My teen daughter plays volleyball year-round, which means I spend a lot of time at volleyball tournaments. My husband and I are also the photographers for both her high school and club teams. This happened by accident – meaning, when no one else volunteered to take photos, we did. At first, we took lousy photos. Now, we’ve invested in a more expensive camera and lens and after lots of trial and error, we're getting better and better at this whole unexpected sports photography gig.
Recently I received a phone call from my agent. Yes, it was “the” call. A big 5 publisher read my entire middle-grade manuscript and likes what she sees. However, if I don’t mind, please re-write the entire thing and here’s a better idea for the series.
Now, I’ve been at this for a long, long time. I’m way past pride. I have arrived at the “whatever you want I’ll do it because I’m going to die soon” phase of my career.
So the re-writing, as of this post, is almost complete. The first quarter of the book has been slashed and about a dozen chapters added to please aforementioned publisher. As much as I hate to admit it, the story is much better. I have yet to resubmit and sign a contract, but even if it doesn’t work out with this publisher, I feel my odds of success are greatly improved thanks to her input.
Same with the series suggestions.
If you’re like me, you have a tendency to box yourself in with your series idea. I had so completely sold myself on the concept of my Navy Brats series that I left no room for better ideas. I had intended to write about a different Navy Brat in the years spanning 1968 through 1984 because, you know, I lived it.
The publisher said (and I’m paraphrasing), “boooooooriiiiiing.”
Know what kids want to read about? War. The stuff in their history books. She loved my idea of using military families in my stories, but suggesting I use some recognizable historical incidents as my setting. She blasted my original Navy Brat series, even hated the name. So where does that leave me? Free.
Suddenly, I’m not caged in by my own narrow scope for my book and series. To be honest, I was absolutely hung up with book two of my original idea. And not willing to change directions. Sure, I knew that a military brat in the middle of the attack on Pearl Harbor would be somewhat more interesting than the same brat in 1972 Hawaii, but I couldn’t see past my own self-imposed restrictions.
Now I’m already planning book two of the new series (still don’t have a good name) and reading up on the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. And this is exciting stuff! My middle-grade readers will eat it up.
So the moral of my story today is thus: when you get “the” phone call with a long list of suggestions, there’s a good chance the publisher knows what she’s talking about. And there’s also a good chance that your story and series will be much improved whether you get this deal or not.
What about you? Has a suggestion from a publisher or agent drastically changed the direction of your writing? Or are you, right now, stuck in a series you’re no longer excited about?
Ron Estrada has multiple published magazine articles, including a regular column in the bi-monthly Women2Women Michigan. He also freelances as a technical writer, specializing in white papers for manufacturing and consumer products. He writes spec fiction, hovering somewhere between post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction (he prefers the term pre-Last Days), but has also dabbled in Mystery and Suspense. Turn-ons include long walks to Frosty Boy and dinner by Kindle light. His real-writer’s blog can be found at RonEstradaBooks.com. You can e-mail him at rmestrada@ameritech.net or catch him (at pretty much any time) on Facebook. Twitter handle is @RonEstrada. CB handle is God’s Gift.
A recent post on Writer
Unboxed quoted Donald Maass: “Since this proposal has been so hard to write,
ask yourself whether you are telling the right story.”
Sometimes our best laid plans falter. We assume we’re to
focus on one thing, one plan, and then it implodes, fizzles to nothing. And
we stare at a blank screen.
Has this ever happened to you? Has a critique partner or the voice in your head suggested you might not be telling the right story?
Just to keep things interesting in my writing world, I’ve spent years writing in one and a half genres (thinking they were two separate ones) with two series
and a stand-alone. Right now, my Carolina Coast novels seem to be my sweet spot. The characters of small-town Beaufort wave their hands to grab my attention just so they can introduce me to new neighbors. Neighbors with problems for the crew to fix.
Good, right? So, after Heavy Weather (Book 2) connected with readers, I knew I
had to finish the love story I’d begun in it.
So, enter Book 3. Six chapters in, three new characters and another big issue wiggled into the story, screaming for attention. That made three plots, which was at least one too many. The new wiggler became the genesis of Book 4 and caught my attention long enough for me to write eight chapters and imagine that Book 4 might actually morph into Book 3. Who cared? Flip one for the other. But then my daughter arrived needing help with her babies. Life intruded.
