The Editing Process

I have just finished editing the stories for the first issue of Emerald Tales. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would. My brain imploded sometime, yesterday, trying to figure out how to punctuate verbals.

What are verbals, you ask. They are those verbal phrases which don't function as the verb in a clause, they act like nouns or adjectives or adverbs. Go get your grammar book out and look it up for the full definition.

The ones that were giving me the most fits were the present participles (the -ing form of the verb). Sometimes, they need a comma, sometimes they don't. But, do any of the THREE grammar books that I have adequately explain when they do and when they don't? ... Nooooooo ....

It's a present participle after a verb. One would think that it would always be the same. But, it isn't because it depends on what that participial phrase is doing after the verb. Is it acting like a noun, an adverb, or an adjective. Is it the subject complement, direct object or object of a preposition?

I'll toss some sentences out to illustrate my confusion.

He walked dragging his foot behind him.

He walked, gazing at the sunset.

He said, weeping into his handkerchief.

He said spraying spit everywhere.

Fear not. I did read this helpful bit regarding commas in "Eats, shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss: "This is why grown men have knock-down fights over the comma in editorial offices ..." Well, hell, if grown men are getting into knock-down fights over the comman, it's no wonder I feel like my brain has imploded.

Perhaps, the most interesting and important point of what I have learned in the editing process is this: If the story grabs the readers attention, they won't notice the punctuation. So, it really doesn't matter if I put a comma in front of that present participle or take it out. Unless they are grammar nazis, the reader will not notice. And even if they are, they might not agree with the rules that I learned and am using for proper punctuation.

And ...

So, I am working on editing the accepted submissions. It's not really that bad. However, I have noticed several writers doing this, so I thought I would mention it. The overuse and misuse of the word "and."

It's okay to have a few short sentences in a story. Sometimes, the story flows better if there are two short sentences instead of one compound sentence linked with the word "and."

Using "and" instead of "then." Okay, I went and looked it up in the dictionary. One of the definitions of the word "and" is "then." However, "then" is a perfectly good word. Sometimes it reads better to use the word "then" in a sentence, instead of "and."

Consider this sentence: She swallowed and said, "Hello." Man, that is quite a trick --swallowing and speaking at the same time. I think I'd choke if I tried that. Doesn't this read better: She swallowed then said, "Hello." Doesn't that give you a better visual of the action?

Maybe it's not that big a deal. I didn't notice it when I was reading the stories. It wasn't until I slowed down and started editing them that the "ands" starting jumping out at me.

Submissions - An Analogy

Yesterday on the Scribblers Forum, one of the members was upset about a "rejection." As I thought about how best to respond, I came up with the following analogy which I will share with you here.

For me, choosing the stories and poems for the first issue of Emerald Tales has been like picking a few flowers from a huge bouquet. There are roses and tulips and daffodils; chrysanthmums and daisies and baby's breath; there's foliage; but, there are NO weeds. For this issue, I decided on all tulips, that doesn't mean the roses, daffodils, and all the other flowers are ugly or damaged. It doesn't make them weeds. They are still beautiful flowers, but this time I was looking for tulips. Next time, I may be looking for daisies. Other publishers are looking for orchids, roses, or wildflowers.

I expect at some point in the future I will get a few weeds in my bouquet of submission flowers. They will not be seeing this from me in their response letter: "I would really like to see more from you for future issues." *wink*

How I Handled The Submissions

For those of you interested in the submissions for the first issue of Emerald Tales and how I handled them, here it is. A run down on what I did with your babies. I tortured them mercilessly, then tossed them to the wolves, the ones that survived that were accepted. ... Just kidding.

It was a lot harder to choose which stories to include than I anticipated. I thought I was going to end up with a lot of garbage and only a few really good stories, instead I ended up with a lot of great stories and no trash. *headdesk* There were a handful of really great stories that I thoroughly enjoyed and had absolutely nothing "wrong" with them, but I had to pass on because I didn't have enough room to print them all. *sad face*

Except for those that came in the last two days before the deadline, when I received a submission, I sent a reply to the person telling them that I had received it and when they could expect an answer from me about it and when to enquire if they hadn't heard anything one way or the other. Emails get lost, they get deleted, this way the author knew that I got it and when to expect a reply from me and what to do if they don't hear from me. (I have inadvertently deleted a submission. Fortunately, I was able to rescue it. )

Then I read the submission and placed it one of two folders, "maybe" and "maybe not". That was my first impression of the story.

