Final Update

Well, I launched my new blog, StarLit, in August. It's going swimmingly and I've had an influx of requests for book reviews. Swing by and check it out for yourself.

Ciao, and thanks for reading!

The end of this incarnation

After months of struggling to post, I've decided to change the focus of my blog to something I feel I may be more prolific at: writing about reading. Books I love, hate, and want to read. What sets these books apart and why these authors are worth caring about.

I will post more details soon. Thanks for reading!

Audience is everything

You've written a novel. You want to get it published. So, you think, "I'm gonna send this off to some publishers."

That's probably not the wisest thing to do (unless this is your fifth manuscript and you have a contract lined up already). Instead, I would suggest the following course of action:

1. Think about your audience. This means deciding who's going to enjoy your book, or figuring out who it was you were writing to (there's always someone, or some group).

Photo by El Chupacabrito

 2. Define your audience. You should be able to answer the following questions on the demographics of your audience: Are they women? Men? Both? What age range do they fall in? What are they getting out of my novel?

3. Evaluate your manuscript against your audience demographics. Is my language level, voice, and tone suitable for this audience? Will this audience enjoy my content? Am I presenting the content in a way they'll understand and appreciate?

4. If necessary, re-write or edit your manuscript to address any audience-related problems. If you've hired an editor, they can help you with this step.

You can bet that any publisher who considers your manuscript for publication will be asking these same questions. To a publisher, your manuscript is a product they're trying to sell. If they don't see a market for it, or if they need to make large-scale changes to make it marketable, it's unlikely they'll offer you a contract.

An open mind is a valuable thing

I always have this expectation that my clients will get defensive when I bring up touchy issues about their manuscripts. It's not easy telling someone they've written themselves into the manuscript, and that this mirror-character is unnecessary and could be removed without making any difference to the story.

Photo by Nic McPhee

I was buffeted with warnings from professors to take care when offering comments and critiques. Writers could be nasty, they said. They could ignore your comments because they don't like your tone. They could get down on themselves and give up. They could do any number of aggravating things if they thought you were being snotty or flippant.

But I haven't encountered any of these terrifying writers. All my clients have been open-minded and interested in improving their work. It might be that first-time authors are still unsure enough of themselves to be open to suggestions without a lot of bargaining. Or maybe I've just been lucky. In any event, I'm prepared for that unavoidable client who thinks being edited isn't so much a chance to improve than an opportunity to waste money on someone determined to blast their work with red pen.

So, to you writers considering being edited, I say keep an open mind. Maybe your editor has some good ideas, and maybe they don't. But refusing to even consider an option would be like closing the door in the face of opportunity.

A defense of bandwagon fans

Having a hockey fan for a father has meant being aware of the NHL my entire life. I could probably tell you the name of every hockey team if I thought about it long enough, which is pretty impressive considering I don't especially like hockey. Not watching it on TV, not playing it, and not talking about it.

But, somehow I know that the Canucks have never won a Stanley Cup (they, along with Buffalo, have the 2nd-longest Cup drought--40 seasons). And somehow, this seems to matter to me.

I think it must have to do with regional pride and national identity. Even us Canadians who don't like hockey care about the status of our teams. The position of the Canucks in NHL hierarchy seems to be one of the ways we measure our value on the North American stage. Canadians in the East are cheering for the Canucks, because they're the last Canadian team standing.

So, here I am, jumping on the bandwagon. I want our name to move to the bottom of the drought list. I want to see Henrik Sedin hoist the Cup to the jubilation of thousands of screaming fans. I want the Canucks to bring Stanley home to Vancouver!

The miraculous powers of the follow-up email

I used to think that people who didn't get back to me were a) jerks,  b) not interested in hiring me, or c) not worth the effort. But it turns out that most of them are d) slow responders or e) forgetters.

Hence the power and importance of the follow-up email. It usually takes place after I've sent them my estimate for working on their project. I wait a week, and if I haven't heard anything, I send the follow-up. 

I get one of two responses: 1) Sorry, I'm not interested for x, y, z reasons, or 2) Hi. Thanks for emailing me! I want to hire you to do a, b, c. I didn't get back to you because of l, m, n sound reasons. Voila! A contract! All for five quick minutes of my time.

I think there are some people who want to be wooed, especially if they don't know you yet. And while it is often true that someone who doesn't get back to you isn't interested, finding out from them that's the case, and why it's so, is invaluable. You can use the information to tailor future estimates and to understand your market better.

