194: 5 Suggestions I've Given Editing Clients Recently

 

As a book editor, I give lots of feedback to authors on plot, pacing, characters, conflict, worldbuilding, etc. This episode covers 5 common suggestions I've given to clients recently. 

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5 Suggestions I've Given Editing Clients Recently

Hi. Welcome to Your Big Creative Life podcast. I'm glad you're here. I'm always doing a lot of client editing. But I thought it would be kind of fun to just do an episode where I talk about some of the feedback that I've given to authors recently. So if you're new to the podcast, I'm a full-time freelance book editor and I work with. Clients who have written in any genre of fiction except no kids, books or middle grade books like YA and adult. In just about any genre, just about any type of fiction. And so I see a lot of different types of stories, different genres, most like the vast majority of my clients, are indie authors who want to self publish or who are self published authors. But I do occasionally have like I do have some clients who are working on querying to try to find an agent and go the traditional publishing route, so that's a bit about the clients that I work with. I'm going to talk about editing notes that I've given to clients recently in in my manuscript evaluation service, which is where it's like a lighter form of developmental editing, where I'm giving the author feedback on plot characters, pacing, conflict, dialogue. I go through and leave comments in the manuscript, and then I also write an editorial letter for them. So.

But over the years that I've been doing this, I have noticed there are definitely common patterns, particularly among debut authors, who are like new authors who are writing. Their first book. Or wanting to publish a book for the first time. There it is. There are definitely patterns, but I just want to share 5 like common editing notes that I've given to people recently. I'm not going to share any specifics. I take client anonymity very seriously. I don't ever talk about the projects that I'm working on and you know. Yeah, I take that very seriously. We sign a contract when you when you work with me. So I'm going to talk about these in general ways and if you are a client who's listening to this and you're like, oh, God, is she going to share my book, don't worry, I I will not do that at all. I'm just going to talk in a general way about notes that I've given. And these are notes that I've given to multiple authors. They're common pieces of feedback, like common suggestions. So they're going to apply to different authors and different. Like projects that I've done, but yeah, I thought this might be fun to do every once in a while because maybe it'll be helpful for you kind of knowing what to spot for, particularly if you're writing in the genre that these these notes are are for. There's there's like one or two things that are world building, like for fantasy or sci-fi authors out here writing in one of those genres. This might be helpful.

So here I want to say too like it's not a bad thing. I could see listening to this, if you're like, oh, they're common like mistakes that authors make that's not a bad thing. Like, I've made a lot of these mistakes or been given these suggestions myself in the past. It's part of learning how to write a good, compelling story. So. I don't know. I don't think it's like a bad thing that that I've had to point these things out to multiple people. I think it's just kind of like it's always that way, particularly because I do work with a lot of new writers. This is just how it is. And a lot of these things that we're going to talk about in this episode, people just have blind spots around. But that's always the case. We are never able to completely see our writing objectively. Because we're so close to it, we've spent so much time with it and also we know what we want to have on the page, like what our intention is, and we can't always. Use accurately tell if it's showing up that way on the page, so having someone else read that and spot that for you can be really helpful to be like oh, actually that's not what I intended or it's supposed to be this way. Oops. I need to kind of do some work to make it. Come across that way. Whatever it is, alright. So let's get. Into some specifics here I have 5 notes that I've given recently.

Number one, it has to do with world building, so this is the note that I mentioned for like sci-fi or fantasy. I I've left some version of this comment and given this note a few times recently, like does the reader need to know all of this back story about the world's number one and then #2 do they need to know all of this right now I've left this note and and wanted to address this with authors where particularly in the beginning of the manuscript like Chapter 1. Chapter 2. There's just a lot of information being thrown at the reader. If you're familiar with the term info dumping this is what that is. This is especially common in genres where there's some kind of world building that you have to do to to convey, like, hey, here's. How the power structure operates in this world. Here's how the magic system is like. Here's how the political system is structured, whatever. Just stopping the action and like giving the reader so much information. Just telling them about the world is not a very effective way to do it in most cases, particularly at the beginning of the book, because in those opening pages those opening chapters, the reader is still getting to know. The characters right, they're still kind of like getting their bearings and in order for the reader to, like, form an emotional connection to the story, to the characters they have to, they have to have time to do that. And if you are not really having having, like anything happen in the plot, nothing we've had no real opportunity to get to know the main character or characters and you just dump all this information on us.

