The Editing Process

Robert Boze

Mar 30, 2020 | Expert, Uncategorized

As professional editors and writers, Robyn and I have attended many conferences and writer events. Those, combined with the wide variety of edits we’ve done, have shown that many writers, especially first-time writers, have little experience with editing.

Questions we often hear are:

• Why do I need an editor?
• What is an editor going to do that I can’t do?
• What is a developmental edit?
• I have spell check, why do I need an edit?
• Why are there so many types of editing?
• What is proofreading?
• Why is editing so expensive?

And on and on and on.

In response, we’ve tried to address as many of these questions as possible in our Editing Untangled Workshop and related blogs.

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Just as important, however, is understanding the overall editing process – the sequence in which each edit step is performed and what it is intended to accomplish.

In this blog we’ll briefly talk about each of the editing steps, when it should take place in the editing process and why. We’ll also explain what happens if it is performed out of sequence.

Some of the things we include may not normally be considered as part of the editing process but in fact, they are. For example, lets start with beta reading.

Beta Reading

For many authors, beta reading is not normally considered to be a part of the editing process, but it is. It’s actually a very important part of the editing process.

Beta readers can come in many forms: friends, family, a writing partner, a critique partner or a critique group. In short, anyone who you can get to read your work, at any stage that makes sense, and someone who will give you honest feedback.

(We should mention that you’ll hear terms like, alpha readers, review groups, beta critique groups and on and on. To us, whatever you call them, beta readers are simply the first to read your work before it is edited.)

Typically, there are no rules as to when beta reading can be done. It’s whatever you and your beta readers agree on and can start at any point in your writing.

For example, when Bob was writing his first book, he formed a beta reading group, consisting of four to five friends, who met at his house every Sunday morning for coffee and ice cream. (Yes, bribery plays a big role. Especially if your writing sucks: Which it will until your beta readers steer your story in the right direction.)

The first Sunday meeting was to agree on the rules and find out what flavor ice cream everyone liked. Then, once he had written several chapters, he passed them out at the next meeting. (Yes, the ice cream came with no obligations for this meeting.) From then on, each Sunday everyone would tell him how wonderful his writing was. (He wishes.)

Beta Read Meeting in Progress

Actually, the comments were more like: “Your hero fireman Shawn is the biggest woose I’ve ever seen.”, “Get real! No woman would ever let him jump her bones that fast.”, “It’s obvious you know nothing about horses. You’ve got her getting on the wrong side of the horse.” (Uh, there’s a right side and a wrong side???)

And on and on it went. While they read the next several chapters, Bob fixed the ones from the previous Sunday; after wiping the ice cream stains off their notes.

Two rules about beta reading that we think are important:

1. You should never have to pay beta readers. Bribery is okay but pay is not.
2. Beta readers should be reading the story for content only, not checking grammar, spelling, punctuation or formatting. Why? Because they’re not editors. Also, your story is raw, and while they’re reading the next part, you should be fixing what they just tore apart. So, all that effort is just a waste of time.

The key things you’re testing here are reader appeal and does your overall story make sense.

Developmental Edit

Similar to beta reading, developmental editing deals primarily with the story and its structure. It is a professional review of your overall story for structure, plot development, character development, scene descriptions, dialogue and other story elements that you’ve used to bring your story to life.

Obviously, developmental editing cannot be done until your story is complete. It also should be done by a professional editor, or at least someone who understands story structure and the role each story element plays.

Simply put, developmental editing concentrates on helping you develop and keep true your story, your characters and your scenes.

When we do a developmental edit we work with the author to provide guidance and feedback by critiquing the following areas:

• Structure
• Characterization/character arcs
• Goals, motivation, conflict
• Correct point of view
• Show don’t tell
• Plot
• Pace
• Genre specific and appropriate form
• Believable and genre specific dialog
• Balance between narrative and dialog
• Scene descriptions

Depending on how solid the story is, some line editing can be combined with a developmental edit. However, it makes no sense to do line editing on a story that’s been kicked back to the author for major rewrites.

If your story looks like this, it’s not ready for a line edit

Line or Copy Edit

If you’ve been following our blogs, you know that a copy or line edit is performed on what the writer believes to be a completed manuscript and is a line-by-line check of the author’s work.

Line editing can be light, medium or heavy, depending on what state the manuscript is in. A clean self-edited manuscript would likely need only a light line edit. Whereas a manuscript the writer is uncomfortable with will need a deeper, heavy line edit to help finish developing the story as well as fixing things.

Typically, a medium line edit, and its depth, will fall somewhere in between, depending on what the editor finds during their initial manuscript evaluation.

