Punctuation, Spelling, Grammar and All That Stuff - Why Bother?

There may be some people out there who think that getting the punctuation, grammar and spelling right doesn't matter. There are editors to do all that stuff, aren't there? And no one really cares about it - what really matters is the story or the ideas.

The current reality is that publishers are looking for manuscripts that are pretty much ready to go to press. The days of an editor laboriously working their way through a manuscript with the author have long gone. Yes, an amazing story or a stunning idea will make it through regardless of the quality of the presentation, but that's going to be true for only the most fabulous of tales. If an editor has a choice between two manuscripts of roughly equal story quality they'll choose the one which requires least work.

And people do care. The most common complaint about self published work is the quality of the editing. People don't like reading work with poor punctuation, spelling, grammar etc and they can, and do, complain. It doesn't matter how wonderful the story telling is if no one gets beyond the first few pages.

I think it's like dressing up to go to some amazing party. You've dressed incredibly carefully in your best clothes, then just before leaving you nip to the loo and set off with your skirt tucked up in your knickers/flies undone and shirt sticking out.

Finally, what does poorly presented work say about your attitude? It's easy enough to employ a copy editor, although the more mistakes there are, the more expensive it is. With luck you can find a friend who'll do it for you for free/alcohol/favours.

Either way, you have to try to make your work as perfect as possible. If you can't be bothered to make sure your work is the best it can be, then why should anyone else be bothered?

How to Edit - Part 5

And now it's on to the last stage of editing, the finishing touches. Sometimes writing is perfectly OK in that there's nothing technically wrong with it, but it can feel bland or dull. This is your moment to check that your writing is as good as you can make it.

Look for opportunities to add colour and edge. It could be a bit of neat description or an amusing metaphor, a nifty bit of dialogue or a pacy bit of action. I go through my texts with a highlighter pen and mark all the bits I think add pzazz. There have to be at least 5 on each page and if not, I add some. Ideally, there are many more than that. They may be small, but the accumulated effect is of energy and colour. (I hope.) Here are a few of mine, all of which I know I added at this stage of editing.

* He was wearing short sleeves, but the ghosts of leather patches circled his elbows like wreaths of pipe smoke

* A laugh dirty enough to plough

* Steve looked mildly surprised, not dissimilar in expression to a Hereford bull suppressing hiccups

* Dancing to the rhythm of the music (though not entirely with it), spiralling away like a drunken daddy-longlegs.

* A knife sat in an opened jar of peanut butter, like Excalibur waiting for King Arthur

And then when that's all done, sit back and bask in glory. Then start sending it out.

How to Edit - Part 4

Having examined the novel scene by scene it's time to move onto the sentences themselves. Every line has to be considered, every word justified.

Reading out loud is a great help at this stage, checking that it reads smoothly. The big proviso is that you must read accurately - I notice that quite a few students read what they'd like to see rather than what is actually on the page. Words get cut, contractions are made etc which simply aren't there. These are some of the things I look for:

* cliches (heavy heart, golden curls)

* autonomous body parts (her lips curved into a smile)

* active description

* strong verbs

* strong nouns rather than adjective plus weak noun ( a breeze rather than a light wind)

* check dialogue attributions

* be direct rather than passive

* use specific words

* name names and be consistent

* watch out for similar character names (I write as someone who once had Pat and Patrick in the same novel

* delete qualifiers - a little, very, just, kind of, sort of, quite, rather

* watch for repetition

* check grammar, spelling and punctuation

* vary paragraph and sentence length

* vary starting words (it's all too easy having a whole para filled with sentences beginning the same word)

* avoid unnecessary punctuation eg exclamation marks and italics, capital letters, underlining.

I could go on, but instead I'm going to recommend two books: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King. They're both really helpful when editing.

If you're really lucky you have a nit-picky friend who'll happily edit your work. A friend like this will sometimes make you say 'thank you' through gritted teeth, but remember that you don't have to change anything and it stops you having to do as much work. Edit, edit, and edit some more until it feels like your eyes are going to fall out and go splat on the manuscript. But it will be worth it and soon you'll be on to the last stage.

How to Edit - Part 3

The previous stages were very much about getting the novel into its finished shape. Once I'm happy with the outside shape and feel, I'm now moving closer to the substance of the novel: the scenes. This is where the meat of the novel is.