After I received all the submissions and the deadline had past, I read through all the "maybe nots" again to see if I still felt that way and shifted any that I had changed my mind about into the "maybe" folder.

Those that ended up in the "maybe not" folder, the only thing "wrong" with them that I could see was that they needed to be beta-read. I've beta-read for three years now, I can usually tell when a story has been polished by an author, but not gotten feedback from others. Writers, if you don't have any beta-readers, get some. Now. Join a writer's forum or a real life writer's group. If the first forum you join doesn't work for you, find another, keep looking until you find a group that you connect with. With the internet, it is easier than it used to be to find a good writer's group.

So, now I am working with the "maybe"s folder. There were thirty (30) stories in that folder. I only planned on purchasing the rights for six or seven from different genres. So, I sorted them into their genres. I'll just pick the best one out of each genre and I'll be done. Piece of cake, right? ... Wrong ... It's like a grandparent of thirty being asked which is their favorite grandchild ... *headdesk*

I tried using just one criteria for making my selection. That didn't work. What I ended up doing is coming up with a score sheet for each of those thirty stories and rating them in six different areas then totaling the score. Was that enough to pick the top six or seven from different genres? ... No ... *headdesk*

Surprisingly enough the top of the scale was heavily weighted with Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and horror. A month ago, I would have told you that the Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror stories would have been on the bottom. I love reading Fantasy, but I am frustrated as all get out finding published Fantasy authors that I enjoy reading. And, I read a lot.

Anyway, picking the top six or seven was not going to give me the mix of genres that I was looking for. So, I ended up picking the top one in each genre plus one that even though it scored a bit lower just has to be in the regular edition. So, eight stories for the regular edition.

I had so many Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal stories that were great that I decided that I will also issue a special edition, a Sci-i, Fantasy, Horror edition of "Follow the Butterflies" on August 15. Two out of each genre.

And I still had to pass on some really great stories. Basically, the only difference between them and the ones I accepted was how well I thought the story fit the theme.

I'll be honest, there was one point when I considered going "eenie meenie miney moe" to pick the stories to accept ... What? ... It would have been almost as fair.

So, there you have it. I planned on maybe getting six or seven great stories, I ended up with sixteen and a bunch more that I had to pass on. I'm drinking tequila now to soothe the pain of having to pass on some of those great ones. Why can't I win the lottery and have lots of money to buy great stories?

I do want to thank everyone who submitted a story to "Emerald Tales." The breadth of human creativity always blows me away. I was amazed to see what all of you came up with ... Amazing ... Simply amazing ... And every one of you owns a piece of that. *smile*

Formatting Submissions

*puts on editor/publisher hat*

When I wrote up my submission guideline I wasn't too particular about the font and formatting. I'm still not. However, having read over fifty short stories in the past few weeks that I will be rereading again over the next two days, I decided to take a little break and tell you what it is like on this side of the desk.

The stories that are the easiest to read are the ones that are in twelve (12) point font. 14 is too big. Ten is small. Unless the submission guidelines specify otherwise, use twelve point font. Please.

Fortunately, I didn't receive one that was in color. They were all black text on white background. I'll tell you right now, if anyone sends me a submission with colored font. I won't read it. It will be automatically rejected and the author won't find out until I send the acceptance and rejection letters. (I need to find a better word than rejection, because that is not what I am doing.)

And one other point, paragraph formatting. Either indent the paragraphs or put a blank line between them, please. This is what happens when I open a submission without an ident or blank line between the paragraphs: I see all that black. My eyes roll up into the back of my head. I ask myself if I feel like wading through all of that black. If the answer is no, I close that one and open another one. Oh, I will go back and read it, when I am feeling up to the annoyance of looking at all that black with very little white space. I know it is a pain in the butt to put a blank line between every paragraph, but it is so much easier to read a story on the computer when there is more white space around the text.

In a day or three, I'll post how I am handling the submissions. It's turned out a lot differently than I expected.

