So You're a Good Author and Did Your Research...

Your Research: Like Marriage, For Better or Worse
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I'm doing some editing for a client right now. She has written a beautiful manuscript. That is, it is beautiful where I can get at the story. This writer has done what many writers do. They fall in love with their research. They want to include every precious nugget they find as they are researching their topic.
When that happens the story gets lost, the forward movement of the story stalls. The novel becomes a nonfiction text. The language often moves into the passive tense, meaning active verbs disappear. The characters get lost in the researched detail, too.
Obviously, details can add texture to fiction. Obviously, they should be authentic to bring credibility to the piece. But they need to be integrated and shouldn't overpower the work. They also shouldn't smack of intrusion by the author. They shouldn't become a lecture, as it were. Or a history text.
Before you turn your manuscript over to an agent or publisher, check it. Get a reader to look at it specifically to let you know when you went off on a tangent and told them way more than they wanted to know.
For a recent article on researching by Stephen Tremp, go to Diane Wolf's blog,

http://circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/researching-with-stephen-tremp.html

As long as you're perfecting your manuscript, why not go back to earlier posts on this blog. Then reread your manuscript.

Also try Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for a fun brushup on homonyms and other wordtrippers.

And, of course, to make the job easier, The Frugal Editor will be a good desk companion. It will even help you use Word to make the job easier. You know you want to know and easy way to rid your manuscript of all those double spaces between sentences.






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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success at. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

Misunderstanding Editing Can Cost You!

The trouble with editing is that people misunderstand the word. Or at least they assign several meanings to it so that no one appears to fully understand what others are talking about. Further, the definitions of editing, proofreading, galleys and other publishing terms have changed drastically in the past decades as a result of innovations in the publishing industry, market upheavals and shifting responsibilities. Here is a mini-glossary so that as you and I work together, we'll be using a similar dictionary:

Revision is not truly editing. It is reworking your piece and applies more to manuscripts than to short presentations like query and cover letters. It is the work you do between the first draft and the second, tenth or twentieth.

Editing: This is what fine publishing houses used to do for all of their authors. They helped with the revision process and everything else until your manuscript was a butterfly in repose. No more. Leora Krygier, twice-published novelist, says, "Publishers do not want to edit anymore--they want to print a 99.9 percent finished product directly from the author." It's a cost-cutting thing. Many publishers can't afford to give your book that attention they once did.

If you want to be sure your precious book gets a full edit, you will hire an editor and you'll carefully check credentials when you do (I give you tips on how to do this in the last section of this book).

Line Editing: This is what you'll get--if anything--from most publishers today whether they are on your publisher's staff or are independent contractors. The quality may be good or not. A line editor will catch some style problems, most grammar and, perhaps, 99 percent of your typo and spelling errors.

Proofreading: Proofreaders are typo hunters. Some might be insulted if you called them that, but that's what they are hired for, generally at low wages. Many "editors" you hire yourself (often without being careful about getting recommendations or about researching credentials) are capable of doing little more than typo hunting. Just the basics, Ma'm. Punctuation, spelling and typos, a modicum of grammar. The ones employed by publishers rather than by you may not be authorized to edit or rewrite so they simply suffer in silence when they run across your dangling participles. Ditto when your dialogue tags need some work.

The Frugal Editor will help you with all of these processes except the revisions (well, OK, a little bit with revisions, especially revising dialogue for sometimes there seems to be no clear boundary which is the reason these terms get blurred).
Clearly, you will be practicing your editing skills--both the ones you already have and the ones you will learn from The Frugal Editor and others--from the first time you put fingers-to-keyboard. Your editing will go much more smoothly if you've thoroughly revised your manuscript first.


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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978515870. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com.

Q&A a la Ann Landers: Let's Tidy Up Those Empty Spaces in Your Copy

QUESTION:

Carolyn, one of the most common editing mistakes I get from writers submitting work to {Dotsie Bregel's contests at National Association of Boomer Women, www.BoomerWomenSpeak.com] is the space after a sentence ending. Industry standards changed a few years ago and although it is an ongoing battle between the professors [academia] and publishing professionals, the standard is now ONE space before you begin the next sentence. I'm not referring to LINE spacing, but the space you put at the end of a sentence before you begin the next sentence. When we have many fine entries and time is of the essence, the lack of proper formatting like this can be a deciding factor against a particular entry.

