Editor

Sharon wages war on ghastly grammar, silly spelling, poor punctuation, comatose characters, and redundant reportage. She has the knack for turning the obscure into understandable articles, reports, stories and novels. She makes your work sparkle.

Manuscript Evaluation – Getting Started

                                                    

 

 

Those who write clearly have readers; those who write obscurely have commentators.

-         Albert Camus

 

 

And all of us who write need a good editor.

-         Sharon Crawford

Writer and Editor, but never the latter for the former.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter how many times you rewrite your precious prose, if an editor scrutinizes it, he or she will find something that needs fixing. A character with 20/20 vision on page two will put on his pair of prescription glasses on page twenty-two. The story, told from Helen’s point of view, suddenly switches to a thought in Anne’s head in the middle of a paragraph, then jumps back to Helen’s head. Sentences will run on and on forever and forever without ever seeming to get anywhere near the point, causing the editor to mutter, “Huh?” Story plotlines will have unresolved parts at the end – or worse, the story will flatline and put the editor to sleep. If the editor falls asleep, all your potential readers will be in Snoozeville

So what’s happening here? You see your story subjectively – it’s your baby – and the editor sees it objectively. When you submit your manuscript to an editor for evaluation, the editor’s job is to find the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, without demeaning the writer. Although the writer may hire the editor to, “tell me what’s wrong with the manuscript,” the canny editor will do it diplomatically with suggestions for improvement and find the manuscript’s strongest point and put that front and centre.

Here are a few pointers I follow when I read and evaluate a manuscript. These are also the critiquing guidelines used at the East End Writers’ Group which I run.

  • Read the manuscript with an open mind, i.e., don’t prejudge because of subject matter or genre. Instead, ask yourself the following questions:
  • What is the story’s biggest strength?
  • Does the lede grab you or bore you? Is the story’s lede at the beginning or actually later in the story?
  • Is the story focused or does it wander?
  • Is there a point to the story or does the story have a theme? Does the writer follow up or through with this point or theme?

 

For fiction and to a certain extent, creative non-fiction (although creative non-fiction is fact), look for the following:

  • Plot: Grabs reader from the start. Creates suspense. Uses foreshadowing. Has a mixture of narration, dialogue, inner thoughts and action appropriate to the story. Is the story credible? Is there some resolution/conclusion at the end?
  • Setting: Appropriate to the story – i.e., overused or underused; woven into the story instead of appearing as an extra. Creates mood for story. Uses the senses. Puts the reader right there.
  • Point of View: Too many points of view? Watch that the writer hasn’t “jumped heads.” Novels can have multiple points of view, but short stories usually work better with one POV, occasionally two POVs. If the story is told in first or third person limited singular, only what that character can see, hear, imagine, feel, taste can go in – but that can be stretched. Is the POV used the best POV – whose story is it?
  • Characters: Are characters distinct? Three-dimensional? Believable? Interesting? Do they have character tags, for example, when nervous, a character might swear. Is there a protagonist? Antagonist (Note: the latter can be represented by nature, for example, forest fires).  Is the dialogue appropriate to the characters? Does the dialogue further develop the characters and/or the plot?
  • Style: What is the style? Laid-back? Moody? Simple (as in simply told, not stupid)? Lyrical? Literary? Fast-paced? Light and humorous? Word choice and phrases – are they unique?
  • Mechanics: Grammar – Are the sentences varied and used appropriately? (For example, in an action scene, were short sentences used to convey the sense of action?) Are variations of the verb “to be” overused? Too much use of passive verbs instead of active verbs? (For example, The boy was hit by the ball – passive. The ball hit the boy – active.)? Overuse of adverbs ending in “ly,” especially with dialogue? Spelling? (For example, obvious errors such as “it’s” and “its” often caused by overdependence on Spellcheck. Punctuation – overall, let’s not nit-pick here – too much or too little use of commas? Appropriate dialogue punctuation. Also overall correct dialogue setup.