What Reading Does for Writers

How gratifying it is to read a book that grabs your interest from the start and keeps you turning pages. Such books cause you to forget you’re reading; you become fully engaged with the story and characters. The movie in your mind is fluid. No matter the genre, such an experience is pure bliss for readers.

This is the experience writers want to create for readers, or should want to create for their readers. However, there’s one vital thing new and “young” writers should keep in mind: writers who achieve this with their books work very, very hard to make writing seem easy. A great deal of effort goes into making this happen.

What does this have to do with what reading does for writers? A lot. But it requires you to do more than just read a book. In fact, it may help at the start if you read a book for your own enjoyment the first time then read it again to pay attention as a writer. Here are some things writers who read can focus on, to their benefit.

Vocabulary: Reading strengthens your vocabulary. It also can remind you of excellent word choices you may not think about or haven’t thought about in a while. Make a note of any words that resonate for you, whether this relates to developing characters or plot. You might even create separate lists for words that relate to physical descriptions, body language, settings, emotions, and so forth, and keep them on hand when you write.

Plot Devices: Observe how good writers develop plot, how they set pace, how everything that happens works. This includes how characters react. Never have a character do anything, especially that’s out of character, just to fit something into the plot. If you have to do that, you have a plot hole regarding plausibility that needs to be fixed.

Dimensional Characters: Notice what causes characters to stick in your mind or hold your interest. What makes you care about them or detest them? Notice how the writer develops characters over time, rather than all at once. Pay attention to what you come to expect from characters, and how they surprise you.

Punctuation: Pay attention to how sentences are structured through the use of punctuation. When are colons, semi-colons, ellipses, em-dashes, and commas used? What about hyphenated words? Notice how seldom, if ever, exclamation marks are used. What about single and double quotation marks, especially for dialogue? Be aware there are several significant differences in punctuation usages between American and British writing. You don’t want to confuse them.

Proper Format: You’ll see there is only one space between sentences, not two. Two spaces were needed when people used typewriters. Now that computers are here, use one space only. This is industry standard. Also note that paragraphs are indented and that there are no spaces between paragraphs. Note how scene changes and scene breaks are handled. Note how dialogue is handled: each character’s dialogue lines are always indented the same as a paragraph.

Pace: Sentence length creates rhythm and influences pace. You want to mix what’s considered long beats and short beats, without overdoing either. Longer sentences slow pace, which is sometimes desirable. Shorter sentences, including effective sentence fragments, speed pace. This is usually more applicable for action scenes, which you want to happen at pace. What you want to watch for is that no action scene takes longer to read than it would take to happen. Here are examples of beats:

Mary stood. She smoothed her hair and tucked loose strands behind her ears. She paused. Then she slapped Mark’s face. (Short, long, short, long)

Mary stood. She tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears, and then she slapped Mark’s face. (Short, long, long)

Setting: You always want to give readers a sense of place. Seeing how a number of excellent and best-selling writers handle setting is beneficial. How much description is included? Notice how the writers blend setting with plot and character development. You’ll never please every reader. Some like long, detailed descriptive passages; some don’t. Use what you feel provides enough description for the story, without slowing pace.

Let what you read stimulate ideas—your own ideas; don’t copy. How many times has the original story of Cinderella been rewritten in various ways? Or stories by Shakespeare? It’s said there’s nothing new under the sun, just new ways to write about it. You can learn by observing and studying what writers of the books you love and admire do to make their stories fulfilling, entertaining, engaging, or thought-provoking. But do keep in mind that time and effort went into choosing every word you read, likely through several revisions.

I wish you the best with your writing and progress.

Joyce L. Shafer provides developmental/substantive editing and book evaluation services, especially but not solely, for new writers. Details about her services, plus her e-book for aspiring and new writers—Write, Get Published, and Promote and her special reports—How to Get an Agent for Your Book or Choose Self-Publishing Instead: Tips, Lists, and More and How to Get Your Book Started: Plan Your Work Then Work Your Plan are available at http://editmybookandmore.weebly.com/ . 

Do you feel like a writer? What would it take?

