storytelling

Just below I've posted an example of how an editor might communicate with an author. Actually, this is drawn from a recent letter transmitting a first-round edit for author review. (Details have been changed to protect confidentiality.) This particular assignment was unusual because this author prefers red-pencil edits on actual paper. Most editing today is done electronically until the galley-proof stage. No matter the medium or how the comments are exchanged, however--or how the manuscript itself is eventually transmitted--it is true that the more "clean" the manuscript, the happier everyone will be. Including the author. And now to the excerpt:

"It is important to be mindful of consistency. In nonfiction, it is also important to stick to standard, accepted editorial conventions. A writer of fiction has considerably more leeway where, for example, spelling, grammar, and punctuation are concerned. In these cases, however, the author's choice must be applied consistently. This comforts the reader, for lack of a better term. It brings readers on board rather than throwing them over, and it enhances their ability to stay involved in the story as the author intends. Here are a few things you might want to consider:

· Spelling consistency: You'll see many notes from me about this. You might want to designate one dictionary (it can be an older one, used during the years when your story takes place) to establish your rules for terms and for spelling throughout the manuscript. This must be carefully handled, and the style sheet we've developed together will keep us on track. Its use will ensure that Superfortress, for example, always appears just so, and never as superfortress or Super fortress or super fortress.

· Compound adjectives: you will find several comments from me about these. In contemporary writing, the tendency is to 'close' compounds: 'moon-lit' has become 'moonlit,' for example. You tend to use the hyphenated form most frequently, and I think this is a good thing. It contributes to the old-time and slightly more formal tone that is perfectly aligned with the setting and your characters. But again, you should be consistent. This is where your own style guide for this novel will be helpful. If you use moon-lit once in a book or a story, you should always use moon-lit rather than moonlit in that same book or story. Where an adverb is involved, however--such as with 'wickedly pointed'--you might want to consider not using hyphens at all. But again, if you do--and you can; after all, you're the author--you should do so consistently.

· Commas: in the beginning of the manuscript, you use commas a little more liberally than you do later on. Again, modern usage calls for fewer commas, rather than more. However, you are the author and can do as you wish. It's my feeling that by using more, you retain the old-fashioned rhythm that serves your setting and characters well. But you must be consistent within the rules you decide on. One guideline? Read the sentence or paragraph or section aloud and see if it 'sounds like' something your characters would be comfortable with. Beware of mixing contemporary language with that from the 1940s--and for this book, you might want to choose the forms that are just slightly stilted. Your characters are from another culture--and one that is considerably more formal than ours, then or today.

· Novel-specific conventions: you will find notes regarding the Ph versus the F form of Raphael/Rafael; and other, more subtle conventions: Her Imperial Highness The Empress, for example (all words are capped, including The). Again, once you decide which form best suits your intent, you should always be consistent within the same novel or story.

Only a few times do you step out of your narrative stance as a neutral observer. I've marked those. I've also made a good many other marks, all intended to serve the integrity of your story and characters. I hope you find these useful and do not take offense."

So there you have it: the last of my two cents on this topic. My thanks for the opportunity to speak up about what it is that manuscript editors and copyeditors do.

Posted by Cheryll Greenwood Kinsley at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

The other things first: note that Cheryll dropped by yesterday and has some interesting things to say. My personal favorite:

the style and preference of the author must be respected. It is the editor's job to make the author's life easier. It is most definitely not the author's responsibility to make the editor's life easier.

This reminds me of something else. Once you get to the stage of pre-publication -- which means that you've bested the odds by finding an agent and selling your novel -- you have a distinct but seldom mentioned advantage. The publishing house is a business, looking to make a profit. If they could do that without authors -- without you -- they would. It would certainly increase their profit margins. But they can't do without good authors who have stories to tell. That's you. Everybody at that publishing house has a job that depends on you and people like you. So it's in their best interest to support you, and it's in your best interest to let them do their jobs.

end of homily

So the next of the seven rules:

Rule 3

Resolving Conflict does not (necessarily) mean a Happy Ending

A satisfying story will set up various conflicts, some large, some small, and then step by step it will move toward resolution, but resolution doesn't necessarily mean making every character happy and fixing everything that's wrong. Resolution can mean disaster, disappointment, resignation. It can mean that the bad guy gets what he wants and the good guy gets killed, though to pull that off successfully you have to have other things going on as well.