Upcoming event for writers in the Greater Vancouver area

I'm an active member of the Editors' Association of Canada. As the PR chair for the BC branch, it's my job to come up with useful events that promote the branch and our members. So, on August 13, EAC-BC will host a Blue Pencil event in downtown Vancouver. It's an opportunity for writers to get free input on their work from EAC-BC editors.

As coordinator, I will provide a selection of editors with varying specialties (fiction and non-fiction) for writers to choose from. Interested writers can submit an excerpt (no more than 15 pages + synopsis) of their book, story, or article manuscript, and indicate their top 3 choices for editor. The editor will read the excerpt and prepare a reader's report. At the Blue Pencil event, writer and editor will meet to discuss the report, and the editor will be available to discuss any questions the writer has about the editorial process.

Having a professional analyze your manuscript for strengths and weaknesses for free is wonderful opportunity. All of the editors taking part in this event will be doing so in the hopes of gaining new clients, so I expect top-notch work from all of them. There will be between 40-60 spaces available for writers who want to participate, on a first-come, first-served basis. 

We have a lot of great editors in our membership, and I hope you'll be able to find someone to create a lasting relationship with.

I'll be drawing up an official info sheet soon. I just thought I'd give my readers a heads-up. If you have any questions, you can post them here, or email me at bcpr [@] editors.ca.

Editors are a friendly bunch

What's always impressed me about freelance editors is their willingness to share marketing and business-building ideas with one another. I was attending the Editors' Association of Canada's annual conference this past weekend, and everyone I spoke to had some advice to give. We were constantly gabbing about our respective methods for gaining clientele, and it seemed as though I was the only one thinking "Isn't she my competitor? Why is she giving me all these good ideas?"

Maybe as a young fiction editor, I didn't seem like much of a threat. Maybe there's plenty of market share to go around. Or maybe we're just a really pleasant bunch. I like to think it's the third option.

I came away from the weekend feeling rejuvenated and ready to commit to improving my online presence (one of many tips). Hopefully this post will be the first of a steady stream.

The only thing that "self-publishing" and "stigma" have in common these days is the letter S

You can't really call self-publishers "vanity publishers" anymore. Once, writers who weren't good enough or marketable enough were forced to turn to self-publishing as a way of disseminating their work. What would follow was months or years of attending book fairs and bargaining with independent book stores. If you were web-savvy, you could publish on your blog.

Now, the world is changing. There's Lulu for ebooks and a bazillion print-on-demand websites to choose from. And, if you choose to go that route, you're Adventurous, Modern, and Sharp.

I came across an article discussing the new trend towards self-publishing. M. J. Rose talks about how and why a published author opted for self-publishing an ebook over taking a traditional contract.

So, the next time you get the dreaded rejection letter from So-and-So's big publishing house, consider being your own publisher and marketing department. All the tools you need are waiting for you. But keep in mind, many of these outfits don't offer editorial input on your manuscript. They expect that you have done the work in advance, and that the manuscript is ready to be published as-is.

Taking the SkyTrain. A little bit cozy, a little bit smelly, a lot faster than driving.

Every morning, Monday to Friday, I spring up the escalator (really, I do!) past the heavy-eyed elevator-standers leaning on the right-hand rail, and past the transit worker trying his best to look authoritative. I may step in some gum, I may step in some vomit, I may even side-step around someone drunkenly weaving across the platform. But I will invariably take my spot beside the garbage can to await my chariot.

It's occasionally gleaming, usually white, and politely speeds me along to my destination with my fellow charioteers. Those charioteers, for the most part, are a quiet bunch. They blink sleepily, fiddle with their phones, and listen to their MP3 players. Of course, there's always the occasional irritant among them: the guy talking loudly into his phone, the girl with the music blaring out of her headphones. But these people only serve to highlight the genteel nature of the rest.

Aboard the train, I read my book, nestled into my seat and my neighbour. Said neighbour and I ignore each other in equal measure. Occasionally, said neighbour smells like pancakes and syrup, but most days he or she either doesn't smell at all, or has coffee breath.

I H.A.T.E. hate coffee breath. It's almost as bad as wine breath. And when I smell it, I wanna jump off the train and into my climate-controlled, breath-stench-free car. But I don't.