Two months away from writing may be nothing to some folk. I
thought it would be nothing for me.
I was wrong. When I once again sat staring at my screen, Book
3/4 had stalled. So, I reclaimed Book 4/3. Two more chapters in, and that one screeched to a halt. Oh, I
could write about 100 words a day, at which rate I’d finish one book in two
years. Two. Years.
Yes, I’m a slow writer, but that was absurd.
Then came the push for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writers
Month, and the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. With time off for the holidays,
right? My head hurt, but what if? I'd done it before when trying to finish Sailing out of Darkness. Could I do it again?
For someone who had been slogging away at 100 words a day, this would mean an increase in production that made me jittery. But a
goal is a good thing, right?
I signed up.
And on October 31, I woke to an idea. What if one of my
problems with Book 3 had to do with the clutter of too many story lines? What
if I nabbed the most pressing one (that holdover from Heavy Weather) and started an entirely new book with it? And
what if I tried writing a Christmas novella using those characters? The thought
caught my interest. I pulled those chapters out (8K words) and… then?
Oh, my, look what I found! Two new characters! Kids in need
of rescue!
Which is a favorite topic of mine. I want to rescue all
children. As I can’t do that in the real world, I do it in my stories.
I had found my sweet spot. And just like that, the book
wrote itself. I went from 100 words a day to 4000 words, then to 5000 words. Every day. Add
these to the 8000 words I’d already slid into place and I had the first draft
of a 35K novella completed by Day 8 of my marathon.
That has never
happened to me before.
But it happened because I was willing to change direction.
To imagine a new plan. To pay attention to the voices in my head whose story
cried out to be told.
Suffice it to say, my team rallied. My crit partners dug in.
I rewrote and polished and honed and sent it off to them again. Their edits
were swift and brilliant. I polished once more. And from my fantastic street team, four
angels offered their eagle eyes for proofing. While the manuscript was out with
them, I designed a cover, made a book trailer, and formatted the thing for
print and ebook. (I love Vellum, which formats ebooks for me.)
Normandie Fischer studied sculpture in Italy before receiving her BA, summa cum laude with special honors in English. Known for her women’s fiction—Becalmed (2013), Sailing out of Darkness (2013), and Heavy Weather (2015)—she ventured into the realm of romantic suspense with the release of Two from Isaac’s House. In early 2016, a novella, From Fire into Fire, will continue the Isaac House saga. Normandie and her husband spent a number of years on board their 50-foot ketch, Sea Venture, sailing in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. They now live in coastal North Carolina, where she takes care of her aging mother. You can find Normandie on her website,Facebook, and Amazon.
Your manuscript is likely big-boned. I know mine is. Over the years, your MS has picked up a few extra words here and there. But that shouldn’t be a problem. All of those skinny manuscripts are airbrushed anyway.
Besides, Stephen King (not that you’re him) has written a bloated book or two—or three—and no one minds. Yegads, he even re-released an already huge popular book (The Stand) with hundreds of words his editors originally cut put back in—so there you red-penned devils!
But seriously, your book is likely overweight and if it doesn’t lower its word count it won’t be able to compete. Time to trim and tone your book.
Weight Watchers, which helps you trim and tone your body, has four key principles that can be adapted to help you self-edit that extra verbiage from your manuscript.
Principle 1: Healthy word loss
Q. What’s healthy when it comes to word loss?
A. As trim as possible without sacrificing artistry or voice.
I think of it this way: If a word can be deleted, it gets deleted.
Cut the fat. Scour your writing for:
Introductory phrases: “The point I’m trying to make is...”
Redundancies:
“Josh estimated that they’d arrive in Minneapolis by roughly 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon.” (14 words) "Estimated" and "roughly" are redundant, as are "p.m." and "afternoon".
“Josh estimated they’d arrive in Minneapolis by 4:00 p.m.” (9 words)
Wordiness:
“Sarah knew that at her place of employment Jason was knee-deep in advance planning for the next year’s fundraising campaign.” (20 words)
“Sarah knew her co-worker Jason was knee-deep in planning next year’s fundraiser.” (12 words)
Principle 2: Fits into your life
Any approach at trimming your manuscript must be practical and livable. That means realistic goals. You are not likely to become Ernest Hemingway (renown for being succinct) straight out of the gate.
