F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Editors

The 3 Types of Editorial Corrections You Need To Know!

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You Are A Writing Ninja! (image byGrywnn [CC BY-SA 4.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
You Are A Writing Ninja! (image byGrywnn [CC BY-SA 4.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
As I writer there are 7 things I need to know that will get me published.

There are also 13 things I need to know about publishing that will make me more successful than any other writer who reads about them.

4.5 steps that will forever banish writer’s block!

There are all these things…steps…that if I do them, the clouds will part and rays of blindingly glorious Heavenly Light will rain down upon me and I will be The Most Special Person in All of Publishing History.

All I have to do is follow them.

Right.

Well, in an effort to join the quantifiable fray of “enumerated success,” let me tell you all about the epiphany I’ve discovered that will lead to your success in the editing process. Because “knowledge is power” (and in three short weeks I’ll list 17 ways that knowledge IS power!).

With these 3 editorial techniques…you will become…A Writing Ninja.

The 3 Types of Editorial Corrections You Need To Know!

In editing there are three types of corrections every writer needs to be aware of. Sure there are other types of editorial corrections, and in a future post I’ll show you why, in 22 steps that can also make you godlike in your efforts. But for now making up 22 steps is too much, I’m not gonna do it…but three is easy.

So, if you want to be The World’s Greatest Writer, you need to master these 3 editorial corrections:

The Bad Dog

The “Bad Dog” is the correction you make by inserting new text into your original text in an effort to make things better. But as you work it, you find well, you’re not as good as you thought you were, and return to what you originally had, thereby proving, wait-a-minute—yes, YES!—I really am better than I thought I was! and keep what you’d already had. But what’s key, here, is that you did not delete the original text you meant to correct. All your original words are still there. So you simply “back over” all the newly inserted text, returning everything to the way it was.

“The Bad Dog” gets it terminology because when you scold a dog, the dog will usually come back to you, ears and body lowered in an attempt to “cute” its way back into your good graces. Here, in your editing process, you’ve essentially “cuted” yourself back into your own good graces in that you’ve proven to yourself that you knew what to do the first time around and should have realized you couldn’t improve upon your own work or words, because they were perfect to begin with. Bad dog, you!

But…in the style of Plighter’s Digest…and in the interests of blatant, “shameless self-promotion” (as we like to say in the writing biz) to further “drive home” the point that smart people already got three paragraphs ago, here is an example…using an overly huge example of my own writing, taken from my imminently successful short story, “The World’s Greatest Writer”:

“Then how do you know he’s such a great writer?” pressed the young one, who held the older writer’s gaze firmly, her manuscript cradled loosely in her arms between them. The young one had not meant to pin the learned author to the wall, but was merely genuinely curious. “How can you say so much about him, when you haven’t ever read his work—or met him?” She furrowed her brow, patiently awaiting an esoteric, scholarly, response.

“I know it’s hard to believe, my dear, but it’s his reputation, you see. Did you know he doesn’t even use a computer? He uses a mechanical typewriter! The gentleman is simply… extraordinary. Exceptional. Have you ever personally met God? The Pope? No…you know of each through faith, through reputation. But that’s what this banquet is all about, my dear young one! He’s coming out, as it were! Don’t let your youth and impetuousness get the best of you! You are yet young—learn! Tonight, here, it is said that he will debut the opening pages to his Great American Novel! I mean, can you fathom this opportunity before you? The miraculous, metaphysical encounter we are all about to be granted? We are going to be the first to experience his words, his energy, his soul. His raw, unfiltered emotional fervor before they are all unleashed upon our common, illiterate, public—we…we are the privileged few. Savor this moment, my dear writer, for you clearly do not comprehend the enormity of greatness upon which you are about to witness. Mark my words: this…will never happen again. In any life time. My God, how I wish I were in your shoes, a lifetime ago, to start over my profession at a much higher place, indeed!”

