and I even got a few of them published in local and state journals. 

And then, in the early nineties, I entered the West Virginia Writers Annual Competition for Novels. I won second place, which came with a nice certificate and a check for $150. And it came with a bonus—Mr. D, the judge of the event that year, critiqued the winning entries. Excited, I jumped to the back page to see his overview comments. He said, “You write well—for a normal person. The problem is, you don’t want to be a normal person. You want to be a writer. And you have a lot to learn before you can be a writer.” 

Say what? Even though tears had already started stinging my eyes, I had to re-read his comment to make sure I hadn’t misread. And that was exactly what he’d said. Your writing sucks.

It was late—probably eleven p.m.—the awards program had followed a too-long banquet with a mouthy keynote speaker—and I had to drive home, about fifty minutes away. “You have a lot to learn before you can be a writer” hit me at every milepost, at every traffic light, at every pothole. The words burned not only my eyes, but my heart. I would never write again. Never. I was an imposter, a no-good normal person who could never cross the realm to live in the world of real writers. 

The girls were already in bed when I got home, but my husband was waiting up. He met me with, “What’s wrong?” I tearfully showed him the indictment. You have a lot to learn before you can be a writer. 

Butch just shrugged. “What don’t you write him and ask him what he means by that?” He kissed me and went to bed. 

Do what? There was no question what he meant. You are not a writer. 

By Monday, I had gone through my manuscript. There were many places where he’d made comments such as, “Stop right here. Go get a dictionary and look up the word ‘melodrama.’ That’s what this is. Melodrama. And it doesn’t make the reader feel anything—except the need to vomit” or “What makes you think putting an exclamation mark here makes your story more exciting? If your reader can’t feel the urgency by the words you’ve written, you’re not going to make them feel it by using a whole row of exclamation marks.” But there were other places where he wrote things like, “Now this is fine writing.” Or “This is the way to write it! Good job!”

On Tuesday, I typed a letter out to Mr. D. I thanked him for the critique of my manuscript, and I asked him if he’d be willing to look at a rewrite of the scene he’d chastised as being a melodramatic mess. Surprisingly, a week or so later, I received a letter back (no email back then). He graciously invited me to send him the scene. And a mentorship was born.

For the next two years, I sent scene after scene to Mr. D, and he returned them promptly with comments and encouragements. He gave me reading assignments. He suggested craft books. I coveted every word he said, and I worked hard to understand concepts I’d never given a lot of thought to before. Narrative Voice. Point of View. Denouement. But, more than anything, I learned how to control character emotion. I learned how to make the reader supply the emotion instead of exhausting it all with melodrama. I learned how to write. 

I left the sphere of normal people (which, to be truthful, I never quite fit in anyway) and entered the world of writers. For, you see, you’re not born with the title writer. It isn’t like eye color or skin tone or ancestry. It isn’t a gift. It’s something you learn, something you earn.

Do you want to be a writer? We’d love to be your bridge between the world of normal people and the world of writers. All you have to do is shoot us an email at IFWeditors@gmail.com. Chat soon!