Overcoming Overwriting: The Art of Consolidating Thoughts

by

Kellyn Vale

We’ve all been there, writing a piece, drilling down thoughts as quickly as our brains will allow. Each idea seems more profound than the next until suddenly we come out of our creative haze and realize our 500-word short story has evolved into a 10-page jumble of words!

As creative writers, it can be difficult to tame all the ideas fighting to get out of our heads. There are countless ways to approach even one topic, and if you’re like me, you get personally attached to your sentences on an emotional level. You’ve created them from nothing, you see such potential for them, you desperately want them all to work, yet you have to cut something out! These can be some of the toughest times for us writers, but no need to fear! Here’s a process you could try to deal with those heart-wrenching moments when you have to *gasp* condense your precious thoughts.

Step 1: Make an Outline

Creating a basic outline of your piece before you write can help you stay on track by immediately pointing out the major details you want to focus on. It gets the wheels turning in your brain, and once you clearly identify the points you need to get across, your subconscious will already naturally be focusing on those when you begin your writing phase.

Step 2: Write Everything Out (and I mean EVERYTHING!)

When writing your piece, put every single thought you have on paper; don’t overthink it, just let it flow and blast words onto the page until you’ve drained your brain of all ideas related to your piece – key words being “related to the piece.” You want your thoughts to flow, but you also want to keep them on topic. I call this an “Objective Subject Word Splurge.” This step is similar to freewriting, but with slightly more direction. With a free write, your train of thought may make stops on several different topics. For example, you may begin free writing about experiences in nature, then shift your thoughts to forests, then to rivers, then to bodies of water, then the ocean, then the beach, then summer . . . and before you know it your mind went from nature to eating a popsicle in the sand and the content of the piece falls apart. With a free write you’re just a passenger riding the train of thought, whereas with a subject splurge you’re the conductor.

Step 3: Revise and Reread: Chop ‘til You Drop!

This probably sounds like old news to you seasoned writers, but never overlook the importance of a few quality revision sessions; read it on the computer, print it out and read it, is the whole passage in line with the theme of the work as a whole? Most editing tends to take the form of hunting for grammar errors and making sure the general organization of the piece flows. When your focus is cutting down on words, however, revising has to be a little more specific. For this step, refer back to the outline you made in step one. Revisit those key ideas that you absolutely need to include, and then go over all the content you’ve written; read it out loud – do some parts stand out as outliers that don’t really belong? They don’t fit no matter how bad you might want them to, like puzzle pieces from the wrong box. Identify those, and give them the axe; if a sentence does not directly contribute to developing those key thoughts into a masterpiece, then (you guessed it) out it goes!

Step 4: SAVE THE PASSAGES YOU CUT!

Chopping words and sentences out of your piece doesn’t mean you have to throw them in the metaphorical fire and lose them forever! After identifying what needs to go, don’t just delete it and never see it again, cut and paste it into a new document or folder and come back to it later; if it’s really that good of a thought, you’ll come back to it and create a whole new masterpiece of words, I guarantee it. Maybe even something you never imagined would come from its original purpose!

For many writers, consolidation is a brutal process. However, if you approach it with an open mind and positive outlook, it can feel cleansing and leave us feeling lighter at the end of the day; don’t be afraid to cut things out, it could benefit you more in the end.

__________

Kellyn Vale is a 22 year old student at Calumet College of St. Joseph. She has a passion for running, coffee, and writing. Kellyn is currently working as a New Media Journalist for Ideas in Motion Media and plans to continue to incorporate writing into her future career.

When the Editor Pays You

 

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 

Sometimes the conversation between an author and an editor resembles this one between Alice, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse:

 

“Do you mean that you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.

“Exactly so,” said Alice.

“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.

“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

After you sell your book to a publisher, the editorial relationship changes. You are no longer the boss. Ideally, you will work with the publisher to reach a compromise that you can both live with. Or, as often happens, you may realize that the editor’s changes improve the book. You probably did mean “I breathe when I sleep” rather than “I sleep when I breathe.”

But what if, for whatever reason, you said “I sleep when I breathe” on purpose? Changing the wording could affect more than a single sentence or paragraph. If the publisher’s edits don’t change the focus or the overall style of the book, however, you may choose to shrug them off. That’s what I did with the first edition of In God We Trust. Actually, I had a good relationship with the editor. Still, there were some edits that weren’t worth arguing over.

It’s different when an editor wants to change the book’s philosophy or structure. What does a writer do then?

First, consider the editor’s suggestions. Maybe they make the book stronger. But if they change the overall philosophy of the book or violate your purpose in writing it, you may be left with two unattractive choices: (a) let the publisher have its way or (2) break the contract and take the consequences. The best way to avoid this issue is to do your research and know what you are getting into before signing the contract.

I wrote Writers in Wonderland for the average writer, not for academics or other lawyers. I needed a hook to get and keep my audience’s interest in what many consider a dry subject, so I went with a Lewis Carroll theme. When I submitted the proposal to publishers, I received a number of encouraging responses but only one bite. It came from an academic publisher that wanted me to tone down the Lewis Carroll references. Since that would have eliminated the hook and limited my audience, I declined the offer and ended up self-publishing.

