What Kind of Editing Do You Need? Part the Third

In case you’re just tuning in, this post completes athree part series detailing the various freelance editing services offered by Yellow Bird. I promised to talk about copy editing in this edition. No really, I did. And you seemed okay with that. So here we go.

What is copy editing and how is it different from proofreading? To answer that, let’s start by defining the two levels of copy editing:

Standard copy editing includes corrections for grammar, punctuation, capitalization, verb tense, spelling, sentence structure, awkward phrasing, and word usage errors. Intensive copy editing covers all of the above with an additional focus on style, consistency, clarity, pacing, and dialogue.

So where does proofreading fit into the mix?

Proofreading is essentially the same thing as standard copy editing. However, the distinction is that proofreading is done on a PDF or print-ready file (for example, when getting ready to self-publish a book). In addition to correcting spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc., your editor will also check for visual disruptions in the text layout, such as widows and awkwardly-placed hyphens at the end of a line.

So if you’re just looking to give your manuscript a final once over before submission, then go with proofreading or standard copy editing. An editor will go through and fix only the mechanical things. This is probably the least subjective editing service because it’s all about the rules of writing.

But if you need a little more guidance, a little more spit with your polish, then you might be looking for an intensive copy edit which delves deeper into more subjective questions of style and usage. This slightly more expensive service is perfect for the writer who feels pretty good about the “big picture” but still needs help wrestling with clunky sentences and paragraphs before sending her baby out into the world.

And that’s that. We’ve reached the end of our journey. Now I’m off to a workshop/retreat at Austin’s own Writing Barn where I’ll start revising my own manuscript for a change of pace.

Happy writing!

What Kind of Editing Do You Need? Definitions Edition

Last post I blithely tossed around a handful of terms for the editing services Yellow Bird provides. I may have put the freelance editing process into the right order, but, because of space considerations, I didn’t fully describe what each type of editing entails. So, without further ado, allow me to present What Kind of Editing Do You Need, Part the Second.

Let’s start at the wide end, with content editing and developmental editing. What’s the difference between the two? I like to think of it in terms of editorial invasiveness.

If you’re looking for an editor to douse your manuscript in red ink, you probably want content editing. Your content editor will pore over every sentence in the book, making hundreds (sometimes thousands) of edits directly into the text to improve the content, flow, and style. Line edits are usually made using the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word, and broader comments about the text are inserted into the margins. This service touches on everything from big-picture commentary (character development, plot, pacing, etc.) to nitty-gritty sentence-level details. Unlike copy editing, which is primarily focused on fixing errors, content editing is inherently subjective and influenced by the style of the particular editor.

Follow this link to see how your pages will probably look when you get them back from a content edit. It can be daunting to see that much red ink on your baby like that. I won’t lie; it’s not for the faint of heart! More importantly, it’s not for the writer who hasn’t already taken her manuscript as far possible with critique partners and beta readers. Get your novel as clean as you can before you pay for this service. You don’t want to hire a pro to do what you can do for yourself, especially when you’re paying, on average, $6-10/ page.

If you’re not ready (or can’t afford) the rigors of a full content edit on your manuscript, developmental editing offers the same thorough, high-level feedback without all the line-edits. Yellow Bird offers two different types of developmental editing, depending on how you prefer to receive feedback:

With Developmental Editing Type A, your editor reads your full manuscript and compiles feedback in an extensive editorial letter, usually ranging from 6-8 single-spaced pages. This editorial letter covers feedback on a range of issues, including: pacing; flow of narrative; transitions; voice; plot; structure; dialogue; character development; audience; potential market. Obviously, this format necessitates a primarily big-picture focus. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get highly specific notes. My editorial letters are always heavily peppered with cited page numbers and quoted bits of manuscript text.

With Developmental Editing Type B, your feedback comes in the margins of the manuscript instead of an editorial letter. Specifically, your editor will read your draft, highlight passages that need attention, and insert a variety of comments in the margins plus “end-notes” after each chapter. The comments in the margins are usually specific to that page, whereas the end-notes summarize feedback for the whole chapter.

Either way you go, developmental editing does not provide actual rewrites. The revising remains completely up to you. But don’t think that means you’ll get off easy! Your editor will still put your manuscript through the wringer, believe me.

