Editing Phases

Not that you asked for this, but because someone I know had nooooooo idea what I’m currently doing to put bread on the table (“Um, writing?” was the guess), I thought I’d share what I do before I announce the winner of John Howell’s scrumptious novel, Eternal Road. Feel free to mentally check out if you’re not interested. Or, find yourself some coffee/tea and a doughnut/muffin/cookie/peanuts/whatever if you are.

 

I mentioned in a previous post that I wear many hats. These days, I am a freelance book editor/writer. Some people think editing is glorified proofreading—that all I do is check for typos and maybe correct a few mistakes in grammar.

Usually, when I’m hired by a publisher to edit a novel, I have to do what’s called a revision pass on the book. During that phase, I read the book and make notes on what the author needs to revise before the line edit occurs. This is the big picture phase. I have to say what works and what doesn’t. This is the place to address issues of character/perspective, setting, timeline, etc. Some big picture issues, however, don’t rear their heads until the line edit begins.

At this point, I’m not yet communicating with the author—just the in-house executive editor, publisher, or managing editor (whoever hired me to do the work). But this is the phase where I might say, “This character is not doing anything for this book. I suggest you cut him/her” or “Maybe this scene should come from this character’s perspective.” I often have to make hard calls like that. Another hard call is to say, “This scene that you’ve probably worked on for two weeks has to go, because it’s not advancing the plot one iota.” Believe me, I’ve been there in regard to cutting cherished scenes. (I’m the one who worked on a scene for two weeks only to have someone tell me to cut it.) So having to say that to someone is hard.

Some of you might be getting mad right about now, wondering how dare I tell an author to cut a cherished scene. But I do it, because that’s my job. I don’t work for the author. I work for the publisher. My job is make sure that whatever book I work on is acceptable to the publisher. So I can’t be a pushover in this regard. After all, would anyone want a dentist to tell you to keep the cavity you worked on for a year? If it’s hurting you, it has to go. But I will do my best to be fair. After all, editing choices are not a spur-of-the-moment choices. They come through a careful analysis of the book.

If the deadline is tight (and I don’t know too many publishing deadlines that aren’t these days), I’ll get a head start on the style sheet while the author revises the manuscript. The style sheet is a list of every character, place, and animal in the book, as well as other important proper nouns (wars, inventions, festivals, setting details), and issues the copy editor or proofreader might run up against. If the author spells a word a certain way (good-bye versus goodbye), that has to be noted as well. Terms that could be spelled a certain way have to be verified via the dictionary to avoid any confusion for the copy editor, proofreader, or anyone else who works on the book. Terms and grammar issues also have to be verified through The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) and the publisher’s style manual. I have to turn in the style sheet when I turn in the edited manuscript.

It’s a challenging job! Though as I mentioned I don’t work for the author, I am the author’s advocate. Everything is done to help that person’s book to shine.

Reinforcements I sometimes need when the going gets tough

I’ll stop here and get to the winner of John’s book. And that person is Laura Bruno Lilly. Congrats, Laura! Please comment below to confirm.

Edit image from clker.com. Proofread image from dreamstime.com. Other photos by L. Marie.

Check This Out: Eternal Road

Today on the blog I’m happy to have the one and only John Howell here to talk about his latest novel, Eternal Road. It was published on August 23. Go here to read a synopsis of the book. Now, give it up for John!

  

John: Thank you so much for having me on your blog today, Linda. I certainly appreciate being here with you.

El Space: My pleasure, John. Four quick facts about yourself?
John: 1. I write every day.
2. I’ll be 80 years old in the spring.
3. I am a pantster and do not outline my work.
4. When I begin a novel, I write the last three lines and then go back and write to that conclusion.

El Space: Groovy! What inspired you to write this book? I can’t help thinking of a film from 1978 called Heaven Can Wait. The premise of that film is nothing like your book. But the life-after-death aspect of your book made me think of it.
John: I wanted to do a historical fiction novel. While I was doing the research, I wrote a short story that started with a couple hitchhiking, and then as the characters came alive, it went in a different direction. Sam, the female protagonist, is reminiscent of a childhood friend who moved away. James, the male protagonist, exhibits the feelings I had as a boy when I lost my childhood friend. She did eventually die when we were both 30. The story is pretty much a way of coming to grips with that double loss so many years ago.

