There are a lot of rules for good writing, and good editors know all of those rules. Editors take writing and editing classes, read books, and go to conferences to help them better understand how to create a good book.
If you want to produce a great book, however, you need a great editor, and great editors know when and why to break the rules. There aren’t a lot of classes that teach you how to do that, though, so exactly how does an editor hone those rule-breaking skills?
By reading.
Some writers seem to be naturally gifted–they sit down and write, then submit an award-winning manuscript to their editors.
Not exactly. Amanda Cabot’s had more than 30 books published and she still takes the time to edit and revise. Want to know how she does it? Keep reading…
Hello, and thank you so much for being here! Let’s start at the beginning: what do you write? How did you pick your genre?
I write romances – short, long, contemporary, historical, with and without suspense elements. What my stories have in common are heroes and heroines who overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to reach the happily-ever-after (HEA) that romance readers demand from their books. As for how or why I chose to write romance, I’m not sure I had a choice. My favorite books to read were always those that had the classic HEA, so when it was my turn to write a book, it seemed natural to write a romance.
How long does it take you to: write the book? Edit it? Finalize it?
For me, the whole process (which I describe in more detail below) takes between six and eight months.
Which was harder to write: the first book or the following books?
The following books have been harder for me, simply because I strive to make each one better than the preceding one. That puts a lot of pressure on me to find new plot lines and characters who are distinctly different from the ones in earlier books. It’s hard work, but anything less would disappoint readers, and that’s not something I’m willing to do.
What’s your favorite book on writing?
It’s a toss-up between Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. Swain, as his title indicates, outlines the basics of writing as a craft, while Vogler provides guidelines for effective plotting.
What’s your favorite writers conference? What do you like about it?
Although I haven’t been there in a few years, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ annual Colorado Gold conference is one of my favorites. The hotel is one of the best venues I’ve found for conferences; the workshops are excellent, the attendees and presenters friendly. I always come home energized and enthusiastic about writing.
How do you combat writer’s block?
Writer’s block – what’s that? While I haven’t suffered from it in its classic definition, I used to reach the middle of the first draft and be convinced that what I was writing was the worst prose in the English language and that my editor would reject the book and demand that I return the advance. But, since I had a contract, I continued writing. Each and every time, when I finished the first draft and reread it, I realized that it wasn’t the worst prose in the English language. It was simply a first draft, and first drafts can – and will be – edited into good stories.
What advice do you have for new authors?
Never give up. If you choose the traditional publishing route, rejection is a fact of life. I won’t sugarcoat it: rejection hurts. But if you let it defeat you, if you stop sending out your manuscript because it was rejected, you’re only hurting yourself. Believe in your book and in yourself.
What does your revision process look like?
For me, writing is a multi-step process. I begin with a brief synopsis, which is my selling tool. Once I have a contract, I create a chapter-by-chapter outline, deciding which scenes will be in each chapter. Note: this is not cast in stone. It often changes during the actual writing process, but it provides a basic roadmap.
Next comes the first draft, which I describe as the skeleton. Like Halloween skeletons, it’s ugly, but it’s the framework for the story. I do not revise during the first draft, although I may make notes on pages I’ve already written about changes I want to incorporate into the second draft.
Before I begin the second draft, aka the flesh-and-blood phase, I read through the full manuscript in printed form, making more notes of things I want to change. The second draft is where I incorporate those changes, which may involve adding or deleting scenes. I also add more description and more emotion.
When I finish the second draft, I do another readthrough of printed pages, this time doing what I call the accessories stage – you know, adding makeup and jewelry. The modifications at this stage are minimal, but this is where I catch word repetition, punctuation errors, or other problems that a copyeditor would flag.
Once I’ve finished this phase, I read through the entire manuscript one more time, this time on the computer. It always amazes me how differently my brain sees sentences on the screen compared to on the printed page. It’s only when I’ve done this final readthrough that I’m ready to send the manuscript to my editor.
