86 Things I've Said on Twitter, Part 2

Last week, I started a new series on the blog: 86 Things I've Said on Twitter, a lengthy collection of Tweet-sized advice covering all kinds of motivation, writing, and publishing advice.

Part 1 is here. This is part 2, with eleven items.

And there's still time to pre-register for tomorrow night's online workshop.


No one's going to know if you wrote the thing you did over the course of a month or a year or a decade IF YOU DO THE BEST YOU CAN.

I'm not sure why, but a lot of people, and a lot of books about writing put a large emphasis on how long it takes you to write something. Novels in 90 days, poetry in sixty minutes, twenty-seven overtures before lunch...and I get it, in part. If you give yourself a deadline, you're challenging part of yourself to be disciplined, and treat it like a short-term goal. And I'm a big fan of discipline when it comes to accomplishing your dreams. BUT, the downside to that discipline is this -- sure I can write something in 90 days, but if I'm new at it, if I have my doubts as to my ability, is it going to be any good? (I mean from my own perspective, let alone some other person's).

Yeah, I can paint a wall in two minutes, but it might not be the prettiest job. I've always been the sort of guy who freaks out during timed elements in video games, always worried that I'm going to be late for appointments, always worried that I'm behind some curve -- so why would I impose that sense on my work?

There's no prize for getting it done quickly (and in a lot of cases, instead of a prize, you get a nice assumption that it's done poorly). It doesn't matter how long it takes you, so long as eventually, it gets done. Want an example? Check out George RR Martin's writing/release schedule. Dude's like a glacier with words.


When you're explaining what makes your story cool/exciting. THAT'S THE SAME THING AS A PITCH, just less dressed up.

So much emphasis is placed on the pitch - making it sound good, giving it to the right person in just the right way, making sure it has the right words and not these wrong ones over here...it can get really overwhelming and confusing.

Let's simplify it. When someone is listening to (or reading) your pitch, what are they looking for? Action, the juicy exciting parts that make them want to read/hear the rest of the story. Isn't that much simpler to think about?

Here's an example. Pick your favorite movie of all time. Now pick your favorite part of it (just a scene or two). Describe it out loud. Sprinkle in some back story and some explanation on who the characters are, and that's a pitch.

If you wanted to dress up that pitch, you'd probably use more formal language, maybe chop out a few um's or uhh's or something, right? But on the whole, you just pitched your favorite movie to me. You can easily repeat this process for your favorite book, or for the thing you're writing now.

Have you considered taking one of your characters and changing a trait you take for granted? A king who curses, thieves who like cats?

Characters are a tricky thing. They can be the centerpiece of a great story. They can be memorable for reasons both good and bad. They can also be staler than old crackers. How do you prevent that? How can you keep your characters from "just" being whatever they are, somewhat generic and a little dull?

When you map out your characters, when you write out a character's aspects, make one of them stand out from the others. I don't mean suddenly make a guy green or something (though maybe that's okay, depending on what you're doing), I mean give the character a trait that isn't typical for who and what they are.

An alcoholic divorcee who always wanted to get into snorkeling is far more compelling than another drunk lech who mistreated his wife. Having one element of a character stand out is something people will connect to, and make the character memorable.


If you've got a word count (like in a contest), don't forget to cut out adverbs, double-verbs and excess dialog tags. Make words matter

As an editor, I love word count. I make a living on word count. But as a writer, as a game creator, word counts make me break out into cold sweats. They seem like limits that I'm uncontrollably rocketing towards at Mach 1. They seem like hurdles I have to leap...or else meet some grisly fate.

You can trim down the adverbs, they get to be like a crutch, not clarifying the verb as much as you think they do (why can't you just use a different verb?).

A double-verb is something like "was running" or "had been thinking". And yes, there's a place for this sort of construction every once in a while, but on the whole, show this stuff out the door if you're trying to be more declarative about what your character is or isn't doing. (Hint: Being declarative is a good thing)

If there are only two characters talking, and you just spent the first two lines of dialogue establishing a rhythm that he-said, then she-said, you don't need to keep reminding us of that.

Like this:
            "I like your hair." he said.
            "Thanks." She blushed. It made her prettier.

Whatever line comes next, we can assume that HE's going to say it. Save a little space here by not reminding us "he said" "she answered" etc etc. You may need those words later for awesome sentences.