That's not a very effective way to do it, and you probably will lose some readers in the process of doing that, like in your opening pages. So does the reader need to know all of this? I'll leave that comment sometimes where it's like a lot of information and it doesn't feel particularly relevant to what's happening. It'll be like, OK, does the reader need to know all of this? Anything we need to know all of this. Right now. Because you can sprinkle in world building information, you don't have to give it all to the reader upfront. You don't have to give it all to the reader in the same like section or chapter or whatever. You can sprinkle it throughout. That's a more digestible way for the reader to understand the world that these characters operate in. Oh, and then can you intersperse this with action dialogue etcetera. So making sure again that it's not just like the action stops. And then we get 4 pages of story. Making sure to balance some world building with action, with dialogue so that the pacing feels OK and it doesn't feel like everything just lags because everything is stopped in order for you to tell us and explain the world to us now, #2 is to not gloss over important moments, show us what happens, but also show it impacting the point of view character.

So this is like a pacing and a plot. Note that I've given a few times recently where. Sometimes authors will rush past moments that feel are important in the story, and I have this sentence I'm reading, like, wait, wait, wait, why did we just breeze right past that? That's a big deal. Maybe it's. I'm going to throw out some examples, and none of these are from actual manuscripts worked on. I'm just pulling them out of my ass. Let's say that you, uh, a character like breaks up with her. Partner in order to like go pursue this other romantic interest if you just gloss over the fact that she ended their relationship and there's no dialogue, there's almost no like interiority to help us understand how the characters thinking and like feeling about this, and you're just on to the next love interest. It's like, wait a second, wait a second. What? That's a big deal for her to leave. A partner and go pursue this other love interest. You have to slow that down. You have to like. Not that it has to go on for pages and pages and pages but we've got to spend some time there to make it more impactful and also the key part of this too, is understanding how. Well, the main character feels about that like, what's their emotional state? Are they having trouble processing it? Are they like? RIP the Band-Aid off now. I'm completely done. Are they relieved? Like we, we've got to. We've got to get some access to the point of view character to understand. They're like the emotional stakes of this decision that they made. So that's just an example again.

But not rushing through important moments in the plot and like summarizing them for the reader. If it is an important moment, we should see it play out in, like an actual scene. So that's that's an order given recently in different genres too the the IT might sound like that example was from romance and I guess it could be, but I've given that note in a lot of different genres recently, #3. Is to increase the conflict and make things more dramatic because there has to be enough. Propelling the plot and characters forward. This is this is by far, I think one of the. OK. If I think about like all the manuscripts I've worked on, this might be one of the most common. Like the top three overall, this is a a consistent issue that I see where. Across genres where there's just not enough conflict, conflict is important for a lot of reasons in fiction. It gives characters an opportunity to grow and change. Because if everything is fine and hunky dory, like, why would they change it? It is an opportunity for pacing, for momentum. The plot. Obviously it just really drives things forward, we need that momentum to help carry us through an entire novel, so I often will say to clients like, think about raising the stakes. Can you make this more tense? Can you have is some more internal conflict or just a note sometimes like? That there's no real conflict here. Like we, we've got to have. We've got to have something and it does not have to mean something. Big earth shattering. Fight of between good and evil. Kind of stakes. It can be something small. It can be conflict with the lower case. Not conflict with a capital C, but there still has to be something. Even in quiet slice of life type of stories, there's got to be a little bit of conflict to propel the story forward. We just it's an essential component fiction.

So that's something that I give to a lot of of authors. So just make sure that you have some conflict in your novel to kind of like, make things more dramatic. Next up, this is a small note, but I have given this frequently in in editing projects lately is to not repeat a character's name and dialogue too often. So if you have a scene between 22 characters, let's say. You can't have those characters save the other characters name occasionally for emphasis, but if they're saying the person's name every other line, and this goes on for pages and pages, or even if it's just like 3 pages, that's a lot, because if you think about real life, if I'm having a conversation with. My friend, let's say my best friend's name is Maria. OK, let's say Maria and I are chatting or having a conversation and every like other line, I say her name. It would get old it would feel odd. Like Maria. You can't believe what just happened to me. I dropped Audrey off at daycare and it turns out like half the class is sick. And then she say something else and be like Maria. Half the class was sick. It was insane. And then she's like, OK, well, what time you going to pick her up? I think I'm going to pick her up at, like, 4:00 Maria, you get the point, right? It's just a lot.

