Be Your Own Editor

Rollin from Virginia writes:

My question is: As an editor do you find overly descriptive narratives distracting or do they enhance the overall story? Example:

“Scattered columns of moonlight bled through the winding treetops of Barraud Common’s royal park as the night air howled through its foliage. On the ground below, amid the shadows cast on the murky forest floor, an orchestra of nocturnal creatures howled, twittered and creaked their songs of twilight.”

The simple answer, Rollin, is that “overly” anything is distracting. Description, like other elements, can enhance not only the story, but also the characters, the mood, and the themes in your writing. But restraint is called for: the best description uses a few well-chosen words to give the reader a lot of information.

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Check out this simple but wise article at Salon.com about writers’ motivation (or lack thereof). Hint: it’s not magic, and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

If you’re having motivation problems, Trent Steele of WriteStreet.com is giving away a bunch of free writing-related products (software, guides, audio interviews, etc.), one of which might just give you a kick in the pants. All you have to do is sign up for his free newsletter, so it’s worth a look-see. Check it out here.

Today’s New York Times features a book called How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, by a French literature professor. I have got to get a copy when the translation publishes in the States. Finally, I can pretend I’ve read Proust! And Bright Lights, Big City! Read the article here.

A lot of famous and infamous books have been published over the centuries, and we all have our embarrassing gaps. Share your own here, and I’ll share my thoughts on them. Be honest. We do not judge. And I or someone else might even tell you the book you’ve been “meaning to read” since you were sixteen ain’t worth ten hours of your life.

Josie shook her head, “It will never work.”
“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Ben chuckled.
Miss Gilmore woke them with a shout, “It’s time to get up!”
“What the heck is a verb of utterance?” Maria asked.

In the sentences above, the phrase “Maria asked” would often be referred to as a tag. The phrases “Josie shook her head” and “Ben chuckled” might be referred to as tags, but they should also be referred to as wrong. More precisely, the phrases themselves are fine, but the punctuation setting off those phrases needs fixing. You may see the reason immediately, but such misunderstanding of verbs of utterance in dialogue is probably among the top three mistakes I see in work by new fiction writers—and often by established authors, too.

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Gia asks:

An author friend of mine asked me, a former English teacher and a current recluse: “After the editor’s tidying-up, then what? How do you get people to buy your book?”

Boy, Gia, if I had the answer to that question I’d be a very rich woman. It’s no easier to answer than “How do I get galleries to show my paintings” or “How do I get a record company to sign my band.” The best I can offer your reclusive writer friend is my advice on how to maximize her chances of getting a publisher to bite.

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A recent perusal of the magazine section at Barnes & Noble told me what I already suspected: the pickings of useful magazines for writers (that’s writers, not readers) are slim indeed. I bought all four, and sat down to peruse Writers’ Journal first. My conclusion? While the magazine contains some too-vague advice and off-topic filler, it peppers its pages with enough useful tips to make it worth the $19.97 annual subscription fee for six issues—but only if you’re a novice writer.

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