If a character gets shot/blown up/stabbed/burnt in Chapter 1, I'd expect them to be limping/in pain/hurting in Chapter 2.

Unless you're writing Superman, your character is not a superman. Especially if you're aiming for "gritty realism" or whatever hot new buzzword corresponds to "realistic". Many authors, especially new or nervous ones, think that the best way to hook readers is to really go all Michael Bay on the opening pages, blowing up a building or something, as if to set a bar about what you can expect within the next three hundred pages or so. Which is awesome, except...

It sets both a pace and a "power level" for the story that might be too hard to maintain. Blow up a building and I expect repercussions, else the building didn't really matter to the landscape. Shoot a guy in the gut and I expect blood loss, pain and likely a slow death.

When story elements happen early, I treat them like setups for what happens later in the story, and am satisfied as a reader when they pay off. When things happen (and often they're fights or injuries) but are immediately shrugged off as if they don't really hurt or don't matter, I have to ask myself, "Well, why did the author spend time telling me about them if they aren't important?"

If that question comes up too many times in a book, I will likely stop reading that book. That's not a good way to build an audience.

Don't write a trend into your book. Your story is whatever your story is. It'll find an audience. It just might not be the one you think.

Trends are short term waves of popularity for ideas and concepts. Remember when everyone told supernatural romance stories? Or when everyone really liked saying sports were "extreme"? Those are trends. And while they make great fodder for magazines and blogs and get scrutinized and predicted by talking heads everywhere, a writer should never feel like they have to include a trend or two just to capitalize on it or be perceived as popular.

It's not the trend that makes an author popular. It's what the author does in their story, with their words, in sharing their vision and their world that makes an author popular. Trends are short lived. Audiences last longer. And every book will find an audience eventually, if the search is honest, open and earnest.


If you want to show two characters in love, saying "and now they're in love" doesn't cut it. SHOW us scenes to help draw that conclusion

Love is really hard to see. Sure there are actions we undertake to demonstrate that we love someone else, but there's no giant neon sign over our heads pointing out "she's in love!"or "he digs her!".

So look to our actions to figure out whether or not we're in love. And when you're trying to convey that character A loves character B, sure they can say it to one another, but proving it is another matter altogether.  Granted, if you're working in a visual medium, the characters can look at each other and we can see it, but if you're in print, you need to play out those scenes that help us draw the conclusion that yes, this couple is in love.

Think of exposition like a camera, zooming in on details or pulling back to show us how big the picture is.

This idea is called "psychic distance" and I teach a lot about it in workshops. Your exposition is where we get to see the whole stage, so where are we to focus? We'll follow the narration. How are you describing the birds in the trees? If it's just a word or two, then maybe they're not a big deal. If you've broken out two paragraphs on the merits of sparrows, then clearly, you've got something to say about birds. (The amount of words you spend on a thing tells us that the thing-described has more "narrative weight", meaning, it's a big deal)

You control what the reader focuses on, from the littlest detail about an eyebrow quirk to the big importance of the wind during a hurricane. And we want to follow the 'camera' as it tells us the story.

You know what's annoying? Written st-st-st-st-st-stutters. When a person stutters, we get it.

S-s-s-s-s-s-ee h-h-h-ow ann-n-n-n-n-oy-y-y-y-y-y-ing th-th-th-th-th-is looks? Don't do it. Don't use the actual display of text to convey something. Typography is great and cool when we're doing layout and games and things, but when we're cranking out 300 pages of fiction, how about you just say "he stammered" and move forward?

Shockingly not every story has to risk the whole of existence, the fate of all beings or the entire kingdom. Small stories work too.

We talked a little before about how a story's "power level" can be this huge monumental thing, which causes a story to be very much weighted towards the maximum side of whatever scale we're talking about. It may seem obvious that when a story involves all a race or an entire planet or whatever, that we're supposed to care extra because of the quantity of danger.

But can't the flipside also be true? If you've only introduced four characters in the whole story, and you risk a pair of them, that's 50% of the characters in the story. Keeping the psychic distance close to the characters and keeping the story intimate is what makes us care about the risks. It's only a numbers game in comic books, summer action movies or those B-movies on SyFy.


You don't have to write in dialect in order to be understood in dialect. That's for the reader to manage.

Before we go further, congratulate yourself on reading this far. Now, our last point of the day. Earlier in this list we talked about that annoying stutter. The same is true for breaking out accents and dialects. It might be funny the first time character A encounters character B, but on the sixtieth time, when I'm supposed to have these two characters as buddy cops solving a crime, I'm more wanting B to just make some damned sense so the killer gets caught.