Rather as I looked for problems with the novel's overall structure, I'm looking for problems with the scene as a whole - outside working in again.

* is it clear where and when the scene takes place (preferably contained within the first para)?

does the timing make sense, do people have long enough to go from A to B, or conversely, if A and B are close together, do they cover the ground quickly?

* are people active throughout or are there any bits when the characters are waiting for something to happen? Do I need to re-write to correct this?

* is it clear what the characters' attitudes are to each other, the location, the situation?

* are any patches of description too long? too wordy? too complicated?

* is there enough description of setting etc?

* if I have to describe a place or an action, is it easy to understand what's going on?

* are characters moving about, or are they static - worse, are they drinking tea? Could I move it to another location which would add a new dimension to the scene?

* if there is flashback, is it justified? Is it adding to the storytelling in an active way? Is there any way i could incorporate the information into the narrative?

* am I moving the story forward?

* is the scene anchored in reality or has it floated off?

* does the balance of white space to text work?

* is the scene too long or too short? Is there enough going on, or too much?

* does it end at the right place?

* would a reader want to read on?

* does the scene have the right pace, is there a good shape to it?

* does something happen? Or is it just events?

* are the characters plausible, consistent, believable, sympathetic? Would I like to spend time with them?

I go through every scene in this way and re-write until I feel I've dealt with all the queries, issues and problems. This may involve moving bits around, cutting and adding. That done, it's on to the next stage...

How To Edit - Part 2

At this stage in the editing process I've decided roughly on the scene order and if there need to be any new scenes, or if some are being taken away, or combined. I'm now thinking about the characters.

The main character starts the process. I'm looking at their development - is it logical? Do they make any sudden jumps that are inconsistent? Have I explained where they're coming from? Do they have enough conflicts? Should I add another level of difficulty to their lives? They carry the story, so they need to be strong enough. If not, they need extra scenes to show how and why they're changing or behaving in the way they do.

I expect my main character will be present in all of the scenes as I usually write from a single viewpoint, but if I was writing from a multiple viewpoints I'd be checking that everyone their fair share of the story-telling. When I did this process with Adultery for Beginners, I discovered that one character dominated the story telling. I decided they deserved to take centre stage entirely and took out the other characters' viewpoints. This involved a serious rewrite - I eventually changed about 90% of the scenes. Painful, but necessary.

But even though I write from a single viewpoint, I want to make sure that the secondary characters have their own story. I don't want them to be just hanging around for the main character to show up, they need their own lives. For example, Lorna in Kissing Mr Wrong changed to Briony in the subsequent drafts and got a life. She goes through her own development and her own story and her life has changed by the end of the novel. As a writer who is a former actor, I like to think that there aren't any duff roles in my books.

I'm also looking for gaps. In Nice Girls Do for example Anna goes up to London to stay with her boyfriend Oliver, who she's completely besotted by, and everything else gets left behind including the lovely Will who isn't mentioned for pages on end. Now it's reasonable for Anna not to think about Will as she throws herself into Oliver's luxurious lifestyle, but I didn't want the reader to forget him. So I had to add a couple of quick scenes to keep Will, if not physically around, then present in Anna and the reader's consciousness. You'd do the same thing if, for example, you had two main story lines but one of them was on the back-burner for a while.

By now the index cards are getting a bit messy. If I remember I use one colour initially, then use a different colour for added scenes. I staple scenes together if I'm going to combine them, make lots of notes, rewrite the card if it's getting v untidy. Finally I've got a stack of index cards that I'm happy with. At this point I re-write the novel from start to finish using the cards to guide me. When I started writing novels I needed to do this process several times. When I'm happy with the shape it's on to the next stage.

How To Edit - Part 1

Have you ever been to a posh dinner and been presented with a vast array of silverware spreading in ranks either side of your plate? Editing is like dealing with all those forks and spoons without getting it wrong and spilling soup down your front, or using the butter-knife to eat your peas. The simple answer is to start from the outside and work your way in.

The first thing to do is put the book away for as long as you can manage. The longer you leave it, the more distance you have. The more distance you have, the more you read like a disinterested reader, and the more you're able to spot problems. There's what you think you wrote and there's what you actually wrote, and if you're too close you can't see if there's a gap.

