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Community Publishing for the community

Good Editing is Tough Love

13/11/2018

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A writer that I know has just published her third novel​. It's great, her best yet.

In her case, the main reason that it's so much better is that her plot is better controlled than in her earlier books. It's as though she's had a piece of paper by her side on which she's already mapped out the narrative, like a route marked out on a map. Perhaps she did exactly that.

I thought her first book wasn't very well edited, to be honest. A debut novel is often a bit random, lacking discipline, and the author is often too closely attached to it. As a result, an editor's advice given is often ignored, or taken in hurt. In this case I suspect that the editor of her first book simply was too gentle to spell out in words of one syllable just what needed to be done. He wasn't brutal enough.

You'll notice that I haven't named the author in case she reads this! But the (de facto) editor of that first book was me, and so... well, the book didn't do as well as the author might have hoped. But her novel was essentially a good one and maybe one day, when she's rich and famous, she'll get the chance to re-write it.
In the meantime she dumped me for another editor, someone I think she knew less well and was therefore able to tell like it is.

These days I'm much more experienced as an editor and if something needs to be said, it's better said. A poorly-edited book never sells well. Not that the writers necessarily listen, of course, and it's only natural to hear criticism more loudly than praise. But remember that if an editor says a book should be edited in various ways, it also means it can be edited – it's got real potential. If it can't be edited, it's probably only fit for the bin.


Gordon Lawrie's editing services are available through his own website.

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Get your facts checked out!

5/11/2018

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I've had quite a few manuscripts of historical fiction novels submitted in the last few years. By and large they're well enough written, although all too often the writers get a little too keen to give me a history lecture. As I've said so often before, historical fiction is simply a good yarn set in the past. The essential elements of the plot should work no matter even if set in the present.
 
I understand the appeal of historical fiction for writers. Historical research allows an escape from present-day drudgery, a chance to delve into another world where your boss is non-existent, the latest pressures of work are far away, and the heart can operate at a slower rate altogether. Stamp collecting, golf, chess, yoga and knitting all do the same thing, I'd imagine.
 
But if you set your book in a past era, make sure your research is thorough. There's no excuse, say, for having your central character meet Queen Victoria in 1904 when she'd already been dead for three years. Yet that sort of stuff gets written. You don't have to get it right straight away, but you have to allow your manuscript to be checked for blunders and then be prepared to edit accordingly. I'd call that technical editing*, checking that the details in the background stack up properly. If you were writing a crime novel, or a science-based work, you'd surely let an expert run an eye over it. Historical fiction is no different.
 
You might have researched a period extensively, but a trained historian knows how and where to look to check your details. Get your history right and, like Tolstoy, your novel might one day end up as essential reading for history students. Get something wrong and your readers will end up laughing at you. Because in every field, be it arts or sciences, researchers are known not for their best piece of research but rather for their worst blunder.


* I've written about developmental editing and line editing elsewhere.

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