Writers and Their Editors

Bigging yourself up

If you’ve ever watched Antiques Roadshow you may have noticed how an ordinary Joe, when questioned by a boffin, and with a camera lens in his face, begins to use words he wouldn’t necessarily ‘employ’ (there, I’ve used one). ‘When my great aunt acquired the item she didn’t know what she had purchased.’

Suddenly the guy has a mouthful of marbles and doesn’t sound at all like himself. William Zinsser, author of the excellent On Writing Well, observes that those mouthful-of-marbles words are particular favourites of ‘passive-voice’ writers. Using passive verbs, like using long words of Latin origin when short Anglo-Saxon ones will do, makes a text turgid and difficult to wade through. Both habits can be born of trying to make your text sound more weighty and clever. Let’s take an example. Look at the following two sentences. You will see how the latter lacks clarity and punch. (For fun I’ve added a ‘big-up’ word too.)

Lillian found him / …

Grammar again ...

I liked Cressida Downing’s recent blog about not getting confused between a writer’s unique voice and the need, nonetheless, to tidy one’s text so that readers can find their way through it without stumbling around. Working on grammar and structural issues is not going to drown your voice, nor will it stifle your creative juices. In fact, that kind of close work uses entirely different mental muscles. I find that it feels more akin to working on puzzles or crosswords than anything else.

This year many students failed to get their expected grades in English GCSE. Libby Purves, in an article in the Times, raised an issue that, for her, underlies the whole fiasco. For years now, students have not been marked down by examiners when they fail to write clear, correct English. Instead, ‘creativity’ (and, presumably, good ideas) were the sole consideration when they were given their grades. One creative writing teacher I know was bemoaning the fact that so many of …

Legitimate marketing … or fraud?

If an author asks me to write a review of their book on Amazon I have always obliged (giving them the obligatory five stars of course). One should always have a healthy scepticism when it comes to reviews: especially a journalist’s puff about a fellow journo’s book or an author’s review of a book published by the same house. It’s a natural bit of back-scratching.

But is it okay to take things a bit further, creating discussions around your book on Amazon and giving it a five-star review, through setting up sockpuppet accounts? You may have been aware of the frenzied blogging over this issue in the past weeks. One particular author has been blasted after he apparently admitted to using sockpuppet accounts in a discussion at Harrogate’s crime writers’ festival.

Some authors have been known to take it one step further, writing and posting one-star reviews in an attempt to scupper their competitors. You will remember when Professor Orlando …

Ben Macintyre, writing in The Times, noted that publishers are using digital feedback they receive, courtesy of Kindle and Kobo, to ‘road-test’ new works. The thing about e-readers is that although they let you read in privacy, they record what you’re reading and can measure your responses: they chart when you slow down or read faster; they know when you get bogged down or give up on a book.

Although it sounds good, I am somewhat doubtful that publishers are actually finding time to analyse the data. But this does raise an interesting point. The publishing industry is almost alone in its tendency to ignore some obvious marketing processes other industries abide by. The film business uses focus groups, as does the music business. SlicethePie is just one company that entices music fans to rate tracks on line, paying them between two and ten cents for a written review. It might strike you as odd that publishers do not use focus groups to pre-test forthcoming books. Instead, a …

Get out the bin bags!

Recently I held a yard sale with a neighbour. I love chucking things out, which is always a bit of a worry for the rest of my family. My neighbour’s house is bursting at the seams and she ended up having to employ someone to go through her mountains of junk with her. She wailed and wrung her hands while Aggie filled bin bag after bin bag with old coffee perculators.

I think the same part of the brain is involved when a manuscript needs decluttering. If yours gets longer rather than shorter when you’re editing I would hazard a guess that your home is a tip as well. Remember Dr Casaubon in Middlemarch who became so lost in his research for the Key to all Mythologies that he mouldered away like a fruit rotting on the branch?

 Don’t let your manuscript become overgrown: snip-snip, chop-chop. Keep your plot moving, with every scene relating to your main theme, goal, or question, and cut out unnecessary adverbs, adjectives, and other weeds which are obscuring …