When I did this on my first novel the gap was about four months, mainly because I was incensed that the world hadn't realised what a startling work of genius had just landed on their doorstep and turned it down. Cue metaphorical flouncing out of the room and mega sulks from me. When I did finally go back I was ready to concede that the world might have a point.

At our imaginary dinner party this would be like the soup course. Soup is a lovely liquid mass, contained within the bowl, but can flow anywhere. Look at the cutlery and choose the spoon furthest away from the plate - you're working from the outside inwards, remember.

The reason I say go outside inwards is it makes no difference how beautiful any individual sentence is, if the whole thing is wrong, if the story telling doesn't work, if there are problems with structure, then no one is ever going to read that perfect sentence. So, the story, the structure, the shape has to be right before you start fussing over adjectives and verbs.

At this stage I like to put the story down on index cards, one card per scene. On the card you write the setting, characters present, the purposes of the scene and the main action. This is one I wrote for an early draft of Another Woman's Husband.

Setting: Don't actually know! next page, B's house somewhere. Also, not dated.

Becca and Lily. Becca dreaming of Paul, Lily wanting to go out late clubbing. Frank rings, wants Becca to go round and help. NB Frank last mentioned/seen when? Pages ago.

And a couple from Kissing Mr Wrong...

Setting: Lorna's place. Dinner party. L's invited Marcus for Alex. Other people there NB should have been mentioned in opening scene. Skiing trip mentioned - Alex will need to find the money. Lorna offers her job in the gallery.

Setting: ????? Alex and Lorna. Alex talks about a) career, she's gone adrift b) Marcus as perfect man c) what to do about photograph. Lorna a) tells her M's going to Glasgow b) suggests Gus as possible re photograph

Obviously, as I was writing out my index cards I realised there were some problems which would need to be addressed should the scenes remain in the next draft and made notes accordingly. But that's for a future stage. Right now I'm checking that it's clear what the purposes are for each scene and how they move the story on.

When I've gone through the whole of the novel I've got a stack of index cards. I lay these out on the bed (I work a lot in bed). This is the easiest way to 'see' the novel as a whole. I'm looking for various things, all concerned with structure -

* is the 'shape' of the novel right, with exciting stuff happening throughout

* is there a good balance between active and reflective scenes (ie pace)

* do scenes flow ie have I set actions up

* are there any obvious holes - a character goes missing for a while, a plot strand is unresolved

* is the timing right? eg if someone becomes pregnant in January, do they have the baby in the autumn? At this stage I work out exactly when each scene takes place and note any bank holidays or other events that may affect the story.

I move scenes around, I add them, I take them away, I combine them. Anything. It's a fluid process (it's soup!). When I'm happy with the shape of it, it's on to the next stage.

Killing Your Darlings

I knew my first novel was a work of genius. It was obvious. So it was a bit disconcerting when my MA tutor suggested that, while writing it had been a good learning curve, it was time to put that book to one side and start another. Even more disconcerting was the experience of sending it out to agents. My sample chapters returned so fast the envelopes had scorch marks down the side.

I tried sending the novel to a book doctor. But when the report came they too didn't think it was a work of genius.  Humph - whoever wrote that report was clearly an idiot and their opinion was not worth considering. 

Rejection hurt.  A lot.  But above the pain of rejection I was genuinely baffled. How could they not spot the gloriously wonderfulness that was my novel?  I sulked. I sulked for six months. And through my grand sulking the notion gradually percolated - perhaps the novel wasn't so great after all.

I looked again at the book doctor's report. They'd seen a problem and suggested a solution that seemed complete madness. It was still a daft solution, in my opinion, but perhaps the problem they'd spotted concerning the four viewpoint characters had some validity. They wanted three of those viewpoints given more strength.  I knew that solution was wrong.  It was obviously wrong!  But how to deal with it?

I sulked a bit more. And then I came up with my own solution: what had been written from four viewpoints should be changed to a single viewpoint because, in truth, I was only interested in one of the stories I had interwoven. But that meant cutting about 50% of what I'd already written. I did some more sulking, and then went and sharpened my axe.

I lost 90% in the end, but once I'd made the decision to go for wholesale slaughter the process wasn't that bad. In fact, it was almost enjoyable. I knew the book wasn't a work of genius as if had been before, but I suspected I might have something publishable.  

The result? Well, when I sent the novel out again it took 36 hours from slipping the ms into the letterbox to have my first offer from an agent. Others followed, along with the publishing deal.  That book ended up being published around the world. 

