Month: April 2020

Good Editing

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I have had quite a lot of experience with editors – mostly copy editors, who were looking for errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.  But three times now I have used substantive editors to look at structure, plot, characters, and organisation, as well.  The first two of those experiences were pretty horrible in the sense that their major comment was ‘cut’.  This was demoralising in that the editor gave no indication of understanding what the book was about and thought that a significant portion of my writing was worthless.

 

 

The third experience with a senior writing instructor in London has been altogether different.  The only time he used ‘cut’ was when I had used unnecessary commas.   When he thought that my writing had gone astray, he would say, ‘please think about the contribution this section is making to your novel.  Is it moving things forward?’  And I would think about it in terms of the three C’s: Character, Cause and Concern.  Is it developing the character, is it establishing an important cause of subsequent plot action, or is it heightening the reader’s concern for a character?  As a result of this review on my part, I rewrote some sections and eliminated others.

But his help went far beyond the value of portions of the writing.  Initially, I had some concerns about tension in the novel.  Was it keeping the reader fully engaged?  He assured me that I was producing literary quality writing, but my choice of narration in the first person by the central character was limiting the tension level.  He suggested that I use two narrators, who are related, but of different ages, genders and personality.  Rather than telling the story in chronological order, why not tell it by major events, so that intensity of each character’s involvement would be increased?  This change, while it ramps up the tension, tends to cause the reader to lose her sense of time, and I had to add time markers to indicate the sequence of events.

The editor made helpful comments about some of the language or actions of characters if they seemed out of character or threatened to reduce the reader’s interest in them.  Then there is the issue of emotion.  The editor says that novels are ’empathy machines’.  Often, I needed reminding to make a character’s feelings clearer.   This action should be as show rather than tell, where body language, tone, expression and setting are used evocatively.

As a resident in the UK for thirty-three years, I think I’m pretty familiar with the Queen’s English as opposed to American English, which is my native tongue.  The novel is set in today’s lower middle class London, and there were subtleties which I missed in my writing and which the editor caught.  Since the novel will hopefully go to a British publisher, it’s important to get the QE right.

Sometimes I was accused of using orthographic language which I understand to mean unnecessarily correct language which falls short of expressing a point.  Frequently this involved the construction of long sentences separated by semicolons.  (I admire William Faulkner’s ability to construct sentences that are half a page or longer.)  Finally, I learned that I use too many commas and semicolons.

For me, the bottom line, before you go to an agent, is to hire a substantive editor, based on seeing samples of his work or comprehensive testimonials.

Censorship

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There is an article form the November 1965 issue of the Writer’s Digest by Alma Boice Holland that was re-published in the March 16, 2020 issue.  In their lead-in to the article, WD says: “Today is Freedom of Information day and while censorship isn’t necessarily the same as withholding information, they are, to some degree, related. Here’s a piece from the November 1965 issue of WD by Alma Boice Holland with her thoughts about censors and the arts.”

WD says, “Alma Boice Holland’s published works range from a book of philosophical essays, to short plays, articles, short stories in a wide list of magazines from Family Circle to Saturday Evening Post.”  Below is the cover of a magazine which features one of her articles:

 

In the WD article, Ms Holland says. “Approximately one billion dollars a year is spent in the United States to decide what the public should be allowed to look at, hear, and to read. The output of obscenity in books, magazines, movies, television, and pornographic records has become Big Business. The United States Post Office believes the yearly output may reach five hundred million dollars. An equal amount is spent by the government and private censoring organizations to police the arts, and deny lewdness the protection of the Bill of Rights.

The battle rages continually and it is not occupied with sex alone. It can even be political and result in open book-banning. As early as 35 A.D. the Roman, Emperor Caligula, tried to suppress Homer’s Odyssey because it did not agree with his own thinking about individual freedoms.

Boston’s Superior Court condemned Theodore Dreiser’s novel, An American Tragedy, in 1930. While the publisher was paying a fine of $300, the book was listed as required reading in a Harvard English course. The next year, a certain bestselling book was banned in China. Want to guess? It was Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Want to know why? The objection was to the idea that animals could talk.