The last editing option I want to touch on here is the manuscript critique, which can be thought of as “Developmental Editing Lite.” With a manuscript critique, your editorial letter will likely be shorter (3-5 single-spaced pages) because your editor won’t go into as much depth or detail. If you are primarily just looking for an editor to help you see the big-picture (voice, plot holes, character arcs, etc.) a manuscript critique is usually sufficient. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for extremely thorough and detailed feedback, then developmental editing or content editing is probably a better choice.

Regardless of which editing service you choose, the end goal remains the same: to prepare your manuscript for the next step in its process, whether that’s another round of revisions or pursuit of publication.

Well, I’ve run out of room. So you’ll just have to wait until next time to read about the thrilling and nuanced world of copy editing and proofreading.

What Kind of Editing Do You Need?

I had a great time this past weekend at the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference. I spent most of it manning the Yellow Bird booth with Sara Kocek. A lot of the writers who dropped by felt unsure about how to move forward editing their manuscripts. In particular, many wanted to know what kind of editing they needed.

First off, if you don’t already have a critique group or a cadre of trusted beta readers, get one. These folks are your best first stop on the editing journey. The feedback a writer gets from these readers is invaluable, and it doesn’t cost money. Start there.

However, that is just the beginning of the rewrite process. I once heard YA author Matt de la Pena put it this way: critique partners look for different things than professional editors. In other words, your critique partners can only take you so far toward perfecting your manuscript.

But pro editors cost money, right?

Yes. We do. Which is why you need to do your homework and find an editor you can trust. Word-of-mouth referrals are the best way to start. Ideally, your editor should come recommended to you by a past client. When that’s not possible, Google the name of your potential editor to learn as much as you can about him or her. Editors often grant interviews, appear as guests on blogs, or publish articles online. Reading these pieces should give you a feel for their editorial sensibilities. Once you’ve made contact with a potential editor, don’t be afraid to ask questions. What kind of works have they edited in the past? Do they have testimonials? Can they provide samples of their editorial work? How long have they been editing? What’s their educational background and editorial training? If a freelance editor balks at answering any of these questions, that’s a red flag.

The bottom line is: you should feel as comfortable as possible before you write that check and hand over your manuscript.

Okay, so you’ve picked an editor you feel good about. Then what?

The Yellow Bird website breaks down the various types of editing services that are available as well as some of the rates. But how do you choose which service is right for you?

Think of the editing process in terms of an upside-down triangle, and start at the top. In other words, you need to identify and fix the big problems first. Address the major issues like plot and pacing, character arcs, and thematic resonance. Depending on your preferences and your budget, this means developmental and/or content editingis what you should spend your money on first.

It’s only after you’re through with this big picture phase of rewrites that you should move down the triangle, narrowing your focus to word choice, grammar, and spelling. This is the copy editing and proofreading phase of the process, and it should always come last.

Doing your editing in this order (even if you do it on your own without professional help) will save you hours — if not days or weeks — of duplicated effort. It’s hard enough to write a good book; don’t make it any harder by rewriting it in the wrong order.

The Outline is Your Novel’s Life Preserver

I wrote the ending of my WIP the other day. I finished the first draft of what will one day be a YA fantasy novel. It came in at about 57,000 words. After bragging on social media, I enjoyed the congratulatory comments and counted the ‘likes’ on Facebook while I finished the storm drain around the back of the house. It was a good day.

I met Joe O’Connell my first semester of grad school at St Ed’s. Joe teaches a great class with a modifiedNaNoWriMo format. It’s simple: if you do all the reading and exercises and take part in class, you get an ‘A.’ Oh, you also have to finish a 40,000 word novella rough draft. You know, while carrying the rest of that semester’s workload and, if you’re like me, holding down a job.

Early on, Joe insisted we make outlines. He didn’t insist we follow them, necessarily. He just wanted to make sure we had some kind of life preserver for when we found ourselves adrift in the middle of our stories.

Like many in the class, I scoffed. Obviously my teacher, despite having made his living as a writer for quite some time, was some sort of lesser being if he needed an outline. I bristled at the idea of hobbling my genius with anything as a base as forethought. But I also wanted an ‘A,’ so I half-assed something together.

Then I pretty much ignored that plan until the moment came, right smack-dab in the middle of my MS, when I found myself completely and utterly lost. Hmmm, I thought, maybe Joe was onto something with his zany theories. Desperate to get drafting again, I dug out my crappy outline. What I found there had little to do with what I had since written. But it did save me by reminding me of all my original, misplaced intentions.