Feeling Like a Fraud

by Moira Allen, Editor of Writing-World.com

Reprinted with permission by Joyce L. Shafer

http://newwritertips.blogspot.com/

"I wish I was a real author. I truly do." "I'm sure true authors do not work like this." "I still feel like a fraud."

Do you ever have thoughts like these? Do you, in the dark of night, whisper them to your pillow, or scrawl them in a locked journal? Do you occasionally confide them to other writers? Have you, perhaps, even whispered them (if e-mail can be said to whisper) to me?

If so, you're probably assuming that the opening lines of this editorial came from a writer much like yourself. Probably, you're thinking, some other reader has written to Your Intrepid Editor with a question much like that which haunts your own thoughts: "Why do I feel like such a fraud? When will I feel like a 'real' writer?" And, indeed, Your Intrepid Editor has read similar statements in other writers' newsletters, blogs, and, yes, personal e-mails.

But I did not stumble across those lines in the newsletter or blog of a writer "much like myself" or, perhaps, "much like yourself." (OK, I'm making an assumption about YOU - I can only say with confidence that this writer is, statistically speaking, not so much like me.) They did not arrive in a heartfelt e-mail from a struggling writer seeking to affirm his or her identity.  

OK, enough suspense. The person who wrote those lines was none other than Terry Pratchett ("A Slip of the Keyboard"). Now, if you already know the name, little more need be said. If you do not - Terry Pratchett is "currently the second most-read writer in the UK, and seventh most-read non-US author in the US" (Wikipedia). He's actually SIR Terry Pratchett, having been knighted in 2009 for "services to literature." He has sold over 85 million books worldwide.

Well, all right - even someone who goes on to sell 85 million books and receive a knighthood for literature probably had doubts early on, right? Um, Probably. But Pratchett didn't write those lines back in the early 1980's, when he might indeed have wondered whether Discworld would "catch on."  He wrote them in 2004, when, by his own estimation, he'd sold 45 to 50 million books (and was already an OBE, if not yet a knight). Yet he could still say, with complete sincerity, that he felt like a fraud.

My first thought was that if, after 50 million books, Terry Pratchett could feel like a fraud, what hope was there for the rest of us? For I do, indeed, hear many writers say the same thing - including writers whose productivity makes me feel as if I must be spending most of my days in a hammock sipping daiquiris. So why DO we (and I do mean "we") feel this way?

I'm sure therapists could have a field day with the question. For myself, however, I believe the feeling stems from two inter-related causes that are common to nearly all serious writers.  

The first is an inborn love of books. Chances are, you're a writer because, first and foremost, you are, and have always been, a reader. You may not even remember a time when you didn't love books. Perhaps you can remember not only the books that meant the most to you, but even where you were when you read them for the first time! I can still remember the first time I read Mary Stewart's "The Hollow Hills," or E. Nesbit's "The Railway Children," or Tolkien's "The Hobbit," or the way my sister and I practically fought over the right to be the first to read the latest James Herriott. More importantly, I can still remember the feelings of wonder and amazement and - for lack of a better word - EXPANSION - that these books evoked. Reading was sheer magic. If you know what I'm talking about, I don't need to explain it; if you don't, there's no way that I CAN explain it.

The authors of such books seemed to me, and I suspect to many of us, to be scarcely less than gods. How could mere mortals create such worlds, such magic, such wonder? Books took us by the hand and led us places we had never gone or even imagined, opened our minds to ideas that we could never have conceived alone. They didn't simply change our lives; they molded our lives.  

As we took our own first fledgling steps as "writers," that view of "authors" as distant, godlike beings with amazing powers never left us. We might, if we were lucky, MEET the "greats," and perhaps gain an autograph, but live and walk amongst them? Hardly! "Real" writers, "real" authors existed in some distant galaxy. They were not common clay like us.  

Herein lies the first problem. Think for a moment about the book that meant the most to you at some point in your life, a book that you'll always keep on your shelf - perhaps a book you don't even need to read anymore because you have it stored in your heart. Think for a moment what it meant to you and why. Now... Imagine yourself being the AUTHOR of that book. Imagine that it was YOU who created those words, those worlds - you who made such a difference in the lives of your readers.

