lauraanne_gilman: (my job)
This post has me wearing both Writer Hat and Editor Hat (which is actually a dashing fedora with two feathers stuck in the brim)

Thinking today -- always a bad sign, that -- about what makes a story work.

I'm not talking about the technical aspects here -- I'm going to assume you've got a working relationship with sentence structure, POV, plot logic, etc. No, I'm talking about what makes the reader interact with your story, to the point that they not only keep reading, but want more, both of the story, and of you.

If you're looking for a great long complicated breakdown of the magic, sorry. I got one word for you.

Empathy.

You-the-writer must have empathy for your characters. You have to like them -- or hate them. I'm not saying believe they're real -- that road leads to the Palace of Psychosis, and nobody will visit you there except to mock -- but you have to let them into your heart as well as your head. It's that emotional connection that allows you to care about them, not as the means to deliver a message, or to flip a twist, but as actual individuals going through hell. Once you care about them, you can make other people care about them, too.

If you don't? if you're emotionally removed from your characters, or see them merely as markers to be moved along the story, in order to achieve a final goal? The most brilliant prose in the world won't do you for damn.

Oh, you might win awards, and be well-considered by the literarti...but you won't light that spark in a reader; your world won't ever come alive.

The trick, of course, is to combine technical brilliance with emotional comprehension. Do that, and you're, well... you're probably Neil Gaiman. I rest my case.
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
After almost two days of near-Spring weather, winter is coming back for a one-two punch of cold and snow tonight and again tomorrow night. Thankfully, I've got nowhere I need to be until Tuesday.

Meanwhile, this weekend I am wearing Editor Hat, working with two clients, both of whom are newbies. Oh dear. Already I have earned my fee for one, saving hir from the ridicule of any agent or editor... in fact, agents and editors should send me thank-you letters. *facepalm* But this is why they hire me....

Also, writing two guest-entries for Other Blogs, and yes, more Pack of Lies. Because that's how the gig is done.

For those of you following along on the Kitchen Follies, the stone warehouse was an OMG candy store. C and I wandered around oooing and aaahing at the massive slabs until the designer-lady took us by hand and forced us to focus on the task at-hand. I chose three variations of granite (one green-black, one brown-gold, and one green-with-striations-and-flecks), and she took a hammer to them and handed over samples. We took them back to the apartment and contemplated them in daylight, dusk, and nighttime lighting. After due consideration, and dinner, I decided on the green-with-black. It is lovely, and will, I hope, go wonderfully with the already-ordered cabinets and the floor tile I chose. And yay, for once in my life I did not instinctively choose the OMG most expensive thing on the lot.
lauraanne_gilman: (pooh)
It has been a very long day, and I am too wiped out to do more than skim e-mail, but a wee note caught my eye, and I thought "this is worth blogging about."

Bear with me, first, while I take you on a quick history recap.

The year is 1991. I am a baby Assistant at Ace/Berkley, dutifully skimming the slush pile. And a manuscript catches my eye. SF, Heinleinish adventure with a female protag. It's not brilliant, but I think it's pretty damn good. So I take it to my boss, and make the pitch why I think we should buy it. She reads some of the manuscript, looks at the schedule, looks at the budget, and tells me to go make an offer. Baby Editor's First Phone Call!

The book got solid reviews and meh sales. The second book did pretty much the same. But the author and I got along well, and I knew she had a lot of talent, not to mention stubborn determination.

About this time, the female-featured mystery series was really starting to heat up, and we were told "look for more of this." So when the author mentioned that she had a mystery she'd written sitting on her hard drive (this was after hard drives, but only just) I told her to send it.

She did. We bought it, and two others ("I don't know if I can write two more," she said. "Shut up and take the deal," I said. "We'll worry about that later.")

That book was A COLD DAY FOR MURDER. The author was Dana Stabenow. It won the Edgar for best paperback original mystery, and cemented a damn good author/editor relationship, if I do say so myself. Leaving her to another editor when I went to NAL was one of the hardest parts of the job change. Dana parted ways with Berkley a few years later, and went to St. Martin's, who has published her since then.

