How times have changed...in the publishing world! From Daphne du Maurier to today.

Hi everyone!

I've been busy with the River City Writers Conference, (a few of you 'liked' some of the trillion facebook posts), a single day dedicated to writing workshops, networking, launching/buying books, chatting with editors and publishers...and eating and drinking and being merry!

Members of Vannguard Writers Group @ the conference - 

Raelene, myself, Charmaine and Nas. 

(Nas is an honorary member of our Brisbane group)

We had some great presenters - Helene Young, pilot and author of a series of excellent romantic suspense single titles set in Queensland's wild, empty north where surveillance is key - Karen Tyrrell, author of 'resilience' books...2 adult (on overcoming mental illness) and 2 for children...one especially successful title Stop the Bully has gained her entree into schools and libraries - Antony Puttee, who runs an uber successful self-publishing one-stop-shop, Book Cover Cafe, who ran an awesome session on how to get your self-published book out there and how to get high Amazon sales - then our very own Nas Dean, helped me judge the flash fiction competition which ran in conjunction with the conference. Nas then presented her session on editing.

Nas Dean presenting on editing in the modern age

Nas' session on editing had some of the died-in-the-wool old-school publishing houses (who sent representatives to the conference to receive pitches from writers) screaming in frustration, claiming publishers did all the things the presenters had been claiming all day that writers did -- editing, promoting, book covers etc. This caused much merriment from those who had already told their story of the hard road of promotion even after being contracted to a publishing house. Obviously these guys have no idea how hard writers are doing it before submitting manuscripts in the faint hope of being picked up, and how little it is perceived that the traditional publishers do after buying rights to your book...(I'm no expert on this, having never submitted anything to an agent or publishing house!)

CLASSIC BOOKS Vs MODERN BOOKS

...Which brings me to some of the changes I see when comparing classic books to modern books. I read a lot of stories of how the old publishing houses used to treat favoured authors--the army of editors who went through the novel after submission, the pampering, the promotion etc. Don't many of us think these oldies were just pure genius? Well, it took a lot of help to polish that genius.

Today, many traditionally-published authors and self-published authors are doing it all/mostly by themselves, some by choice and some because they can't afford/don't see the need for even one editor. (My  opinion is everyone needs an editor, and most savvy readers can tell when this important step has been skipped). I've shared this before, but Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind) re-wrote her first chapter 60 times. So these oldies but goodies still did the hard yards themselves before they were touted as overnight/on-going successes.


Along with several other books, I'm currently reading Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek, (1941). (Well, it does have French... in the title). This book is a classic passionate romance/adventure, one of her most popular novels -- on the best-selling list for thirty years!! But the beautiful Lady Dona and her French pirate adventurer would have been severely edited today.

We modern writers get slapped on the wrist if we carelessly 'head hop' even once in our stories - du Maurier and plenty of her contemporaries did this as a matter of course, and even modern best-sellling author Nora Roberts, a great favourite of mine, does it A LOT, especially in her romances.

Dialogue has changed too. Now we go through our manuscripts with a magnifying glass trying to find/slay most, if not all, dialogue tags, turning them into actions instead.

"Don't touch that!" Jack said to Kiddly Bop. ... becomes...

Jack ran across the room. "Don't touch that!" Kiddly Bop snatched his hand away from the grinding machine just before his arm was lopped off.

(I used the exclamation mark to upset all the 'no exclamation marks' modern rule!! as I think it is quite probable that Jack yelled in this situation.) 

But on p.62 of Frenchman's Creek I found this dialogue...exactly reproduced:

  'William, you are a genius,' she [Lady Dona] said, and he bowed, permitting himself a smile. 'I am pleased you are glad, my lady.'
  'How do I look? Will your master approve?' she asked him, turning on her heels. 'He will make no comment, my lady,' replied the servant, 'but I do not think he will be entirely indifferent to your appearance.'

So...if you don't know what's odd about the above, I'll leave you blissfully unaware. But I'll just say it caused me to be 'taken out of the story' which is the criticism I receive from critique partners whose job it is to make sure we don't commit such writerly sins.

And of course I bought a book - Delia Strange's

FEMME. I'm quite liking the sci-fi romance genre.

• Methinks it was somewhat easier to be an author in the olden days. What do you think? (And I don't mean -- of course it's not, it's a lot easier today to be an author as you can just self publish). I'm talking about the old style, the third person onmisicient POV etc. as compared to today's more stringent rules about everything.