Practically anybody can be a censor. No license or other permit is necessary. There are two varieties, preventative and punitive. The first tries to stop material from reaching the market. He reads gallery proof, sees movies and television plays ahead of release, passes on magazine pictures, etcetera. He is not popular among the producers and publishers who often disagree with him.

The punitive censor arouses criticism after the book or play or other medium has already reached the public. It is then that he takes action. He is helped in this effort by the statues which are the laws in every state in the union. In addition, more than 150 cities have passed ordinances against obscenity. All of these laws can be used by the self-appointed censor. So why should his job be a problem?

It has become a problem because of the ever-changing moral climate. The general public is more lenient and the courts less biased. Movies and television plays are being shown today which most certainly would have been banned a mere decade ago. Books that were once sold from under the counter are now openly displayed. Inhibitions are fading away and, so far, there seems to be nothing to take their place. The censor is almost out of a job. He has been thrown so many curves that he has become bewildered. Is this good?

Over the years, and all over the world, there have always been these self-appointed guardians of the public morals. Some of the manifestations have been both strange and explainable. At the same moment that Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado was being barred in London, for fear it would displease the Japanese, these same Japanese were applauding the score aboard their warships.

Do American readers need to depend on censors? Or can the censors depend on support from American readers? The subject is open to debate and the argument seems to be self-perpetuating. Each might consider the words of Lord Thomas Robert Dewar: “Minds are like parachutes; they only function when they are open.””

While Ms Holland’s name may not be immediately recognisable in the literary world – Wikipedia has no listing for her, Amazon has her 80 page book of essays published in 1969, Google seems quite uncertain – it is difficult to disagree with her conclusion.

Books and Marijuana

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Here are excerpts from an article by Wendy Paris dated 31 March 2020 in the Los Angeles Times.

“Why should it be easier to buy marijuana than a good book at a store in Los Angeles during the coronavirus shutdown?

“Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home edicts let dispensaries stay open but force bookshops to shutter indefinitely.  Chavalier’s in Larchmont will take phone orders. Skylight Books in Los Feliz, Book Soup in West Hollywood and Vroman’s in Pasadena are “closed temporarily” but forwarding online orders to Ingram, a wholesaler that will ship direct to buyers. The Last Bookstore, downtown, is seeing customers by appointment.

“Powell’s Books, one of the nation’s largest independent bookstores, with five Oregon locations, laid off more than 300 staff members, although many were rehired as a surge of online orders came in. This legendary institution is still shipping books from its warehouse, but you can’t go in and browse, even in small numbers, separated by plenty of open space.

“And it could get worse. “These are unprecedented and grievous times,” Emily Powell wrote in her initial letter to employees, calling the path ahead “dark and scary.” When she announced that as of Saturday, she’d been able to rehire 100 staffers, she was grateful to her customers but only marginally more optimistic: “We don’t know what the future holds — none of us does. We’re going to keep the doors of Powells.com open as long as we can….”

“Diesel in Brentwood has opted for an ad hoc form of curbside pickup, leaving books in bags with customers’ names on them on a table just inside the store’s door for a few hours each day. Though they’re still recommending books by phone, Diesel’s employees are uncertain about the future. “We consider ourselves essential, like newspapers, media, magazines. That is our mindset,” said bookseller Lynn Aime.

“Aime is right. Books are essential goods and that ought to mean bookstores are exempt from shutting down during the coronavirus pandemic. As are bread and milk, gas and aspirin, alcohol and marijuana, books should be available, with safety precautions in place, at the usual places we buy them in our neighborhoods.

“States are largely left to make their own decisions about public health shutdowns. Newsom could put California in the vanguard by expressly adding bookstores to the list of essential businesses. Surely with people maintaining six feet of social distance, hand sanitizer everywhere, a strict limit on the number of customers let inside and the by-appointment option — in-person book buying can be made at least as safe as shopping for dry pasta.