If I had already entered into a contract, however, I probably would have given in and mourned the changes forever after. Unfortunately, that’s part of a writer’s reality.

So before you enter into a contract with a traditional publisher, consider what kind of editorial relationship you are likely to have. If you think you can live with it, go ahead and sign. But remember this:

When the editor pays you, it has the final say.

__________

The drawing at the top of this post is by John Tenniel and was one of the original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The quoted passage is also from that book. The image and the text are both in the public domain because of their age.

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.





When You Pay the Editor

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

What does a sleeping child have to do with editing?

Not much.

When I looked for a photograph to draw attention to this post, I couldn’t find any good ones about editing or editors that didn’t raise copyright issues. But I did have a cute picture of my daughter when she was about eleven months old, so I wondered if there was any way I could tie it in. Here’s what I came up with.

You’ve chosen an editor and handed over your baby, who is wide awake and ready to go on an action adventure. (Or at least that’s how you see it.) When you get your baby back, you discover that the editor has changed the action adventure into a bedtime story.

I admit that the analogy is a stretch, and a very long one at that. A good editor would tell me to eliminate the analogy—and the photo—and find another way to start the post.

So here’s the question: Do I have to take my editor’s advice?

Not if I’m paying the editor. I’m the boss and can do whatever I want, which includes rejecting any suggestions I don’t agree with.

But just because I can doesn’t mean I should.

I pay the editor for advice, so ignoring it is the same as wasting my money. Not that I take every piece of advice she gives me—I don’t. Still, I seldom reject her suggestions completely. I may not use her words, but I try to clarify the passage without changing the meaning.

When you pay the editor, you are the boss. You get to decide which suggestions to take and which to reject.

But remember why you hired an editor in the first place.

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.

Should You Hire an Editor?

This week’s post is a reprint of the November 13, 2013 IWC blog post, which was written by Kathryn Page Camp. The cost figures may be outdated, but the advice never is.

The original post was directed at self-publishing, but the information also applies when preparing a manuscript for submission to traditional publishers.

____________________

What do you think of when you hear the word, “self-published”? I think of substandard work. While there are many great self-published books, they aren’t the ones I remember. As a self-published author myself, I’m ashamed of anything that gives the category a bad name.

I like to support my fellow authors, and I’ve bought my share of self-published books. I also download those “free” Kindle books when the description sounds interesting. And some have been a pleasant surprise.

But most are riddled with typos, inconsistencies, and just plain bad writing.

That’s why every self-published author should hire a freelance editor.

Yes, I know it’s expensive, ranging anywhere from $500 to $10,000 for a 60,000 word manuscript. The actual price is based on a number of factors, including the type of edit and the experience of the editor. And the poorer the manuscript, the more it will cost to edit. But if your goal is to produce a professional-quality book you won’t be ashamed of five years from now, it’s well worth the money.

What types of services do editors provide? For our purposes, we will concentrate on three.

Proofreading is the cheapest and most basic service that editors provide. A proofreader looks for typos, misspellings, and grammar errors. If your book has been typeset or reformatted, a proofreader can also check the final copy against your original manuscript to make sure they match. The cost to proofread a 60,000 word manuscript may average from $500 to $950.

Copyediting is probably the most common. I always pay for a copyedit before finalizing a book manuscript, even when I am submitting to a traditional publisher. After all, why wouldn’t I want to submit my best work?

Like proofreading, copyediting looks for typos, misspellings, and grammar errors. But it also looks for inconsistencies and for words and sentences and paragraphs that are confusing or awkward. I own a self-published non-fiction book that is easy to read and gives me interesting information, but it mentions that a woman was 12 in 1817 and 76 in 1871. That means I can’t trust the facts without double-checking them with another source.

That error is evident on the face of the manuscript, and a good copyeditor would have caught it. If you request it, a copyeditor will also check other sources to verify facts and references. Obviously, however, the more you ask a copyeditor to do, the more it will cost. For that 60,000 word manuscript, a copyedit may average anywhere from $750 to $2,500. 

Substantive editing—sometimes called line editing—is the most expensive, but it is also the most comprehensive. Although it includes some of the elements of a good copyedit, a substantive edit also looks at the contents and tells you what works and what doesn't on both a macro and a micro level. The editor may go so far as to recommend that you reorder your chapters to make the plot more suspenseful or eliminate your favorite passage because it’s irrelevant. For a 60,000 word manuscript, a substantive edit will average between $2,000 and $10,000.

What type of edit you need depends on your human resources. Do you belong to a writers’ critique group that includes knowledgeable members and provides honest feedback on both craft and clarity? Do you have someone (preferably not a family member or good friend) from your target audience who will give you candid comments from a reader’s perspective? And do you take full advantage of these resources? If so, you may not need a substantive edit.

I’m a grammar geek and, given time to do a careful read, am also good at catching typos and confusing words and phrases. Even so, it’s hard for me to edit my own work. I know what I wanted to say, and my mind reads it that way. And I’m not alone. Very few people can edit their own work and end up with an acceptable product.