Not so easy to do, is it?

Now for the second root. Because we admire "real" authors so much, most of us have sought avidly for any bits of advice, nuggets of information, or pearls of wisdom that such authors might cast in the paths of humble would-be writers like ourselves. And many authors DO like to dispense advice. This one writes out scenes on 3x5 cards. That one gets up at 5 a.m. every morning and writes 500 words before breakfast. Another has a rule of writing a certain number of words every day, no matter what. One keeps a dream journal; another carries a tape recorder everywhere. Over time, we build up a mental picture of what "real" writers DO - and what, perhaps, we DON'T.  

Meanwhile, we go through life acting like everyday humans - scratching, sneezing, scooping the cat litter, and, quite often, writing stuff that makes us think perhaps we would have been better suited for a high-tech career in ditch-digging. Whatever we do, we know we're NOTHING like the idols who shaped our lives through the books we adored. And if we're nothing like them, how can we be "real" writers?  

Of course, there are plenty of would-be writers who don't share these feelings of angst in the least. There are those who have scarcely read a book, and pay little heed to the advice offered by "experts." They are also, quite often, those who pay little heed to such trivial matters as grammar, punctuation, spelling or plot - but as they often point out, that's what editors are for! Based on some of the e-mails I receive, however, such writers have no difficulty convincing themselves that they are "real" writers (their main complaint generally being that they haven't, thus far, been able to convince anyone ELSE).

If my theory is correct, then, what gets in the way of "feeling" like a "real writer" is a lifetime of being a "real reader." It's the avid, "don't stand between me and a book" reader who harbors these impressions of authors as being larger than life, impossibly greater than thee and me. But notice that I used the word "feeling" in that opening sentence. Being a "real reader" may,
indeed, help keep one from "feeling" like a "real writer." It doesn't prevent one from actually BEING one.  

If Terry Pratchett can sell 85 million books and get knighted without feeling like a "real" writer, then it seems to me that perhaps I don't have much to worry about. "Just get on with it," I suspect he'd say. In fact, it's rather liberating to realize that, at the end of the day, I don't actually HAVE to "feel" like a "real writer" at all. It doesn't matter. Because Pratchett has taught
me one more thing about "real" writers: 

REAL writers, quite often, feel like frauds!

Copyright 2015 Moira Allen

Moira Allen is the editor of Writing-Wrold.com ( http://www.writing-world.com ) and the author of more than 350 published articles. Her books on writing include Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer, The Writer’s Guide to Queries, Pitches and Proposals, and Writing to Win: The Colossal Guide to Writing Contests.

Writing Tense

Writing tense doesn’t refer to how tense a writer may feel when writing, but is instead about the tense the story is written in. There are a few no-no’s about this that writers, especially new writers, should be aware of.  

It doesn’t occur often, but occasionally a client sends me a manuscript written in a moment-by-moment manner, as the story is supposed to be happening. Example: Mary walks into the room and looks around. She sees the vase has been moved and puts it back into its proper place. Mary then walks to the sofa and adjusts one of the pillows.

Sorry, but this is not a novel—it’s stage directions for a play. And this is never ever how a novel should read. An acquaintance shared that an agent told him his manuscript would never be considered as long as it’s written in this manner. His is a compelling story (based on the few chapters he let me read); but until he revises it, it will stay a file on his computer and an unfulfilled dream, unless he self-publishes it as is, which is not a good idea.

A client who wrote her novel this way approached me initially for a critique (developmental evaluation). Among other creative and technical suggestions, I advised her to revise the entire manuscript so it was in the proper tense and so that proper editing could be done. Yes, I could have rewritten it for her as part of developmental editing services instead of a critique, but that would have taken a good deal of time and expense; plus, she learned a great deal from the revision experience. Her book has an agent’s interest, which would not have happened otherwise.    

I ask you to consider why people read novels (and non-fiction) of any genre—it’s so they are taken into a mental/emotional space different from the one they're in. They want to sit back and let the story be a movie in their minds. A novel written in present tense (action as it happens) does something specific: it requires the reader to work. It's akin to asking a viewer to watch a movie on the screen and act out the parts of the characters at the same time, rather than sit back, watch, think, and feel. 