So, if I were to correct a sentence, say: “He’s coming out, as it were!” and wanted to change it (note I didn’t say “correct” it, because, as we all know, my words are Golden so attempting to change anything is a meaningless and wasted effort…but since I am promoting myself, I have to give an example…), then back it out, this is what is would look like:

He’s coming out, as it were! ==> He’s making an appearance coming out, as it were! ==> He’s making an appearance coming out, as it were!  ==> He’s coming out, as it were!

The Revenant

The second editorial correction is a blatant effort to piggy back onto a successful movie by incorporating it into my blog post in the hopes (fingers crossed!!!) that all who search on The Revenant will find my blog post, follow it, then buy all my books. Boom. I’m (again) #TheWorldsGreatestWriter.

The Revenant is when you make a correction to a part of your (excuse me…I can’t stop laughing…because we all know my—I mean YOUR—Words are Golden…so no corrections are ever, really necessary…) text, realize the folly of your ways (and that you haven’t yet had enough caffeine to clearly realize this…)…then pull of a zippy “Ctrl-Z.”

Boom.

That just happened.

Your original words are back.

But though they are your original words…they’re not really the original words, because you erased them.

Killed them.

They are (like Star Trek’s transporter-beamed people) re-created facsimiles of the original.

They are…resurrected facsimiles of the words you killed.

But…you did the next best thing and brought them back.

The Revenant.

If you still don’t get it, here’s another swollen, self-serving example taken from my short, “The World’s Greatest Writer”:

“Yet he remained ever gracious as he shook hands and took a genuine interest in all whom he greeted—asking how their children and relatives were doing, did they have jobs, and if not, please, do give him a call, and he’d see what he could do about it, and would they promise him that they would get enough sleep before going back to work on the morrow?

“Then one, without warning, wildfire-swift whisper erupted throughout the banquet:

Where was the manuscript?!

“Had he come without his words?!

“Were they all to be so-callously jilted?

“Teased so hotly, only to be summarily slapped without so much as a kiss or a hug? Good God, what had happened? Was it…Writer’s Block?

“The crowd again held its collective breath.

“He somberly approached the podium, his smile evaporated.

“Removing a handkerchief, Mssr. Authier paused, wiped tears from his eyes, then grasped both sides of the podium, stained hanky still clutched in one of his trembling hands. He voice wavered and cracked as he addressed the audience in his wonderfully accented, melodic French-Canadian dialect.”

So, lifting from the above, here’s what The Revenant wold look like:

Where was the manuscript?! ==> Where was the burrito?! ==> Where was the manuscript?!

The Revenant is also known as “The Ctrl-Z.”

Going Rogue

The third and final editorial correction is a jump into the uncharted waters of Your Greatness. It is, simply stated, adding more words to your Already Golden Pulitzer Prize Winning Creation.

Again, to cite still yet another utterly self-serving example from “The World’s Greatest Writer”:

“And with that, Mssr. Authier III launched into the most heartrending speech anyone in that room (or their progeny) had ever, or would ever, participate in. For two-and-one-half hours Mssr. Authier held the room in rapt captivation. Random House, foreseeing this, had trucked in boxes of Kleenex (TM)-brand tissues—unfortunately for Mssr. Authier’s attendees (and further adding to their emotional turmoil) his likeness was on the sides of each box, promoting his yet-to-be-written novel. People gave up their writing careers following his speech, devoting their lives to the Peace Corps or Green Peace. Half of the counselors working the banquet took early retirement (including those wearing the most-advanced-technology ear protection devices; though they couldn’t hear a single utterance, they didn’t have to…each felt and experienced the emotion that had taken complete hold of that audience that magical evening), and entered therapy themselves. Those with outstanding traffic warrants turned themselves in the next day and insisted upon a minimum of one year of community service for evading the law in paying those fines. So overcome with exhaustion was Mssr. Authier himself at the conclusion of addressing his audience that he had to be assisted from the stage and escorted directly to his awaiting motorcade, where a saline IV drip awaited. Mssr. Authier was submitted for the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for his oration.”

