Be Your Own Editor

The wearily handsome, nervous, stubble-chinned man slowly and carefully got out of bed when he heard the soft, mysterious sound of footsteps in his apartment.

OR

The ex-con bolted up, rubbed his eyes and then the stubble on his chin, and crept out of bed. Those footsteps didn’t belong in his apartment.

Look at the above sentences, and see if you can figure out why the second example is better written than the first. If you still don’t know, look above that. At the risk of stating the obvious: nouns and verbs are the backbone of any sentence, and thus of all writing. I could have made my title really long and added “… and Adjectives and Adverbs Are Your Enemies,” but as you may have figured out, I like to keep it short.

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I spent about five years of my life as an agent, representing both screenwriters and book authors. I wasn’t a scumsucking bottom-feeder. Then again, I ultimately decided I wasn’t cut out to be an agent.

Agents, especially in today’s book business, are essentially salesmen. Therefore, many of them are, to varying degrees, sleazy, slippery, or even unethical. On the other hand, most do what they do because they love books. People you’ll come across in this business, whatever their faults, aren’t in it for any other reason. One doesn’t choose a career in the book industry to become rich.
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I’m about to tell you to read the most useful book of essays I’ve ever read about fiction—a book that dates from 1927 and refers to works by such authors as Dostoyevsky, Melville, Thomas Hardy, and D. H. Lawrence. The good news: even if you haven’t read a single work by those authors, you’ll still find Aspects of the Novel engrossing, relevant, and helpful in your own work. I promise—whether you’re writing commercial sci-fi mysteries or literary character studies.

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Jenny was being served her apple martini by the bartender just as the front window was shattered by a speeding Humvee, and Jenny was thrown from her stool.

OR

The bartender was serving Jenny her apple martini just as a speeding Humvee shattered the front window and threw Jenny from her stool.

Which sentence jumps off the page? Notice that I didn’t alter a single word, aside from changing each verb from passive to active voice.

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As a former literary agent and freelance book editor, and now a copyeditor at one of the most prestigious literary publishing houses in New York, I’ve seen my share of crap. More than my share. But I’ve also seen dozens of terrifically talented unpublished writers who shouldn’t be unpublished (am I talkin’ to you?). All they lack is the know-how to put the final touches on their masterpiece and get it into the hands of the right people.

So, rather than continue to take thousands of dollars from hard-working (and often financially struggling) writers such as you to help make your books publisher-ready, I decided to create this website to show you how to do it yourselves. Writers make the same mistakes over and over again. I believe the essential skills of good editing can be taught (as can the skills required to get your work read by an agent and sold to a publisher). That’s why I created the “Be Your Own Editor” site. I’ll cover pretty much any and every topic I can think of that relates to writing, editing, the publishing biz… Yes, I’ll even tell you how to get an agent.

But not in this post. Stay tuned.