El Space: I have to ask if there is a story behind the use of a 1956 Oldsmobile. Please shed light on that.
John: When I was in high school, a neighbor had a 1656 Oldsmobile identical to the car on the cover. I used to wash and wax that car and fell in love with it. I wanted to honor those memories somehow, so the vehicle is in the story as a tool for Sam and James.

El Space: Time travel also is an aspect of the story. What are some of your favorite time travel stories?
John: I’ve read and seen so many, but I have to say The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is my favorite. Another one was on The Twilight Zone, where a successful guy went back in time to start over for the thrill of building an empire all over again. He went back to the time before the automobile and tried to get people to help him make one. Of course, no one had the skills, so his trip (and deal with the devil) is a waste.

    

El Space: C. S. Lewis once mentioned,

All my seven Narnian books . . . began with seeing pictures in my head. At first, they were not a story, just pictures. The Lion [The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe] all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood.

When you think of developing a story, which comes first for you—images in your head? The characters? The plot?
John: This is like asking a golfer if they inhale or exhale before their swing. Let me think a moment. I think my stories come about as a result of the images in my head first. These images can be relatively sparse and only a partial picture of what will become the full story. After the images, I then concentrate on the characters. The characters guide the story, and as they develop, they have a hand in developing the plot. Many times, the characters will create plot points by merely acting the way they usually would behave. In Eternal Road, a massive scene develops in the basement of a house due to following the instincts of the two characters. They are in the place and want to look in the basement. I had not planned to have them discover something there until one character all of a sudden said, “I wonder what we will find in the basement.”

El Space: What genre would you love to tackle that you haven’t yet?
John: I would love to write a pure Science Fiction book. I think it would be fun to create a futuristic world complete with political and social infrastructure. At this point, I’m not sure if it would be a thriller type of Sci-fi story or not. I do think the characters would have to be from Earth and on a mission of some sort. I would hope the mission would be one that, if accomplished, the Earth would be better off. Maybe something like word has been received that the inhabitants of a nearby system have discovered the cure for Cancer. The mission would be to go to a planet and bring back the cure. Of course, it would not be all that easy. Maybe the therapy only works on those who carry the DNA of ancient space travelers who visited the Earth many centuries ago. Everyone else who gets vaccinated for the disease dies. Well, I guess it would be a thriller after all.

El Space: Wow that sounds great! Hope you write that book someday. In the meantime, what will you work on next?
John: I had not intended to extend Eternal Road into a series. There have been a couple of reviewers who flatly state that it should be a series. I was going to get to work on a long-awaited story of one of the characters in my John Cannon Trilogy. His name is Ned Tranes, and he is the police chief of Port Aransas, Texas. Now I think Ned’s story is going to wait another year. He is very patient since he has been waiting for three years already. The last encounter we had, Ned’s wife, was taken hostage by a band working for the drug cartel. You know nothing good can come from that. Well, let’s hope they treat his wife nicely until we can get back to set her free.

 

El Space: Oh dear.
John: So I think I will jump in and write book two of Eternal Road.

Good idea! Thank you, John, for hanging out with me.

Looking for John? Check his blog, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon.

Looking for Eternal Road? Click here!

One of you will find a copy of Eternal Road on your device or in your mailbox. Comment below to be entered in the drawing. Winner to be announced on September 30.

Other books by John:

 

Author photo and Eternal Road book cover courtesy of John Howell. Eternal Road book cover by Roseanna White Designs. Other book covers from Goodreads. Twilight Zone logo from Bloody Disgusting. Heaven Can Wait movie poster from RogerEbert.com.Sci-fi image from wallpaperup.com.

