An Editor's Tips for Writers

Does an editor exist who doesn’t have a few pet peeves about the English language? I sometimes loftily like to think mine are better described as a passion for educating writers on how to improve at their craft. But truthfully, they’re also annoying pet peeves. In this article I’ll focus on just one of mine: a certain type of expletive.

Most people, if they think about expletives at all, probably think these are curse words. That’s correct, but incomplete, and I’m guessing that some readers will know that the definition of an expletive is much broader, but may not know exactly why.

The word expletive derives from the Latin “to fill out.” In fact, an expletive is any syllable, word, or word phrase that is either unnecessary to the correct syntactic structure of a sentence but can help to “fill it out,” or has no value except to perform a syntactic function in a sentence. Four kinds of expletives can be defined:

1. Interjections: curse words or profanity
2. Expletive attributives (profanity)
3. Syntactic expletives (profanity) as verbs and nouns
4. Syntactic expletives as subjects

The first is self-explanatory and obvious; curse words are filler words. Most of us know an interjection can be eliminated from a group of words while keeping the syntactic structure intact. Expletive attributives are equally self-explanatory. They can also be eliminated without spoiling the syntactic structure of the sentence, but they perform the function of adjectival or adverbial intensifiers, like the word bloody in the title of this article. These words can easily be replaced with other, less offensive adjectives, depending on the style, subject matter, and audience.

Profane expletives acting as verbs or nouns are necessary for the syntactic structure of the sentence, although they can also be easily replaced with other, less offensive words if necessary. The usage of “#$%&*!$” in my title is a typical example of an expletive as a verb, where I could easily substitute the verbs “curse” or “screw” or “banish.”

But the fourth kind, expletives as subjects, are the ones I want to focus on here—my real pet peeve. They fall under the general category of wordiness, one of the biggest problems I encounter in stylistic and copy editing. I’m always cutting unnecessary words, recasting sentences in such a way as to use the fewest words to obtain the greatest impact. Sometimes this is called vigorous or robust writing (as opposed to flabby writing), and it’s not that difficult to achieve.

This type of expletive’s great offenders are the words there and it when used as subjects followed by a verb form; e.g., there are, there is, there was, there has been, there were, it is, it was, it has been, etc. These words perform a syntactic function but often do little else except weaken the sentence. Yet often, an easy fix exists. (A rule of thumb is that if an easy fix doesn’t quickly come to mind, the construction can remain as is.) Some examples, followed by their more robust fixes:

• Weaker: There is a full moon shimmering in the evening sky.
• More robust: A full moon shimmers in the evening sky.
• Weaker:  There is an easy fix for this problem.
• More robust: An easy fix exists for this problem.
• Weaker: There are many exceptions.
• More robust: Exceptions are many.
• Weaker: It has been a memorable day.
• More robust: The day has been memorable.

Constructions that force a related expletive, the word that (or who), are even more annoying. “There is...that...” and similar constructions serve only to sabotage sentences and contribute to flabby writing:

• Weaker: There is something in her character that worries me.
• More robust: Something in her character worries me.
• Weaker: It is an indisputable fact that Canadians are a polite bunch.
• More robust: Canadians are indisputably a polite bunch.
• Weaker: He was a person who was quick to empathize with others.
• More robust: He was quick to empathize with others.
• Weaker: There has been a recent spate of brilliant writing that can surely be attributed to editorial excellence.
• More robust: The recent spate of brilliant writing can surely be attributed to editorial excellence.

Interestingly, an expletive form is commonly used to describe the weather, as in “It is raining today.” An argument can be made that it in this case is a pronoun for the weather (even though the word weather has not been mentioned). In these cases, it is sometimes referred to as “the weather it.”
Exceptions are many, particularly in poetry or stylized prose where expletives are used to “fill out” the meter, or for emphasis:

• There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
• It is he who deserves to be rewarded, not his father.

You may have noticed by now that I’ve easily avoided using any subject expletives in this article. In my initial draft, I had at least four, but revisions were easy. Yet the point isn’t to avoid subject expletives altogether, but to become aware of them so that, if an easy fix quickly comes to mind, you can recast the wordier, weaker construction to a more concise, vigorous one.