Things the editor will make sure are correct and proper for each type of line edit are:

• Light
  • Spelling
  • Punctuation
  • Grammar
  • Capitalization
  • Number usage
  • Abbreviations
  • Typographical errors
  • Omitted or repeat words
  • Overall story accuracy

• Medium – A light edit plus:
  • Consistency of American or British English, colloquialisms, accents
  • Sentence construction and run on sentences
  • Elimination of unnecessary words
  • Syntax
  • Proper and consistent tense
  • Overused words and adverbs, clichés, purple prose
  • Logic or plot holes
  • Character/time inconsistencies
  • Style sheet/guide adherence (if applicable)

• Heavy or Full – A light edit, necessary elements from a medium edit and suggestions for:
  • Cuts
  • Additions
  • Rewrites
  • Revisions to unclear passages
  • Replacement words
  • Rearranged sentences and scenes

Still not sure?

Here again it makes no sense to do a line edit on a manuscript that is not complete. Even in a heavy edit, it’s not the overall story that’s being changed, but parts of it being brought into line or clarified. Also, after each part is changed, the editor will check it for all the elements of a light and medium edit.

The point being that, once again, it makes no sense to perform a light or medium line edit on a changing story line.

Proofreads

Once the editing is done, it’s time for you to relax and let us do a proofread.

Proofreading is the final review on your completely edited manuscript. You know, the one you’ve hashed over, revised and tweaked on just about every page.

And, because of the changes, we need to go back and check for:

• Typographical errors
• Punctuation
• Grammar
• Spacing
• Print quality and font consistency
• Sufficient white space – margins, paragraph spacing, indenting.

It’s the final check to make sure your manuscript’s completely error-free and print ready.

Summary

So, why are we harping on this when most of it has been in our blogs and, by now, we’re quite sure you’re tired of hearing it?

Because our next edit request may likely be someone who wants us to proofread their manuscript while it’s being line edited. That way, they can save time.

Or, they’re still not happy with their story but they want us to do a line edit so they can see what type of errors they’re making.

Or, they want to know which of the following punctuation is correct.

• Oh no you don’t!
• Oh, no you don’t!
• Oh no, you don’t!

(Hint – They’re all correct. But without knowing the context it’s being used in, it’s impossible to say which one they should use.)

Or, the author wants us to do all the edits at once because they want to enter their story in a contest – next week.

These are the types of requests we get. And while we do our best to explain that doing things out of sequence often negates the purpose of the edit, we’ll continue to try work with you and help you stay within the edit process as best we can.

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So, what should you the author do? Simple, take a few minutes to understand each of the steps in the edit process and try, as best you can, to have them done in the proper sequence.

Not sure of what kind of repeat errors you might be making or what kind of edit(s) your work needs? Ask us to have a look and do a sample edit. Unsure of something like the above “Oh no you don’t!” example? Give us a shout out and we’ll try and help put you on the right path.

Finally, while we’ve pulled off a few miracle edits recently, please allow us enough time to do a proper edit, especially if you’re a first-time author. It’s always our goal to make everything we touch the best it can possibly be! But that takes time.

Happy writing,

The Writing Allsorts Team

Bob and Robyn

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Bob Boze lives in the South Bay area of San Diego and his writing partner, Robyn Bennett, lives in Blenheim on New Zealand’s South Island. Both are members of the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild, Romance Writers of America and New Zealand, as well published romance and non-fiction authors, editors, speakers and bloggers. Together they have over twelve published works and are collaborating on several more novels, short stories, articles and other works.

Bob and Robyn also offer a variety of writer and business services through their business website, Writing Allsorts. To learn more about them, their published works and the services they offer, go to https://writingallsorts.com/

Adding Visual Impact to Your Story – Part VI

Sep 7, 2019 | Expert, Uncategorized

Adding Visual Impact to Your Story

Part VI – Adding Sex and Humor to Your Story

Adding sex scenes or introducing humor into your story can greatly enhance it. Or, they can help flush it down the toilet.

Let’s start with sex.

Is it okay to put sex scenes in your story?

That depends on several things.

• How adept are you, the author, in describing a sexual scene?
• Does it fit comfortably with your story and character images?
• How appropriate is it for your target age group?
• How will it be received and perceived by your readers?
• And finally, does it meet any publisher’s or seller’s restrictions?

For us, it’s a “Yes, sex is definitely okay in a story”. Now, we’re going to add a lot of: “Only if’s.”

What works and doesn’t

Let us first comment on what we’ve seen others do that we thought didn’t work.

Don’t try and play it too safe. If your couple is going to make love, have them make meaningful love.

Let their touching, petting and actual love making express their love and feelings for each other. If you try to avoid being graphic, the scene is going to lose its meaning.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, don’t be too graphic. This is a story, not porn. Make the scene realistic and meaningful but not too explicit.

Less is more

If you’re going to add a sex scene, use the reader’s imagination as much as possible. Lead them to where you want the scene to go but don’t take it there. Let them get there on their own. For us, less has always been better where a sex scene is concerned.

