In Praise of Editors

Yes, I taught English for....many years. Yes, I'm good at commas and quotation marks and all their little friends. I know about story arcs and character development and figurative language. That does NOT mean I don't need a bunch of helpful friends and professionals to check my work.

I start with a first reader. This person reads the manuscript in really rough form and gives me feedback on what she sees as its strengths and weaknesses. With her "outside" view (meaning outside my head), I begin to see where I spent too much time with unnecessary explanation or where I didn't "take the reader with me" on a plot point. I kind of feel sorry for my first reader, because she often has to piece things together and wade through a lot of junk that won't make the final cut.

When I've reworked the story to my satisfaction, I hire a content editor. This is a professional who will comment on the story's development, strengths and weaknesses. I've had some really good ones, and two that were really bad. My most recent bad experience might sound good to some; the guy said the book was "fine" and only changed a word here and there.

Um, no.

Though I've heard of authors whose work is nearly perfect from the get-go, that is not me. I know I need someone to point out things like repetition of a plot point and weak descriptions. Therefore, an editor who says the book is "fine" is either lazy or he's lying. Probably both.

Anyway, the content editor should give a writer lots to work on as she does the next rewrite. This is the meaty part of the process, where the book starts getting good.

The next editor is a line editor, who looks at sentence structure with the idea of making the prose as polished and effective as it can be. Sometimes a content editor does both, and that's the way I like to go, since I have a strong sense of how I want to say things. I also use a program called SmartEdit, which helps me look for repeated words, boring sentence starts, adverb usage, trite phrases, etc. Keeping an eye on those things helps to move my writing to a higher plane.

When I'm happy with the story and the way I've told it, my copy editor finds mistakes in spelling, punctuation, word usage, etc. It's tedious work, looking line by line for quotation marks that don't close or a comma where there should be a semicolon. I pay this person, because she needs to be motivated. Yes, your aunt might have a degree in English, but if she's just reading to be nice...

The last (but not least) of the pre-publication helpers are beta readers. These people usually don't get paid; they like getting their hands on a book before anyone else does. Since the files are set up differently, I have one group for print and one for e-books. These people come in at "crunch time," when the book is only weeks from publication, so they can't dilly-dally or shilly-shally or whatever. For The Trouble with Dad, I handed out print copies and e-files last week, giving my beta readers two weeks to read and respond. I got my first one back yesterday, and she only found one error, which gives me a teeny-tiny sense that things are going to be okay.

Here's the thing: a book has one person's name on the cover, but there are (or there should be) many others who make it readable for you, the one who spends hard-earned cash on it.

Book Clubs Take Note: Discussion Guide: Sister Saint, Sister Sinner

When I sent Sister Saint, Sister Sinner to my editor, she was (as usual) helpful about pointing out areas that needed more development, parts that repeated information already given, and places where the logic temporarily failed. At the end, she made a comment that stuck with me: "People are going to be talking about the things you deal with in this book." To me, that meant the story was destined for book clubs. Having visited a few in my years of writing, I knew that they often begin with a list of discussion topics. Now, they often don't stay focused on them, and that's okay. Sometimes it's the wine. Sometimes it's a natural progression. But discussion leaders like having questions that can get the conversation back on track when it strays too far from the story. Every person who reads a book gets something out of it that no one else does. I had the experience once of visiting a book group where one reader didn't like the book and kept bringing up her

What Do You Have of Grandma's?

My grandmother died on my birthday in 1968. We couldn't wish her back, since she'd been in a lot of pain for a long time. Later, I helped Mom clean out her house, and we came upon her sewing basket. For some reason I asked if I could have it, and my mother said yes. I still have it. I think of her every time I take it out of its cupboard, though I can't think of a single time I saw Grandma sewing. It's hers, and that's enough. My other grandmother was the type who asked her progeny what they wanted of her things long before she died. One day when I was visiting I told her about my new hobby, refinishing old furniture. Pointing to a table that had always sat in her living room, she explained that as a young woman she too had taken up that task. The classic-style table was cherry wood, she told me, and she had rescued it from somewhere and given it new life with elbow grease and varnish. "Maybe you'll want it when I'm gone," she said, and I readi

A Story for My Peeps--And a Sale for My E-books

December-r-r E-BOOK SALE You might know about Smashwords. To be honest, I don’t know much. But one of my publishers, Draft2Digital, recently acquired Smashwords, so they are one entity. Smashwords invited all D2D authors to join their December e-book sale, so I did. From December 15 to December 30, 2022, (the kickoff to the real winter season in my home state of Michigan), all of my e-books, both Maggie Pill and Peg Herring titles, will be half off. Fifty percent. Basically, two for the price of one. Is that cool (winter reference) or what? As a rule of thumb, Maggie Pill books are cozy mysteries, (e.g. the Sleuth Sisters & the Trailer Park Tales series) meaning they’re funny (I think), small-townish, and as non-violent as one can get when the story centers on murder. Peg Herring books are all over the map, because I write the story that interests me at any given time. Those who’ve been with me throug

Peg Herring, Mystery Author

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