Winkin', Blinkin' and Duh

Tonight I finished my text-to-speech edit for FLAME GAME. It's amazing what else I caught. It's scary what else I caught. It makes me terrified of what else I've missed.

And overused words? Oh, my.

I have a lot of four-letter words that I'll be cleaning up. When I wrote them they seemed to fit. But hearing them? Oh, dear. A little too much. Especially the f-bomb. There will be plenty that will win the war and remain in the manuscript, but seriously, it's embarrassing.

Then there's my newest: wink. Everyone was winking at everyone. I went from easily ten "winks" in my manuscript to three. And two of them were from a dog. That's how bad it was. You need to know though, I kept one of those. I might even have a contest surrounding that particular canine wink.

My next step is to assign chapters and do a little more finessing based on notes I've made and additional research that's come in from my experts.

Then off to my beta readers! I'm so excited to hear what they have to say. And just a little (okay, a lot) anxious.



It's all better with friends.

Self-Editing, Elizabeth George Style

Self-editing.

Are you shaking in your boots?

One of my all-time favorite writing books is Write Away by Elizabeth George. If you're looking for a craft book where the author lays out her process in a clear and easy way, I recommend George's work. Of course, it could be I love it because it's similar to what I have bumblingly put together on my own. However, because I want you to get something out of this post, I'll go with George's detail, not mine. She's much clearer because she's done it some twenty-five times. Me? Um . . . twice.

George does an incredible amount of prep work before she begins. Because of the preliminary work, when she's finally ready to settle down and create her first draft, she doesn't have to worry about what's going to happen next or how her characters should respond. She's able to focus on the best words and use them to create a compelling story.

That doesn't mean things don't change and new ideas don't surface, it just means she's free to allow them to do so without concern about how they fit into the story she is telling.

When she's finished with her first draft, she prints out a hard copy and tries to read it through in a couple of days. She makes no changes to the book. Let me repeat that, because—at least for me—this is the hardest thing to do. She makes no changes to the book during this read through. On a separate piece of paper, she makes notes of where the story needs some kind of work: clarification; delete areas of repetition; delete purple-prose; improve sub-plots; etc. She's simply looking for ways to make the story better, in an editorly way.

Then she writes herself an editorial letter as a guide for her second draft. She doesn't say this in Write Away, but I hope she gives herself a few pats on the back while she points out the weaknesses of the manuscript.

Her second draft is done pen-to-that-untouched hard copy. She goes through and deletes, adds and moves things around with the real cut and paste concept. If she needs to create something longer than three handwritten pages, she'll consider typing it up. Otherwise, this is where she literally gets her hands dirty, uses a bright red pen to slash through paragraphs, and scissors and tape to move paragraphs or scenes around.

This second draft is done at the rate of about fifty pages per day. When she's finished with her marked-up, cut-up and pasted draft, she types all of the changes into the computer, prints out a new copy and gives it to one cold reader. She includes two documents. The first one contains questions her reader should know about prior to the cold read, the second one is sealed and contains questions George didn't want her reader to be influenced by beforehand.

If there are further changes that need to be made, she makes them. Then it's off to her editor.

Have you read Write Away? Does this process appeal to you?



CR: Seed by Ania Ahlborn.

It's all better with friends.

Choose Your Beta Readers Carefully

When the St. Paul Pioneer Press refused to pay for her little red convertible that was fire bombed while she covered a riot, Judith Yates Borger decided it was time to get a new gig. She began writing fiction and hasn't looked back.

Borger draws on her 30 years experience as a journalist to chronicle the escapades of her protagonist Skeeter Hughes, wife, mom and reporter.
In real life, Borger is passionate about her work, her children, her grandchildren, and her marriage. In her reporting days she would never have taken the risks that come naturally to protagonist Skeeter. She lives with her husband, John, and her dog, Honey, in downtown Minneapolis on the Mississippi River, where she rows crew with the Minneapolis Rowing Club.



Her short story, Hunter's Lodge, is included in Resort to Murder, Thirteen More Tales of Mystery by Minnesota's Premier Writers. Where's Billie? is her first novel published by Nodin Press, which will publish The Skeeter Hughes sequel, Whose Hand? in fall 2011. Both are available on Kindle and Nook for under $3.








Judy's website




Website written by protagonist Skeeter Hughes






Please join me in welcoming Judith Yates Borger to Suspense Novelist.


Choose your beta readers carefully

Before I wrote my first book I asked Larry Millett, who had about a dozen Sherlock Holmes books to his credit, for advice. "Be careful whose advice you seek," he said. It was probably the best advice I've gotten so far. But choosing your advisors is difficult business. I've made a few mistakes along the way. Mistakes I'd like to spare you. So here's my advice when it come to choosing advisors.

1. Choose people who know your genre.
Everybody's got an opinion on how to write a book. You just sit down and type, right? Most people think they "have a book inside" just waiting to burst out when the moment is right like a chrysalis waiting to be a monarch butterfly. Eliminate from consideration people who say anything even remotely like this. They're clueless.

Instead, look for people who enjoy reading the type of book what you want to do, or something similar. Get to know them. Find out why they care about, what scares them, what makes them happy. If you're a mystery writer don't get a beta reader who only likes nonfiction.

2. Choose somebody who has time.
This is tricky. More than once I have given a manuscript to people who never got around to reading it. Very frustrating, and, frankly, a waste of paper. Choose somebody who really wants to read your work, not someone who thinks it's just cool to be able to say they did after it's published.

3. Get investment from your beta readers.
I find that the best way to do that is promise to include your beta readers in the acknowledgement, with some title, like Queen of Commas, or Forward Fashionista. Then chat them up after they're done. If they tell their friends about your book you've made some advanced sales.

4. Rotate beta readers.
This is probably the toughest part, especially after you've gone to all that trouble to choose the right readers, but I think it's important, especially if you're writing a series. You want someone with fresh eyes to comment on your work.

5. Apply a skin-thickener liberally.
Comments are made with the idea of improving your work. You're beta readers aren't going to circle the entire book and shout "Brilliant." Remember that in the end, it's your book. You don't have to change anything a beta reader recommends. I have an author friend who listens to the first comment about a particular passage, takes note when a second person mentions the same thing, then changes the suspect passage when she hears about it the third time. I think that's good advice.






CR: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.

It's all better with friends.