Cover Reveal: A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity

I love cover reveals, especially the ones in which I get to participate. The marvelous Nicole Valentine, whom you remember from this guest post, is back with the cover of her middle grade science fiction novel, A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity (Carolrhoda Books/Lerner) due out October 1. Nicole is represented by Linda Epstein.

Take a good look. Drink in the greatness.

Now, let’s talk to Nicole.

El Space: For quick facts about yourself?
Nicole: I love falconry and want to train my own hawk or falcon someday.
I am a technologist and author, but I also used to design cross stitch samplers! They were from the vantage point of famous classic characters in classic literature.
I also knit and I used to be the Chief Technology Officer of a site called Craftopia.com which was great because I got free yarn.
All our family pets have literary names, Merlin, Arthur, Tink, and Pickwick.

El Space: Oh man! Wish I could get free yarn! Now, let’s talk about that cover. It is fabulous! So colorful! I also loved your first cover reveal at MG Book Village. How long did it take you to write this debut novel? What made you stick with this story?
Nicole: It’s so hard to say how long it took. I’ve been writing this novel on and off for years and the novel has changed many times. The first seed of the idea came to me when I was just a teenager. I didn’t start writing it in earnest till I went to VCFA where I met you! Almost all of the stories I have came to me when I was younger or are built on ideas from the past. Everyone should hold on to their journals!

A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity is about a very practical, science-loving boy who discovers all the women in his family can time travel. I have been fascinated with time travel since I was a child and this story explores not just the adventurous side of being able to travel in time, but all the emotional and moral conflicts that would arise. I describe it as A Time Traveler’s Wife meets Tuck Everlasting. While there is plenty of page-turning adventure inside, it is also a heartfelt story about family and loss.

   

El Space: What expectations, if any, did you have about the cover? What elements did you hope to see? Who is responsible for the cover design and illustration?
Nicole: I was hoping that the artist would not give the main characters a certain look that would color the reader’s perception. I know when I was a kid I liked to picture the characters for myself. I was thrilled when this was the route that Alice Brereton took. She also goes by the name Pickled Alice. I’ve yet to meet her, but I’d love to thank her.

El Space: What was your response to seeing the cover for the first time?
Nicole: I was thrilled at how it jumped off the page and hopefully it will jump off the shelves come October too! It captures the magic and the mystery of the book really well.

You can pre-order A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity now from Indiebound, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. But one of you will receive a pre-order of the book just for commenting. Winner to be announced on April 2 (rather than April 1, lest you think this is an April Fools’ Day prank). (I will not have a post next week, by the way.)

The official book synopsis:

Twelve-year-old Finn is used to people in his family disappearing. His twin sister, Faith, drowned when they were three years old. A few months ago, his mom abandoned him and his dad with no explanation. He clings to the concrete facts in his physics books and to his best friend, Gabi to cope with his sadness. But when his grandmother tells him the family secret: that all the women in their family are Travelers, he realizes he has to put his trust in something bigger than logic to save his Mom.

Looking for Nicole? You can find her at her website, steaMG.org, Twitter, and Instagram.

A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity book cover and author photo courtesy of Nicole Valentine. Other covers from Goodreads. Hawk from dreamstime.com.

A Writer’s Process (3b)

We’re back with the fabulous Nicole Valentine discussing her process and her book, The Idle Tree. If you’re tuning in for the first time, this is part 2 of the discussion. Please check out part 1. Thanks to all who joined in the discussion yesterday. Now, let’s get to it!

El Space: What was your biggest “ah ha” moment concerning your process? How did you come to this discovery?
Nicole: I was writing scenes and they were all fine and good. Everything in them was necessary; there was no passivity. The formula was there; yet still I felt like something was wrong. I knew it wasn’t a character or plot issue; it was something bigger: structure. I went back to the Structure Queen, aka Franny Billingsley, author of The Folk Keeper and Chime, and enlisted her help. She was integral in making me realize what was missing: the cog-like effect each scene should have on the next.

The cogs metaphor worked well for me. When I was a kid, I had this terrible Milton Bradley game called Downfall. I say it was terrible, because compared to Life and Clue, it’s like playing tic-tac-toe with a stick in the dirt. However, when it comes to understanding scenes, it’s a great visual to have, so I’m including a picture here.