My membership in the Editors' Association of Canada includes a subscription to its listserve (chat forum). The subject of a current discussion thread is the value of a copy editor, which began with a complaint that if Dan Brown had been provided with a copy editor for his latest novel The Lost Symbol (and his previous novels), he didn't make much use of him/her.

This post led to a long discussion. Many of my colleagues are horrified at Dan Brown's appalling sentence construction and plot inconsistencies, all pointing to an apparent lack of good copy editing. One editor provided a link to a list compiled by Tom Chivers of telegraph.co.uk of Dan Brown's twenty worst sentences (http://tinyurl.com/r6tye2). This is an interesting read, and the comments following it are even more fascinating. In response, another editor wrote: "I read this list and was horrified. How come Brown's editor didn't catch these things? I don't edit fiction, so I'm a bit mystified about the process. Does a fiction author have so much control that s/he can ignore the editor's advice about such things? What about the reputation of the publisher, not to mention that of the editor?"

Another colleague pointed to a link I just had to share here. This blog post is by Scott Berkun, a writer who decidedly knows the value of a copy editor. Here's a valuable excerpt from his post:

"I want to hear some tough stuff in the copy edit. How else will the book get better? A copy editor [should] force the writer to think more clearly, and catch bad assumptions they've made. I get final say; what do I have to lose by being questioned? Better now than in book reviews."

You can read the rest of the post at: www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/what-copyediting-looks-and-feels-like/ And again, the comments following Mr. Berkun's post are particularly enlightening.

Yet another of my colleagues pointed out that the author, out of both and protocol and ethics, should have the last word in matters editorial. "Hey," I thought, "that's my tag line." (The last word is yours.) I do indeed agree strongly that the author should have the last word. But it's painful beyond description to read bad reviews, when the criticisms therein are the very same ones I offered that author to begin with! Another colleague, Shaun Oakey, drafted a note he'd like to send to reviewers, the essence of which stated:

"Please note that the errors you listed in your review were not the result of careless editing. In fact, the copy editor corrected all these errors. However, the author ignored the editor's strenuous arguments and insisted on stetting his precious misspellings, incorrect punctuation, inconsistently applied stylistic quirks, and logical lapses. All of these were pointed out to the author on several edit passes, but the author erased the corrections, saying he was certain his readers would understand they were his 'style' and in fact expected them and would have no trouble with them. He insisted his original was 'just fine.'"

So please remember, dear writers, that I will indeed let you have the last word. You're the author, after all. But you're paying me to edit your work, and I do so with a passion, eight to ten hours a day, often seven days a week. Please trust my expertise and experience!

So many people leap into fiction writing just because they have what they think is a "plot" in their heads. The fact is, you don't even need to have a plot in mind if you want to write fiction. The only question you should have in your mind at this stage is, "What tools do I need in order to write good fiction?" And I don't mean fancy computer technology!

Please, dear writers, ask yourself this question and then go about finding the answers before you ever open up a fresh Word document and commit a single word to the screen. Marvelously, every single answer to this multi-answer question can be found on the Internet -- in spades.

Before you write one single word, Google and learn everything you can about:

- narrative
- exposition
- plot development
- character development
- the importance of scene-building
- writing effective scenes
- point of view (POV) Try: www.sfwriter.com/ow07.htm
- foreshadowing
- back story (part of exposition)
- writing effective dialogue
- writing dialogue attributions or tags
- suspension of disbelief
- flabby prose vs. vigorous prose

Drop these words or phrases into any search engine, preceded by the word "fiction," and you will be rewarded with more information than you could read in an entire semester of Creative Writing 101. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, more good websites where you can learn the subtleties and nuances of fiction writing. Here are three I like, including a blog on self-publishing that includes lots of writing tips and links:

www.fictionfactor.com
www.claredunkle.com/Design/writebasics.htm
http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/

Read and then practice these basic techniques of good fiction writing, and then practice a whole lot more. Only when you think you have a handle on each of them, then begin the actual writing of your story by composing a strong outline for each chapter.

Then, and only then, will you be ready to write a real masterpiece of fiction. Bonus: you'll save heaps of money on editing, which will go much faster if your editor sees that you have employed the basic elements of good fiction writing.

And a postscript to those who have put the cart before the horse and have written their fiction work already, without learning these basics: it's not too late! Wonder why your book isn't selling? The reason is very likely that you haven't learned these basics. Go back and revise, revise, revise. You know, it's an old joke among writers that "I don't write books, I write revisions."