Of course, not everyone has the financial resources to hire an editor. Still, there may be a way. What about giving up that cappuccino you always buy on the way to work? Or do you have skills you can barter?

Start by asking yourself why you are writing and publishing. Because if you want to produce your best work, you will find a way to polish it before releasing it to the public.

Before You Hire an Editor

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 



I always hire an editor before submitting my manuscripts to publishers. After all, shouldn’t I submit my best work? I’m not taking about perfection, because then I would never finish a book. But I do want to submit the best book I can to a potential publisher.

It’s the same with an editor.

Too many writers dispense with self-editing because “that’s what I pay my editor for,” or even “the publisher will fix it.” But that thinking is naïve. The more work you leave for the editor, the more the editor will cost. And expecting the publisher to fix it may mean that you attract no publisher at all.

Even more importantly, nobody knows what the writer intends better than the writer does. The more a writer leaves to an editor, the less it will be the writer’s work.

That’s why I believe that self-editing is a prerequisite to hiring an editor.

Self-editing is too large a subject to cover in one blog post—or even in a series. That’s why I’m going to refer you to some of the many books that are out there. There may be others that are better, but these are the ones on my bookshelves.

·         Revision & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell (part of the Write Great Fiction series published by Writer’s Digest Books);

·         Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King; and

·         The chapter on revision from Stein on Writing by Sol Stein.

So do yourself and your readers a favor. Learn about and apply self-editing techniques before you hire an editor.

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.

Self-Publishing: Should You Hire an Editor?

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 

 

What do you think of when you hear the word, “self-published”? I think of substandard work. While there are many great self-published books, they aren’t the ones I remember. As a self-published author myself, I’m ashamed of anything that gives the category a bad name.

 

I like to support my fellow authors, and I’ve bought my share of self-published books. I also download those “free” Kindle books when the description sounds interesting. And some have been a pleasant surprise.

 

But most are riddled with typos, inconsistencies, and just plain bad writing.

 

That’s why every self-published author should hire a freelance editor.

 

Yes, I know it’s expensive, ranging anywhere from $500 to $10,000 for a 60,000 word manuscript. The actual price is based on a number of factors, including the type of edit and the experience of the editor. And the poorer the manuscript, the more it will cost to edit. But if your goal is to produce a professional-quality book you won’t be ashamed of five years from now, it’s well worth the money.

 

What types of services do editors provide? For our purposes, we will concentrate on three.

 

Proofreading is the cheapest and most basic service that editors provide. A proofreader looks for typos, misspellings, and grammar errors. If your book has been typeset or reformatted, a proofreader can also check the final copy against your original manuscript to make sure they match. The cost to proofread a 60,000 word manuscript may average from $500 to $950.

 

Copyediting is probably the most common. I always pay for a copyedit before finalizing a book manuscript, even when I am submitting to a traditional publisher. After all, why wouldn’t I want to submit my best work?

 

Like proofreading, copyediting looks for typos, misspellings, and grammar errors. But it also looks for inconsistencies and for words and sentences and paragraphs that are confusing or awkward. I own a self-published non-fiction book that is easy to read and gives me interesting information, but it mentions that a woman was 12 in 1817 and 76 in 1871. That means I can’t trust the facts without double-checking them with another source.

 

That error is evident on the face of the manuscript, and a good copyeditor would have caught it. If you request it, a copyeditor will also check other sources to verify facts and references. Obviously, however, the more you ask a copyeditor to do, the more it will cost. For that 60,000 word manuscript, a copyedit may average anywhere from $750 to $2,500. 

 

Substantive editing—sometimes called line editing—is the most expensive, but it is also the most comprehensive. Although it includes some of the elements of a good copyedit, a substantive edit also looks at the contents and tells you what works and what doesn't on both a macro and a micro level. The editor may go so far as to recommend that you reorder your chapters to make the plot more suspenseful or eliminate your favorite passage because it’s irrelevant. For a 60,000 word manuscript, a substantive edit will average between $2,000 and $10,000.

 

What type of edit you need depends on your human resources. Do you belong to a writers’ critique group that includes knowledgeable members and provides honest feedback on both craft and clarity? Do you have someone (preferably not a family member or good friend) from your target audience who will give you candid comments from a reader’s perspective? And do you take full advantage of these resources? If so, you may not need a substantive edit.

 

I’m a grammar geek and, given time to do a careful read, am also good at catching typos and confusing words and phrases. Even so, it’s hard for me to edit my own work. I know what I wanted to say, and my mind reads it that way. And I’m not alone. Very few people can edit their own work and end up with an acceptable product.

 

Of course, not everyone has the financial resources to hire an editor. Still, there may be a way. What about giving up that cappuccino you always buy on the way to work? Or do you have skills you can barter?

 

Start by asking yourself why you are writing and publishing. Because if you want to produce your best work, you will find a way to polish it before releasing it to the public.

 

 

__________

 

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Her new book, Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal (KP/PK Publishing 2013) is available from Amazon.com and other retailers. Kathryn is also the author of In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion (FaithWalk Publishing 2006) and numerous articles. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.