Nas snapped us heading out to breakfast. 

Yes, the last bite of Winter was in the air.

Had a great weekend with Nas and Rajesh staying with us... and attending the River City Writers Conference. How was your weekend?

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression. 5 Editing Tips I've learned.

Hi there Insecure Writers and friends!

Some people hate the editing process, others (of which I am one) love it...er, maybe too much. When is enough, enough?

I 'finished' Fijian Princess at the end of November 2012. If you've written a novel during NaNoWriMo, you'll know that the ms I completed was pretty rubbishy...but it was an exciting story...I felt it had potential. Maybe it was going to be the first novel I actually finished...and got published. But I'm quite aware that:

"Writing is rewriting" - Eudora Welty.

I earnestly believe that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Publishers these days don't have a big budget for editors, so they are more likely to accept a good story that has been fully edited (publication ready is the term) - it's not just finding all those typos/misspellings/punctuation/grammar errors - there are development editors, structural editors, copy editors...ever look at the list at the back of a bestseller? It certainly takes a village to write/finish a book, a good seller anyway.

Most of us do the bulk of the editing ourselves. Who can afford to pay a heap of editors? That's where critique partners, beta readers, clever editing writer friends are worth their weight in gold. And don't forget the heaps of 'how to edit' books we have on our shelves.

Before you Submit Checklist, NaNoWriMo and Halloween House of Horrors.

RomanticFridayWriters is going on hiatus in November, so the hosts and other members and friends can devote more time to NaNoWriMo. Unless you've been asleep under a rock, you'll know this is the month of allocated writing frenzy where you sign up to write 50,000 words of a novel. By tapping out about 1,500 words a day, you will reach the goal. There's lots of cool gadgets and stuff to help your motivation and writing buddies to cheer you on.

So after the writing frenzy, the re-writing and editing begins, until you're ready to submit your masterpiece of a manuscript. I came across this very useful checklist in Writer's Digest, by Sage Cohen which I've been using on my current projects before submitting and will keep on using it.

On the RomanticFridayWriters website, you'll find lots of publications waiting for your work. Before you submit your work, Sage suggests you tick these boxes:

c  Have I completed the three-step revision process - big picture to nitty gritty?

c  Have I reviewed and revised this story at least three times?

c  Has this piece had time to 'settle' before its final full revision?

c  Have I carefully proofed for spelling, grammar, consistent verb tense, and an overall cohesive reader experience?

c  Have I done everything in my power to make the craft of the piece - language, action, imagery, dialogue, narrative arc, use of line and stanza, voice, POV - as powerful as it can be? (Make your own craft checklist for your particular genre of writing, and tick off each item each time you revise to ensure that you're covering all your bases.)

c  Has this piece been read and edited by at least one colleague or adviser whose expertise and opinion I trust?

c  Have I run spell checker?

c  Have I made sure there are no strange formatting errors or page breaks?

c  Where have I said something that could be simpler or clearer?

c  Does this piece integrate and reflect the knowledge I've gained working with (or being rejected by) this (or a similar editor/agent in the past - if applicable)?

c  Does it integrate and reflect what I've learned about being productive and successful with this genre of style of writing in this type of market?

c  Does this meet stated submission guidelines such as word count, formatting, packaging, presentation, topic and/or theme?

c  Does this meet the objectives stated in my assignment contract or my own stated creative goals?

c  What does my gut say? Am I really finished, or is there more work to do here even if I'm not exactly sure what that work is yet?

• Check out literary agent Scott Eagan's recent post on revising.

HAPPY SUBMITTING FELLOW WRITERS! And enjoy NaNoWriMo if you're participating.

The next RomanticFridayWriters challenge is for Halloween. As always, open to all writers and poets - you can sign up here and post your story/poem on October 19.

get the InLinkz code

Insecure Writers Support Group. Are you caught up in a frenzy of editing? Here are some common mistakes not to make....

Instead of being a sniveller, I thought I might write something helpful this month. I aimed this post at mainly newbie writers as the rest of us know all there is about editing, right? Right!

If you get to the end of the first draft you've already done what many others only talk about doing - you've written a novel! 