Not every question raised has to be answered. In fact, I personally prefer stories that leave me to figure some things out for myself. Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where are you going, where have you been?" is a classic specifically because it doesn't answer questions, and leaves the reader in a state of uncertainty. It would have been a far less powerful story if it had ended with a one paragraph police report that tells us exactly what happened to Connie.

Finally, let's say this straight out: there is nothing wrong with a happy resolution. I am a huge fan of Jane Austen, and Jane Austen wrote happily ever after stories. In this day and age the literati tend to sneer at anything that doesn't fall within the culture of ugly, but that's a fad like any other, and it will, eventually, pass (and then, eventually, come back again). One of my favorite all time novels, A.S. Byatt's Possession, plays it both ways, and beautifully. There are two sets of major characters -- one in the Victorian era, one in the present day. For one of these sets of characters the endings are melancholy, even tragic; for the other, the resolutions are decidedly optimistic, even happy.

The story is done when you've resolved major conflicts while (1) staying true to the characters; and (2) leaving something for the reader to do.

I'll end this rule with a widely-told writer's joke.

Aspiring author comes into a publisher's office. He's carrying a huge manuscript wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. He staggers up the stairs and into the publisher's office and drops it to the floor with a thud.

The guy says, "Mr. Publisher, how long is your average novel?"

The publisher considers. "I'd say around 100,000 words."

"Oh good," says the guy. "I'm finished."

Posted by at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know authors and assigned editors sometimes have sniffy relationships; but when it works the way it's supposed to, the editing process serves authors and their works (and publishers) very well.

There is a huge difference among various editorial functions. These range from acquisitions editor (or executive editor or managing editor or senior editor) to developmental editor, manuscript editor, and copyeditor. There is an equally huge difference between categories--fiction or nonfiction--plus the many subgroups of these: novel form, short story, poetry; creative, academic, technical, to name but a few.

I speak here of manuscript editing, which is sometimes called copyediting--although many of us make a distinction between the two.

In all cases, manuscript editors (and/or copyeditors) should serve as helpmates to authors. An experienced editor does a great deal of hand-holding and is always deferential to the author. He or she takes on the responsibility for grappling with the hobgoblins that drive authors to distraction and put their muses to sleep or into a snit: everything from trade names (marking jello as Jell-O) and spelling (the tractor is a John Deere [not a John Deer]; "I believe you mean this to be the word discreet rather than the word discrete") to pointing out repetitive words and disjointed rhythm, to safeguarding consistency--characters' names, locations, time, season, and so on. The manuscript editor must protect the author's intent and the integrity of research--and make sure the manuscript complies in all ways with the house guidelines. Much of this has to do with the mechanics of language and veers off into format.

It is easy to see that there are different rules and approaches between, say, a historical novel and an academic text. But even within these subgroups, no single approach ever fits all.

Many authors resist being edited because they think--and sometimes this is based on unfortunate experience--that the editor will try to push them into places they don't want to go. Force them at pencil-point to use serial commas. Make them change the names of their characters. Revise their plot, misconstrue their findings, mess up the pace of their story. As a result, they submit manuscripts with snow falling in July, the maid Edna becoming the maid Emily in the tenth chapter, and the hero picking up a flashlight at noon. Perhaps the setting is the southern hemisphere, the maid has multiple personalities, and the hero must take action during a solar eclipse. If so, of course they should stand. If not, the editor must bring them to the author's attention. These sorts of errors (plus typos and unintentional grammar garbles) disconcert publishers; cause eruptions (and cost overruns) during the production phase; and, if allowed to slip through, annoy readers no end. Gadflies among them write letters posthaste.

You can glean from this how I react when I read of an editor waggling a finger in an author's face while insisting the author follow at all times in all respects The Chicago Manual of Style. If that editor will inspect her Chicago, she will find explicitly stated in section 2.56 (15th ed.) and implicitly stated throughout that the style and preference of the author must be respected. It is the editor's job to make the author's life easier. It is most definitely not the author's responsibility to make the editor's life easier. That would be like cleaning your house before the housekeeper arrives. If you have a housekeeper who comes in and shrieks, "Look at that dining room. What a mess you've made of it! And look how you've dirtied your bathtub!" then you have the wrong housekeeper.

This is one of my two cents on this topic. The second I'll post tomorrow.

Posted by Cheryll Greenwood Kinsley at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)