critiques and editing

Critiqies and Editing 101
Storytelling Guidelines and Writing R.O.T.
Writer's Synopsis

Critiques and Editing 101

From the author's point of view
© Gordon Sirvio

        For anyone who critiques or edits stories, you need to know what is required by the author. The exception is critiquing for entertainment in a newspaper, etc. But other forms of critiquing and editing are all geared to producing a better story. The author is the source of the story, not the publisher and not the writer's group. If you are not working with the author to improve the story, you are not critiquing or editing.
        Storytelling is an art form like painting. Some paintings and writing are precise and beautiful from each word, sentence and paragraph. Other paintings if looked at closely are just blobs of color or heavy lines of brush strokes but with every step back the image emerges until you see a masterpiece. In a story, you might find a word that doesn't seem to fit, a sentence that doesn't follow correct grammar and the paragraph that doesn't follow any pattern. When you step back to what is said in the whole passage or even the whole story, a masterpiece can just be found with each nuance of broken grammar and form. The very first thing the reader needs to do is look at the whole. Anyone who requests major changes in a story without reading the whole tale is an amateur.

Critiques

        It is essential that the critiquer gives the author information about what kind of stories he/she likes. At first, many people do not understand the need for this information. It is simple. The person doing the critique will offer suggestions that match his/her reading. If the author is writing a romance and the critiquer reads action stories, the critique will be used by the author in different ways. For example: If the author wants to add more action to a passage he/she will pay closer attention to a critique done by the action reader. But if the author is more interested in keeping the romance theme strong, he/she will listen carefully to a different critiquer.
        Critiques always have to point out what is good as well as what needs work. Why? If the author doesn't know that everyone likes the flashback scene, he/she might change it to heighten the tension in a later passage.
        Critiques work best if you don't tell exactly what you think should be done. But you need to give specific information with examples whenever you can. The author is the creator of the story. He/she needs the flexibility of creating any changes in the story line. After all, the author has lived through the birth of the story. He/she knows better than any reader which nuances will work best in any changes. Specifics and examples will always help the author. The more shades of meaning you can place in a critique the easier time an author will have understanding how you are reading the story. Many authors will just throw out a critique they can not understand.

Editing

        The editor starts with the basics of critiques but his/her job is much harder and is more important to the final version of the story.
        The editor starts by making sure the mechanics of the story are correct. Proof reading for grammar, spelling and word usage is on going. A story can be read 100 times before someone finds the missing comma or the wrong preposition hiding in the third chapter. These mechanics are the easy steps.
        The author starts the editing process by giving a degree of trust to the editor. After all, you are reading his/her story. The editor has to give the same trust to the writer. Without trust, the troubles are only just beginning. Trust doesn't mean they have to like each other. The author and the editor have to respect each other's abilities. Just because something at first glance seems to be wrong in the story, the editor has to check before questioning the author. An editor reviewing an article by Einstein should be careful before questioning the math. It is possible that Einstein could have dropped a sign but it is more likely that you reversed the sign. You will probably never edit an Einstein but every author is the expert where his/her story is concerned. There is nothing wrong with asking the author where details are found. But marking a passage for change before checking is working the process in reverse.
        One of the fastest ways to loose the respect of the author is the no purpose change. The word highlighted with a spelling check because the editor didn't look through the whole definition in the dictionary. The words that have two valid spellings that are requested changed without a reason. If the editor wants a word, phrase or paragraph changed, there has to be a reason and the true reason has to be given. There is nothing wrong with saying that I always spell the word this way would you consider changing the word for me. The hiding of the reason gives the author a chance to question the ability for the editor to handle the much harder problems that are sure to be found.
        Politicians know that all politics are local. Editors have to know that all story settings are local. Every location has a distinct dialect. Idioms go beyond just dialogue. Locational names, word usage and phrasing are just the beginning of the setting of the story. These sometime need to be changed to give the story a wider readership but each change has to the weighed against what is lost to the uniqueness of the work. Editing the story too closely for a national or even international readership is a mistake that many editors feel justified to make. But it is still a mistake. This becomes a fine balancing act that requires the joint efforts of both the author and editor.
        Authors put in passages for specific reasons. Storytelling changes over the years. An editor is suppose to know what is considered good writing today. But just because a style or technique is not popular doesn't mean it shouldn't be used. And if the style is there for a purpose the change has to reflect the underlying reason. Editing style and technique requires that the editor explains why it is not considered a current form in writing and to suggest a change that will keep the color to the words that the author wanted. For example: A writer uses an information dump in the story. Although many classic stories use informational dumps, they are now considered poor form. The editor has to explain this and look for ways to put the information into the story. But the editor also has to see why the author used the informational dump. The writer could be trying to force the reader to recall the old classic. The choice for the editor might then be to either suggest a change that brings the old classic to the reader's mind or leave the informational dump in the story with his/her blessing.
        The greatest temptation for the editor is to claim ownership of the story. The editor falls into the trap of thinking that his/her vision is the true story. If the author doesn't follow his/her suggestions then the author is wrong. The editor becomes the co-author to the story. This can get a story written but this seldom creates unique words. Remember, the editor suggests and the writer writes. This works. Re-writing for your own vision of the story fails more often than not.
        Finally the editor needs to know when to stop. You can tweak a story here. You can tweak a story there. But if you go one more tweak the story becomes a bore. Just like a perfect face can be too perfect, a perfect story seems hollow.

        This ends Critiquing and Editing 101. C&E 102 will come at a much much later date.