You accomplish more saying "He spoke in a brogue" than trying to parse out the vowel sounds and where the apostrophes go in the lines of dialogue. You'll get less frustrated typing it, your editor will gripe less at you, and most importantly, the reader won't be confused as to what a character is saying.

Part 3 will be up Friday. Happy writing. 

The Nine-Step Checklist

We start today with a story from my youth.

I was about ten or maybe eleven and my family was heading down to our shore house for the month of July, which meant that my dad got use "The Checklist". As if he was prepping an Apollo moon launch, he made sure all the bags (I have a feeling we always overpacked, a trait I've inherited from him) were first staged in the living room the night before, and then loaded into the car just after breakfast while my mom packed the huge Igloo cooler with food  (I don't remember if we yet realized there was a grocery store ten minutes from the house, or maybe it wasn't built yet or something). The cooler would go in last, and we'd be all set to go. And then we'd be in the car, all buckled in, me with my books, dad behind the wheel, mom in the backseat with my brother and some cross-stitch. But we wouldn't leave.

My dad began the next stage of his checklist. He'd check his wallet, to make sure he had money. He'd check the front door (3 stiff pulls, practically slams) to make sure it was locked. He'd look in every first-floor window to make sure the lights were out. And then he'd start the questions, aimed mostly at my mother.

"Is the oven off?" (It wouldn't matter that this was late June/early July, and my mom hadn't likely baked anything since mid-May.)
"Did you lock the back door?" (No matter how she answered, he'd go check, meaning he'd open the front door, check the back door and then re-check the front on his way out.)
"Is the TV unplugged?" (This later became my responsibility when I was twelve. I remember getting this job because my wrists were narrow enough to slide behind the monster set and pull the plug out.)
"Is the freezer closed?" (In filling the cooler, my mom emptied the giant basement freezer, and would go so far as to defrost it if she got up early enough. Years later she started stacking things in front of the empty freezer in case it 'just popped open', but I think it was more to fuck with the old man.)

The answer to all these questions was, "Yes John." (A sentence to this day that makes my skin crawl.) And I was impatient - the beach was waiting! While this checking took maybe five minutes, it felt like it took hours, and I remember being incredibly frustrated with every slam-slam-slam of the front door and the sound of my father riffing through the stack of bills in his wallet. I don't know what he was expecting to find or not find, but I just wanted him to get the car moving.

I asked my dad once, "What's with all the checking?" And his answer was, "It's just what you have to do, to make sure you get everything together before you move forward." Now, the chances are great that I rolled my eyes while he answered my question, in fact I'm sure I even threw in a sigh for emphasis.

The sigh was my sign that I'd never be like that, that I'd be able to leave the house without the almost superstitious dance of pocket and door checks.

That sigh was way wrong. I might not check the door three times, but I've definitely caught myself a little freaked that maybe I didn't put my wallet in my pocket, or maybe I didn't put my credit card back in my wallet after dinner, or maybe I didn't shut the freezer door all the way six hours ago when I put that bag of ice in there. There's a little wrestling match in my head about whether or not I did or didn't do something, and usually it's resolved either by me going and checking or by whoever I'm with at the time reminding me I did.

Checklists are good tools, and you don't have to take them into Super-OCD land for them to be effective. Here now is my not-so-OCD checklist for your story or script or game, so that you can make sure everything's together before you move forward.

Act 1

Have you set the table? "Setting the table" means have you rolled out the three P's (Protagonist(s), Place(s), Plot), so that your readers (or players, if we're talking games) know who's doing what where and why.

What's the palette like? By the time we're well invested into the first Act of your creation, we should have a pretty firm grasp on the tone, feel, vibe and scale of the story. If you're writing about a save-the-universe sort of sci fi adventure, then I'd sort of expect the story to be a certain size and scope. Your word choice will tell me the "color" of the story: if your protagonists are fighting an uphill battle, if the world is "gritty", if the badguys are more intense, etc.

Is it clear what the next action will be? If you can't get an idea of what's next based on what just happened, (it doesn't have to be a directly linear idea, it can be somewhat inferred or logical) then what just happened wasn't enough. Or it's not done cooking. Or you need to spice it up a little. Insert your favorite food metaphor here.