Care to comment on that? Do you see a lot of this? I know I do.

Georgia Richardson, a.k.a. Queen JJ, humorist for NABBW, National Assoc. of Boomer Women, www.queenjawjaw.com

ANSWER:

Georgia, yes, these are formatting problems that editors, contest judges, and publishers struggle with. Unfortunately, many writers don't think that kind of editing and formatting is part of their business. Obviously, from what you say, it is.

The reason that the double space rule at the end of the sentence changed is because kerning is handled differently than it once was. This delicate spacing between letters and sentences used to be done by the linotype operators who set the type, and double spaces helped them make the type look nicer on the page. Now computers do all of that adjusting of letter sizes and spaces for us. To adjust to the new typing pattern is really tough for those of us who learned to type . . . mmmmm, a thousand years ago. I included information on this in the Frugal Editor for writers who can't adjust, don't want to or just want to double check their spacing before they submit.

Here's how to do it:

Use the find feature in your Word program to replace all double spaces with single ones. Here are step-by-step directions directly from sidebars in the Frugal Editor:

"You may not be able to see the extra spaces in your copy, but they can cause havoc when your manuscript is converted into a finished product. Here's how to get rid of them.

"Click on the Paragraph Icon () in your Word screen. It should be in the top row of your toolbar unless some computer-proficient type has fooled around with your options. It looks like a backward P with the little half circle colored in. Suddenly you'll be able to see all the directions you gave your copy as you typed. One little dot will appear in your manuscript for every time you used your spacebar. All you have to do is use your backspace key to delete the unnecessary ones.

OR

"Let your find function spot the dots.

"By now you know how to use your Find Function. Select the Replace tab. Place your cursor in the Find what window and tap your spacebar twice. It will appear you have typed nothing. In the Replace with window, you'll tap the spacebar only once. Now select the third button over from the left at the bottom of the window that reads Replace All and click. Voilà! Even with two apparently blank windows you will have sent a message to your computer's brain to replace all the double spacing in your document--whether between words or between sentences--with single spacing.

Caution: Before you tap your spacebar, be sure your cursor is as far to the left of the window as it can go. To do that, backspace until the little bar can go no farther left before entering your invisible spaces.

Listen to Author Access Award-Winning Podcast

Irene Watson, podcast host and editor of AuthorSuccess says of the new podcast interviews in her series: "... I have no doubt this episode [of AuthorSuccess.com podcasts] will go on to be forever in our Top 10 list. Congratulations on a great show!"

Here is her invitation to listen:

Visit with the creative force behind the HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for writers. Carolyn shared her best tips and strategies for low-cost/zero-cost marketing campaigns and also talked about what NOT to do to market your books. She also talks about the value of editing and how it directly controls how your proposals, books, and marketing are peceived in the marketplace. Listen to the interview on Authors Access(visit link and click on the PODCAST button). Tune in each week as Irene and Victor interview industry luminaries on marketing, writing, editing, and publishing by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Welcome to The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor

You are at the home of The Frugal Editor. This blog is intended to be a place where writers of all kinds can ask questions about how they can improve their writing. That includes the writing of business letters, query letters, poetry, book manscripts, book proposals...yikes! Everything!

Many times we'll use a Question and Answer format a la Ann Landers. You ask. I'll answer. Or I'll find someone else to answer. How's that? And be sure to include how you'd like to be credited (or not!). Yes, I'm also the Frugal Book Promoter and including your name, title, URL and maybe even a short blurb about your book certainly can't hurt your promotion campaign. (-: Just send your question to HoJoNews@aol.com. Be sure to put "THE FRUGAL EDITOR BLOG" in the subject line.

Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Award-winning author of the How To Do It Frugally series of books for writers
www.howtodoitfrugally.com