This writing style (and a few others) does something specific: It takes readers out of the reading experience they expect to have. This is not something readers appreciate. Readers prefer not to be reminded they're reading. They want the story to engage them, yes, but not in this way. A balance has to happen with writing—what's good for the writer and what's good for the reader. If only the writer is satisfied, this does not bode well for the book or the writer.

Anything that takes readers out of the reading experience is best avoided (writing style, typos, seriously misused punctuation, junk words, extraneous scenes and dialogue, etc.). You do have to trust your head-and-heart alignment about your writing, but you also benefit from paying attention to readers' responses to it, which includes responses from a developmental editor, whose primary concern is or should be to help you make your book the best it can be.

One client wrote a short story as part of a collective and did use as-it’s-happening narrative in that one instance. But we handled this in a specific way: We made it a news-type story delivered by a narrator, which was integral to the story, and is akin to listening to an announcer on the radio. Had it not been crafted this way, it wouldn’t have worked and would have contrasted with the other stories in the book that were written in the proper tense. It’s one thing to do this in a way that works for a short story and another for a lengthier novel. You don’t want to wear readers out while reading, if they’ll stick with it, that is.

I say this because I'm not just a developmental editor. I'm also an avid reader of many fiction and non-fiction genres. If the way a fiction or non-fiction book is written (which includes memoirs) annoys me, I won’t read it (it’s different, of course, if I’m wearing my editor cap). I’ve been trying to slog through a book someone gifted me with that annoys me no end to read. Nearly every sentence—and this is not an exaggeration—starts with a gerund or a participle. There are other annoying factors, but this one really stymies my ability to get through the book to learn what the author meant to convey. (Example: Understanding a choice had to be made Mary walked to the window and looked out. Realizing the choice wouldn’t be easy she stared out the window, yet saw nothing. Walking to the door she put her hand on the knob and paused. Turning the knob she walked out; her decision made. Knowing what she had to do, she dialed Mike’s phone number. Hearing him answer after the first ring, she hesitated.) Perhaps you can see how tedious it becomes to read something written in this way. And, sadly, it seems it could be a good book (based on the relatively few pages I’ve managed to read), if only an editor had advised the writer properly.

Let’s get back to writing tense. It’s also important that you don’t change tense in narrative, something I have seen a few writers do. (Example: Mary walked into the room and looked around. She sees the vase has been moved and puts it back into its proper place.) You can shift tense in dialogue because people do speak in past, present, and future tense; but you have to stick to one tense—the right tense—in narrative. Now, relax and write tense well.

I wish you the best with your writing and progress.

Need a Book Doctor or an incentive to write or complete your manuscript? Let Joyce L. Shafer be your writing coach, developmental editor, or provide a critique. Details about her services at http://editmybookandmore.weebly.com/

The Importance of Setting in a Fiction or Nonfiction Book

Setting is integral to story, just as the characters and plot/theme are. Setting is about balance: you don’t want to give too little description and you don’t want to overdo it.

Setting is where the story and each scene take place, which you know. But do you grasp that setting can set the tone and mood readers experience, and can reveal and or trigger characters’ moods? You want to give enough (not too much) description for each scene to set the appearance, atmosphere, and mood for readers so they are clear enough in their own minds about the general or specific image you intend for them to have. It may help to create a list or essay description for your scenes (like a character sketch) and keep these handy so you stay consistent throughout the scenes and story.

Give places texture through description. Here’s an example from a James Lee Burke novel:  

“They drove back onto the four-lane and crossed the bridge over the wide sweep of the Atchafalaya River. From the bridge’s apex, Morgan City looked like a Caribbean port, with its palm-dotted streets, red-tiled roofs, biscuit-colored stucco buildings, and shotgun houses fronted by ceiling-high windows and ventilated green shutters.”

As I said, it doesn’t have to be overdone, just give readers something that helps them form an adequate image in their minds and sets mood and atmosphere—and gives them a sense of place.