And now, with WHISPER TO THE BLOOD, the 16th Kate Shugak book, she is a New York Times* bestseller.

16 books into a series. Two publishers, two agents, and several editors later.

Talent. And a stubborn determination.


*raises glass* Mazel tov, my friend. I may have set you on this path, but you're the one who walked it. Well done. Well done indeed.

Let this be a lesson and an inspiration to all of us who are looking down that road, and wondering if there's anything worth walking to....






*okay, extended list. NYT, baby!
lauraanne_gilman: (madness toll)
Progress progresses. Having digested the global comments, and jotted down some possible fixes, I'm now working my way through the nit-picky details, page by page.

[for those of you who've been on the receiving end of one of my letters, you have your revenge, since mam'selle editrix learned from me... this letter feels awfully familiar. Ouch. *grin*)

But back to those global comments, and on deciding which ones to accept, and which to reject, as referenced in my last On Writing post.

Using myself as an Object Lesson (because vague examples, like vague disclaimers, are nobody's friend): In the revision letter, mam'selle editrix made a suggestion about world-building -- specifically, something about the political structure of the world, and would it be possible to do ABC regarding the interaction of my hero's profession and the antagonists' profession.

Well, no. Because the way the world is set up, the separation between them is what [indirectly] creates the scenario that allows for the conflict that triggers the story. So my immediate reaction was "WTF? Did you read this book?"

And that's where, I've found, a lot of beginning (and some established) writers stop. "You didn't get it, you weren't paying attention, you're wrong, I'm not changing that."

Bad writer, no Tim Tam.

After several go-rounds of revision letters (14 novels and counting, OMG) my MO is to mutter, to pace, to mark up the letter with a few pointy comments [using bright red ink is helpful]... and then sleep on it [and anything else that gave me a knee-jerk reaction]. Sometimes you [generic-you, henceforth] decide they had a valid point. More often, you decide that no, the beta/editor/reader was skimming and missed an important detail. That happens to us all, even when we're being careful*. So, you-the-author have two choices:

1. ignore the comment and move on,
2. go back and see if there was any way that you could draw the point forward more, so nobody can possibly miss it.

#1 is tempting, but for the conscientious author, #2 would seem to be the obvious answer...except sometimes making something Too Obvious is worse for the story than being too subtle. It's all case-by-case.

In this particular case, I decided to approach her thought [note: and it was a thought, not an editorial Command. She wasn't saying "this is broken" but "I wonder if you could..."] from a different angle. There were areas throughout the book where the specific issue she addressed was also addressed by the characters, building their own workaround [allies and treaties, etc). Maybe I could draw those instances forward, using how rare those exceptions are in order to emphasize the rule? Something to think about.

But let's return to the original suggestion. Did mam'selle editrix read too quickly, and miss a basic point? Or did the world-building simply not work for her? Was my construction flawed in a way that will fail for others, or am I being appropriately indirect? All possible. In fact, all four are possible at the same time, if you're writing with enough texture and tricksiness. Reader comprehension varies, and you can't nail it for everyone. All you can do is nail it to your own satisfaction.

In the end, I'm not taking her suggestion [which is my right, since it's my name on the byline and my reputation out there in the trenches]. I am, however, thinking about WHY she made that suggestion, and following those thoughts into an exploration of something other than what she originally proposed.

And that, dear readers, is part of what a good editor does. :-)




*in point of fact, mam'selle questioned a name as being of a princeling, when it was in fact identified when introduced as the name of a country. So, it happens....
lauraanne_gilman: (madness toll)
The true goal of an editorial letter isn't to say what's wrong and how to fix it. It's to poke and prod at areas that seem weak, and force the author to come up with the fixes.

example:

Editor: "Joe Biden has the potential to be an awesome character, but I don't feel like he lives up to it as of now."

