Tip O'Day #304 - Serious Authors Need Serious Help

Neil Marr, managing editor of BeWrite Books, on an editor’s role.

The breathtaking opening paragraph of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude carried these words in English: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Aureliano Burendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Magnificent. As brilliant as the opening lines to Rebecca or 1984. A full synopsis in a simple paragraph.

The original Spanish version was immensely outsold by its English translation version by Gregory Rabassa. The translation was so powerful that Márquez himself said it outshone his original. Rabassa in return wrote a book about his translation called If This Be Treason. That sums up where the editor stands in fiction: Every act of communication is translation of author intent. Is our editorial intervention an act of complicity and cooperation or of treason?

There are many examples where an editor turned a tepid manuscript into a work of art. Google ’em. I recall no record of an editor destroying an original work. You?

A manuscript arrives on my desk and shows promise. But it’s horrific in terms of typos and grammatical error (no problem), as well as continuity hiccups (fixable). The hitch is that the chapters are out of whack, and character presence should be lessened here, enhanced there. Story-lines are weak, loose or incomplete. Let’s fix ’em. Writing style isn’t consistent, dialogue is stiff and unreal. Let me have a go.

Then comes the gatekeeper’s decision … take it or leave it. And that’s largely down to how flexible and cooperative the author behaves in early contacts. In many cases, the editor actually becomes the author, taking (and desiring) no credit. So my pet peeve is authors who think they can go it alone and self-publish raw drafts through all the freebie channels now open to them that present a slush-pile for the reader to sift. All they do is try to sell the unadopted.

I’m a spoilsport? Sure I am. But my thoroughly professional editorial team and I (with an average of 40 pro years in the job) often spend as much time perfecting a promising work as its author did in writing it. And we don’t publish bum steers. We also do it free of charge, as any true publisher should. And produce professional cover art, text design, independent international distribution channels, and promotion.

Authors CANNOT go it alone if they want to be taken at all seriously. They need pro help, and all they must do is to come up with a presentable submission to crack that nut and save themselves thousands of wasted bucks or to save a book that’s dead in the water without sound input.

Learn more about Neil at his website.

Tip O'Day #208 - Make Your Readers Want to Stay

Guest blogger Mike Nettleton presents “Short Attention Span Theatre.”

After 25 plus years of writing and editing for other writers and 6 published novels, I’ve come to one major conclusion: you need to grab your reader’s attention at the beginning of your story. Too many writers spend the first chapter setting the scene and introducing us to the protagonist. Then, usually somewhere late in the second or third chapter, they provide the event that is the true beginning of the story.

The perfect example of somebody who knows how to hit the ground running with a story is Lee Child and his Jack Reacher books. Within the first three paragraphs, Child has you on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next. This concept is especially important in genre books, but even for a literary novel, you should get your characters moving and reacting to events.

Since I mostly write mystery and detective fiction, the murder is a favorite place to start. Here’s how I began Shotgun Start:

She huddled against the wall, hearing a playback of her father’s voice in her head. “Do not point a weapon at something you do not intend to kill.”

“Loud and clear, Daddy dearest,” she murmured, running her fingers along the chill barrels of the shotgun lying across her lap. “One dead man, coming up.” Nausea tugged at her stomach even as she smiled at her own sick sense of humor.

My guess is most readers will stick around to find out who dies and why. Remember, the best way for our readers to get to know a character is through actions and reactions.

Check out Mike’s website at www.deadlyduomysteries.com or read a sample chapter of Shotgun Start at http://www.amazon.com/Shotgun-Start-Neal-Mystery-ebook/dp/B005QCXY0K

First Lines

Michelle McLean, one of the fine ladies blogging for Operation Awesome, recently had a post about how first lines can captivate us:

I recently finished reading Rick Riordan’s The Lost Hero. Aside from really enjoying the book, I was struck by how many awesome first lines he had. The first line of the book was amazing:

Even before he got electrocuted, Jason was having a rotten day.

My inner editor immediately stopped to admire that incredible bit of writing. As first lines go, that is made of total win (at least imo).

But it didn’t stop there. Several times throughout the book, I’d turn the page to start a new chapter and got blown away by that chapter’s first line. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. Leo wished the dragon hadn’t landed on the toilets.
2. As soon as Jason saw the house, he knew he was a dead man.
3. Leo’s tour was going great until he learned about the dragon.
4. After a morning of storm spirits, goat men, and flying boyfriends, Piper should’ve been losing her mind.
5. Jason would have died five times on the way to the front door if not for Leo.
6. When Leo saw how well Piper and Hedge were being treated, he was thoroughly offended.
7. The plan went wrong almost immediately.
8. Leo hadn’t felt this jumpy since he’d offered tofu burgers to the werewolves.

In my work in progress, Assassin’s Club – Doing Good by Being Bad, the first sentence doesn’t exactly slap you in the face, but I’m pretty proud of the first 20 lines.

The man fights his way through the surf. A giant wave crashes over his back, knocking the air from his lungs.

He struggles to stand upright, his arms and legs heavy as lead. He doesn’t remember much. He vaguely recalls thrashing around in the cold water and turning around in time to see the stern of a sailing ship as it glided toward the horizon, jaunty carnival tunes in its wake.

Did I fall from that? Or get pushed?

The water tugs at his legs like a needy lover. Finally he finds himself on hot, dry sand and falls to his knees. He has a pounding headache and blood on his hand from when he touches the throbbing knot on the back of his scalp.

Where the hell am I? Who am I?

The voices in his head provide no answers.

A hazy figure appears far up the beach and so he walks in that direction. The sun feels good on his back. Overhead, seagulls circle and chatter in their private language. After a few minutes he can make out some details of the approaching figure – a tall woman in a flowing white gown with sunflower-gold hair. She walks with her head down as if overwhelmed by a great sadness. Or maybe just looking for pretty shells.

A terrible fear jolts his heart.

She’s in mortal danger. Something awful is about to befall her.

Close now, she looks up and laughs at him. “Jesus, you’re naked!”

So that’s who I am.

The first line of chapter two (which was originally chapter one, until I decided my serial killer needed a friend to play with) was more successful, I believe:

Tyler Goode didn’t know the man’s real name until he read the obituary three days later.

Writers can engage the reader without needing an exploding helicopter in the first paragraph, but the opening should at least raise the reader’s curiosity about the dramatic, humorous or informative material to follow.