Which only goes to show: sometimes mass murder is the right thing to do.

Self-Correction for Writers

My daughter bought a horse last year, an 8 year old, 16hh bay Arab.  She's hoping to train him in dressage, and has been taking lessons from one of the scariest women on the planet.  Occasionally I've sat in on the lessons - I say sit, but actually I'm bolt upright and watching my diagonals, such is my obedience to this woman with a dressage whip even though I am neither a horse nor a rider.  

One of the terms the teacher uses is self-correction.  This is when the rider learns to correct themselves.  It's essential because the horse needs training every day, and obviously the teacher can't be there watching at each session.  

I think the concept of self-correction is a useful one for a writer.  As I'm writing this blog post I'm constantly tweaking, choosing a different word, selecting a better verb for example or correcting my grammar, making it better, or clearer, or more effective all the time (I hope).  

It's second nature to me - I've been a professional writer for over twenty years.  If this were my creative writing, rather than a blog post, I'd be doing the same.  And then I'd write a second draft with more self-correction, and then probably a third.  At that point I show it to my outside readers.  

But our first reader is ourselves, and the more we learn to self-correct the easier the transition process will be from idea to page to readable page.  

Working with An Editor

When I sent my most recent novel, Kissing Mr Wrong, off to my editor it came back with the request that I 'looked again' at the opening scene. It's a big party scene, with lots of people and two plot-important conversations (A and B) interspersed with an inconsequential - but I hoped, funny - interchange (X). So the scene went, intro, X A X B. The editor wanted for the X scenes to be joined, or cut, or moved, or in some way changed as she felt the flow wasn't right.

I started a long email explaining why I'd chosen that configuration. There needed to be a run up to conversation A, and you couldn't have A and B right next to each other, so X A X B was the absolutely perfect order. As I wrote my justification, I thought as a concession I'd try X A B, but that obviously didn't work. I tried A B X - no, it definitely needed the X in-between. A X B was on the surface the straightforward choice, but that would mean rewriting the intro, rewriting the X interchange, writing a completely new run up to the A conversation.

As I wrote a length email to my editor explaining why my first choice X A X B had been the right one, I realised: I didn't want to change the order simply because it meant more work. After a short bout of internal wrestling I deleted the email and wrote another, shorter one. You're quite right, I wrote to my editor. I'll do it.

That's what an editor should do - poke/prompt/nudge/direct you into writing better. I did all the work (which actually was very enjoyable once I'd decided to go for it) and the book now starts intro then A X B. And it's much, much, better for it.

Holding a Reader's Focus

I hate it when I'm deep in a book and get interrupted. Woe betide you if you phone trying to sell me double glazing or PPI insurance protection. But then, what to do about the author who constantly interrupts me reading their story?

Anything that interrupts my reading focus is an interruption which is why you need to edit and edit and edit to make sure that there's nothing to stop the text flowing. This is where beta readers come in, friends who will read and note any places where they had a hiccup in the reading experience. Hopefully they'll pick up things like this, seen in last Saturday's Times:

"Freddie Max Wright was born on November 18, 2011. Freddie was born with a full head of hair weighing 8lb 3oz."

That's some hair! If you were reading it in a story you might blink, smile, and then carry on but even that momentary loss of focus might be enough to break your commitment to the story. If there are repeated mistakes, then the reader will give up. That's why it's so important to make sure the text is as clean as you can make it. No typos, no grammatical glitches and nothing to stand in the way between your text and the reader.

Murdering Your Darlings

It must be one of the most commonly used instructions to writers:  Murder your darlings.  When I first heard it I though it applied only to a type of over-blown, adjective-heavy writing. Now I'm older and a bit wiser, I know there are other sort of darlings that should be bumped off, with a club like baby seals.  

Research:

You've read all the books, you know everything there is to know about blacksmithery in C17th Wiltshire.  And now you're going to share it with us.  Sometimes lots of information is good: Frederick Forsyth in Day of the Jackal writing about how to get a fake passport or smuggle a gun through customs.  But most of the time it's bad.

Great characters:

The main character's funny cousin, the doleful postman who delivers the fateful letter, the whacky best friend.  All tertiary characters ie they appear but don't do much plot-wise, should be kept on a tight lead and not allowed to take over, however hilarious you find them.  