But you can set goals that will help you. Here are a few tricks:
That/Very: In almost every case, these words can be eliminated. Keep only the ones that add clarity or help with sentence rhythm.
Adverbs: Scorn them. “Adverbs are the tool of the lazy writer.” — Mark Twain
$$$: Pretend you are being charged a quarter for each word. If you take it seriously, you’ll start competing with yourself to pay less each time you write.
Principle 3: Informed choices
You need to learn not only how to cut your manuscript, but also why. If you know why, you gain the confidence to make the right choices for your writing. Here are some of the websites I often consult:
I highly recommend American Christian Fiction Writers as a place to get grounded not only in the craft of writing, but in the career of writing as well.
Principle 4: A holistic view
Finally, your approach must be comprehensive. Sustained word loss comes from practicing these and other tips.
One of the best ways to practice tight writing is in a writer’s critique group.
A proper critique group will, kindly and in love, kick your writing butt until you’re in shape. They’ll remind you of what you’ve learned (and of how often you’ve had to learn it). They will hold you down and sit on you until you’ve eliminated every extra word—and will expect you to do the same to them. With chocolate.
Michael Ehret loves to play with words as a Marketing Communications Writer for CHEFS Catalog and as a freelance editor at WritingOnTheFineLine.com. Ehret is the former editor of the ACFW Journal and has edited several nonfiction books, proofedited for Abingdon Press, and reported for The Indianapolis Star.
Steve
Laube, a literary agent and president of The Steve Laube Agency, has
been in the book industry for over 31 years, first as a bookstore manager where
he was awarded the National Store of the Year by CBA. He then spent over a
decade with Bethany House Publishers and was named the Editor of the Year in
2002. He later became an agent and has represented over 700 new books and was
named Agent of the Year by ACFW. His office is in Phoenix, Arizona. The following blog post is shared by permission from the
Steve Laube Agency blog.
James Michener, the bestselling novelist, once
said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” And today is
your day to follow suit.
No one knows your work or what you are trying to
accomplish better than you. In that sense you can be your own best editor.
Hemingway replied, “It depends. I rewrote the
ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was
satisfied.”
The stunned interviewer asked, “Was there some
technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?”
Hemingway said simply, “Getting the words right.”
Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory, said, “By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the
first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred
and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is
essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.”
It is the same for both fiction and non-fiction
since the principles are similar.
Overall Structure
Does your book have a natural flow? Do things
build toward a goal or do they flit about like a confused rabbit?
Recently I heard from a number of professionals
who have started having someone else read their work-in-progress out loud. This
is better than reading it out loud yourself because an objective read could but
the wrong emphasis on the wrong word and change the meaning of the paragraph.
Could you rearrange things better? Recently I
suggested a client remove three chapters from their non-fiction proposal to
bring the total to 13. Thirteen weeks equals a typical quarter of a year which
fits many small group and curriculum requirements.
Consider “numbers” when structuring something
like a devotional. 365 days. 90 days. 60 days. 31 days. All work. But remember
that 40 days is the number of days in Lent. But having something with 112
readings doesn’t add any sort of marketing hook to the project.
Word Choices
Look for repetitive words of pet phrases.
Recently I noticed a client’s proposal talked about the number of years they
had been doing something in consecutive chapters. Most likely the repetitive
sentence crept in during some previous cuts and text rearrangement, but when I
read it the first time the information jumped out as being completely
unnecessary.
Years ago I worked with a great writer who loved
to use the word “very.” I crossed nearly every instance of the word. After
sending him the manuscript I received an email with the word “very” repeated
500 hundreds times. He said he was trying to get them out of his system.
In a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine, captured on YouTube,
comedian Jerry Seinfeld discussed how he can spend up to two years developing a
joke. No matter what you think of him as a comedian you must admire this
attention to craft. The seeming simplicity of finding the right “funny” word
consumes his creative process.
One of my favorite tools for word choice is The
Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale (the hardcover edition). Often looking for
the right word spurs new inspiration.
Today is Your Day
It is quite possible to tinker with something
until it no longer works. But today release that fear and tinker away. Insert a
different anecdote into your presentation. Try a different opening to your
story. Give yourself a few hours of dedicated revision.
What are your favorite methods for effective
self-editing?