(Jessica Strawser, ed. Writer's Digest)

A lot of us are using the 'I'm busy editing' line to duck blogfests, avoid cooking meals or loading the dishwasher and myriad other demands on our writing time, but there are many beginning writers out there who must wonder what all this 'editing' is about. As one who is busy 'editing' my first and second novels and working on collating a short story collection before I begin writing my third novel during NaNoWriMo, I've picked up a few hints from Critique Partners and how-to books that I'd like to share with the new kids on the block, er, blog, like an quick Editing 101 course.

REVISION AND SELF-EDITING (hey, try these before you send your little darlings off to your Beta Readers and Critique Partners...)

1.  Please don't use two words if one will do. I have a penchant, a tendency to do this:
                 Example: Lexie stared at the horrible, slithering mass of snakes.

                 Try: Lexie stared at the writhing mass of snakes.

2. Use Active Voice (this drives your prose like a Formula One machine.) I have an overwhelming preference for Passive Voice, a pedestrian crime I must discontinue.

                  Example: There were a great number of dead bodies lying on the ground.

                  Try: Dead bodies littered the ground.

3.  Be careful of Parallel Construction - making sure your verb tenses, uniting phrases and whatnot are aligned. Don't forget the Rule of Three (well, that excellent on-going blogfest too!.)

                   Example: The vampire bared his teeth and then, raising his claws to sharpen them, he stood licking his chops.  'Gotcha!' he said with a grin.

                   Try: The vampire bared his teeth, sharpened his claws and licked his chops*. 'Gotcha!" he said with a grin. (*Nice use of Rule of Three.)

4.  Replace adjectives and adverbs with vivid nouns and active verbs (strong verbs, concrete nouns)

                    Example: Since the day Merrie met the werewolf, she felt very scared and frightened.

                    Try: Since the day she met the werewolf, terror haunted Merrie's heart.

5.  Adverbs (someone's always complaining about adverbs but you'll find them in bestsellers constantly, lol.)

                     Example: Daisy looked longingly and lovingly at the chocolate.

                     Try: Daisy looked at the chocolate with longing and love, or:

                            Daisy's eyes consumed the chocolate. (I like this one!)

6.  Don't explain. Leave something to the reader's imagination. (I've had to edit this type of editorialising out of whole mss. I wouldn't like anyone to miss my little clues...)

                      Example: 'I'm sorry,' Peter said consolingly.

                      Use: 'I'm sorry,' Peter said. ('Said' is practically invisible.Use it a lot, I say.)

7. Don't overuse punctuation marks, especially exclamation marks!!! You can do a search through your document to highlight all your exclamation marks (or whatever is your favourite demon - maybe you like to show off by using semi-colons occasionally or a lot!), take a look then delete most of them. Your writing will flow much better.) That said, I get breathless reading when there's too few commas!

8.  Don't keep using your characters' names when they are in conversation with each other. We don't do this in everyday conversation my friend and your dialogue must be realistic my friend. Your friend would be irritated if you spoke like this:

                       'Hi Angelique, how are you today? Well Angelique I'm having a terrible day. What have you been doing Angelique?' and so on. Hello, are we afraid we'll forget her name or something? 

I confess my first Critique Partner picked up my tendency to do just this, erk! Using the character's name can be a good way to avoid having to use so many 'he saids,' 'she saids,' but it gets irritating.                

9.  Write like Twentieth Century Fox - think visually, creatively. (Treat your book like a movie with scenes. I wrote a post on this in another life. Those guys/gals in Hollywood and beyond know a thang or two or three.)

                       A quote from Eddy Peters on this: Not only does the English language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head and goes through their pockets. (Remind you of Stephen King's writing?)

10. Remember if your first line, first paragraph or first page doesn't catch an editor's attention, you're wasting your time revising, so check that:

                        - The first line of your novel immediately creates questions for your reader and puts something at stake - your hook.

                         - Your protagonist must make choices. Create conflict.

                         - Try to save backstory for later. Don't interrupt your opening scenes with backstory.

• I hope you gleaned something new from what are quite common writing 'mistakes.' Just keep an open mind. Remember thought, when it comes to English, rules are made to be broken
• Can you share any editing helps with our new kids in the blogosphere?.Please share in the comments.

Click here to read more posts for Insecure Writers Support Group, brainchild of Alex J Cavanaugh. The members post the first Wednesday of every month and you might find questions you can answer or help for your particular problem.