A young woman with a tragic past has arrived in town . . . and trouble is following close behind
Ten years after her parents were killed, Evelyn Radcliffe is once more homeless. The orphanage that was her refuge and later her workplace has burned to the ground, and only she and a young orphan girl have escaped. Convinced this must be related to her parents’ murders, Evelyn flees with the girl to Mesquite Springs in the Texas Hill Country and finds shelter in the home of Wyatt Clark, a talented horse rancher whose plans don’t include a family of his own.
At first, Evelyn is a distraction. But when it becomes clear that trouble has followed her to Mesquite Springs, she becomes a full-blown disruption. Can Wyatt keep her safe from the man who wants her dead? And will his own plans become collateral damage?
Suspenseful and sweetly romantic, Out of the Embers is the first in a new series that invites you to the Texas Hill Country in the 1850s, when the West was wild, the men were noble, and the women were strong.
Amanda Cabot’s dream of selling a book before her thirtieth birthday came true, and she’s now the author of more than thirty-five novels as well as eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city. Her inspirational romances have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists, have garnered a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and have been nominated for the ACFW Carol, the HOLT Medallion, and the Booksellers Best awards. A popular workshop presenter, Amanda takes pleasure in helping other writers achieve their dreams of publication.
www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/
Do you know which genre you’re writing in? Have you ever worked with a freelance editor? Are you a new writer looking for writing tips? Then keep reading and let Marie Watts help you out!
What do you write? How/why did you pick your genre?
I write fiction and nonfiction. In the nonfiction arena, I am the co-author of a textbook, Human Relations 4th ed. and a pictorial history of Fayette County, Texas (where I live) called La Grange. I volunteer at a historic house and am currently producing video snippets of the residents to enhance our house tours. The scripts are written and recorded; now, I’m busy trying to incorporate historical pictures.
I use fiction as an avenue to entertain and encourage others to look at issues such as diversity, personal relationships, and individual growth.
Unfortunately, I write and then worry about the genre. I deemed my current trilogy, Warriors for Equal Rights, as a mystery—it follows employment discrimination investigators who solve crimes and nab the bad guys. Agents, however, proclaimed it could not be a mystery because there was no dead body. Who knew?
If you’ve written multiple books, which was harder: the first book or the following books?
To me, the first one is much harder. The first book in my Warriors trilogy is The Cause Lives. The process took me forever because I was too timid at throwing the characters into situations where the stakes were high. The second book, Only A Pawn, flowed easier since the characters had been established.
How do you combat writer’s block?
I don’t combat it very well. Sometimes I envision a scene and write it. Then later, I go back and stick it in an appropriate place. Other times, when I’m concentrating on something else, ideas pop into my mind.
I have a friend who preaches to me to write at least ten minutes a day, and, sometimes if you just start, ideas flow. Personally, I procrastinate by working jigsaw puzzles on the computer.
How do you prepare to write your books: pantser, plotter, both, something completely different? Describe your strategy.
I admit to being a pantser for fiction. I do, however, know where the story starts and ends. Then, I fill in the middle as my imagination takes hold or as I have something happen to me which sounds good to put into the plot.
My nonfiction writing is a bit different. My recent works involve historical incidents, and the facts shape the story. The trick is to find something interesting that is relatable to people today.
For instance, I was researching the local 1888 newspapers for other information and noticed a spate of violence. Upon closer inspection, I realized the journal bemoaned the incidents and suggested that bearing six-shooters should be curtailed. I used these reports as a springboard to explore Texas gun laws in the 1800s. The article is entitled “A Bloody Month in 1888.”
What advice do you have for new authors?
Take writing classes and read books on writing. Also, read, read, read. Then, think about what the book did for you. Was it just entertainment? Did it make you think? What drew you to the book?
Also, explore the plot and structure. I recently read Liane Moriatry’s Big Little Lies and was fascinated by her ability to weave a story of a murder without revealing the victim or the perpetrator until the end.
