Today is the first day where I didn’t have to sit down and grind. Cool! I officially started post-production of the novel. This will be a long post, but I’m getting my thoughts down as they may be useful to some of you.
LOOPING
The first order of business is to loop back through the novel and clean up loose ends. I did about 12 chapters in-depth today. The first 10% or so and the last 10% or so are good to go to my editor at this point. As I move closer to the middle, there are a few continuity issues I need to address, but all is good so far. It’s funny how when you write into the dark, somehow everything manages to pull together, even though it doesn’t feel like it will when you’re writing. That’s one of the great tricks of the critical voice.
Let me give you an example.
One of the early chapters of the novel pretty much lays everything out on the table:
- the villain’s motivations
- the theme
- the groundwork for the final battle
I had no idea about any of this when I wrote it. I was literally on my exercise bike just trying to make this novel happen. But as I went back and looped through this chapter, I shook my head and laughed. My creative voice knew all of this the whole damn time. It took me writing the entire novel for ME to figure it all out.
As a result, there are weird and interesting parallels in the story between the hero and the villain. Like, really creepy parallels. Anyhoo, that’s why I love writing into the dark. It’s really fun to see what you can do when you trust the process. Writing into the dark leaves a unique handiwork on your stories that you don’t get when you outline. It’s almost like an artist’s mark, but the handiwork is different with every novel. Kind of like a historic building that has its unique features compared to others built in the same period.
I’ll continue looping throughout the weekend and should be done early next week. Once done with looping, I’ll do some spot checks for what I call “usual suspects” edits—things my editor usually has to correct. If I can catch a few of those in advances, that’s a good thing.
FACT-CHECKING: A NEW PROCESS I’M PERFECTING
The next step is fact-checking. The longer I do write, the more I realize that every novel can benefit from this, even though it slows things down just a little.
There are always at least 2-3 areas in a novel that I don’t have subject matter expertise in, but that I need help with. Even if you “write what you know”, this still applies.
For example, this novel had a few areas I wanted to make sure that I got right:
- the city itself—I wanted to portray it accurately
- biology of a certain animal
- female perspective – the main character’s sister is a major character in the story and I want to make sure that her chapters/appearances feel authentic from a female perspective. The sibling relationship in the book is also critical to the story. Plus…everyone benefits when male authors write more realistic female characters. This area isn’t really fact-checking as it is sensitivity reading, but I don’t like that term. This isn’t really something you can research either. You just have to talk to people.
Also, in case anyone is interested, I believe in recruiting everyday people as your fact checkers whenever possible. If you can, avoid writers and editors, even if they’re not giving you direct feedback on your writing itself. Regular people don’t have any filters or an agenda. They’ll tell it like it is, no BS, and that’s about the closest honor you can do to your readers. I don’t just want to know what they think about my subject matter details, I want to know HOW they think and WHY. Because if you can tap into that, you wield an unbelievable amount of power in mind controlling your readers as they’re reading your story. You can keep them super engaged. A writer is forever tainted the moment they pick up the pen, and editors will have a hard time turning off their editor brains. Everyday people don’t have this problem. They just do what you tell them, which is to tell you what they think.
Wow, I digressed big time…
The first thing I did in the fact checking process was was research. I spent many hours researching biology and the city. I took lots of notes, did a lot of thinking, and think I did a pretty decent job of doing the RIGHT research, and ONLY the research that will add value to the story. (You all know how I feel ‘bout this if you’ve ever read my book How to Write Your First Novel…if not…read the section on research…)
Anyway, I believe in using my resources. I do as much research as I can before asking for help.
Then I recruit fact checkers to test my research. That’s something I haven’t been as good at doing in the past, but it’s now a cornerstone of my production process.
The fact checkers for the city element have already returned their feedback. My research was mostly accurate but there were some items I would never know if I didn’t talk to people.
I sent the novel to the other fact checkers today with a one-week deadline. The feedback will roll in gradually throughout the week. By this time next week I should hopefully be in a position to incorporate their feedback, which will get the novel ready for editing.
RETHINKING EDITING
As I said yesterday, this is my 30th novel. I’ve written more novels that most folks, and I’ve learned some important lessons the hard way about editors and editing.
-#1: You don’t know if you hired a good editor until after you publish your book, usually many years later. What YOU think about the quality of the edits doesn’t matter. What READERS think is the only thing that matters. And you won’t have a good picture of what they truly think about your writing until you’ve published a significant number of books.
#2: I’m still not a proponent of developmental editing (but you knew I was going to say that).