Here’s another example from a James Lee Burke novel that puts “place” to where his main character lives: 

“I drove home at 5 p.m. and parked my pickup truck under the porte cochere attached to the shotgun house where Molly and I live in what is called the historical district of New Iberia. Our home is a modest one compared to the Victorian and antebellum structures that define most of East Main, but nonetheless it is a beautiful old place, built of cypress and oak, long and square in shape, like a boxcar, with high ceilings and windows, a small gallery and peaked tin roof, and ventilated green shutters that you can latch over the glass during hurricane season.

The flower beds are planted with azaleas, lilies, hibiscus, philodendron, and rosebushes in the sun and caladiums and hydrangeas in the shade. The yard is over an acre in size and covered with pecan trees, slash pine, and live oaks. The back of the property slopes down to the Teche, and late at night barges and tugboats with green and red running lights drone heavily through the drawbridge at Burke Street on their way to Morgan City. At early dawn there is often ground fog in the trees and on the bayou, and inside it you can sometimes hear a gator flopping or ducks wimpling the shallows.”

You want to make the inner and outer landscapes in your story as real as possible for readers. You want readers to feel as if they’ve been there, to feel connection to the story through location. They want to feel this, too. If you intend to or are writing a series with the same character or characters, you will have to describe some settings (and character descriptions) in each book, when appropriate, but with only enough information to give adequate description to new readers and refresh memories for those who follow the series.

A character’s scene setting can influence or reveal something about his or her internal landscape, as well. How you do this is more important than what you use to do it with. Here’s an example from an Elizabeth George novel (British—so spellings of some words are different):

            She parked the Mini with one of its front tyres on the kerb and went to see what the Breakwater had to offer. Not much, she discovered, a fact that other diners must have been aware of, because although it was the dinner hour, she found herself alone in the restaurant. She chose a table near the door in the hope of catching an errant sea breeze should one fortuitously decide to blow. She plucked the laminated menu from its upright position next to a vase of plastic carnations. After using it to fan herself for a minute, she gave it a look-over and decided that the Mega-Meal was not for her despite its bargain price (£5.50 for port sausage, bacon, tomato, eggs, mushrooms, steak, frankfurter, kidney, hamburger, lamb chops, and chips). She settled on the restaurant’s declared specialty: buck rarebit. She placed her order with a teenaged waitress sporting an impressive blemish precisely in the middle of her chin, and a moment later she saw that the Breakwater Restaurant was going to provide her with its own form of one-stop shopping.  [My note: She found a current newspaper with an article she needed to read on the front page.]

Look at the extraordinary amount of information revealed in that paragraph. You get a sense of so many things: what a traditional or culture-based meal might include; approximate time of day; either she’s a poor car parker or didn’t bother about parking better on this occasion (has a lot on her mind, perhaps; but if she does this often, you have a sense of what kind of ride her Mini is and its condition); she picked a place to eat that obviously is not a local favorite (is her choice because of location, unfamiliarity with the area, that’s she’s on a tight budget, is a spendthrift?); it’s hot as heck—she sat by the window, hoping for a breeze; the description of the menu (laminated) and the plastic carnations give visual images and an indication about what kind of place this is (service and food quality); she finds something there she needs other than just something to eat: a current newspaper. Of course, if you read this particular novel or the series it’s part of, you know the answers to the questions in parentheses; but you can see how much information is provided by setting the scene, even in one paragraph.

Always give readers a physical location to “land” in (including an address with a made-up numeral; though, a numeral isn’t always needed, as in the Burke example). You can boost sense of place if you use street names and highway names and their numbers—to make the story more realistic for readers. For example, Rex Stout placed the house of his orchid-growing detective, Nero Wolfe, at an address on West 35^th Street in Manhattan. The number part of the address, if real, would be in the Hudson River, but even though some readers may be aware of this (or not), they can identify with the surroundings or look up the street on a map so they get a sense of the neighborhood and where it fits in the layout of Manhattan. You may also have to make up brick-and-mortar businesses, etc., but keep these as realistically located as possible, if you’re using a real location.