To employ Going Rogue, the above changes to:

“And with that, Mssr. Authier III launched into the most heartrending speech anyone in that room (or their progeny) had ever, or would ever, participate in. For two-and-one-half hours Mssr. Authier held the room in rapt captivation. Random House, foreseeing this, had trucked in boxes of Kleenex (TM)-brand tissues—unfortunately for Mssr. Authier’s attendees (and further adding to their emotional turmoil) his likeness was on the sides of each box, promoting his yet-to-be-written novel. People gave up their writing careers following his speech, devoting their lives to the Peace Corps or Green Peace. Half of the counselors working the banquet took early retirement (including those wearing the most-advanced-technology ear protection devices; though they couldn’t hear a single utterance, they didn’t have to…each felt and experienced the emotion that had taken complete hold of that audience that magical evening), and entered therapy themselves. Those with outstanding traffic warrants turned themselves in the next day and insisted upon a minimum of one year of community service for evading the law in paying those fines. So overcome with exhaustion was Mssr. Authier himself at the conclusion of addressing his audience that he had to be assisted from the stage and escorted directly to his awaiting motorcade, where a saline IV drip awaited. Mssr. Authier was submitted for the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for his oration. OMG.”

Did you catch that? What was added?

“OMG” was added at the very end. That is “Going Rogue.”

A stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.

Be Brave!

So, in conclusion, the 3 types of editorial corrections are:

  1. The Bad Dog
  2. The Revenant
  3. Going Rogue

Now that you know this heavily guarded editorial “secret,” you, too, can reap the benefits of “professional expertise” in your own writing…and (hopefully) rush out and buy all my books—even those I haven’t yet written.

If you have not grasped all that I’ve written, catch my next piece, which will be “The 11.6 Ways You Can Better Understand What Others Are [Trying To] Tell[ing] You.”

My work here is done.

***********************

F. P. Dorchak is an award-winning author in his own mind and the bestselling author of nothing. But he talks a good game and is quite full of himself. His latest books are full of the above editorial corrections, which shows he actually knows very little about the craft of writing, but this gig is sure to correct that in a “Going Rogue” kinda way. Go buy his stuff. Now.

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(Mr. Dorchak would like you to think that his work is so ubiquitous that it would be utter folly to even attempt to list them, here.)

What Ever Happened to Book Editors?

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Do It Right. (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by RustyObjects {Own work} [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Do It Right. (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by RustyObjects {Own work} [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Book editors.

We all have images in our heads of what they are. What they do.

But are our images correct?

Marjorie Braman’s article, “What Ever Happened to Book Editors” got me to remembering the first time I’d ever heard about the real working lives of publishing editors. It was at a writer’s conference. From the very editors themselves. What I’d heard sounded more like my own work life (minus the specific book stuff)…meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Budgets. Schedules. Reading queries. Writing flap copy—oh, and trips.

I didn’t hear a whole lotta editing going on in those offices.

Now, they did tell us that any editing they did they had to do on their own time…at home. After looong days at work. So, they had that going for their job descriptions.

But what Marjorie’s article brings out is that publishers believe it’s all about acquiring and selling. She was flat-out told by her publisher at the time—as she says, “almost in passing”—that “We don’t pay you to edit.” She says that one little quip meant to her (and rightly so, as I’ve gathered over the years I’ve experienced being in the publishing world) was that editing is no longer important. It’s all about buying and selling. She says this has been true since she came into the business in 1985.

This date, I found curious.

You see, I started getting serious about writing around that time (May of 1987). I still have my original log books—see, I even started treating it as a profession back then…doing it every day, studying it, going to critiques groups, keeping track of all my work.

But, man, talk about being a day late and a dollar short in an industry where editors were editors and authors were cultivated!

On the flip side to Marjorie’s article is that she became a freelance editor and left trad publishing, so all of the above no longer applied to her. Now…she’s full-bore into helping authors write the best books possible.

