Books and Bookmen

Since I last posted, I have (of course) been very busy.

Partly having fun at Theakston’s Old Peculier Festival of Crime-Writing at Harrogate in July, where I caught up with friends from the Crime Writers’ Association. Highlights of the Festival were the zany Lynda La Plante; the delicious combo of ace writers Laura Lippman and Belinda Bauer (who carried off the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award with a book I gasped at even if I didn’t exactly enjoy, Rubbernecker); the forum I attended on Keeping It Real; Sophie Hannah; Peter May; and JK Rowling aka Robert Galbraith being interviewed by Val McDermid in the sold-out-in-minutes event of the show. The Festival was, as usual, a wonderful occasion with insights into what makes crime-writers tick, what makes crime novels work and what crime readers like most of all (apart from queueing up to get new books signed.)

I’d popped two books onto my Audible account in advance of author appearances at Harrogate, one The Murder Bag, which I thought was Tony Parsons aspiring to the style and depth of Robert Galbraith and succeeding to a degree, and The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar. I didn’t get a chance to hear any of that one before Harrogate, which is a great pity, because there are a host of questions I’d have asked him as a result; like, what made you think of mixing Victorian personalities, twenty-first century technology, singing whales, poet prime ministers, pirate ships, disappearing islands and an alien lizard race in a novel that’s also a paean to practically every book I’ve ever loved?? It’s a staggering tour de force and I’m thrilled to say I haven’t finished it yet. I want it to go on for ever.

One of those CWA friends I caught up with at Harrogate is Martin Edwards. Martin is probably one of the most under-appreciated crime novelists writing today – though not within the CWA – and has recently (and deservedly, oh yes) won the Margery Allingham Short Story prize for Acknowledgements. His latest Scarlett Hannah/Daniel Kind Lake District Mystery The Frozen Shroud is probably his best yet, though it has tough competition from earlier books in the series, with some very sneaky yet successful plotting and atmosphere by the bucketload. I notice the ebook is currently on special offer with Amazon – a good bet for your Kindle at 99p. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frozen-Shroud-Lake-District-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00CW0G6WW/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1405889246&sr=8-1&keywords=frozen+shroud

Finally I have to say a word in respectful tribute to David St John Thomas, who passed away last week at the age of 85. In his sleep, on a cruise – wouldn’t we all like to go that way? He had an inspiring life, creating his own publishing house (speciality: books on trains) and publishing magazines like the excellent Writers’ News. That magazine brought me into the writing world – I started subscribing not long after its inception in the late Eighties – and while it’s now published by Warners, it’s still one I’d recommend to the serious would-be writer. David St John Thomas was keen to encourage writers and good writing and did a lot of charitable work in this arena. He made a career of his passions, and passed on his passions to others: a life well lived.

Critiques, Structural edits, Copy-edits.... Let's Define the Beasts

In my last post I wrote about how I was interviewed by author Sandra Danby for her blog about editing and tips for writers, after Fiction Feedback had copy-edited her book.

Since then - is it by coincidence? - I've been asked several times what's the difference between structural or developmental editing and copy-editing, and whether a critique is the right choice rather than an edit.

So it makes sense to reproduce some of the info I gave to Sandra here on Fiction Feedback's own blog. Enjoy!


What’s the difference between a critique, structural editing, copy-editing and proofreading?

A critique takes a broad view of your story or novel and highlights major strengths and weaknesses and makes outline suggestions for improvement. It’s a good starting point.

Structural or developmental editing looks at all the strengths and weaknesses and helps you make changes. It’s very hands-on. It looks at the nuts and bolts of how the MS is working as a story or novel – structure, narrative arc, characterisation, plot, pace and style.

Once that’s done – and allow for two more drafts after your first – it’s time for copy-editing. This is where we examine the prose word by word. Yes, we pick up problems with spelling, grammar and punctuation, and ensure all-important consistency, but you’ll also be encouraged to test that every word is doing its job to the utmost. So we’ll look at vocabulary choices, naturalistic dialogue, facts, logic, repetition, minor glitches in characterisation or plot, anachronisms and verisimilitude. Do you quote a TV show of 1963 and mention its host? We check it was broadcast then and that the host is the right one. Do you write about watching events at the bottom of an unlit garden from an English home at 5pm in January? We respectfully point out that might not be feasible. Do you use one expression of amazement no matter which character is speaking? We suggest you create different expressions for each character. Allow for two copy-edits.

Once you’ve checked the final copy-editing amends, you shouldn’t really be making any further revisions. But just in case you do, and to pick up any oversights or inconsistencies, the novel needs to go through a final proofread before publication, preferably by a different pair of eyes. At Fiction Feedback, we use a different proof-reader from the editor whenever we’re asked for the service.


So there you are. If you've any questions, leave a comment below, visit the Fiction Feedback site or email us: info@fictionfeedback.co.uk



 

Editing for Quality

Apologies for being away for so long. It's had a lot to do with being almost submerged by the amount of editing work I'm currently undertaking.

This includes a historical adventure, a historical gothic thriller, a modern-day crime novel, three works of narrative non-fiction and a very stylishly written chick-lit novel. Wow! Written down like that it's even more than I thought. No wonder I've barely had time for my own writing.

It has also included over the last months a second copy-edit and a proof-read of the excellent book by Sandra Danby that I talked about in my last post, Ignoring Gravity. I was very glad we had the chance to re-visit this after the rather demanding first deadline and, while I'm pleased to say there was nothing outrageous we'd missed, we were able to hone and polish and help make this lovely novel the best it possibly could be.

Sandra interviewed me for her blog about the ins and outs of editing and has reproduced it on her blog.

It includes:
* 5 things a writer should do
* 5 things a writer shouldn't do
* what's the difference between critiques, structural editing, copy-editing and proofreading?
* what to do to an MS before submitting to an agent - or self-publishing.

Well worth a look! http://sandradanby.com/2014/06/08/the-copy-editing-experience/

I also want to mention here the proliferation of freelance editors who are asking me for work. They're all screened before they can become Fiction Feedback editors and many fail as they don't have much of an idea; they seem to think it's just correcting spellings (and then they miss some).

If you're a writer looking for an editor, ask to see samples of work they've done. And you might want to ask for a short editing sample of your work so you can see what you're getting - we still offer 500 words of fiction copy-edited free. The last writer we did this for had sensibly asked around and got a few samples. He came back to Fiction Feedback for the full novel edit, saying our sample edit was 'technically far superior'.

It's nice to know.