Editors/Agents: What would you like writers to stop doing?

Over the July 4th holiday weekend, I attended Westercon 66 at the Hilton Arden West Hotel in Sacramento. I participated in three group panels, and one solo panel, which is the primary focus of this blog post.

First, just for the sake of posterity, I'd like to list the three group panels on which I participated, with a special nod to my fellow panelists who helped make the respective panels enjoyable as well as educational (for me as well as the audience).

July 5, 11:15:00, Sonoma conference room

The Pain & Joy of Self Publishing

Self-publishing allows the author to retain total creative control, but means they forgo the benefits of being with a major label. Our panel discusses the benefits and drawbacks of self-publishing and how to compensate for not having an editor and publishing house.

Panelists: M. Todd Gallowglas (M); Valerie Frankel; Marty Halpern; Emerian Rich; Karen Sandler; Jean Marie Stine.

July 6, 11:15:00, Sonoma conference room

Secrets of Publishing

Nearly every SF/fantasy author has been published by a smaller press at some point in their careers. It is also known for publishing new authors, midlist authors, short story collections, and other "odd" books typically rejected by the big New York publishers. Our panelists represent a spectrum of publications, and can "tell

all."

Panelists: David Maxine (M); Marty Halpern; Jacob Weisman.

[Note: I was under the impression that the "tell all" part of this panel was for the panelists to share some of their "publishing secrets" with the audience. Unfortunately, though I had come prepared with plenty of secrets, this was not the case. Instead, the discussion concerned copyright, distribution, etc. -- and I left with all of my "secrets" intact. Maybe next time....]

July 6, 12:30:00, Folsom conference room

Publishing Options: Traditional vs On-Demand and Self-Publishing

The days of needing your own printing press are long gone. With modern publishing methods you can print one copy or 1 million. Our panelists will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the various publishing options.

Panelists: Ben Yalow (M); Kelley Eskridge; Marty Halpern; Phyllis Kalbach; Emerian Rich; Jean Marie Stine.

So these were the three group panels in which I participated. I've been on a number of similar panels over the course of the past few years, at Baycon, Fogcon, Convolution, and Westercon, but since the industry -- and technology -- change so rapidly, and the panelists differ from con to con, there is always an opportunity for the audience (and me as well) to learn something new or, at least, to learn how the industry has changed.

And here are the details for my solo panel:

July 6, 3:00:00 Merlot conference room

Ask The Editor

Join Marty Halpern for "Ask the Editor." Bring your general editing questions or specific editing questions. You may also bring a copy of your own work for demo editing.

Marty Halpern (M)

Fortunately, no one in the audience had brought manuscript pages to be demo-edited; I say "fortunately" because the projection system and flip chart that Westercon programming had promised to provide me were never delivered (which, in my overall experience at a number of Bay Area cons in recent years, is fairly typical; if you really need a projection system, flip chart, etc., bring your own).

Following my lengthy introduction and some general chatting with the audience, I asked for questions -- and Effie Seiberg posed the following: "What would you like writers to start doing?" and "What would like writers to stop doing?"

These were actually very good questions, and the first part -- What I would like writers to start doing -- was easily answered: spell check your work! I'm not talking about spelling errors like "their," "they're," and "there." I'm talking about blatant spelling errors that even Microsoft's lousy spell checker would catch. Not to spell check your work is, in my humble editorial opinion, nothing but pure laziness. Blatant spelling errors in a manuscript will easily turn off a potential agent, editor, or publisher, because it shows a lack of respect for your own work (and their time).

Of course, once I had given the "spell check" response, a second thought immediately came to mind: style sheet. I've previously written about style sheets in December 2010, in February 2011, and again in January 2012. As I've mentioned at least once in those three blog posts, in my near fifteen years as an editor, only two authors have ever provided me with a style sheet: Michael A. Stackpole and Mark Teppo. Style sheets should become a matter of habit for every author, for novels especially, but for short stories, too. I would argue that a detailed style sheet will eliminate a number of questions and mark-ups on the author's manuscript, thus making the editor's job easier and, in turn, the author's job when the manuscript is returned.

As to the second half of Effie's question: What would I like writers to stop doing? -- though I thought for a brief moment, nothing really came to mind then -- and nothing has come to mind since. I'm not a stickler for formatting guidelines, or grammar rules, as long as the author is consistent throughout the manuscript. So I guess I could add a third point to the "What I would like writers to start doing": be consistent.

Which brings me to the audience participation part of this blog post: If you are an agent, an editor, and/or a publisher, what would you like writers to stop doing?

Doing Charles Stross's Laundry with Style

Back in December 2010 I wrote a blog post entitled "Writing with Style (Sheets, That Is)," on my need, as an editor/copyeditor, for the author to provide a style sheet. This blog post was the result of a series of comments to a status update that Theodora Goss had posted on her Facebook page. In addition to Dora's and my comments, Robert Vardeman and Paul Witcover shared comments as well. And with their kind permissions, I included the FB comment stream in that blog post on style sheets. Dora then wrote a complementary blog post of her own, from her perspective on the subject in question. So with my post and hers, the reader is treated to the editor's and author's viewpoints regarding a single copyedit in a short story.