Then, use these observations to develop your own writing style.
If you’ve ever worked with a freelance editor, how did you find that editor? How would you describe the experience?
For fiction, I have used different freelance editors, one for content and story construction and another for copy editing. The experience was very positive. The content editor helped me find weak spots in character development and speed up the story. I tend to plot like 19th century novelists in laying out the scene instead of jumping into the action.
No matter how well I think I write, the copy editor has to clean up my work! When working with a copy editor, I suggest agreeing on what sources you will use. For instance, I use Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster Dictionary for consistency.
I attended a writer’s conference in Austin, Texas, and met the editors at that event.
How do you self-edit your manuscript?
When I think I have perfected an article, I run it through Grammerly where I usually find I have missed commas or words. I let it sit for several days and then re-read. Personally, I do not trust myself with a book-length manuscript because I want it to be consistent and grammatically correct. To me, sloppy writing detracts from the story.
What does your revision process look like?
First off, I follow the advice of a writing teacher to “kill your little darlings.” I let the manuscript sit and then began slicing and dicing. I read it numerous times, cutting and reorganizing from there. On my last manuscript, I cut several hundred words on the last round.
Besides cutting out wordiness, I have to look for areas to add descriptions. One of my beta readers on The Cause Lives complained because I gave little or no description of anything! Going through and looking for words and phrases I overuse is also crucial.
Marie W. Watts is a former employment discrimination investigator and human resource consultant with over twenty-five years of experience. She has trained thousands of employees to recognize one’s own biases and prejudices and avoid discriminating against others in the workplace, and she has coauthored a textbook about it: Human Relations, 4th ed. Additionally, her work has been published in the Texas Bar Journal and the Houston Business Journal, as well as featured on Issues Today, syndicated to 119 radio stations, NBC San Antonio, Texas, and TAMU-TV in College Station, Texas.
In pursuit of justice in the workplace, Marie has been in jails and corporate boardrooms seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly of humans at work. She now brings her experiences to life in her works of fiction.
She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons.
http://mariewatts.com
https://facebook.com/mariewattsbooks
https://twitter.com/mariewattsbooks
https://instagram.com/mariewattswriter
It’s not uncommon for writers to publish in different genres or publications. In fact, it can be a good way to build your portfolio and gain experience. Thomas Allbaugh has his hand in several genres, and today he shares some of his tips for novelists. Keep reading!
What do you write? How/why did you pick your genre?
I write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I began with a love of fiction that I got from reading Mark Twain and some science fiction in the fourth and fifth grades. Since then, I’ve written stories and always thought I’d write a novel. I finished my first novel when I was 61. I’m writing my second now.
I graduated to being a nonfiction writer after grad school. Currently, I’m writing a book on grief about losing our son to suicide.
Finally, I just published a chapbook of poems, part of which came out of my grieving process after losing my youngest son.
What’s the most difficult part of writing your genre? How do you work through those challenges?
Right now, I have the over-all concept for my second novel. I find the challenge with this book is focusing on action as opposed to writing too much exposition or background. I realize this is all the process of me learning about my characters and their situation, but most of this material is for me, not my reader. Most of it gets cut.
I have this same problem writing short stories. Recently, I started a story with the basic concept and conflict. I had to do a lot of rewrites to focus more and more on the central conflict of the story and the action. That was harder before I understood what I was doing. Now that I’ve made myself aware that this is how I write fiction, it feels less like driving in the dark.
How long does it take you to: write the book? Edit it? Finalize it?
For my first novel, I had to rewrite it about five times. At one point, after four drafts, I had over 300 pages. One reader suggested I harvest the scenes I liked the most and cut the rest. That was painful to hear, but I did it—I cut over 150 pages and started over.