How you handle setting matters because clarity is imperative. Everything you write creates a sequence of scenes in the minds of readers—they are experiencing a number of things simultaneously, so you must present them with information in a proper, reliable order. It’s mind-boggling as a reader (and as a developmental editor) to approach a scene and have the terrain alter from the original image the writer created in your mind as you move through the scene. One client didn’t have a particular scene setting clear in his mind, so just kept adding what he thought would be interesting or challenging for the characters in the scene (I was utterly confused about what the setting was supposed to look like, which I explained to the client). This kind of disorganized, willy-nilly scene creation makes readers (and editors) feel as though they were plucked from a stable environment and dropped into an altered reality. Unless your novel is about altered realities, don’t do this to readers; and if it is, make sure you do this with skill and clarity. Also don’t have what characters need appear out of thin air. Say a character needs a hammer. Unless you’ve set up where the character gets the hammer from, don’t have one appear in his or her hand from nowhere (unless your character is a magician or wizard). Everything has to be logical, even in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

One thing you might do is take photos of exact locations or locations that resemble ones you wish to create or use in your story, including exterior and interior photos (get permission, if needed—but notes can always be made without permission). This way, you have references you can pull from for descriptions and how scenes unfold when the terrain is important to the scene. (Most businesses won’t mind if you give them good promotion in your novel, but they will mind if you don’t—so make one up, if it plays a negative role in the story.)

You want settings to be as clear and real as possible for readers so you maintain the integrity of the story and readers’ ability to follow and connect with the story, scene by scene.

I wish you the best with your writing, process, and progress.

Joyce Shafer

“Editor, Joyce Shafer. What can I say? Simply put, no Joyce, no book. Part editor, part coach, part teacher, Joyce was absolutely phenomenal throughout the entire editing process. Working with Joyce was like taking a graduate course in writing with your all-time favorite teacher and you were the only student. I just can't say enough good things. Allow me a shameless plug for her services. ~ Eric Berbig, Author of The People’s Will

Work with Joyce L. Shafer as your writing coach or developmental editor. Details about her services, including The Chapter-by-Chapter Get-Your-Book-Written Writer’s Incentive Coaching at http://editmybookandmore.weebly.com/

Don’t Put the Cart before the Horse with Your Manuscript

A writer, especially a new writer, is understandably excited and eager to get his/her manuscript to an agent for consideration or self-published. But, it’s imperative you submit writing that shows an agent there’s reason to be interested in you as a promising writer, or make certain it’s ready to self-publish.

As a writer, you are attached to your manuscript—your baby. I get that. As someone who provides services for writers, I get attached too . . . because I care deeply about assisting clients to have better experiences as writers, with their first and subsequent manuscripts.

If you, for whatever reason, don’t use the services of an editor, please let up to three people read through your manuscript and give feedback, before you send it to an agent or self-publish it. If this is something you don’t choose to do, or if you do, read your manuscript aloud to yourself—and not at a rapid pace, before you let anyone else read it. You will catch things you didn’t see before and you’ll also hear how it will sound in the minds of readers.

I’m not saying this because it’s what I do, but because it’s a fact: one thing every writer, especially a new writer, needs is a developmental editor s/he trusts. Here’s why—and it’s something from The Creative Penn I wish I’d written:

“My manuscript came back covered in red ink/littered with Track Changes. I’m really upset by the comments. How do I cope with the difficulty of being edited?

Okay, here’s the sad fact: If your editor is not returning a manuscript covered in red ink/littered with Track Changes, you need a new editor. That’s our job. Our number one goal is to make your work look brilliant. We aren’t judging you, we aren’t trying to make you look bad, and we certainly aren’t saying your writing isn’t fabulous. We’re saying: “Hey, good manuscript—here are the things you can/should do to make it even better.” Because that’s what you’re paying us to do.

It’s hard to divorce yourself from the emotional element of producing this creative work, and to begin to view your novel as a product (I know—I used the ‘P’ word) rather than the flesh of your flesh. The editing process, however, is a great place to start doing that.  Take a deep breath, recognize that all writers go through this pain, and try to listen objectively to what your editor is saying about your work.”