Digressions and hobby horses:

Following ideas as you write can be a very creative process, but it can also lead you way off the plot.  Similarly, you may have strong opinions on many subjects, but a work of fiction is not the place to sudden start spouting about the iniquities of the planning system or the unfairness of post code lotteries in the NHS.  I once hung on doggedly to a little bit of social satire until I had a brief note from my editor: "What is the relevance of this to the story? Please cut it now."

The scene that's there just for the joke at the end:

Some years ago there was a joke doing the rounds of the the internet.  It was about a woman going to her gynaecologist and realising that she'd last washed using a facecloth that her child had used to store some glitter.  Not too long after being sent this joke I read The Adultery Club by Tess Stimson, where the main character goes to see her gynaecologist and realises... There's no real reason for the scene to exist except for that joke.  Sometimes it's a quirky name that's given just for the purpose of people making a joke out of it.  I once called a character John simply so I could make a Dear John letter joke.  It never worked, and got culled in the final drafts.

The simple test for spotting these darlings is to ask yourself: does it serve the story?  If not, then murder is the only answer.

Anyone in St Ives for the September Festival?  I'm giving a talk on Friday 23rd September at 11.00 am.  Go to the website for more info.

3 Ways to Tell Lies for a Living

I like watching magicians, particularly close up magic. I know it's trickery, but I want to believe in the tricks - that's part of the fun for me. I don't want the magician to falter or make mistakes, I want them to smoothly cheat and con me, preferably with a flourish.

Fiction is all about telling lies. Our readership is primed to believe our lies, just as I want to believe the magician. But our lies have to be believable lies. How to do this?

1. Be specific

There's a game you can play with a group. Write down two true things about yourself, and one lie, then read them out. The others have to guess the lie. We did this in class the other week, and the lies that were most successful were the ones that were filled with specific detail. Not, 'I go to Rome every year for my holidays', but 'I've stayed in the Albergo al Sole off the Campo dei Fiori in central Rome every year for the past six years.' The detail convinces.

2. Be consistent

I'm a qualified bricklayer. True. People are amazed, because it's unexpected - I don't look like a brickie (and of course, I'm not, I don't do it professionally and I got my City & Guilds certificate ages ago). If you were writing about a fictional character like me, you couldn't suddenly plonk the bricklaying fact into conversation unless it came with an explanation which matched the character.

3. Don't let the reader blink

Every time the reader has to check something they've read you've potentially lost them. The reading experience should be so smooth they hardly notice it happening. That means, no clunky sentences or incorrect words. No non-sequiturs. No confusion about who is thinking or saying something, or what anybody is doing at a particular time. Every time a reader is reminded that they're reading you might lose them. Edit, edit, edit. Get feedback, and edit some more. It's the only way to eliminate the glitches.

Writing fiction is like performing a magic trick. The reader wants to believe in the magic, it's up to you to practice until it appears easy.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

More Jam Jar and Pebbly Thoughts

Thinking about the big stuff - the pebbles - yesterday in the context of editing made me realise how hard it is to get any feedback on the essential elements like character arc, pacing and plot holes.  

Think about it.  Feedback is usually geared up to reading a few pages at a time - in my class there's usually a maximum of 800 words for class feedback, with a 2000 word limit for assignments.  That's about the same for most classes and feedback groups.  In the workshopping group I belong to we do workshop larger chunks, but usually no more than 10,000 words at a time.  

So, when we're getting feedback, what are we inevitably getting feedback on?  The sand and gravel - paragraphs, sentences, words.  This is tremendously useful, both for your own work and in learning how to edit, but it isn't everything.  

Perhaps, now so many of us writers are taking MAs and other writing classes, that explains how so many books getting published are one beautifully written page after another, and yet the stories don't seem to be as satisfying as they could be.  The sand and gravel get meticulously examined and groomed, but the poor pebbles are overlooked.  

It's always puzzled me that some people don't get snapped up by publishers when I've read their work and know they can write well. Perhaps a lack of attention to the pebbles provides the explanation.  

Jam Jars and Pebbles

Have you ever heard the fable about the person who was asked to fill a jam jar with a mix of pebbles and gravel and sand?  They started by putting in the sand, then the gravel, then the pebbles - but they couldn't fit all the pebbles in.  