I won't overly bore you with repetitions from this blog post, should you choose to read it in its entirety, but as I mentioned in that post, in the nearly fifteen years that I have been in this business, I've only had two authors -- Michael A. Stackpole and Mark Teppo -- provide me with style sheets along with their manuscripts. That's two authors in nearly fifteen years. In fact, just this past September I worked on Michael's Of Limited Loyalty, the second volume in his Queen's Command series published by Night Shade Books, and once again he provided the publisher with an updated style sheet for his book.

The second post I want to reference was published on December 10, 2009, shortly after I finished work on Charles Stross's third Laundry Files novel, The Fuller Memorandum, for Ace Books. Entitled "Charles Stross: On Her Majesty's Occult Service," this rather extensive blog post covered my working relationship with Charlie Stross: how it all came together, including the genesis of The Atrocity Archives, the first Laundry Files volume, and the Hugo Award-winning novella "The Concrete Jungle." (Which, by the way, is still available online -- as a PDF doc or as a web page -- for your reading pleasure.)

As he did in 2009, Charlie again recommended me to Ace Books to proof, line edit, and copyedit his forthcoming (fourth) Laundry Files novel, The Apocalypse Codex. I have a distinct advantage over an in-house or other freelance editor because I have worked on the first three books in the series, allowing me to maintain consistency across all the volumes. And Charlie and I work well together: I ask a multitude of questions, and he answers, often with links to reference material; I make content suggestions, and he either accepts, rejects, or modifies said suggestions. Just as it should be, between editor and author. In fact, regarding my work on The Fuller Memorandum, Charlie informed me that upon reviewing the marked up (i.e. change tracked) manuscript from his publisher, he didn't have a single STET on any of my copyedits. No STETs means I done good -- very good. No STETs also takes a lot of stress off both the author and publisher, since there is no back-and-forth dickering necessary over changes: I'll give you those three copyedits for my one STET; this inevitably speeds up the production process, too. (I don't know if I'll be as lucky with the the work I did on the latest volume, which I delivered to Ace Books in December.)

In The Apocalypse Codex, our reluctant hero, Bob Howard, skilled in the techniques of applied computational demonology -- as well as all things IT geekery, plus PowerPoint slide shows and departmental time sheets -- is once again called upon to save the world from a diabolical fanatic who plans to open a portal to call forth a nightmare from the vast reaches of spacetime, at the cost of thousands of lives. Sounds like a typical Laundry Files novel, yes? But there the typical ends. The diabolical fanatic is a reverend; and Bob must team up with a couple of "external assets": Persephone "the Duchess" Hazard (code name: Bashful Incendiary) and Jonathan "Johnny" McTavish (code name: Johnny Prince).

The Writer's Knowledge Base

You may have noticed the Writer's Knowledge Base badge in the right frame of my blog... in between the Google Search field and my Facebook icon; it's been there for a few weeks now.

The Writer's Knowledge Base (WKB) is a joint project between a mystery writer and a software engineer: Elizabeth Spann Craig and Mike Fleming, respectively.

Elizabeth states, in a blog post dated January 25, that when she did a Google search for "POV," the "top sites returned are for a video that PBS made (which isn't on writing POV), a couple definitions by Wikipedia (several of which have to do with automobiles), a racy YouTube video, and some freeware." So she asked herself, What does an author do when Google isn't enough?

Elizabeth goes on to explain how this "Search Engine for Writers" came about and where she gets her sources for the links and information. She (@elizabethscraig) first started tweeting the information and links that she found, but unfortunately not all writers are on Twitter. Then she started sharing the links weekly on her blog, but the links weren't easily searchable. Until, that is, Mike worked with the links that Elizabeth provided him -- links from over 1,500 blogs, and counting -- and created the Writer's Knowledge Base: a free resource "enabling writers to access information that would help them write better books and articles."

Elizabeth quotes Mike Fleming in her blog post, and I'm going to do likewise; even if you choose not to read her blog, you should read this brief quote from Mike to understand how the WKB works:

The search is done instantly over thousands of writing-related articles ranging from character development to author promotion on social media. Unlike Google, all of the results are relevant to you as a writer. They may not all interest you, of course, but at least searching for "plot" will bring back articles on how to plot your story and not news articles on terrorist plots.

And in a follow-up blog post, Elizabeth answers a few questions about the search engine, like the types of content she includes: "I’m usually looking for craft-related, industry-related, social media, promo-related, or writing inspiration posts. I love posts that are easily skimmed (as opposed to a block of text--most writers are working with short amounts of time), have great content, and can be helpful to many writers."