But what she’d described above is what I’m seeing everywhere: the constant focus on the bottom line to every business. It’s all gone to bean counting. Bean counters are even making heady corporation direction decisions, all based upon what’s making money and what’s not. That’s not a good perspective. A good perspective would be the overall picture/health of a company and what needs to be reworked…sometime a “minor” correction in one department can generate huge, positive outcomes (yes, even positive revenue generation) elsewhere. It’s not just a “this makes money and this doesn’t.” What is working and what isn’t…how can we improve processes…more intelligently schedule…make better use of existing capabilities…make a better product/give a better service…and the rest will follow?

How can we publish better books?

Better cultivate authors?

Not just sell crap cause crap sells?

If all you have is crap (or “the same old thing”) available…that’s all anyone can buy. If you don’t challenge people, they do not grow.

A fair cost-benefit analysis (again, I find this different and more in-depth and useful than a mere “this makes money…this doesn’t…” indignance).

Just how much of a profit is really needed for an industry to survive?

Hire the people you need…staff the actual positions with qualified individuals…cultivate better authors…and let editors do what editors are supposed to be doing. I know all this “costs.” So do books. And there are other options out there for readers…for writers.

My dad always used to say, if you’re gonna do something…do it right, for God’s sake.

 

 

Tail Wagging the Dog?

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Watch Out. We Do Bite Back. (By Sharla Perrin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Watch Out. We Do Bite Back. (By Sharla Perrin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
It’s really bugged me, this thing that goes: “write what readers want to read.”

It’s also really bugged me this thing agents and editors say: “can you make this into a series?”

You see, as an artist, I take a certain umbrage at being told I have to write what others want to read. To me—to the artist inside me—I want to write what I want to write. What begs to be written by me, the stories that percolate and surface beneath and onto the surface of my mind. For me to have to write what others want to read is rather mercenary, at best. It’s looking at the whole thing from the wrong point of view (in my not-so-humble opinion), at worst.

Do painters and sculptors paint and sculpt what people want them to paint or sculpt?

Oh, and try telling that to a poet!

What happened to writers doing what they wanted to do, creating and expressing their own inner muses and creativity?

What happened to the single-book novel, nay I ask, what is so wrong with the single-book novel?

Anything can be sold. Abso-fricking-lutley anything.

I don’t want to write about vampires (without the “-yres”), I don’t want to write fantasy. I don’t want to write romance. I don’t want to be easily pigeonholed. I want my work to bridge genres. In and of themselves, there’s nothing wrong with any of these genres…except that there are too many of “the same” IMNSHO. I’m all for writers being successful, and feel there is room for all of us, but I am not for crappy writing being thrown around and slapped between two covers just because it will sell. I’m not for tritely cloned stories. And I feel for the writers who partake in this, because they feel they have to, to make it in this biz. If they want to do it, then that’s all them, more power to them, but, please, don’t do it just to cow to the Powers of Publishing. I have tied to read a lot of mid-list books a couple years ago, and found I just couldn’t do it. To me, and for the most part, the stories were tired and flat. Uninteresting. Trite. Poorly written.

Yet they sell.

Now, one or two were well-written, but the stories just didn’t interest me. Okay, that’s fair. I’m not everybody, and everybody’s not me, and my work isn’t for everybody. Different tastes keep life interesting. But, please, don’t coerce, intimidate, nor cajole me into writing like some other story out there just because some people are buying that particular “thing.” Fine, compare me, if it’s complimentary, but don’t force me into something I’m not.

Please, allow me (and others like me) to write what we want to write. If you don’t like it, fine, don’t read it, don’t take me on—but do not not take me on just because I’m not like what’s already out there, because it’d take just a little more Brain Power on your part to market and promote me. For chrissakes, people have told me my work has given them nightmares! You don’t get nightmares from stuff that doesn’t interest you, doesn’t bother you, doesn’t affect you in some, moving, profound, way! So, I’m betting that someone out there will like it. I don’t say this out of ego…I say this out of understanding humanity. If I like something, chances are someone out there will also like it. We’re really all quite similar in how we operate as Humans. If someone likes something, chances are so will others of our kind. I’ve written and published three novels. With one exception I can think of, the reviews are all favorable. So, I know I can write something–stand-alone books,  no less!—others would find interesting enough to read and review (and I thank all who took the time to review my books!)…have nightmares over!