I just wanted to toss this bit of food for thought out at you. Does font and formatting matter? Yes and no. Twelve point standard font in black text on a white background with a blank line between paragraphs is the easiest on my eyes to read. At this point, I won't reject anyone who doesn't do that, but I will be annoyed. Do you want an editor feeling annoyed when they are reading your submission?

One more thing, do NOT resubmit your story to reformat it. I've already read it. By the time you read this and resubmit, I may have already reread it. Changing the formatting won't change my mind. I'm not allowing it to sway my opinion. *smile* It's fine the way it is. Please don't clutter up my inbox.

Edited to add: I wasn't clear. The result of blogging after reading so much. My only purpose in posting this is for writers to get a glimpse into what editors and agents deal with on a daily basis. Do what you want with this information. *smile*

An Interesting Phenomena

Several years ago, I used to help my Ballroom dance teacher with his classes. I noticed a really interesting phenomena. We had students come to us who had taken ballroom classes before. Whenever one of them copped an attitude and wouldn't take the beginner's class because they didn't need the beginner's class, invariably they turned out to be the worst students and the worst dancers. Conversely, our best and brightest students didn't believe they were very good and were quite content to hang out in the beginner's class and work on their technique. How well someone could dance is inversely proportional to how well they think they can dance. It's very rare to find someone who is objective about their skill level.

What does this have to do with writing and publishing you ask?

Well, I've noticed the same thing among unpublished writers. Those who I think are absolutely brilliant, think their writing sucks donkey bits. Those who think their writing is the greatest thing since Homer jotted down a little poem, write dreck.

Digging a little deeper what I find is those who get down on their writing are the same as those dancers who didn't think they were very good. They are perfectionists. Perfectionism is a good thing when it helps one strive to do better, perform better, write better. But, it's a bad thing when it strangles the writer and prevents them from writing, blinds them to what is good about their writing or in accepting the honest feedback that they are getting.

It's very rare to find someone who is objective about their own work. Yet, to write the best that one can write, objectivity is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary. Couple objectivity with perfectionism, the output will be amazing.

How does one get objectivity? Curiously enough, I don't know as I don't have it. I realized as I was writing this post that I probably fall into the "thinks her writing is good, but it's really dreck" camp. The last two people I showed one of my own stories to ... one that I was really proud of and thought was pretty good ... both reacted rather tepidly to it. I guess it's a good thing that I can see it in other's stories and decided to become a publisher, rather than bash on trying to become a published author myself.

By the way, I hear they are having a sale on objectivity this week ... if you're running a bit low ...

Creative Geniuses

I hesitate to jump on the Michael Jackson blog post bandwagon. I've never been one to follow the crowd in such things, but his untimely death did get me to thinking about creativity, genius, and suffering. Why is it too often those go hand in hand?

Just thinking about all of the actors, singers, authors, and other public figures who have had a tremendous impact on society and died under tragic circumstances, some were accidents, some were suicides. James Dean, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Princess Diana, JFK, Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, the list goes on and on. Not all of those are creative genius, but their early, unexpected deaths shocked the nation, if not the world. Icons. Larger than life. My response to Michael Jackson's death was the same as when I learned that Princess Diana died and then again when JFK, Jr. died: shock followed by an obsessive search for information trying to make sense of what doesn't make sense.

So, I am watching the videos and these questions start popping into my head: Is it necessary to the process of creativity for the person to suffer? Does great suffering lead to incredible bursts of creativity? Are creative geniuses also emotionally fragile or are they just very sensitive to the world around them? How do you nurture and support a creative genius? How do you stop things like this from happening?

My acting teacher in LA used to say that the best actors were not in Hollywood. They were too sensitive to handle the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Is the same true in the publishing world? Are the best writers not getting published because they are too sensitive to handle the rejection that goes along with the publishing process? Are we missing something? Is "The Great American Novel" stuffed into someone's sock drawer never to see the light of day, because the writer is so sensitive to the world around him/her that they can not bear to submit it to a publisher? Is the book that will change the world and make it a better place languishing on someone's desktop computer or still hiding out in the corner of someone's mind?

I have no answers to these questions.

I wasn't going to do this, but I think it is appropriate. Michael Jackson wrote this and sang it for Ryan White. I link to it for him, all the other icons, and creative geniuses both known and unknown that we have lost too soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101iXwPTNE0