So I decided to give the Writer's Knowledge Base search engine a test run. Recently I wrote a blog post in December on "style sheets," a subject near and dear to me as a book editor. I entered "style sheet" in the WKB search field, which provided 124 results. [Note: This test was done a week or so ago; I've just run the test again and was provided 127 results. That's a good sign, as it means new resources/links/information has since been added to the WKB.] The first result is (still) "Writing a series? Why you should use a style sheet." My blog post on style sheets is listed as the sixth entry. [Note: This has since changed; my post is now the ninth entry. The key reason is, though I used "style sheet" in the body of the blog post, it's not part of the title, which is: "Writing with Style (Sheets, That Is)." You know me, always one to have to write with a flair!]

Do check out both of Elizabeth's posts on the WKB for more details, and how to potentially include your blog posts in the search engine. If you are a writer and/or editor, be sure to bookmark the WKB, and take advantage of all the time and energy that Elizabeth and Mike have put into creating and refining this tool.


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Writing with Style (Sheets, That Is)

In my December 19 blog post I mentioned that I had completed my review and copyedit of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Five, edited by Jonathan Strahan, forthcoming from Night Shade Books in March 2011. One of the stories included in this volume is Theodora Goss's "Fair Ladies," which was originally published in the August 2010 issue of Apex Magazine.

As both a reader and an editor, I read a lot of genre fiction -- primarily short fiction -- but no matter how much I read (and, unfortunately, I read quite slowly), I still can't be expected to read everything. There are many authors whom I have not read at all; and of those I have read, there are seemingly an infinite number of worlds and realms that they have written about that I am not familiar with. Now, if I were editing a series of novels, it would be in the best interest of the author and the publisher to have me work on book one, and then continue through the entire series; I would thus be able to help ensure consistency with characters and characterization, place/environment, events, word usage, etc. throughout the series.¹ But short fiction is entirely different: even related stories are published in different venues -- various online and print magazines and anthologies. Since each of these are edited by someone different, none of the editors can be expected to be intimately familiar with every world/realm about which the authors write. Nor should they be. Each story needs to stand on its own because each story will be read by different people depending on the venue in which it is published. Each magazine has its own set of readers, though of course there may be some overlap. Some readers may read only free online 'zines. Others may not read magazines of any sort, but may focus on original anthologies from specific publishers, or by specific editors.

Nick Gevers and I accepted Jay Lake's story "Permanent Fatal Errors"² for our anthology Is Anybody Out There? (Daw Books, June 2010). This story is part of Jay's Sunspin cycle of stories; in Jay's December 19 blog post, he lists the six stories (so far) that make up this cycle, five of which have been sold, to five different venues (though two of those venues are published by Subterranean Press). My co-editor Nick Gevers was more familiar with Jay's Sunspin cycle than I was, but the story still had to work for me -- and be unique and intriguing and, of course, well written -- without any knowledge of prior stories or the series itself.

Which brings me back to Theodora Goss's story "Fair Ladies," set in her fictional world of Sylvania. It's a wonderful story that stands on its own quite nicely; but no editor, or reader, is going to have the background knowledge -- environment, religion(s), history, culture, etc. -- of Sylvania that Dora has, since this is her world. As a copyeditor, I have to do the best job with the content that I have in front of me, following the rules of grammar, punctuation, etc. while trying not to affect story content or the author's intent, or even the story's rhythm.

In "Fair Ladies," Dora uses the monetary unit "kroner." The word only appears twice, in two separate sentences on consecutive pages. (Actually, the word appears three times, but the first doesn't count, because it's used as a proper name, the Café Kroner.):

"That's Friedrich, the painter," said Karl. "I've never seen him talk to anyone since I started coming here four years ago. I'll bet you four kroners that she's a film actress from Germany."

The party had lasted long past midnight. The Crown Prince himself had been there. The guest list had also included the Prime Minister; General Schrader; the countess of the feathered hat, this time in a tiara; the painter Friedrich; the French ambassador, Anita Dak, the principal dancer from the Ballet Russes, which was staging Copélia in Karelstad; a professor of mathematics in a shabby coat, invited because he had just been inducted into the National Academy; young men in the government who talked about the situation in Germany between dances; young men in finance who talked about whether the kroner was going up or down, seeming not to care which as long as they were buying or selling at the right times; mothers dragging girls who danced with the young men, awkwardly aware of their newly upswept hair and bare shoulders, then went back to giggling in corners of the ballroom.

In the first sentence, we have the plural form "four kroners," and in the second sentence the singular form "the kroner." I knew the word "kroner," but looked it up in a list of world currencies to confirm: I found the currency "krone" (Danish and Norwegian) on the list, as well as "krona" (Swedish) and "króna" (Icelandic). The plural form of "krone" is "kroner." So, by definition, "kroner" is plural and no ending "s" is necessary. I marked the ending "s" for deletion in the first example in Dora's story; I see now that I should have marked for deletion the ending "r" in "kroner" in the second example, for the singular form, but I didn't. This would have been consistent with world currency. Unfortunately, I don't recall what my thinking was three weeks ago in this one example. Regardless, I eventually completed the project and submitted my copyedits to Night Shade Books. All was well and good. That is, until the following status appeared on Dora's Facebook page on Friday, December 17:

Does fantasy writing create particular problems for a copyeditor? For example, I just corrected a copyeditor on a detail about imaginary currency...