It’s not that I’m so much against the Publishing World…as I am against the mindsets that drive it. I love most of the editors I’ve met, and some of the agents. I’d love to be able to work with a traditional publisher, regain agenting. I’m just asking for the mindsets to change…just a little. Become more open, more humane.

So, please, allow us to express our own unique creativity. Don’t force us into boxes that don’t exist. It is not a case of getting us to be more salable. You may think it is, but it’s not. You may have created a business out of distribution, but that doesn’t make it right that you impose your ways on us. You should work with us, as we are [trying to] work with you. You may feel like you have (or have had) the power to make or break us, but whether or not that may be the commercial case, that should not be the Human Way. You should not try to screw us over with your greedy, author unfriendly contracts. If you had no authors, you’d have no business. No power. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be nothing, and you’re power-purse-strings approach seems to squelch that for most, who succumb to your whims, but it doesn’t make what you’re doing right. This should be about distributing the work that we love and create—yes, with whatever needed improvements and polish that comes from professional editing—but, letting us do our job of writing what we love to write, and you do your job of distributing our work.

Money will be made.

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Yes, Book Editors…Edit?

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By Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newsletter, New York [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
By Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newsletter, New York [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
I just read this article from a tweet, and it was most interesting.

Do book editors…edit?

And, as the article’s author pointed out, “I probably mark up fifty to a hundred pages a week, most of it on the weekend.”

Did you catch that?

“…most of it on the weekend.”

Now, it’s not that I’m taking issues with the “not editing at work” part, so much as it is that I totally understand the sentiment. I work for a big company, so I know, yeah, Big Company Structure and Business do get “in the way” of your “paid job” at times. It’s the nature of running Big Companies. You have training and meetings and round tables and whatnot. Phone calls. Needy clients. It’s simply the nature of Big Biz.

Yet, there is the issue brought forth that editors don’t edit. But, whether they edit at work (where they’re, uh, supposed to work…?) or at home shouldn’t really be the issue, should it? And the “agents do the editing” discussion. How agents are doing the editors‘ work. Or that no one really edits anymore and everything should be “camera-ready” before it hits an editor’s desk. Or that it’s only the disgruntled few who don’t get published rattling all the cages….

Blah-blah-blah.

Look, people are going to complain about anything and everything, and those who don’t get what they seek are going to complain the loudest. It’s the nature of Humanity. Add to that all the troubles going on in the publishing industry over and above–and yes, directly related to some of these discussions–and you get quite the complicated picture.

Or, perhaps, it’s simple not that complicated at all.

Once you factor out the basic Human need to complain, the basic Human need of those who feel conspired against complaining, the need for those who do edit feeling left out and overlooked, or any of a handful of obvious variables, what’s left?

A publishing industry at odds with itself.

I’m not saying there is no validity to the piece, and I’m certainly no insider myself–heck, you could call me one of the disgruntled masses, since I’d had an agent for several years, we got nowhere, we parted (amicably) and I went Indie–but is there no truth to any of the claims–or counter claims?

I think there’s a little of both.

Look, nothing’s perfect, and the past wasn’t perfect either. Publishing (and agenting) has changed. From everything I’ve learned about publishing, there is some truth to the claims that editors don’t edit as much as they used to do (I’ve heard it from their own mouths)…sure some do…but some don’t. And, yes, agents are doing more editing than they used to (I’ve heard it from their own mouths). And, yes, publishing (talking execs, here) does want everything that comes across their transits to be “camera ready” (once, again, have heard that from their underlings, aka editors…and agents). And, yes, some editors do editing…at home, at the office, or both.

Where’s the evil, here?

It’s not black and white, it’s not all or nothing. There are, if you’ll permit me…shades of gray. Lots of it. Get over it. Quit being so quick to take [public] umbrage at every little jab at your profession. Sure, be proud of the work you do, but understand…it’s not what it used to be, and that is not necessarily a good or bad thing. Some of you do more of it than your peers.

So, really, this is the big discussion we need to be having about publishing?