Author: "Huh. I don't really have anything else for him to do. But I could expand the scene he's in there, to show XYZ. And, huh, yeah, I could add a scene here that shows ABC, which would explain better what he does XYZ and sets up something he'll do during the second term... yeah. Oh, oooo, that would work nicely."

An editorial letter that pokes and prods leaves you feeling bruised... but the overall fitness of the book is much improved for it. :-)

[of course, even the best editorial letter still has bits that leave the author going "um, NO. Did you totally miss the point? Argh." Sometimes that means you didn't establish the point well enough. Sometimes it means La Editor missed the point. ;-)]


warning: if people respond, I may continue my real-time thoughts and gripes on the revision process. So think carefully before you hit 'reply"!
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
So it looks like I'll have room to take on 2-3 new editorial clients this year (I only take on one person at a time, so they get 100% of my editorial brain). I offer everything from brainstorming/development to line editing and submission formatting, but NOT copy-editing or proofreading (there are folk out there who are better than I at that, you should talk to them first).

If you're interested, contact me at dymk-at--optimum-dot-net to discuss.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, I seem to be alone in not pimping my work for various award consideration. Rest assured, it's less that I don't want to be considered and more that my short fiction output has fallen dramatically, and two of the markets that were supposed to publish stories last year have failed out. Alas.

However, for those who are curious/tend to nominate, for your consideration:

"Illumination" in UNUSUAL SUSPECTS, edited by Dana Stabenow (December 2008) [fantasy/mystery]
"Wolfling" in Abyss And Apex #26 [sf]
"Dreamcatcher" (novella) in e-format from Nocturne/Harlequin, as Anna Leonard (September 2008) [paranormal romance]

FREE FALL (Luna) [fantasy]
THE NIGHT SERPENT (Nocturne, as Anna Leonard) [paranormal romance]
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
oh lord. via [livejournal.com profile] scarlettina:

the meerkat as a young editor, ca 1996/97 )

*facepalm* Such an infant! Clearly, the years of budgeting and scheduling had not yet taken their toll.

(for those coming in late,this photo was taken soon after I went to NAL to become executive editor for Roc. I was, hrm...29. And no, I didn't dress like that all the time. I was actually a pretty snazzy dresser, back in those days....)
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
And lo there was rejoicing, for Staples did deliver, and there was printer paper in the households once again. So today I will be printing out the entire manuscript of Vineart War #1 and settling down with caffeine and red pen (the only time I ever use red pen) to open up a serious can of editorial whup-ass on myself.

Editing is a funny business. I just finished a freelance line-edit where mostly I was smoothing out sentence fragments and correcting some...unfortunate word choices. But I also ended up catching a number of continuity errors and plot-support failures that should have been found in the first round of (developmental/revision) edits. That's what the editor does -- catches the things that the author's too close-up [and tired] to see.

So how can the writer also be editor? Very, very carefully, and with a few tricks on the brain, said tricks differing from person to person.

Some people, I know, can self-edit on the screen. Not me. It may be wasteful of paper, but I need hard-copy. Part of this process comes from all the years editing other peoples' work, I suppose: by turning the book into a manuscript, separating it that way from the thing-I-created, I am able to become Editor rather than Writer, and make judgments based on the presentation on the page rather than what I-the-Writer had in my head. Also, it give me my first sense of how scenes and chapters actually flow, turning pages, rather than scrolling down. There really is a difference.

So that's where I'll be. Except when I'm not.

So how do y'all edit your own work? Or do you have to hand it over to someone else? [I do some of that, too: blessed be the beta reader]
lauraanne_gilman: (stop that)
Okay folks, listen up and listen right now.

Eyes do not collide. Or if they do, a) you're writing horror or b) your name is Libba Bray (*waves at Libba*. Yes, that scare-the-roommate story still cracks me up)

Gazes may collide. Stares can collide, although that's trickier. But eyes? Remain in sockets. They do not collide, follow someone across the room, jump from item to item, or otherwise do anything that would require them leaving their sockets unless actually leaving their sockets.