“In the meantime, some bookstore owners are trying to pay their staffs even while books aren’t going out at the usual rate and most of their employees are staying home. As Linda McLoughlin Figel of Pages in Manhattan Beach put it, dryly: “It’s a bit tricky.” Bookstores will get some sort of help from the emergency stimulus bill Congress has teed up, but bricks-and-mortar bookshops are already fragile enterprises, so who knows how many will survive the shutdown?

“We readers can help. Until bookshops fully reopen, we can use our discretionary income to order books directly from independent booksellers. We can buy gift cards to help the bottom line too. While it’s true we can also get deliveries from the likes of behemoth Amazon, or download ebooks and audiobooks, those shopping choices are already part of independent bookstores’ economic woes. Besides, there are many customers with lower incomes who don’t have access to iPads or Kindles. With libraries also out of the picture, these readers are left without words.

“Finally, we can also let our city, county and state leaders know how much we need bookshops and their staffs as the shutdown goes on, and once it’s over.

“Books provide spiritual nourishment, education, enlightenment, role models, diversion. As Lori Gottlieb, therapist and author puts it, “One way to feel understood and part of something bigger, less alone, is to immerse ourselves in stories. They help us see ourselves.”

“Journalist and novelist Michael Scott Moore, who was held hostage in Somalia for more than two years, had scraps of newspapers but no books when he was trapped with nowhere to go. As Moore says, “I don’t wish a coronavirus lockdown on anyone without books.”

“The health of a nation’s literature depends on its availability to the people, and “if a nation’s literature declines,” wrote Ezra Pound, “the nation atrophies and decays.” Bookstores are essential because books are essential.”

 

Creating and Sustaining Suspense

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There is an article on suspense in the Writer’s Digest online blog by Steven James, one of the Writer’s Digest editors, that was recently featured but dated nearly seven years ago.  He discusses six techniques for crating and sustaining suspense, which I think are quite good.

“1. Put characters that readers care about in jeopardy

Four factors are necessary for suspense—reader empathy, reader concern, impending danger and escalating tension.

We create reader empathy by giving the character a desire, wound or internal struggle that readers can identify with. The more they empathise, the closer their connection with the story will be. Once they care about and identify with a character, readers will be invested when they see the character struggling to get what he most desires.

We want readers to worry about whether or not the character will get what he wants. Only when readers know what the character wants will they know what’s at stake. And only when they know what’s at stake will they be engaged in the story. To get readers more invested in your novel, make clear: 1) What your character desires (love, freedom, adventure, forgiveness, etc.); 2) what is keeping him from getting it; and 3) what terrible consequences will result if he doesn’t get it.

Suspense builds as danger approaches. Readers experience apprehension when a character they care about is in peril. This doesn’t have to be a life-and-death situation. Depending on your genre, the threat may involve the character’s physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual or relational well-being. Whatever your genre, show that something terrible is about to happen—then postpone the resolution to sustain the suspense.

2. Include more promises and less action.

Suspense happens in the stillness of your story, in the gaps between the action sequences, in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival.

If readers complain that “nothing is happening” in a story, they don’t typically mean that no action is occurring, but rather that no promises are being made.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the problem of readers being bored isn’t solved by adding action but instead by adding apprehension. Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff. You don’t increase suspense by “making things happen,” but by promising that they will. Instead of asking, “What needs to happen?” ask, “What can I promise will go wrong?”

Stories are much more than reports of events. Stories are about transformations. We have to show readers where things are going—what situation, character or relationship is going to be transformed.

3. Keep every promise you make.

In tandem with making promises is the obligation of keeping them. The bigger the promise, the bigger the payoff.

When stories falter it’s often because the writers didn’t make big enough promises, didn’t fulfill them when readers wanted them to be fulfilled, or broke promises by never fulfilling them at all.

Here’s a great way to break your promise to the reader: Start your story with a prologue, say, in which a woman is running on a beach by herself, and there are werewolves on the loose. Let’s see if you can guess what’s going to happen. Hmm … what a twist this is going to be—she gets attacked by the werewolves! Wow. What a fresh, original idea that was.

How is that a broken promise? Because it was predictable. Readers want to predict what will happen, but they want to be wrong. They’re only satisfied when the writer gives them more than they anticipate, not less.