Undress your couple in a provocative way. Describe the trail of clothes they left. You’d be surprised how much you can say just by painting a picture like the one below.

Next, lead them to a bed, a couch, a wall, or table and leave them locked in a passionate embrace. Your reader will fill in the rest. And, trust us, they will do it better than any words you write can. Especially if you lead them to someplace other than a bed. Remember, there’s an unspoken message and image in where you lead them.

Keep your characters in character

Be certain the scene you paint and the characters’ actions fit the characters you’ve created for your reader. If your male MC is only 5’ 8” tall, don’t have the female MC amazed when she sees he’s hung like an elephant. Unless of course she’s noticed early on that his jeans don’t fit quite right.

Also, if he’s been gentle and caring, keep him that way. Contrary to the belief of some, most people don’t change when they lose their clothes.

Be tasteful

Make sure your sex scene is done tastefully and that it fits comfortably into your story line. Don’t just dump them into bed on page three. Let them get to know each other and the reader get comfortable with who they are and their feelings for each other. Finally, be sure the scene’s appropriate for your target age group. If your books are aimed at teens, back off on the explicit descriptions. Make them age appropriate. (Yeah, I know, teens these days know more than we do but it’s not your place to get them there.)

We’ll end with a few Only If’s and several No-No’s.

• Never exploit one sex or the other in any way.
• Always make it obvious that it’s consensual, and enjoyable to both parties.
• No drugs or violence, ever!
• Make sure the partners are clearly past the age of consent.
• Finally, unless they’re trying to start a family, make sure they have safe sex. Especially if they only recently met and don’t know if their partner is disease free or who they might have been with.

Remember, no matter what genre the story is in, making love should not just be a physical act. It should enhance and convey to the reader the love, trust and feelings they have for each other.

Oh, and happiness too!

Yeah, we know, sex may have different connotations in genres other than romance and love stories, but we still think treating your sex scenes with the rules we’ve noted is your best bet.

One final point. As soon as you put a sex scene in, stand by for the seething reviews to roll in. No matter how tasteful and careful you are with your love scenes, you will surely offend someone. Actually, a few someones. So, be ready.

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Adding humor to your story

Everyone loves a good joke and every author loves it when a reviewer says their story made them laugh out loud: Better yet, that they were embarrassed when they looked up and everyone was watching them because they were laughing so hard.

But humor is one of the hardest things to pull off in a story. Like sex, it can also make or break a story and many of the same do’s and don’ts apply.

What works and doesn’t

Make sure your humor will be understood by your readers. So often authors use “in jokes” or descriptions that leave the reader shaking their head with no idea that it was supposed to be funny.

You don’t need to write something funny or tell a joke in every paragraph or on every page. But, once you introduce humor into your story, your readers are going to expect that, from there on, it will continue.

The best way to insert humor is to describe something funny or have one or two characters convey the humor through dialogue.

Pick the humorous characters early and set them up with fun personalities. We’ve seen cases where they’re bashful, then come out of their shell later, but that’s more difficult to pull off.

Although they can, they don’t need to tell jokes or funny stories. Snide comments will do just fine, and even those can be scattered.

Let the sense of humor from these characters draw out humorous responses from others.

Less is more

Slip in subtle comments or funny scenes where they are least expected and from whom they are least expected.

Funny scenes tend to work best when they’re described by someone who wasn’t expecting them.

If you have a joke you want to work in, set a scene up so your character can tell it: At a party, in a bar, at a meeting, in response to something someone else said.

Keep your characters in character

Never go out of character. Keep the humor in line with the character’s image that you’ve built.

If your characters sense of humor develops slowly, ease them into it. Don’t have them all of a sudden throwing out funny responses or cracking jokes.

If your characters are introverted, don’t curse or drink, don’t have them telling sex or bar jokes or jokes with curse words.

If a character is always adding their two cents, use them to throw in funny remarks. This, and responses to them, is a great way to ease humor into your story.

Be tasteful

Remember your characters are people and they have feelings.

Don’t pick on nationalities, personal traits, disabilities or anything else that would embarrass someone.

Don’t ever demean anyone.

Avoid sex jokes; it’s almost impossible to make them tasteful.

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Create your own funny scene whenever you can

That’s our opinion on sex and humor. What’s yours? When it comes to sex, are we too prudish or not prudish enough? On humor, did we miss ways to work it into your story?

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Bob Boze lives in the South Bay area of San Diego and his writing partner, Robyn Bennett, lives in Blenheim on New Zealand’s South Island. Both are published romance and non-fiction authors, editors, speakers and bloggers. Together they have over twelve published works and are collaborating on several more novels, short stories, articles and other works.

Bob and Robyn also offer a variety of writer and business services through their business website, Writing Allsorts. To learn more about them, their published works and the services they offer, go to https://writingallsorts.com/