Okay? Okay.

Your line-editor thanks you.
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
note to all writers and would-be writers:

If you let a character describe something as "demonic?" Make sure that the culture you're writing in has demons, first (or has had contact with a culture that has demons).

In fact, make sure that every reference your characters use is culturally suppported. Yes, it's a pain in the ass, and takes time. But the editor will find them and point them out and make you go back and fix them anyway, so why not do it right the first time?

On behalf of all editors, thank you.
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
Spent most of today working (except when I was out walking, because it was a total not-spring-yet-but-hinting day) and then [livejournal.com profile] terri_osborne and [livejournal.com profile] kradical came over and helped me move furniture, and then we went out for dinner (mmmm, hunan lamb) and now there is more working. Today the editorial brain got to drive, working with a client who doesn't quite have his chops down yet but is 3/4 of the way there, and that's one of the best clients to have, because you (well, I) feel like I'm really teaching and contributing.

Which doesn't quite segue into my other comment for this post, and yet does, so just work with me here, k?

I can't tell a joke worth a damn. I can amuse, I can be funny, I am told that I have a wicked way with a one-off comment. But it's all out of conversation, not performance. I am crap at jokes or funny set-stories, and I don't even try any more.

Maybe that's why I adore performance comedy*. Low-brow, high-brow, punnage, physical comedy, improv... when well-done it's one of the most marvelous and human forms of human expression**, up there with music and dance. And it requires just as much training and dedication to the art, and an almost insane willingness to fail, and try again, to make it work.

That's probably why I put aside the freelance work last night on to watch 'History of a Joke' on the History channel. Interesting stuff, from the historical aspects to the discussions of the various forms and formats from professional comedians being dead serious about their craft. Yes, even Robin Williams, something I wasn't sure was possible.

It was also interesting to hear the discussion of "why women aren't funny." Um. I could make a list, and it would be long, of all the damn-funny female comedians out there, then and now. So why don't guys think women are funny? I can only make a guess -- Yes, guys, she is talking about you, you do exactly that, and it is damn funny. Stop being so damn threatened, unclench your rectum, and let yourself laugh***.

Some people claim that female humor is different from male humor. I would say rather than there's observant humor and situational humor, and women tend more to the former and men more to the latter, but every time you try to prove that, there will be a comedian who will totally break the mold. And be funnier'n hell with it (there was a woman who was cruder than The Diceman, a few years back -- and absolutely hysterical. I don't know what happened to her [or The Diceman, for that matter] but she took crude to new lows and made it work for her)

So, it's not just that I, as a woman, am not 'funny.' It's me personally, LAG, who can't tell a decent joke. Can you teach someone who isn't naturally funny to tell a joke? Probably, the same way you can teach someone to write a technically solid sentence, or craft a scene so that the information is presented properly (look, a connection to the first part of my post! Yay me!). But I don't think you can teach someone how to be funny, any more than you can teach them how to come up with a compelling story or a three-dimensional character. This will no doubt get me heat from some folk, but nothing in my experience has shown me otherwise. You have to have the ability inside you first, and then hone it with work, and practice, and the willingness to have people stare at you blankly when you didn't get the delivery right. If you don't have 'em both, the talent and the training, then you're never going to be top of your game.

Even Robin Williams still works it.


*I also don't trust anyone who can't laugh at themselves. Not "I crack myself up" funny but the inability to take yourself too seriously. Because, really. Have you looked at our species recently?

** sarcasm is not humor. sarcasm is sarcasm. you can use sarcasm as part of humor, but it doesn't stand alone. IMO and E.

*** see *
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
I find myself offering career advice over at [livejournal.com profile] kateelliott's journal. If you're thinking about multiple-book pitches or wondering what it takes to get in as a baby author, it's an interesting discussion, and it start here.