So the jar was emptied, the pebbles, sand and gravel sorted into piles and they started again.  This time, they started with the pebbles, then fed the gravel into the spaces around the pebbles, then finally the sand which duly trickled into the tiny spaces around the gravel.  Everything fitted neatly into the jam jar.  

It's a metaphor for editing.  We need to sort out the big stuff - the plot holes, the pacing, the character arcs - before we can start worrying about the paragraphs and sentences, let alone the individual words.  

Editing in Action

My most recent novel - Kissing Mr Wrong - came back from the editor with the request that I 'looked again' at the opening scene. It's a big party scene, with two plot-important conversations (A and B) interspersed with an inconsequential - but I hoped, funny - interchange (X). So the scene went, intro, X A X B. The editor wanted for the X scenes to be joined, or cut, or moved, or in some way changed as she felt the flow wasn't right.

I started a long email explaining why I'd chosen that configuration. There needed to be a run up to conversation A, and you couldn't have A and B right next to each other, so X A X B was the absolutely perfect order. As I wrote my justification, I thought as a concession I'd try XAB, but that obviously didn't work. I tried A B - no, it definitely needed the X in-between. AXB was on the surface the straightforward choice, but that would mean rewriting the intro, rewriting the X interchange, writing a completely new run up to the A conversation. As I wrote explaining why my first choice had been the right one, I could feel this new scene in action, how it would flow.

I looked at my long, long email full of self-justification and realised: I didn't want to change the order simply because it meant more work. After a short bout of internal wrestling I deleted the email and wrote another, shorter one. You're quite right, I wrote to my editor. I'll do it.

And I did. And it was better.

How Do I Know When I Should Stop Editing?

This is probably the question I get asked more than any other.  It's certainly the question I flounder most with answering.  Some people are far too quick and jump the gun with sending their work out, so it goes with hundreds of errors; others carry on tinkering and never send anything out because it's 'not yet perfect'.  

I reckon you're done when...

You're sick to death of your manuscript.

You no longer have a niggling feeling that something's not working.

Feedback from friends and workshop groups concentrates on teeny points.

You've done at least one major re-write which has involved restructuring.

Everybody you know has asked when you are sending it out. And that was over a year ago.

You're sending it out too early when...

You know there's something wrong with the text but don't know what and send it out hoping that no one else might notice.  

You know there's something wrong with the text but don't know what and send it out hoping that an editor will see past that.  Or better still, do the editing for you.

You've sent it out to your workshop group for feedback and haven't had it back yet, but send it out anyway.

This is your first draft.

This is your second draft.

How do I know?  I don't.  I stop editing when I stop feeling guilty. I feel there's nothing more that I can do and the text has to go out into the world ready or not. 

I think you have to keep in mind the reality of the situation: there is no such thing as a perfect text.  Person X may love it, person Y will hate it.  You may think it's perfect now; in a year you may feel quite differently.  In other words, if you reckon it's done, don't procrastinate by tinkering.  Send it out and see what happens. 

When to Stop Editing

Some people finish their novel or short story and send it off without even giving it the once over. Other people hang on patiently editing until all the life has been sucked out of the writing. If you're in the first camp, believe me it does need some editing. I get to see quite a lot of 'before' and 'after' workshopping writing, and the 'after' is invariably better.

So how do you know when it's ready?

I tend to stop when I've done everything I can think of and I'm sick to death of the whole thing. At this stage I will have...

* Sent out to my friends who read for me and incorporated their comments.

* Used index cards several times to check for pace and variety, and to see if there are any gaps.

* Highlighted every good phrase on every page, and made sure that there are at least 5 a page.

* Read the whole ms aloud at least once to check it flows well, the grammar works and there aren't hundreds of typos.

* Sorted out anything that's niggling me.

This last one is a killer. There are often things that you secretly know aren't quite working but you pretend to yourself that they're not really important, or that no one else will notice. Ha! They are, and they will. You're only putting it off because you suspect it's going to involve a lot more work than you want to do at this stage. Just do it.

And then it's done.

Anything more is hanging on because you're worried about what's going to happen when you send out. Sometimes not knowing feels better than risking rejection. But if you want to get published you have to send out. So stop editing, and get on with it.

