A dedicated viewer of HGTV and budget-conscious person, I like to watch the High Low Project with Sabrina Soto. During each episode, Sabrina and her assistant decorate a space with high-end furnishings and trimmings, then recreate it on a shoestring budget. Bottom line: You needn’t spend a lot to look like you broke the bank. And you can apply this same idea to publishing. Recently, I reviewed a manuscript for a potential client. Her intriguing story needed work, so I gave her a sample edit—and a bid that didn’t fit her budget. The writer lamented the fact that she might not be able to afford the professional help needed to publish the quality book she wanted. Many writers fail to count the cost before they begin. They also fail to explore options that may whittle huge expenses into affordable services. How can they create their own high-low publishing project? Join a writer’s group, but be selective. Visit them. Are they a good fit for you and your work? (Check out both loca...

Amidst blizzard predictions and admonitions to stay inside, I contemplated the whimsies of springtime in the Rockies and their similarities to the writing profession. Meteorologists warn of pending storms, share survival techniques, and urge us to carry emergency packs if we venture out during dangerous conditions. In like manner, editors, publicists, designers, fellow writers, BRP, and more warn of potential snares along the writing trail, pass on techniques for circumventing those dangers, and urge us to form support networks for emergencies that threaten our writing progress. All this is great—but it works only if we heed the warnings, prepare for the storms, and have a contingency plan. Are we excuse makers or listeners? Let’s consider some mindsets that send us into inclement writing weather without protection against the elements of failure. This is my story. Only I can tell it the way it needs to be told. Do you believe your story is one-of-a-kind, a topic that has never b...

Last month we discussed questions from a first-time novelist who had been devastated by the harsh criticisms of a critique group. This time we’ll consider comments from a writer who had completed four historical fiction novels, but who had never worked with an editor and had not been published. She said, “As a new writer, I was paranoid that no one would like my stories. Would my editor be able to keep my ‘voice’ and not make too many additions of her own? I believed a good editor would instill confidence in a writer’s skills and ideas and yet be honest when something didn’t work or needed a change. A good editor would also convey this in a way that would dignify a new writer and encourage her to improve, not to give up.” These may sound like simple comments, but this writer expresses major concerns in these few sentences. First , she worried that nobody would like what she wrote. This is a common fear among writers, particularly first-timers. Even established authors can pen ...

First published Wednesday, March 24, 2010   Recently, I had the less-than-stellar experience of editing a manuscript for a first-time writer who believed her every word, every comma, every sentence contributed to her perfect book and under no circumstances should be changed. Emotions ran high, and reason ran out the door. Resistance became the word of the day, every day. A few years ago, I attended a seminar where we were told that our books are not our babies. However, books are birthed after months, sometimes years, of hard labor. That does suggest a kinship between the two b’s—babies and books. What happens when our baby gets sick? Do we take it to the doctor? Yes. When the doctor writes out a prescription, do we fill it? Of course. We even get well-baby checks and follow a schedule of immunizations to prevent measles, mumps, chickenpox, tetanus, hepatitis, and other diseases. Why? We want our baby to be healthy, the best it can be. What about our manuscripts? When they ...

Editors know nothing – and that’s a good thing. When I say, editors know nothing, I’m not talking about their ability to edit. I’m talking about your manuscript. When it comes time to turn to a professional to edit, mark up, offer suggestions, and work with you to fine tune and improve the work, you want someone with “fresh” eyes, someone who hasn’t read previous versions of your manuscript. Your beta readers have been reading, offering ideas, marking up the pages. You’ve probably made changes based on their comments. You’ve made improvements. Now it’s time to turn to someone who knows nothing … about the changes or what the story looked like in the beginning. You may end up paying multiple editors to look at your work. Most writers only pay one. That one needs to be someone with experience and knowledge in editing and coaching -- someone who will tell you the hard truth. The good news is that person is a professional. They’re not going to be hurt when you disagree with them....

I just completed a substantive edit/copyedit/proofread for a first-time writer. The story, aimed at young adults, included an impressive roster of characters and a significant amount of action, suspense, and intrigue aimed at keeping readers glued to its pages. This author could no doubt spin a yarn around a campfire that would keep listeners on the edges of their camp stools. Unfortunately, this doesn’t equate to creating a powerful, compelling, tight story on paper (or the hard drive). To her credit, our inexperienced young writer wanted to learn her craft. She walked hand-in-hand with us as we reworked, rewrote, and recreated her book. During the first half of the story, we went over all our changes chapter by chapter. Unfortunately, the tight press date didn’t allow us to help her work through those processes herself, but despite that drawback, she presented us with an impressive rewrite of the ending that worked well and demonstrated writing skills we had not seen in the origina...

It’s amazing what a good editor can do to improve a manuscript, and every writer can benefit from an objective eye and a discerning red pencil. Sometimes it’s just a matter of a few changes that can make a good book better, and I discovered how valuable that can be when an editor, Paula Stallings-Yost, offered to look at the first few chapters of One Small Victory before I submitted it to a publisher. Paula and I are good friends, and we have periodically done some editing for each other, and that input from fresh eyes has been much appreciated. One of the things Paula pointed out to me was the importance of using a dramatic punch line. I knew about comedic punch lines and how the timing of delivery can make or break a joke, but I had never thought about dramatic punch lines until Paula pointed it out in a passage of my first chapter. Here is what I had originally written: Sometime soon she'd have to clean out the closet. Isn't that what usually happens? Tears burned her eye...

The editor-writer relationship can be many things: transactional, perfunctory, frustrating, beneficial, and inspiring are just a few descriptions used. One of my favorite yet-to-be-published novelists loves to entertain me with stories about her editor chasing her around a cabin as they argued over a short story. And she loves him for it. Something magical can occur between an editor and a writer: mentorship. When I left an in-house editing job, I was honored by the number of writers who described my approach to editing as mentorship. It is pure joy to work with people who love words, whether they are seasoned pros or beginners with sentences as wobbly as a toddler learning to walk. What can take a relationship into the mentorship-sphere? Here’s how a few authors described it to me. Developing trust. Sometimes creating trust is as easy an as editor providing a few “whys” behind the edits – without being asked. It helps to show that an editor is red-penning with the story’s best interes...

Ideally an author and an editor cooperate to create an even better manuscript. The author offers the product of her imagination and experience. The editor reminds her of her audience and the standard rules that will help readers understand her book. My finest and most memorable editing usually occurs when I dialogue with an author. Several years ago I was honored to copyedit Lee Lynch’s novel Sweet Creek and among my suggestions told her that, according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary , 11th edition (the standard for our book company), the word “far-out” needs a hyphen. Lee had accepted all my suggested revisions but balked on this one. She insisted that the word was “far out.” I put on my English-professor hat and loftily explained that it has been around since 1954 and that compound words evolve from two separate words (far out), to a hyphenated word (far-out), and eventually to one word (farout). I concluded my mini-lecture but stating, “We’re now in the word’s second stage ...