El Space: Pictures are good!

Nicole: There were these cogs you had to turn in order to get your little round disks to fall and land in your well. If you didn’t line up your cogs correctly, your opponent could get their disks down before yours. A scene is like a cog in your novel. It must work like a precision instrument. The cog must deliver that reader into the next scene and the next. Your reader is that happy little disk that wants to land in the well of victory, aka “satisfying resolved plot-land.” If you just keep stacking cogs with no thought of how the scene will deliver them to the next cog, well, that will be your downfall. See what I did there?

El Space: I think so. You need a strategy to keep a reader invested. Speaking of investments, what steps do you take to safeguard your writing time?
Nicole: It’s hard. I have a wonderful and supportive husband who treats parenthood like a shared job, and I’m so thankful for him. He’s my first reader, too. Motherhood and the day job can put demands on the writing time, but I’ve learned to treat them as opportunities. I’m known to copy down interesting habits and facial tics in a boardroom for use later. I try to treat my writing time like an office job. I write at night as well. It’s midnight as I’m answering these questions, so you’re getting silly Nicole with lots of references to my misspent youth.

El Space: Ha ha! This is probably the time to hit you up for favors! But moving on, some authors feel they have to dumb down scientific concepts because they’re writing for kids. How will you make the science accessible, yet challenging for readers?
Nicole: I suppose I’ve spent a large portion of my life explaining technology to those new to it. I refuse to speak in jargon. Good teachers always find a corollary in the student’s knowledge base they can use to describe a new principle.

As for my own principles of time travel, they are really quite simple. Finn doesn’t need things to be dumbed down, and I believe my readers won’t either. I like to reside in that area where science falls short and conjecture begins. There’s this wonderful line where science and magic meet. That’s where you’ll find me.

El Space: Me too! What time travel books inspired you?
Nicole: My favorite time travel is less sci-fi and more magical realism. I’m more intrigued with time travel as a natural occurrence—no machines. My favorite novel of all time is Jack Finney’s Time and Again.

I’m a native New Yorker, and the city is as much a character in that book as the protagonist, Simon Morley. The first time I read it, I was so enchanted with it that I had to take the 5th Avenue bus to work every morning, even though it meant waking up an hour earlier. Time travel is part nature and part science in this book.

You can probably guess that my favorite series growing up was Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (book 1). More recently, I’ve enjoyed Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, which I thought was so brilliant the pages actually glowed when I turned them. Did anyone else notice this?

El Space: I’ll say yes, since I loved that book!
Nicole: I’ve also enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Michael Crichton’s Timeline was brilliant for the tie in of physics. As for non-time travel books, I love anything by Charles de Lint and Alice Hoffman. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern blew me away. I’m convinced she can write setting like no one else, it might not have been time travel, but I was definitely in that circus with her. I also love craft books. I keep a Pinterest page of favorites that many author friends help me curate: The Craft of Writing.

El Space: How did your technology background prepare you for writing your novel?
Nicole: I suppose it’s prepared me to get a handle on structure and plot. The planning ahead in creating an application is similar to outlining a novel. When I’m not in outlining land, I think the comparisons end.

When I’m pantsing (yup, still hate the term), it feels more organic. Something inside my brain takes over, and it just flows. That doesn’t happen to me with coding. There is nothing that beats the feeling of a successful writing session, one where the muse stood by your shoulder the whole time.

Thanks so much, Nicole! This has been awesome. If you have questions for Nicole, please comment below.

Stopwatch from dreamstime.com.

A Writer’s Process (3a)

Greetings! Jonesing for books about time travel? (I sure am.) With me on the blog today is another friend from VCFA who has written a book about—you guessed it—time travel. (Huzzah!) Put your hands together for the erudite and elegant Nicole Valentine!