Then find an editor :-) and republish. Watch your sales soar -- as long as you embrace your marketing with the same passion you gave to your writing (see Tip #7 for more on book marketing).

Redundancy is just one of the many problems that fall under the general category of Wordiness. (I'll be adding more to the Wordiness category soon.) A redundant phrase or expression is called a pleonasm. You may think you know when a redundancy occurs, but some of them can be subtle.

How often have you heard a friend say something like this: "An unexpected surprise came when a pair of baby twins was born at 12 midnight"? What is a surprise if not unexpected? What are twins if not a pair? Who can be born but a baby? When is midnight if not at 12? Your friend could just as well have said, "A surprise came when twins were born at midnight" with far less repetition.

Or what if you heard someone say, "The armed gunman gave an advance warning that he would make death threats on their lives"? Can you find the pleonasms in that sentence? The expressions we use are full of unwitting redundancy.

I've prepared a good long list of pleonasms; some of them are rather funny. Can you see what's wrong with these? Can you think of any others? Once you start paying attention to each of your words, I'm sure you'll begin to detect occasional redundancies. In fact, e-mail me with your pet peeve redundancies and pleonasms, and I'll add them to this list!

- Dry desert
- Free gift
- End result
- Over and over again
- Whether or not
- Former business failed/former ex-husband
- Personal friends/personal opinion/my personal anything
- Standard orthodoxy
- Genuine original
- Ancient fossil
- Basic necessities/basic fundamentals
- Major milestone
- Linger behind
- Rugged mountain range
- Quickly mushroomed
- Interconnect/intermix/interlink
- Future ahead looks bright
- Main thrust
- Small cubbyhole
- Familiar fixture
- Single most/single biggest
- Point in time/period of time
- Death threats on his life
- Close proximity
- Actual experience/past experience
- Advance planning/advance warning/advance reservations
- All meet together/join together
- Armed gunman
- 12 midnight/12 noon
- Autobiography of one's life
- Awkward predicament
- Cease and desist
- Each and every
- First and foremost
- Cheap price/expensive price
- Commute back and forth
- Consensus of opinion
- Difficult dilemma
- Estimated roughly/guesstimated
- Filled to capacity
- Frozen ice
- General public
- Green in color
- Natural instinct
- Null and void
- Pre-recorded
- The reason is because
- Regular routine
- Suddenly exploded
- Surrounded on all sides
- Broke both his legs
- The winter months
- Postponed until later
- Mutual cooperation
- In order to...

With delight, I've been following the publishing success of my author, David Shepherd, whose whose novel, Resurrecting Randi, has achieved steady sales since it was published earlier this year by Balios Publishing Co. Recently, I asked David what he thought were the most important elements of his marketing strategy. Here's his detailed e-mailed reply:

Dear Arlene,

As both an author of a debut novel that is doing quite well (Resurrecting Randi, ) and a former business school faculty member, I see book publishing success as relatively straightforward, though very, very hard work. Here are the four pieces I think have to come together, probably in this order:

1) Get great blurbs so that the book is viewed as serious and credible by agents, publishers, reviewers, booksellers, and others in the industry. I was lucky enough to get strong endorsements from John Coetzee, a Nobel Laureate in literature, and David Oshinsky, a Pulitzer Prize winner. Aim high; you might be surprised. We were.

2) Get great reviews. We got a great review from Kirkus Discoveries, but Balios Publishing Co. is small and has not had much success in getting reviews anywhere else. We have a few Web sites reviewing the book now but I'm not sure how influential they'll be. We need Publisher's Weekly, major daily newspapers, etc., and Balios doesn't have the clout to get those. Solution? Persevere.

3) Word of mouth. The key to word of mouth (in addition to the fact that there is no substitute for time) is connecting readers to each other, not to the author or publisher. We've created a social networking web site to do this and have had great response. We've offered avid readers a complimentary copy if they'll help us spread the word. We're offering them a chance to become a part of creating a New York Times bestseller, learn something about the publishing industry, and are even putting aside a modest royalty interest for them. I'll send you an invitation so you can check it out.

4) National PR. Eventually, numbers 1-3 above will lead to stories in USA Today, national magazines, cable television, etc., and that's where books begin to have a chance to truly break out.