Editing helped me create emphasis and depth, but revision took most of my time. The novel took six years. I’m about two years into my second novel; it was interrupted by my son’s suicide and a lot of writing I’ve been doing to process that.
What’s your favorite book on writing? What do you like about it?
My favorite book is James Wood’s How Fiction Works. This book mainly focuses on literary examples of point of view. It zeroes in on what Wood calls free indirect discourse: the way an author moves between his/her own authorial voice and the consciousness and voice of the characters. He provides good and bad examples, especially where the author intrudes on the consciousness of the character and doesn’t allow the character’s own language to emerge. This is especially good for someone writing in third person close.
I feel this is often a danger with religious fiction. I don’t want my way of seeing things, which is Christian, to intrude on the view of a character who feels very differently. That is called author intrusion, and I’m more aware of it, thanks to James Wood.
What writing book do you want to read next?
I have found a few pages of Ann Hood’s Creating Character Emotions to be incredibly enlightening in terms of understanding how to present character reactions that are not clichéd (“She shivered with fear”). I started to use it as a kind of map, but I’d like to read it through and really digest her approach to different human emotions. She is particularly good at showing how beginning writers get this wrong and fail to really make their characters’ emotions authentic for a reader. Then, she offers scaffolding on how to do it right. I think it’s going to be a very helpful book.
What’s your writing day like?
I have a day job teaching writing. I have to prepare for and teach classes, then read and respond to student writing. During the semester I can only write in the evenings, on weekends, and during a spare half hour in between work duties. I find it easier to write shorter pieces ( poems and short stories) during this time.
In the summer, I write almost every day for four months. I try to write 9 a.m.–noon; sometimes I write longer. I try not to exhaust myself. Usually this gives me the chance to write 1,000 to 2,000 words. All the drafts of my first novel, Apocalypse TV, were written during summers and Christmas breaks.
How do you prepare to write your books: pantser, plotter, both, something completely different? Describe your strategy.
I am a plontser: I do some plotting, then I do some pantsing.
When I plot, I know something about a character, and usually that knowledge comes from a scene I picture them in, so I write the scenes I know. While writing, I start pantsing, and this gives me a way to discover new ideas about my story. But it leads me to being stuck. Then plotting helps me to see further.
I think it was John Gardner who wrote that writing was like night driving in the country of Southern Illinois. He had trouble seeing beyond his headlights, but he kept driving by those lights. I think Gardner’s metaphor says a great deal of what writing is like for me.
What advice do you have for new authors?
Take yourself seriously and have fun and write what you love. You should join a writer’s group that will listen to you and hear what you are trying to do and be able to help you. You should also go to writer’s conferences and learn about how hard it is to get published and what publishers are looking for. You should learn what works and what doesn’t in the publishing world today.
Finally, really listen to rejection, and don’t rush to print on Amazon unless you are really sure that it’s a good book and is well written. Use rejection to give yourself an apprenticeship. That is, keep trying to get better. Don’t rush to self-publish. Don’t do that until you’ve developed a pretty big platform and audience.
What does your revision process look like?
My revision process is the main portion of my writing process because my drafting is mostly exploring.
I use the first draft to discover my story and ideas. For this reason, I make major cuts and rearrangements. I have to add new scenes. I have to create more emphasis.
I spend the majority of my time revising the big, global issues that shape the plot: what events happen first, what follows, and so forth. Later, I focus and add more color to scenes, more dialogue, add more character details, and create the emphasis I want. Revision for me is chaotic, but it may be where most of my work gets done. It certainly was for my first novel.
Thomas Allbaugh is the author of Apocalypse TV, a novel, and, most recently, The View from January, a poetry chapbook centered on themes of transience and the loss of his son. He is professor of English at Azusa Pacific University, where he teaches creative writing and composition/rhetoric. He has also published a textbook for first-year writing, Pretexts for Writing, which is in its third edition.
https://thomasallbaugh.com
https://twitter.com/tallbaugh1
https://facebook.com/tallbaugh1
I write all my books longhand.