El Space: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Nicole: I’m a writer and techno geek with a deep and abiding love for all things literary. My day job has always been in technology. I’ve been the Chief Technology Officer to Internet startups since the mid-1990s. My first job leading a tech team was at CNN where my official title was Webmistress. Yes, my business card actually had that printed under my name. It was a great icebreaker at parties.

El Space: I’ll bet!
Nicole: Many who follow me on Twitter (@nicoleva) know me for my work at Figment.com, a community for lovers of YA fiction to meet and share their own writing. This was, by far, one of my favorite online communities I’ve had the pleasure of creating. All good things must come to an end though. I have since taken a much needed break to concentrate on my writing. I needed to give some time to the insistent voices in my head.

Most of my work is middle grade. I do have one YA novel waiting patiently on my desktop, and a short story for adults published in the Oermead Press anthology, Chester County Fiction. In 2012, I earned my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from VCFA. This makes me a Secret Gardener.

El Space: Holla!
Nicole: I live with my caring husband, brilliant daughter, and two maniacal cats just outside of Philadelphia.

El Space: Cool! I’d love to stop by there at some point! But for now, I’m dying to hear a synopsis of your WiP.
Nicole: The Idle Tree is the story of Finn, who is about to turn thirteen in his sleepy Vermont town. It’s the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Everybody knows Finn’s twin sister drowned when they were only three, and that his mother abandoned him and his father four months ago. It turns out they don’t know everything.

Finn’s Gran, right before she dies, reveals the family secret to him. All the women in his family are born with the ability to time travel. His mother had been battling The Others, a shadowy group intent on changing the timeline, when she disappeared. She didn’t abandon him. She was taken. Now, he must find a way to save her, even though boys can’t time travel. If only his sister were the one who had lived. It would all be so much easier, but no, it’s up to Finn and his best friend, Holly. They have to put together answers from what his mom left behind. He’ll need to find out who is leading The Others in order to save his mother and the world as we know it.

El Space: That description gave me serious chills. I love a good time travel story. Are you a pantser or a plotter? Please walk me through your process.
Nicole: I was just reading the Donald Maass book on craft, The Breakout Novelist, which had a bit on the whole pantser vs. plotter thing. My first thought when reading it, was that the term pantser makes me uncomfortable. I immediately think of pulling a mean prank on someone in front of the entire cafeteria. I would say I probably begin most projects as a pantser, but would like to call it something more benign.

My novels begin as characters and scenes written in notebooks. After awhile of doing this, they begin to form full narratives. The next thing I do is start the outlining, which I suppose isn’t very pantser-like at all. I’m a bit of both really. This particular novel has required a ton of plotting. You can’t write time travel without a lot of charts and timelines. Well, maybe some people can. I need charts.

El Space: I admire you for taking on the challenge. How has your process evolved as a writer? What tools have been helpful?
Nicole: My process has changed a lot over the last few years. I think an MFA will do that to you. Before the program, I found myself holding back my best ideas, thinking they needed to be delivered in some big reveal later on in the work. I’ve realized that a novel is made up of a constant reveal of brilliant ideas, and you should never hoard them. New ones will always keep coming along. Trust your inner genius.

The single best tool out there is Scrivener. I’ve been working with it for over three years now, and it’s truly indispensable to my process. I take my scenes from my journals, type them in, and begin to play around with them. I mold them, look at them in different ways, and move them around. Having different ways to view your novel is key for me. When I switch to corkboard mode, I inevitably think of something new. I also love having a repository for all my research in the same file. I keep images that inspire me, information on my setting, time periods, etc.

If I find myself stuck on a scene, I’ll leave Scrivener and open up OmmWriter. It has a zen feel that usually zaps me out of any writer’s block. I’ll write one or two scenes in it, and then copy and paste back into Scrivener.

Finally, if you’re a café writer like me, go to simplynoise.com to drown out the incessant background music and loud talkers. It’s white noise, so it works like a charm.

And judging by the music, that’s all we have time for today. But Nicole will be back tomorrow to chat, so please stop by. If you have questions for Nicole about her book or her process, please comment below.

Key and clock photos from eastonclass1.bltnorthants.net and cloudcentrics.com respectively.