So make sure kind of try to spot that when you're in editing. Don't worry about it so much when you're in…If you're on your first draft but just be mindful of that because it is something that feels unnatural, even though it's a tiny thing. Next my last note. That I've given recently is to cut a prologue. Or shorten it a lot. Condense it. I think I have an entire episode. I'm pretty sure of the podcast that's about my thoughts on prologues and how in like 90% of cases, I don't think they're needed. And this isn't just because I have some personal grievance against prologues. I just think in 90% of cases, they're not doing anything and it's the wrong place. Start the story and it's like especially in genres like fantasy or sci-fi often the prologue is simply world building. It's simply back story. We have not met the main characters yet. There's nothing to ground the story or set the stage or like have the reader get connected and immersed. In this way. It's just it's just back story and that's not an effective way to use a prologue. I will say that. When I see effective prologues, they're often in thrillers or mysteries or fantasy, so there are certain genres where, yeah, there are more likely to be prologues that are effective in that work. And that's why I'm not against them. In all cases, I think sometimes they can work and be really interesting and effective, but often it's just. It just weighs the opening down and if you think about the opening pages, you know they're they're important whether you are publishing this yourself and you're thinking about readers or like you're querying because you want to find an agent.

Those early pages are important, and if you're not starting the story in the right place and you're just weighing it down with like information and explaining things to the reader, it's going to be boring and fall flat in 99% of cases. It's always hard. I don't want to generalize too much, but that's just how I feel, and people always point to publish books as that have prologues and like. What about these books? They all have prologues, yes. In some cases, I would argue personally that those prologues shouldn't be there, but in a lot of cases they're there because they're the examples of the effective ones you're seeing, the prologues that exist that are effective, you're not seeing the books that where the prologue was cut because it wasn't doing anything. So of course you can point to examples where they exist and they're effective. Who's you're not seeing? The other ones where? It weighs the book down, and they're not doing anything, so I and the other note, the other option is just to condense it, because sometimes I will see prologues that in theory are OK, but they're just so long they might as well be like an entire chapter. It might as well be chapter 1. And I'm like, OK, you can keep the essence of this. Like maybe this part would be dynamic and interesting.

And pull the reader in, make them interested in what's going on, but can we just get like one page or something I gave that recently for a thriller author and then some fantasy authors as well. So and you have I I I've talked about prologues in social media. So if you want to go check those out, you can and I'm 99% sure I do have a prologue episode of the podcast too. If you want to. Hear more of my thoughts on it. On prologues generally. So those are some notes been given recently. If y'all like this format, if it's helpful to hear. Let me know when I can do. More again, I will never give specific examples or talk about specific projects, but we could do this periodically. I can kind of keep track just on like on my notes app. Feedback or notes that I'm giving because again, it there are patterns. Every manuscript is different. Every single manuscript that I work on has its own strengths, its own challenges, its own opportunities for improvement. So it's never the same across the board, but there are that like 10% or 15% of suggestions.

And I give if just a lot because it's easy to fall into those pitfalls. As a new writer again, I've made a lot of these mistakes that I've talked about. The prologue one just as an example, when I was when I wrote my first book, that was women's fiction. I had a prologue in there that was like 2 pages. Maybe it wasn't a full. Long prologue or anything, but it was from a scene much, much later in the book, like right around the climax. And I put it at the beginning as a way to, like, make it exciting for the reader because I thought you kind of needed to do that. And then chapter one opened like back. In the past and then we saw, like, everything leading up to that moment and I got feedback that was like, I actually completely forgot about this. Like I completely forgot about this moment when I was, when I went and read the rest of the book. Like it doesn't really do much. And the other thing to remember too, one final note I guess about prologues is that. Some readers just don't read them, so if you have essential information in. Your prologue where? Like the reader is going to be so confused. In chapter 1. Think about that, that that some readers just skip prologs altogether.

So yeah, again, I've made a lot of these mistakes. It's because you're just kind of par for the course. It's it's like how you learn how you grow as a writer. We're always learning. We're always growing. We're always improving with every single thing that we write. And so being aware of these things is just like part of that. It doesn't mean you're a bad writer. It doesn't mean that you're not ever going to get a book. Published or improve, it's. Yeah, and like. Feel like I'm repeating myself a lot, but it's true. It's just part of writing is like getting better and becoming aware of these things. I wasn't aware of that stuff about prologues until I got that feedback until I started beta reading until I started like working with other writers in my critique group until I started editing professionally, it was just something I never really thought about. So anyway. I hope this was helpful and I love you all's feedback on this.

Katie Wolf