I made it to the end and earned my ‘A.’ There was much rejoicing.

Then I read the thing.

Oh well.

At least I learned a lot about the process.

But that’s the past.

Last year I wrote a two part post on Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat. At that point, I was using Snyder’s three act structure manual as a map to create an outline for the draft I recently finished. (Snyder’s method can be applied to any writing genre, not just commercial films.)

Unlike during my grad school experience, I forced myself to make a strong outline that hit all the emotional beats my hero needed to hit. And I stuck to my plan. Don’t get me wrong, many of the specifics scenes I put into my outline didn’t make it to the page. But all the major points in my hero’s emotional arc landed where they needed to.

Pacing and plotting have always been my weaknesses. But keeping to my outline – and updating it as the storyline morphed – forced me to stay on emotional track even as the details of my story changed. It kept my plot rooted in my hero’s desires. And that translated into my most tightly paced and emotionally compelling work to date.

At least I hope it did. I’m forcing myself to wait as long as possible before reading it.

Then I’ll start making an outline for the second draft.

Rebutting a Point David Jauss Didn’t Actually Make

I recently learned that I’m a part of the herd in yet another depressing way. According to David Jauss, recent guest contributor on Brian Klems’s Writer’s Digest blog, my choice to write my WIP in the present tense is so “common place” it borders on cliché. Jauss’s post is an excerpt from his book On Writing Fiction. In it he makes the point that the present tense has become “the default choice for young writers.”

David Jauss

I’m certainly not claiming to be young, my beard’s almost as white as his, but I am an early career writer. As such, I’m always on the lookout for free and pertinent writing advice. So I didn’t delete that day’s WD email, “The Pros and Cons of Writing a Novel in Present Tense.”

By the way, kudos to Klems for crafting an effective subject line. It may seem uninspired at first glance. But it worked. It got me to read the post.

And that’s how I learned that a fundamental structural choice I had made for my debut novel is trite.

Or is it?

Jauss at least partly bases his conclusion on his experiences with his undergrad writing students. (And it’s only fair to admit that I’m probably being a bit harsh in my depiction of his views on verb tense. Sue me, I got defensive.) While he obviously views the “fad” of present tense writing as a bad thing – I’ll get to that in a bit – mostly he seems concerned with giving less experienced writers some tools to help them choose the right verb tense for their manuscripts. Choose being the operative word in the previous sentence. I applaud and support him 100% in that goal. I also thank him for sharing his list of Pros and Cons.

His post is worth reading, if for no other reason than Jauss’s (short) list of the limitations and advantages of the present tense. He doesn’t say anything new exactly – he is definitely aiming at a greener audience – but that’s part of his point. Which is the other reason his excerpt is such a good read. A well reasoned discussion of verb tense is long overdue. The quote he includes from one of his students really says it all: “Isn’t [present tense] the way fiction’s supposed to be written now?”

Jauss answers in the resounding negative, which is fine. Where I start to break with him is over what seems to be his assumption that the past tense is “the way fiction’s supposed to be written,” that its primacy has merely been usurped by a new trend. That writers need to return to the more venerated model.

How is that better? I hope his (alleged) implication is merely an accident of excerption. Otherwise, he’s simply advocating trading one thoughtless choice for another.

As his essay so nicely points out, both tenses have their advantages and disadvantages. Hopefully, he argues elsewhere in his book that there should never, ever be a default choice in any part of the fiction writing process. That every element of a well-crafted novel should contribute to the story, down to its tiniest word. Because that’s what the great writers do: they make thousands of great choices that result in great fiction. They weigh the pros and cons of each detail and never rely on any short-hand settings, no matter how time honored. Jauss tacitly cedes this point when he states that “the best writers almost always seem to know, either consciously or intuitively, when to use present tense.” Until I read his book I can only hope that this is the lesson he’s teaching his students and not that they should simply replace one lazy habit with another.

And now, mostly because I can’t help but be a smart ass (and because I’m still feeling a bit defensive), I want to offer a quick critique of the validity of his preference for the past tense. Isn’t its use the real cliché choice? After all, Professor Jauss himself calls it “a tense that has served authors since the very inception of fiction,” which is sort of the definition of trite. I’m just saying.

Ah, but I must tread carefully, lest I engage in a debate about an argument he actually made. And where’s the fun in that?

Instead I will simply conclude my rebuttal of the argument David Jauss did not make, confident of my rhetorical (and completely imagined) victory.