Instead, I stand up and move to another part of the train. I try to take a seat beside someone who looks alert, like me (oddly, the coffee-drinkers are usually the ones slumped over, sleeping with their mouths open. This appears to aid in the spread of the coffee-breath stink). I do this because I remember what my commute would be like in a car. For one, I wouldn't be zipping through East Van already. I'd probably be fighting to get on the highway in Burnaby somewhere. Some jerk would be giving me the finger. Commercials would be blaring in my ears from the radio (except when it's the traffic announcer announcing an accident 2 cars ahead of me). My car would be circulating the exhaust from the junker truck in front of me. And I would probably be fifteen minutes late for work already.

So, I sit beside perky passenger number two, and find my place in my book. In five more minutes, I'm getting off and springing up the escalator to walk the three blocks to my office. Any vestiges of bad breath-scent are washed away by the breeze off False Creek. I may have to use my umbrella, I may not. But I sure as hell don't have to find a parking spot.

My mom says my manuscript is amazing! Why should I bother hiring an editor?

I can't tell you the number of people who have contacted me about editing, and who, when they discover it takes time, effort, and--yes!--money to do it, seem to vanish into thin air. I can only assume they've been inexplicably transmuted into a cloud of pungent vapour and blown away on a breeze.

But seriously, people like me exist for a simple reason. And this is it: your writing needs work. Probably a lot of it. No one can simply sit down and turn out flawless writing with the wisp of a smile and not a single bead of perspiration. If that person existed, he or she would probably be universally hated. But let's stay on track here. The kind of work that a manuscript needs to make it publication-ready is rarely the kind that writers are able to do themselves. They're too close to it, and so you probably are, too. To bring a manuscript to publishable form, you have to be ruthless from time to time, something that's remarkably hard to do when you're faced with tweaking or removing some lines/ paragraphs/ chapters that you really like. You look at them and remember old times, or how you struggled to find that perfect word. You're blinded to the words on the page; often, what you see is your intent rather than what's actually there.

Recently, after a meeting to discuss plot possibilities with a client, said client mentioned that he'd been working only with word order and grammar during his past few re-writes, and hadn't stopped to consider tweaking the plot itself, or the characters. It seemed to me (vain, puffed-up editor that I am) that he realized what I was really there to do for him: to be a set of eyes that don't just see what's good (I do that, too), but to find a way to merge his intentions for the manuscript with what he actually produced. Sometimes the two are fairly close, but sometimes they're worlds apart. And it takes an unbiased set of eyes to really evaluate that in a manuscript.

So, I'm not saying your mom lied to your face. She probably did think your manuscript was amazing, and I'm sure she's insanely proud that her offspring has written a manuscript. But it's her job to support and encourage you. An editor's job, however, is to critically evaluate the manuscript and work with you to make it even more amazing.

Like a needy ex-flame, narrative has an eye to smother your story

It's true. You may have once looked at narrative as an interesting descriptive tool, you may even have been caught up by the way it took your story so seamlessly from one plot point to the next. But in reality, narrative's just a petty writing tool with low self-esteem. Even narrative won't think well of you when you splash it all over your story. It knows that you're probably using it as a way to avoid using scenes. Narrative has a specific purpose in writing and knows it, but it just can't help going along quietly when you decide to use it for 70% of your story--it wants the attention!

The good news is that it'll accept large deletions of its influence on your manuscript. Like I said, narrative knows when dialogue, inner monologue, or even a scene jump is a better fit. But maybe if you stop using narrative so much in the first place, you wouldn't have to remove so much of it when you get around to revisions. You never know, using less might even improve its self-esteem.

There are people who have found a way to allow narrative to wear the pants, but they are a rare breed. Most of us can't find that delicate balance of approach that allows the narrative to take centre stage, describing the events of the story in beautifully understated terms, while still allowing for the creation of engaging scenes.

So, unless you're the next Tolkien, stop to think before dropping narrative a line. Maybe it's what you need, but maybe it isn't. Just remember that dialogue and inner monologue may be waiting by the phone.

Introduction to The Moonlit Editor

Welcome to my blog! It's the future home of tips, insights, and rants on everything the modern freelance editor encounters. That means I'll be chatting you up about my commute, my projects, and anything else I have to tackle while freelancing in Vancouver.

I'm also looking forward to sharing my ideas on writing well and getting published.