#3: (Copy)Editors fall into three categories. Category #1 are editors who are wizards at grammar/typos and sentence flow. The really good ones damn near obliterate typos in your book, so much that you can forgo a proofreader. Category #2 are editors that are masters at continuity, consistency and technical accuracy of your content. In other words, they’ll call you out if your character is standing on page 2 but sitting on page 3, and they’ll catch weird things, like questioning “how” a character does something as simple as open a door. (“If she’s carrying four grocery bags, wouldn’t she have a hard time opening that car door? Shouldn’t she put one of the bags down first?”). The really good ones will make your jaw drop at just how little you kept tabs on the micro details in your story. Category #3 are the editors who excel in both categories #1 and #2 IN THE SAME EDIT. These editors are unicorns. Very few of them exist. Most editors demonstrate skill in categories #1 OR #2, and you need to figure out which one they are good at and, if you can, then backstop them with someone who can help in the category they’re weak in. Why does this matter? If your editor is a wizard at TYPOS then your stories will look clean, but your CONSISTENCY/ACCURACY may pull readers out of your story, especially in audio. (ESPECIALLY IN AUDIOBOOK FORMAT!!! These errors jump out when a narrator reads them, whereas a narrator can just read typos correctly so the listener never knows.) If you have a good technical editor who catches continuity errors but they miss typos, we all know how bad that looks. Readers might appreciate the story, but they won’t buy the book if the typos are bad, or they’ll leave bad reviews. Therefore, you need to attack both problems.
#4: More money does not equal better editing, but below a certain point, you do get what you pay for. Your goal should be to find the intersection of FAIR FOR THE EDITOR (because they have to pay their bills) and COST-EFFECTIVENESS for your budget (because you don’t have an unlimited budget).
Anyway, I’ve been rethinking how I handle editing lately. I’ve been relentlessly focused on how to add more value into the editing process, and how to spend strategically so that I trace the dollars I spend to value.
EASY EXAMPLE: Why would you spend $1500 on a developmental edit if you can’t prove whether it objectively improves your story? You’re paying for the opinion of ONE PERSON who is providing you ONE OPINION about ONE OR TWO STORY THEORIES THEY LIKE and whether your story fits within them, which READERS may or may not even care about. Basically, you’re gambling with your money. This isn’t an indictment on developmental editors—this is about objectivity in the quality of your novel, which I do not believe a developmental editor can give you.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE: If you write a novel that takes place in New York City and you get the public transit details wrong, I guarantee you that readers will tell you about it. Same goes with any other little detail that a long-time New Yorker would know. Generally speaking, people are proud of where they live and want to see their cities done right (this is true of rural areas, too). Will someone who lives in Colorado care too much about your inaccurate NYC details? Probably not, but if they read the reviews that show that your accuracy is wrong, they’ll question what else is wrong. If you spend the time and money to root out these types of accuracy problems, you most definitely will NOT get bad feedback from readers. If you do, it’ll be because of other reasons, or nitpickier things. For example, if you write hard sci-fi, people are always going to quibble with your science even if it’s correct. But there’s a big difference between feedback that discusses your methods and “the guy just didn’t do his research” type of comments. Therefore, if you can confidently eliminate these types of errors in your story, you objectively improve the quality of the story.
The need for fact-checking applies not just to cities, but other areas, like professions, hobbies, weapons, law, personalities, medical conditions, geography, history, and so on. The key is to identify the areas where getting a fact-checker will add the most value and stop your readers from going “huh?”. You can go overboard.
ADDING VALUE TO THE EDITING PROCESS
In an ideal world, if you could know that you’re getting the most value out of the editing process, it might look something like this:
#1: Research as much as you need to help you start writing the novel—nothing more, nothing less. Then research details just-in-time as you need them.
#2: Once the novel is written, use fact checkers to check the execution of your research. This needs to be done early. Also, pay attention to research that you don’t use. Do less of that next time, and more of the research that you actually used.
#3: Efficient self-editing. This is a topic for another post, possibly a book. The questions I am always asking are: is the TIME I’m spending adding value to the manuscript? Are the EDITS I’m making adding value to the manuscript? Is there anything I’m NOT doing that I should be? How can I self-edit my work more efficiently and more ACCURATELY in less time? This is another area where writers collectively waste a lot of productivity.
#4: Strategic use of beta readers. Most people just look for anyone and everyone to beta read, but in my opinion, it’s way, way better to be picky about your betas and pick ones experienced in your book’s (sub)genre, even if it means you can’t find any. You could even accomplish two goals by having your betas serve as fact-checkers as well by picking them strategically. For example, if your epic fantasy story has big religious overtones, finding an epic fantasy beta reader who is deeply active in their church and their religion, and asking them to pay special attention to the religion parts. I think people just aren’t strategic with their beta readers, and it’s a missed opportunity to tap into individual talents they have that most writers might overlook. It’s also a smart way to engage them to go above and beyond for your book, which helps everyone, especially your reader.
#5: Strong continuity/consistency edit.
#6: Strong copyedit.
#7: Strong proofread, if needed. But probably not.
#8: Last resort options, such as MS Word, Grammarly, ProWritingAid, etc.
WOW, THIS WAS A LONG POST
A little rambly, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about over the last few days. I’m on a mission to get people to think deeply about how they spend their time and money with writing.
This life isn’t exactly cheap, and I know so many of you have families and other obligations, and that money isn’t exactly easy to come by.
Spend based on value, not on how it makes you feel about your story. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the last 30 novels, it’s that what I think about the story doesn’t matter, but I CAN control the areas that make a big difference for readers.
Have a good night, all.
Oh, don’t forget to join me for the power hour tomorrow morning at 10AM Central Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqXovG9feBY. Gonna be fun!!!