There are best-selling authors who do a number of revisions before they ever submit a manuscript to their publisher. Some do as many as ten revisions (some do more) before they even consider it submission-ready. And there are those like best-seller Elizabeth George who do all the preparation first, before ever starting the draft. George explained that when the manuscript for her first novel came back from her publisher, it was accompanied by forty or so pages of notes, and nearly all of them addressed character development. So she focused on improving her skill with this. Her second novel came back with around thirty pages of notes that mostly focused on developing setting; so she worked to improve that. She then created a system that allowed her to develop these (and all the scenes) prior to writing the draft because, she said, she wanted to avoid having that level of major revision, as much as possible, ever again. When she submitted her third novel, it was accepted as it was. She’d done the work beforehand and it paid off. (All writers have one or more people read what they’ve written before they send it to an agent, publisher, or self-publish it—or they should.)

Note: No matter how ready you or your editor feels your manuscript is for an agent to consider it, even if the agent loves what you’ve written, s/he may still make suggestions. And if a publisher picks you up as a writer, the editor assigned to you may make suggestions as well. It’s a fact of life in the industry.

After providing services to new writers for going on two decades, I can tell what level of skill and knowledge of the craft the writer has and can then base my recommendations on this. I do what I do not only to show them how to improve their manuscript but also to assist them to improve as a writer, which is what proper guidance should accomplish. Not all writers want this. They prefer to write and let their editor fix and polish what they wrote, a service that can, at times, border on ghost writing for the editor.

If you’ve yet to experience a revision, it’s a process of clearing out what doesn’t belong, filling in any gaps in plot and or character (or content for non-fiction) development, tightening the writing as needed, clearing up the technical matters (spelling, punctuation, etc.), possibly reorganizing the structure, and doing this until everything flows from start to finish. Sending your manuscript to an agent or self-publishing it before you are certain it ALL works is a disservice to you as a writer and the time, energy, and effort you put into your manuscript so far. It’s also a disservice to readers.

Okay, I understand that editing costs, especially developmental editing; and the cost is always a result of the level of service the editor has to provide. The better skilled the writer is the less time involved for the editor. But your editor can, will, or should be able to tell you when your manuscript is ready for either self-publishing or submission to an agent.

Too often, new writers believe they can make one revision to their work, based on their editor’s suggestions from that first viewing, and then deem the manuscript done—in final form—ready to go to an agent or be self-published. This may or may not be the case; it often isn’t. More often than not, one revision just gets the manuscript closer to where it deserves to go.

One of my clients made my suggested revisions, but did not send it to me to check it or to a proofreader before she put it into print. Not only are there major typos (and formatting issues), but some of my notes were left in, as well. This is something that can and should be avoided. Let’s face it: typos happen even in best-sellers, but some things should never be included in your final product, especially your editor’s notes to you.

One of the best things you can do for yourself and your manuscript is find a developmental editor you trust—whose services clearly demonstrate benefit to you as a writer and your work—and then listen to what s/he advises. If you work with an editor you trust, then also trust him or her to advise you as to when your manuscript is ready to go. I’m not saying don’t trust your instincts, but don’t send your submission to an agent or put the manuscript into print before it’s truly ready. You don’t want to overwork a manuscript, but it is never a good or wise idea to be in a rush with it either. Make your manuscript the best you can before you move it forward.

I wish you the best with your writing, process, and progress.

Joyce Shafer

“Editor, Joyce Shafer. What can I say? Simply put, no Joyce, no book. Part editor, part coach, part teacher, Joyce was absolutely phenomenal throughout the entire editing process. Working with Joyce was like taking a graduate course in writing with your all-time favorite teacher and you were the only student. I just can't say enough good things. Allow me a shameless plug for her services at http://editmybookandmore.weebly.com/ ~ Eric Berbig, Author of The People’s Will

Work with Joyce L. Shafer as your writing coach or developmental editor. Details about her services, including The Chapter-by-Chapter Get-Your-Book-Written Writer’s Incentive Coaching at http://editmybookandmore.weebly.com/