Editing is so much more than ensuring correct spelling and punctuation — the topic and the process go as deep as each individual project will allow. Editing isn’t about red pens and an editor’s self-confidence in his or her own writing education, it’s about reading.
When I read, I want poetry. Even from those who do not consider themselves poets — though it may be a surprising concept in conversation, this is not an outrageous or fruitless expectation. Lots of writers give me exactly what I want. I crave cadence and sensuality, bold images and tangible emotion. Many writers comply.
The challenges arise for me, the demanding reader, when the author doesn’t step aside and let the characters speak to me one-on-one. I want to sit at the narrator’s (or protagonist’s) feet and listen to a first-hand rendition. I demand the writer move over.
As you might guess, this makes me a difficult editor.
Tell me about your reading demands. How do your readerly cravings influence your peer editing skills?
Speaking of reading, we have a list of contestants for you to read and offer feedback! Lost & Found has been interpreted by our Flaming authors and their creations await comments and votes. Have your say before Midnight July 3rd!
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Reblogged this on Eadar Doodles + Cheese and commented:
Scrub and polish! A little more editing advice.
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For peer edits, I’d say my biggest hurdle is plausibility. For my own enjoyment I read fantasy, science fiction, supernatural horror…but if what a writer is telling me doesn’t jive with my sense of what is possible or likely – I get stuck. And I don’t just mean from an abstract or surreal sense in the plot. I mean if a character speaks, acts, reacts in a way that does not fit with real world interaction it bugs me. Enough of that and I just put the story down and move on to other things.
As for the decadent descriptions and things – that belongs to a particular writing style. It is not for everyone and it does not suit every type of telling. I was listening this week to the third book in the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. In the beginning of the book, one brother [Corwin] reports to another [Random] that their brother [Cain] has been killed and it appears someone is framing him [Corwin] for the murder. The dead body of a humanoid creature was in the bushes away from the scene and the creature is one they encountered once before. In book one, six of them tried to kill Random and Corwin helped his brother defeat them. Corwin asks Random (two books later) how they came to be chasing him in the first place. By way of reply, Random begins a story that predates the event in question by freaking millennia and paints a dripping movie real with detailed unrelated and abstract observations – giving a step-by-step account that makes me want to poke his eyes out. Four chapters of him monologuing later, I’ve forgotten the question and am listening to another audiobook. There are nine books in the series. If I’m ever to finish I need to get through that one but WOW! What the hell was Zelazny thinking and where were his editors?
Just one example of more being a bad thing.
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