There are two things that I think are important to spend money on when you self-publish – a professional book cover and using the services of a professional editor. I’m lucky to have found the right people for both of these services!
I know that I’m not good at noticing all of the mistakes I make when I write. And I’m not just talking about obvious things like spelling typos (which for some reason even Microsoft doesn’t always pick up) – but grammar, punctuation and other aspects of writing that I didn’t know existed until I had an editor.
At ‘O’ level (that shows my age, I know), I studied and attained both English literature and language, but there are still so many things that I don’t know about grammar. Also, the use of language and grammatical rules have changed during my lifetime.
I’m sure some of you reading this will sympathise with me – but these are some of the things I get wrong:
*I use far too many commas. That’s because we were taught to add a comma whenever you take a breath in a sentence. This means, I add far too many of them to my writing. But my editor assures me they are very easy to remove.
*Sometimes I do what my editor calls ‘head-hopping’ – an idea I hadn’t come across before. I had noticed this sometimes when reading other authors’ works, but didn’t know it had a name.
What she means is – changing the POV too often. Ideally for a chapter, or for a large majority of a section, the story should be told from one characters point of view. If you swap too often it can get confusing for the reader to understand who is thinking or talking. Plus, if there is one main character telling the story, they don’t know what other people are actually feeling, so you have to be careful not to suggest that they know what’s going on inside someone else’s head.
*Yet another new idea to me when I started working with my editor was ‘dangling modifiers’. (The name always makes me laugh)!
An example of a dangling modifier is:
‘Walking toward the forest, the sun began to set’.
The first half of the sentence is the dangling modifier, because it sounds as though the sun is walking toward the forest.
‘Walking toward the forest, I watched as the sun began to set’. Solves the problem.
*Another author friend of mine says her editor’s main issue is writing in passive voice, and therefore, she tries not to use it at all. However, I’ve read that there are times when it is acceptable to write using the passive voice – especially if you want to draw attention to the character and take the focus off the action.
My writing style if not overly romantic, or flowery – it’s quite down to earth and uncomplicated – but from the feedback I get from readers, I tell a good story – which is a great compliment, because that’s what I’m aiming to do.
I’ve just received my 3rd novel back from my wonderful editor, and I’m pleased to say that she was very encouraging about this book. She mentioned that my POV was much more established and my writing craft has improved since my last edit, so I’m very happy.
She also said she liked the scope of the geography in the book; that I had created interesting back stories for the main characters and she loved the dynamics of the characters – the way they had banter between themselves, bounced off each other in couples and in friendship groups.
Her feedback is incredibly motivating and I hope I continue to improve as I write.
So, my editor, Claire, is a very important part of my writing journey and I look forward to growing my craft with her help.