I spend a little time promoting every day, but my highest and best use of time is to recruit the help of others and then get out of their way! Critical mass is a funny thing. It's the proverbial hockey stick curve, but you never know when the curve will come. We're committed to work hard every day for 12-15 months before determining the true success and what to do about a trade paperback version. Those who think some bolt of lightning is going to hit and make their book a bestseller will be waiting a very long time indeed.

Most importantly, I'm also finding time to make great headway on my next novel. It would be a hollow victory for Resurrecting Randi to become a big success, and then not have another book in the queue.

I hope this is helpful to your other authors, Arlene.

Regards,
David P. Shepherd

* * *

So that's the word from a first-time author who's already on a successful publishing journey. Note: These tips are useful whether you're self-publishing or you've already found a publisher. Either way, you have to invest the time and do much of the legwork yourself, as David is doing. I would also add that it's very important to have a Web site dedicated specifically to your book or your publishing company if you're self-publishing. Your Web site should be up and running as soon as your first books roll off the press or printer; this includes proof or review copies. You can also add a blog to keep your content fresh and optimized for search engines. Let me know if you try these tips and if you find them helpful.

You may already know of my most successful author, Dan Poynter (The Self-Publishing Manual, www.parapublishing.com), who is a master of self-published book marketing. I'll be querying more of my self-publishing authors in the future about what they have found to be their most successful marketing strategies. If you have any other tips to contribute, please let me know, and I'll post them here.

This isn't a tip, but an observation. Have you ever noticed how we treat books so delicately, almost as though they were ancient artifacts? Eager to begin reading, we buy a new book, its pages crisp and fresh and enticingly unexamined by any other human eyes. An exciting new adventure is about to begin within.

Yet somehow, we cringe with reluctance when we break the spine. Finally, the deed is done and the reading begins, but still it's as though we're holding a treasure in our hands. Heaven forbid we should spill a few drops of coffee on the cover, or accidentally drop a blob of food between its revered pages. The blob is quickly wiped away, but an oily stain remains. Ouch!

Why do we venerate books so? Especially in this computer age, when, only a few years ago with the advent of e-books, some folks in the publishing business proclaimed that physical books would quickly be going the proverbial way of the dodo. Well, most of us now know they were wrong. There's just something about holding a physical book in our hands while lying on the couch with a cup of tea and a snack that simply cannot compare with staring at a computer screen, no matter how convenient that may be. (For another opinion on e-books, see the Big Bad Book Blog's article at http://www.bigbadbookblog.com/2007/05/31/e-books-whats-the-deal/).

This idea that books are overly esteemed occurred to me recently after I read a letter to the editor from an irate library user. The fellow was complaining about people who borrow library books and then proceed to mark them up - you know, pencil notes in the margins, highlighters, red-penned corrections, clever (or not) comments about the contents, and the like.

I beg to disagree. I love seeing marked-up books. It fascinates me to see what others have thought of the book; their opinions, their insights, perhaps their new ideas. To me, the more marked-up a book is, the more people have read it, and therefore the more popular it has been. It serves only to make me want to read it more!

As someone with a passion for proper spelling and grammar, I won't hesitate to admit that a lot of this comes from my own obsession with correcting mistakes - I simply can't let a typo (and there are typos in every published book) or error pass my eye without taking my editing pen to it. Recently I found a tiny error in some sixth printing by Doubleday of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Five seconds later, out flew the red pen, correction made. I literally could not help myself.

Now, I must emphasize here that I don't condone the marking up of library books or other people's books - they're not your property. But by all means, mark up your own books! It's just paper, after all. Mark them up and pass them along. It's democratic. Share your opinions with future readers. There are lots of us out there who'll appreciate your comments. Just don't let your kids read this post. (And my apologies to any offended librarians out there.)

Well, I'm back from a summer full of travel - short trips around our lovely province, mostly, editing work and laptop in tow - and a wildly busy month of editing this September. It's been some time since I've updated this blog, but I maintain the excuse that I'm not really the blog type.

Having said that, today I'm going to address what is largely a subject of annoyance and confusion to many writers. That is, the three common kinds of dashes, and where to use each of them properly.