I can imagine what you look like about now. First, your eyes widen in shock that someone in this technological age is still using the antiquated art of longhand. Then once the surprise wears off, you’re left wondering why anyone would waste their time, doing such a thing.
When I first started writing, computers were still relatively new. The only way to get on the internet was dial-up, there wasn’t anything like scrivener or Goggle docs, and we saved everything on a piece of plastic called a floppy disc. I didn’t even know how to work one, nor did I care until the night Princess Diana died and I wanted to read the London newspapers.
Still, I wrote my first book on my newly acquired laptop. And rewrote it. And wrote it again. Seeing my work on the screen was a problem for me. Once it was there, I wanted it to be perfect, so I’d switch a sentence around. Or I’d try different taglines. Or I’d change my character’s emotion. My first book took me six years to finish. You read that right—SIX!
I finally threw the floppy disc into a drawer and started another manuscript. This time, I wanted to be smarter. I needed to figure out a way to silence my internal editor and get the story down in a reasonable amount of time. First, I tried an AlphaSmart (for those of you unfamiliar with this, it’s basically a word processor.) I figured if it didn’t have a screen, I wouldn’t expect perfection.
Wrong. Though I did get the work down quicker, I still had a big problem. I’m a sucky typist. A writer who can’t type. When I had typing class (you know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I was too busy flirting with the cute boy next to me to actually practice. After all, I wasn’t going into any field that would require me to type.
Yeah, God is still laughing about that one.
Then I read an article on the positives of writing longhand. First, it slows down your thoughts which for someone like me who has 22 tabs open, most of the time that’s a good thing. Secondly, it helps curb that nasty internal editor. Plus there are those people who find writing longhand helps them to study or memorize a piece.
So, I tried it and found I surpassed my previous daily word counts. Writing longhand helped me get the first draft down, and that pesky internal editor that had hounded me for years was silenced. With the introduction of the iPad Pro and Apple pencil, I can now write longhand, then translate my writing into text that goes into my word file. By the time it’s to this phase, I’m ready to edit my work or as I tell my family, ‘pretty it up.’
Another thing (and this is important) if I write my story longhand, I find that when I edit, it makes the process go a whole lot faster. For me at least, writing puts it to memory which makes my second and third edits a breeze. Results don’t lie—since changing over to longhand, I’ve written four novels, ten to fifteen novellas and dozens of magazine articles and devotionals.
So, if you’re having trouble getting words down, give writing longhand a try. Personally, I use Vera Bradley notebooks (you can get 550 words per page) and EnerGel pens in navy blue, but a notebook and pen from the dollar store work just as well.
Trust me, it works!
Multi-published author Patty Smith Hall lives near the North Georgia Mountains with her husband, Danny, her two daughters, her son-in-law, and her grandboy. When she’s not writing on her back porch, she’s spending time with her family or reading on her back porch.
Dr. Joshua McClain is heading west but first stops in Hillsdale, Michigan, to break the marriage contract his late mother arranged between him and Katie Clark. Years ago, Katie left him behind in Charleston after the tragic death of her mother. But after a train crash, he comes face-to-face with Dr. Kathleen Clark, his childhood friend all grown up. When Josh shows up in town, claiming they’re betrothed, Katie refuses to consider an arranged marriage. She’ll marry for love or not at all. Besides, he’s headed for Kansas Territory; her practice is here in Hillsdale. Then why are they both finding it hard to break their betrothal and say goodbye?
Editor. Teacher. Novelist.
A passionate lover of fiction, Karin doesn't just write novels, she helps others write their best stories! A certified substantive editor with the Christian Editor Connection, her goal is to help authors to put her out of business by equipping them with the tools they need to become better writers.
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Lover of all things fiction, I also love University of Michigan football, the Detroit Lions, Tigers, and Red Wings, kayaking, gluten-free cupcakes, and my husband.
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