(and [livejournal.com profile] neutronjockey? You may have been kidding but you hit a continual problem-spot, and so got turned into an Object Lesson. That'll teach ya [or, probably, not]).
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
Over on the Persephone posting board, we're talking about agents, the getting and using of same. I threw in my two-bits, and thought some of it might be of interest to the folk here, too.

A good agent gets you into the hands of an editor with more pull with the editorial board (because they have a track record). More importantly, a good agent gets you into the hands of someone who is looking for what you're selling. That's the agent's main job -- to do the market research and making the contacts, while we're busy writing. A good agent is the best item in a writer's marketing toolkit.

A bad agent (and by that I mean one that doesn't know the editors/publishing houses and isn't in touch with the current publishing scene) is worse than no agent. A disliked agent (there is at least one out there who cannot get his phone calls returned, because nobody wants to work with him) is worse than no agent.

The rest is all personal fit. There were agents I worked with I like a great deal as people, and would never want them to represent me. There are agents I dislike as people, and felt were great agents, totally spot-on with their marketing assessments, their negotiation skills, and their commitment to their clients. And I know a lot of writers, with solid careers, who have loved the former people and hated the latter, as agents.

The advice I'd give people is to worry less about what other writers think of their agent, and listen to what the EDITORS think/say/do.



Meanwhile, in my still-maintained guise as a CT-registered voter, I called Ole' Joe's office again. He still has not decided where he stands on the FISA vote. Again. I don't even care what he decides, so long as he gets the hell off the fence and admits who bought him this time.

I really wish I'd taken the opportunity to kick Ole' Joe when we were both in New Haven.


And now I must stop re-waxing the cats, and write an editorial letter.
lauraanne_gilman: (Default)
Woke this morning to what sounded like a remake of 'The Birds' -- an entire tree filled with (probably) grackles, many dozens if not hundreds of them squalking like someone forgot to oil them all summer. I thought at first they were mobbing something (grackles are bastards like that) but no, apparently they were all just gathering there to annoy the hell out of me, and once I was awake, they all moved on, en masse.

Just another little service Mother Nature provides, free of charge.

Thanks guys.

An so another day begins. But all is not crankiness and muttering. [livejournal.com profile] alfreda89 has done a rather thorough [and quite positive] review of the Retrievers series here, for those of you who need a cheat sheet on what's going on. I present it less as egoboo [although there's some of that, certainly] and more as an example of how to write about/review both an individual book and a series without actually giving plot specifics away.

Reviewing is a skill I totally lack -- I am very much an Editor when I talk about books, which is why I tend to do it only on request. Editors see things differently than reviewers do, and I'm not sure it's possible to switch between one and the other. I can move between Reader and Editor, because an Editor always wants to be a Delighted Reader -- it is our ultimate goal, to read through a book and think "oh. Yes. Excellent" and nothing more.

I had a discussion once with some fellow editors about their reaction to that elusive Perfect Book, and how we knew it. Many if not most of them said it was an emotional reaction, a sense of satisfaction or joy. Interestingly although perhaps not surprisingly, my reaction is a physical one. If I am reading a Perfect or near-Perfect book, I am invigorated. I literally can't sit still, I have to get up and pace, and do something, before I can go back to reading.

(for example, when I read the first Carol Berg manuscript, years and years ago, I had to get up out of my home office, and walk up and down the stairs a few times. By the time I made the second round, I knew I was going to be making an offer. This was, I believe, about 30 pages in. Carol of course will howl at this, since I made her do Much Revision. But Perfect doesn't mean Can't Be Better, especially in a first book....)

Hrm. This seems to have turned into an essay. Can I count this toward my wordage for the day? No? Damn. Off to work for me, then....
lauraanne_gilman: (my job)
Been working all day and brain may not be all that, but I promised to address the following question from (edited) comments in an earlier thread:

Basically, I've put in a proposal that has both romantic elements, and dark gritty urban elements and it seems to straddle the line too much...So what I'm trying to figure out is what to do before we go forward. There is a dark quality to these chapters--violence, swearing, torture. And then there is a certain amount of the romance element combined with shifting into both male and female protagonists' points of view.