Massacre of the Innocents

I knew my first novel was a work of genius. It was obvious. So it was a bit disconcerting when my MA tutor suggested that, while writing it had been a good learning curve, it was time to put that book to one side and start another. Even more disconcerting was the experience of sending it out to agents. My sample chapters returned so fast the envelopes had scorch marks down the side. How could this be? Could the world really be that blind to my glorious, shining novel? Distinctly miffed, I tried a book doctor. But when the report came it was clearly the work of an imbecile, and not worth considering.

I sulked. I sulked for six months. And through my grand sulking the notion gradually percolated - perhaps the novel wasn't so great after all. I looked again at the book doctor's report. They'd seen a problem and suggested a solution that seemed complete madness. It was still a daft solution, in my opinion, but perhaps the problem they'd spotted had some validity.

I sulked a bit more. And then I came up with my own solution: what had been written from four viewpoints should be changed to a single viewpoint because, in truth, I was only interested in one of the stories I had interwoven. But that meant cutting about 50% of what I'd already written. I did some more sulking, and then went and sharpened my axe.

I lost 90% in the end, but once I'd made the decision to go for wholesale slaughter the process wasn't that bad. In fact, it was almost enjoyable. The result? Well, when I sent the novel out again it took 36 hours from slipping the ms into the letterbox to have my first offer from an agent. Others followed, and that book ended up being published around the world. Which only goes to show: sometimes mass murder is the right thing to do.

My next event will be speaking at Corsham Library, Wiltshire with fellow New Romantics Lucy Diamond and Veronica Henry 3rd June at 7.30pm. Come and join us!

Editing in Action

My most recent novel came back from the editor with the request that I 'looked again' at the opening scene. It's a big party scene, with two plot-important conversations (A and B) interspersed with an inconsequential - but I hoped, funny - interchange (X). So the scene went, intro, X A X B. The editor wanted for the X scenes to be joined, or cut, or moved, or in some way changed as she felt the flow wasn't right.

I started a long email explaining why I'd chosen that configuration. There needed to be a run up to conversation A, and you couldn't have A and B right next to each other, so X A X B was the absolutely perfect order. As I wrote my justification, I thought as a concession I'd try XAB, but that obviously didn't work. I tried A B - no, it definitely needed the X in-between. AXB was on the surface the straightforward choice, but that would mean rewriting the intro, rewriting the X interchange, writing a completely new run up to the A conversation. As I wrote explaining why my first choice had been the right one, I could feel this new scene in action, how it would flow.

I looked at my long, long email full of self-justification and realised: I didn't want to change the order simply because it meant more work. After a short bout of internal wrestling I deleted the email and wrote another, shorter one. You're quite right, I wrote to my editor. I'll do it.

And I did. And it was better.

My next event will be speaking at Corsham Library, Wiltshire with fellow New Romantics Lucy Diamond and Veronica Henry 3rd June at 7.30pm. Come and join us!

Pomp and Circumstance

Recently I offered to look over a final year student's dissertation - he's on the borderline between a 2:1 and a 1st and the mark for the dissertation would be crucial. I read it, marked it up, and returned it.

It was an interesting exercise for me because I knew nothing of the subject under discussion at all. Perhaps that made it easier to see where it was literally incomprehensible, as I had no previous knowledge to help me piece things together. I suspect the culprit was in the numerous drafts there had been, but some sentences were without verbs, and it mattered.

Also clearly visible were leaps in logic. These left me floundering, often due to going backwards and forwards in time, where a straightforward A:B:C:D would have been simpler. This happened, so that happened, so the next thing happened...

Stylistically I was struck by how many qualifiers were used, I assume in an attempt to make the writing sound more magisterial or academic. "Accordingly in all probability...However the general consideration of the facts in this circumstance...Arguably in these respects..." Nothing could be simply stated, all bets had to be hedged: generally, usually, possibly, sometimes, on occasion. Cut, cut, cut went my red pen. Also cut were repetitions and restating the case. I suggested adding several sentences too, for clarity.

The student thanked me politely, then a couple of hours actually looked at it because at that point another email came through: Bloody hell, mum, there's more red than black here. But he went through it, used some of my cuts and additions, rejected others. I read it again. It was the same, just better.

I've seen this before with student work. Careful editing doesn't change the writing, it makes it more like the writer wants it to be, cleaner, clearer, uncluttered. It's the difference between a dusty mantelpiece and one that's been cleaned, the bedroom after the bed's been made and the floor hoovered. The same, but better. And now it's cross fingers for the 1st.