Make big promises.  Then keep them.

4. Let the characters tell readers their plans.

I know, this seems counterintuitive. Why would we want readers to know what’s going to happen? Doesn’t that give the ending away?

I’m not talking about revealing your secrets or letting readers know the twists that your story has in store. Instead, just show readers the agenda, and you’ll be making a promise that something will either go wrong to screw up the schedule, or that plans will fall into place in a way that propels the story (and the tension) forward.

Simply by having your characters tell readers their schedules, you create a promise that can create anticipation and build suspense:

•         “All right, here’s what I have lined up for the rest of the morning: Follow up on the fingerprints, track down Adrian, and then stop by the prison and have a little chat with Donnie ‘The Midnight Slayer’ Jackson.”

A story moves through action sequences to moments of reorientation when the characters process what just happened and make a decision that leads to the next scene. We do this in real life as well—we experience something moving or profound, we process it, and then we decide how to respond. Problem is, in those moments of reflection, a story can drag and the suspense can be lost. During every interlude between scenes a promise must be either made or kept.

And, if you resolve one question or plot thread (that is, you keep a promise you made earlier), introduce another twist or moral dilemma (in other words, make another promise).

When a story lags it’s almost always because of missing tension (there’s no unmet desire on the part of the characters) or not enough escalation (there’s too much repetition). To fix this, show us how deeply the character wants something but cannot get it, and escalate the story by making it even more difficult to get.

5. Cut down on the violence.

The more violence there is, the less it will mean.

A murder is not suspense. An abduction with the threat of a murder is.

The scariest stories often contain very little violence.

And, of course, different genre elements dictate different means of suspense. In a mystery you might find out that a person was beheaded. This occurs before the narrative begins, so the focus of the story is on solving the crime. If you’re writing a horror story, you’ll show the beheading itself—in all of its gory detail. If you’re writing suspense, the characters in the story will find out that someone is going to be beheaded, and they must find a way to stop it.

Reader expectations, and the depth and breadth of what is at stake in the story, will determine the amount of mystery, horror or suspense you’ll want to include. Nearly all genres include some scenes with them. As a writer, it’s vital that you become aware of how you shape those sequences to create the desired effect on your reader—curiosity, dread or apprehension.

Also, remember that valuing human life increases suspense. Because readers only feel suspense when they care about what happens to a character, we want to heighten their concern by heightening the impact of the tragedy. Show how valuable life is. The more murders your story contains, the more life will seem cheap, and if it’s cheap, readers don’t need to be concerned if it’s lost.

6. Be one step ahead of your readers.

Here are some ways to amp up the suspense:

→ As you develop your story, appeal to readers’ fears and phobias. (Phobias are irrational fears, so to be afraid of a cobra is not a phobia, but to be afraid of all snakes is.) Most people are afraid of helplessness in the face of danger. Many are afraid of needles, the dark, drowning, heights and so on. Think of the things that frighten you most, and you can be sure many of your readers will fear them as well.

→ Make sure you describe the setting of your story’s climax before you reach that part of the story. In other words, let someone visit it earlier and foreshadow everything you’ll need for readers to picture the scene when the climax arrives. Otherwise you’ll end up stalling out the story to describe the setting, when you should be pushing through to the climax.

→ Countdowns and deadlines can be helpful, but can work against you if they don’t feed the story’s escalation. For example, having every chapter of your book start one hour closer to the climax is a gimmick that gets old after a while because it’s repetitious and predictable—two things that kill escalation. Instead, start your countdown in the middle of the book. To escalate a countdown, shorten the time available to solve the problem.

→ As you build toward the climax, isolate your main character. Remove his tools, escape routes and support system (buddies, mentors, helpers or defenders). This forces him to become self-reliant and makes it easier for you to put him at a disadvantage in his final confrontation with evil.

→ Make it personal. Don’t just have a person get abducted—let it be the main character’s son. Don’t just let New York City be in danger—let Grandma live there.

No matter what you write, good prose really is all about sharpening the suspense. Follow these six secrets, and you’ll keep your readers up way past their bedtime.”