What I'm wondering is this. Is this more likely to go if I make the romance clearly secondary, keep the darkness (because I want it) and switch into my female protagonists point of view only (because I like her) and go forward with the story?...


Gee, you don't ask for much, do you? )
lauraanne_gilman: (citron presse)
"To people not in the business, editing is a mysterious thing. (Actually, it's mysterious to most bloggers, who despite having been in existence for less than 10 years, probably outnumber every writer who ever wrote. But more on them later.) Many times over the past 20 years, people have asked me, 'What exactly does an editor do?'

It's not an easy question to answer. Editors are craftsmen, ghosts, psychiatrists, bullies, sparring partners, experts, enablers, ignoramuses, translators, writers, goalies, friends, foremen, wimps, ditch diggers, mind readers, coaches, bomb throwers, muses and spittoons -- sometimes all while working on the same piece. Early in my editing career I was startled when, after we had finished an edit, a crusty, hard-bitten culture writer, a woman at least twice my age, told me, 'That was great -- better than sex!'"

"let us now praise editors" @ Salon
lauraanne_gilman: (citron presse)
Part of the problem with summer, for me, is that I tend to wake up with the sun -- which means that by 2pm, I've been up for close on nine hours, and yet the day isn't over yet.

I could never live in Alaska. Summer daylight-crazies would kill me dead.


However, to celebrate the return of pleasant breezes and comfortable warmth, my entire street seems to be stoop-sitting today. I returned from my morning bike ride down to the farmer's market (more goat cheese! more bread! snapdragons and hollyhocks!) to discover my downstairs neighbors and our landlord sitting outside, discussing things that need to be repaired. I added mine to the list, let Boomer out to roll on the sidewalk, and finished up work on a client's project (literary YA, and quite well-done). Productivity R us. The benefit of enjoying editing as much as I do writing -- I don't feel frustrated that I can't get to the writing just yet because this is a pleasure, and that will be a pleasure (for masochistic-creative values of 'pleasure'), and the only unpleasant stuff to be done today involves Boomer and his tick-prevention treatment. He did want to be an outdoors cat, more fool him...

And yet I keep thinking it's supposed to be dinner time. Does anyone else have this sort of summertime time-dilation effect?
lauraanne_gilman: (bitch)
While sorting and tossing a bunch of old files this weekend, I came across a letter that I had written many many years ago (1996, to be exact). A business letter, specifically. Of the sort that you write, and maybe show to a co-worker, and then toss and write the 'real' letter.

I hereby share it with you, names and specifics deleted.

the meerkat abuses the sarcasm. also the bitter. )

At this point, my boss came in and started reading over my shoulder, and laughed so hard we had to leave the office and go for lunch to calm down, so the rest remained unwritten. Alas.

Between this, and the later PaperGate incident (don't ask, it's too hot to make me froth and swear), it was mutually agreed I not talk to Hollywood any more. And everyone (except [livejournal.com profile] dianora2 who got stuck with the job) was much happier.

God, that letter brings back memories. How I managed not to kill anyone in that job is still a mystery....
lauraanne_gilman: (bigger boat)
Some people, this may be a vacation weekend. Me? Well, I'll do what I can -- meeting friends for drinks and a movie tonight, and we're supposed to hit the beach tomorrow (checks for Ultra 30,000 SPF sunscreen and large floppy hat)-- but other than that I will be hunkered down in the shade with iced caffiene, munchables, and a pile of To Be Dones.

and maybe this will finally larn me to say no when someone asks if I can do One More Thing...

0n deck for the weekend/due tuesday )

Coffee's ready. Back to't.


P.S. My folks are home from Croatia. Stories doubtless to follow...

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