First, there's the hyphen. The smallest member of the dash family, it's used primarily for - you may have guessed it - hyphenation of compound words. If you follow this simple rule, you can't really go wrong. It's also used to separate numbers (such as in a phone number), or to separate letters in a word that is spelled out. Try to avoid hyphens in URLs; they can create ambiguity at line breaks.

The second-longest dash is called an en dash (in the olden days of typesetting, this was considered the length of the letter n). The main use of an en dash is to connect numbers and indicate ranges, including date ranges (1943-2006) and page ranges (pp. 167-179). The Chicago Manual of Style - 15th Edition, says, "In this use it signifies up to and including (or through). For the sake of parallel construction the word to, never the en dash, should be used if the word from precedes the first element." The same goes for and and between.

The en dash can also be used with spaces on either side to serve in place of a comma or brackets, as a pause in the sentence, or to insert and amplify or explain a related idea. Chicago doesn't recommend this, however, and neither do I. I prefer the em dash - I think it simply is more aesthetically pleasing - but it's your choice.

The third kind of common dash is the aforementioned em dash, which is the most common and versatile of all the dashes (in the olden days of typesetting, this was considered the length of the letter m). Use a pair of em dashes in the same way I described in the preceding paragraph - to amplify or elaborate on a related idea in a sentence. In dialogue, use an em dash in particular to indicate if the speaker is interrupted or if there is a sudden break in the speaker's idea (say, for example, a loud thundercap) or sentence structure. Use three dots (an ellipsis) only when the speaker's voice is trailing off.

Both the en and em dash can be found in "Symbols" under the Insert pulldown menu in Microsoft Word. When editing, I use a carat mark and simply write "N" or "M" above it to indicate the insertion of this mark.

Finally, you may have noticed that I'm rather ironically not using en or em dashes in this blog. I only wish I could! Some computer software and e-mail programs simply do not allow for their use, so I have to resort to using a hyphen - or two hyphens in a row - with spaces on either side, to indicate a longer dash. I've been known to copy and paste em dashes from MS Word into my e-mails simply to make my meaning clearer. Perhaps you already do this too!

Most editors these days use a feature in MS Word called "track changes." This reviewing/editing tool enables your editor to make changes and corrections - additions and deletions - to your manuscript, and to comment on your writing style and make suggestions for improvement. The tool has its flaws and limitations, but becoming familiar with it will be very helpful to you if you are working with an editor who uses it. When your edited manuscript is returned to you, you'll easily be able to accept or reject the editor's changes and comments.

Keep the track changes toolbar showing on your MS Word screen while you are working on revisions. To turn on this toolbar, from the top "View" pulldown menu, select Toolbars, and then select Reviewers. The track changes toolbar should appear. Another way to access track changes is from the "Tools" pulldown menu. Simply select Track Changes, and the toolbar should appear.

To enable track changes, first you need to click on the second button from the right. When you hover your mouse over it, you'll see it's simply called "track changes." On the "View" toolbar at the bottom of your screen, you should also make sure you are in print layout view. It's possible to work in web layout view or normal view, but it isn't as easy to see your changes on the screen.

Once you have enabled track changes, you'll be able to see the editor's corrections and comments in "balloons" in the right margin of the document. If you have an earlier version than Word 2002, the deletions will show up as strikethroughs, and the additions will show up as underlined. Word 2007 and 2008 also have some differences in the track changes/reviewing feature. You'll need to experiment a little bit with your version of Word, and discuss with your editor any problems you may have in viewing the changes.

Now return to the track changes toolbar. Experiment with the various buttons. On the left, you'll see a pulldown menu from which you can choose to view a clean final document, a clean original document, a final document showing markup (edits or corrections), and an original document showing markup.

Moving on to the other buttons, you'll see that you can accept or reject your editor's changes, either one at a time or all at once. You'll also be able to read any comments in the balloons. Under the "Show" pulldown menu, I often recommend unchecking the "formatting" box - leaving it checked just clutters the screen with information you don't need. I also don't recommend using the reviewing pane. It's cumbersome and not very useful.

Use MS Word's "Help" feature if you'd like to learn more about track changes, but I hope these instructions help you get off to a good start.

* Incidentally, MS Word has become the de facto word processing program for manuscript editing. I have strong opinions on the many problems, bugs and quirks of the various versions of MS Word, but it's sadly become the industry standard, and we editors have for the most part resigned ourselves to the lack of any comparable alternatives.