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Lily

Story Telling Guidelines

Not rules
© Gordon Sirvio

1) Start the story with something that forces the reader to ask, "What will happen next? I want to know." Start every new section of the story the same way.

2) The details of the story needs to have some familiarity to the reader but with enough difference that the reader is never 100% sure what will be in the next sentence. You have to play fair with the reader and give them enough information. You can not lie to make the difference needed in the story.

3) The intensity and flow of the story has to vary like the ripples in a pond. The slow sections have to be as brief as the trough between two ripples. If slow sections start to lengthen, break them up by using simple secondary characters or story lines to add humor or suspense. You can create incidents to pull the slow sections to a faster pace. Incidents can range from killing off a character to a simple word pun.

4) Secondary stories have to have only the information needed for the main story line unless the secondary story is complete and good by itself.

5) The ending has to be strong. It can be happy, sad, in between, or I won't tell you. For every question raised in the story you need an answer. You can not leave something hanging but you can end the story by telling the reader you will leave them hanging.

Writing R.O.T.

Rules Of Thumb
© Gordon Sirvio

Books such as Strunk's 'Elements of Style' do a much better job than I can about style and syntax but there are some rules of thumb that I think can help a writer. If you don't agree with my rules, you will still learn by trying to articulate why I am wrong. The following rules are in no particular order.

*If you are writing about something that you have limited familiarity with or a fantasy, you need to balance it with what you know. For example: If you are writing a science fiction story for each page of the fantasy you should have a page based on something that you personally know. An exchange of phaser fire can be followed by a game of chess.

*You need not to tell as much in the story as you tell. The history of the past or future of the story has to be there but the reader doesn't need to know its details. In fact, the not knowing permits the reader to slightly vary the history into their experience making the whole story more personal.

*Don't forget the small things. Small personal actions and events bring the reader into the story. For example: You can add a passage about making and drinking a cup of coffee. Everyone has made a cup of coffee or tea. They can immediately relate to your character with such a simple passage.

*Vary the pace of the story. If you make an error with the pace, do it on the fast side. Nothing is worse than reading page after page with nothing happening.

*Facts are important to the story but you have to make them readable. If it is at all possible, sneak them in throughout the whole story.

*Current thought on writing fiction stories makes prefaces, appendices, footnotes, and so on forbidden writing techniques. You need to follow current writing style but don't be afraid of using the forbidden if the story needs them.

*Break the rules at least once in every story. But make sure you have a good reason to break them.

*If you have trouble with a section put the story away for a period of time.

*If the story line isn't working, try going at it from a different direction. Examples: If the section is from the point of view of the main character, try changing it to a minor character. If the section is narrative, try changing it to discussion. If the section is in the middle of the story, put it at the beginning.

*If something has you stumped, try writing out the problem. Putting the problem down on paper is frequently enough to solve the problem.

*Writers are told all the time that the beginning of the story is the most important. It is important in getting your story read. The middle can make your story good. But the end is what will bring the reader back to read another story. The end is what will keep you in the writing business. Make sure you get it right.

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A Writer's Synopsis

Advice from a writer
© Gordon Sirvio

If you ask any author about writing a synopsis, they will silently curse for awhile before telling you that they hate writing them. Why the universal hatred of the synopsis? No one really understands them and we were never taught the art form in schools.

We know from high school the basics of outlines and summaries. The purpose for both those forms was to demonstrate your ability to understand what you were reading or writing. Details had to be given to show your depth of understanding. When authors are asked for a one-page or even a four-page synopsis, the skills of high school outlining and summarization come to the foreground. Using those skills, it is virtually impossible to condense a novel into a single page. But the writer's synopsis is different from the summaries of high school. If you look up synopsis in the dictionary, you will find that it is described as a general summary or even an abstract summary of the story. We are looking at a completely different animal from what we have learned in the past.

It is easier to see what a synopsis is by looking at how an agent or publisher would use it. The publisher looks at the synopsis with a few pages of the manuscript to decide if it is worth their time to read the whole story. What the publisher is looking for is an indication that the novel is complete with at least one strong theme running from the beginning to the middle and through to the end. They need just enough details about the story to decide if it will fit in the market niche that they interested in. Finally, they are looking for some idea about the author's writing style and how he/she develops the story. If the synopsis and the sample pages answer these questions, the publisher should ask for the complete manuscript.

So the author, writing the synopsis, needs to think of it as a sales tool or an advertisement to get the publisher to consider reading the whole manuscript. The author is not trying to summarize the whole story. He/she is trying to create a one page ad promoting the need for the publisher to read the whole manuscript. You could think of a synopsis as a story about your story not just a summary of it. A good synopsis doesn't even have to be a complete summary of your story. It can be an abstract telling the publisher what genre or market the story will fit in and what style it is written in. You have to answer the questions the publisher is looking for including proof that your story has a beginning, middle, and end but how you do it and what details you choose to leave in are up to you.

We see something similar to a synopsis in the movie theaters. The trailers about upcoming films are selling you on the idea of watching the film when it comes out in a few weeks or months. The main difference is that instead of selling the story to the audience you are selling it to someone who will be producing it so you need to add information about how the story will end. A good movie trailer will tell you the story but not in the same way the finished movie will. It is an advertisement.

A one-page synopsis is just an expansion of the paragraph or two you put in your cover letter about your story. If you are asked for a multiple page summary, you can get into more details about the development of your story. But remember that this is an advertisement promoting the reading of your complete manuscript. Unless the synopsis is interesting and/or short, it will not sell the publisher on reading your whole story.

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