Re-post: Your editor - and the final word

You’ve put a lot of hard work into your manuscript and now you are feeling more than a little protective of it. So when your editor or publisher says to you that you need to go through it and “tighten it up”, you might even feel a little resentful.

First of all, quit taking it personally. Your editor may want changes and it may have nothing to do with the quality of your writing. This may be your first manuscript… or your tenth, but chances are that your editor’s experience still surpasses yours. The editor you are dealing with often has a much clearer understanding of what works and what the publisher wants.

The bottom line is that while a writer’s ideology is to write for his or her public, your editor / publisher is your ultimate boss. If you don’t keep the boss happy, you don’t keep your job. If your differences are that great or that insurmountable, then maybe you should go somewhere else.

In the meanwhile, there are some easy steps to self-editing your work and hopefully getting your manuscript into saleable shape even before your editor sees it.

By all means run spell check – but do not let spell check make automatic corrections, you don’t need penal systems being turned into penises or vagrants turned into vaginas! (Trust me, I learned the hard way). Make sure that words like its (belonging to) and it’s (short for it is) are used correctly; the same rule applies to your (possessive) and you’re (you are). Check punctuations and capitalizations, make sure that numbers are consistent with verbs and your tenses stay in the same time period.

Read your manuscript through with a critical eye; if possible read it from the back so that you don’t automatically assume what words come next, this way you can make sure that your thoughts are clear. Check for overused and repeated words – can you replace them with something that means the same without sounding pretentious? By the same token, make sure your words, especially dialogue, sound natural and use less flowerily phrases if necessary. Check definitions – words may sound similar but may have very different meanings (tousled hair is a little bit messy; tussled hair fights with itself). Maybe you should HAVE used a dictionary, not should OF.

Show, don’t tell. Don’t tell your reader how he should feel about a sunset, show it. Talk about broad shoulders, trim physiques and sinewy muscles instead of just saying “the good looking man”. Describe flavors and scents so that your readers can “sense” the taste and experience the smells. Maintain your point-of-view within a scene and if you absolutely must use another POV, make sure your reader can follow along and not feel like he is bouncing between heads.

Make your voice stronger by removing unnecessary adverb and adjectives; if your sentence sounds right, or better, without words ending in –ly, eliminate them. Clear and active sentences use Subject-Verb-Object and if the sentence makes a complete thought, it’s okay to end it with a period. Avoid run-on sentences; use commas before the word “but”, to link items together or to pause as in dialogue. Finally read your manuscript aloud, in private is okay – your ear will pick up differences that your eyes may not.

Writing exercise: Write a simple paragraph or two about something that happened in your day – using a thesaurus, change as many words as possible and read it aloud. How does it sound? Were the meanings of the original words correct and understood? How about the substituted words?
Writing prompt: Make a list of ten action verbs. Conjugate each verb with common pronouns (I am, He is, They are…) and different tenses (He runs, He ran…)