Act 2

Are we seeing skills (gamers: the opportunity for skills)? By this point in the story, we should be seeing the protagonist doing what they do (and hopefully that means doing things different or better than how we do them) and how the results (successes AND failures) drive the plot forward (don't confuse "forward" for "success", failure IS an option that can transform and evolve characters).

Do the options you've created have purpose? "Options" is a broad term meaning the off-shoots of the main plot. This could be the suspects in a crime story, the different avenues or routes to take in a travelogue, the number of topics in your book of essays or anything that demonstrates that you just don't have a really simple plot that can be wrapped up in like six pages and you're just filling space and killing time.

How high is your climax? While you're still in the bulk of the book, and while you're still laying out the dominoes so they can topple later, it's a good time to start seeing how high this stack builds up so you know how far (and how fast) it will come tumbling down. The climax is the highest point in a story. The greatest moment of tension, the most intense scene(s), the most knockdown fight. If your story ratchets up the tension, emotion, action or stakes AFTER that, then that new scene is the climax. Map out your scenes, climb that ladder (I guess in a future post I'll have to talk about the climax ladder) and adjust accordingly.

Act 3

How are your loose ends? I know, a lot of writers want to be "edgy" or "creative" or "smart" and they lay out these intricate plots where you have to super-focus on some detail because it's the lynch pin of the whole book. And there's nothing worse than realizing that the detail that clinches the story is something you (or gamers, your players) overlooked because it didn't seem important at the time. Likewise, those characters you drop into a scene, just for the sake of the scene, they're only momentarily memorable. You're not breaking new ground in having that three-line-delivering guy from Chapter Six show back up in the end and play a bigger role. You don't need to tie EVERYTHING up in a nice (read: convenient) bow anymore than than you need to trim the number of loose ends down to the barest essentials. Just keep track of them. If you've got a few that don't go anywhere and sort of disappear, maybe they don't need to be there in the first place.

What's the resolution look like? So the climax happened. And now the story's emotional and action roller-coaster coasts back down to a normal range of possibilities. Here we can start to see things end both internally (the plot) and externally (the book is running out of pages), so what happens AFTER climax? You don't need to spend an equivalent amount of time bringing us back down to earth as you spent getting us into the heavens, but you do have to spend a little time so that we can catch our breath and start to organize ourselves to end the story. Again, mapping it out is CRUCIAL.

Is the door open or closed? The "door" here is whether or not you've explicitly or not created the possibility to revisit this world and these characters again. NOTE - I am not saying that all stories need to be serialized, I'm just asking you if this particular one is built for it. If the door is open, then we as readers are free to continue these adventures in our imagination, essentially taking the storytelling reins from you. If the door is closed, then we better be satisfied by how things wrapped up, else we'll just take the reins from you and pretend it didn't go down like that (I'm looking at you Sopranos, third Hunger Games book, Lost and the Mary Russell series).

That checklist will help you take your stories wherever they are, in whatever shape they're in, and help them go forward, so that you can too can go to your vacations (metaphoric and literal) fully confident that everything is awesome.

Happy writing. Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo.

See you Monday (now if there's no blog post on Monday, it's not because I partied too hard this weekend, it's because I know Monday is PACKED with work, some of which I can't yet talk about it.)

What Not To Send An Editor, Part 3

Previously (here and here) I've talked about what you should not send an editor or an agent. That list continues today. Let's rock this list like it was organized by a rock star librarian.

1. Please DO NOT send a query letter or manuscript written by hand. This has two effects: If your handwriting is tiny and scratchy, you may look somewhat crazy. Also, this makes you appear like you're afraid of technology. The problem is that if you've sent me a hard-copy (for example) we would have had to correspond, and that's usually by email.

2. Please DO NOT send a printed/bound softcover version of your book. Yes I know there are GREAT services out there that allow you to produce a book with minimal investment. And I'm glad you made use of them. The problem is that you didn't send me a manuscript (which I work on), you sent me a book, which is not the same thing.

3. Please DO NOT send photos of your children/pets holding signs saying I should read your work or take you on as a client. When I get a stack of photos in the mail, I usually look for the ransom demands or the photo that includes the line, "Or else I'll be beaten" and then consider calling the police. Do not play on sympathies to get your work advanced.

4. Please DO NOT include rejection letters with your work. Okay, you've been rejected. But sending your emotional baggage along with your work is not the best way to start a relationship if you want the relationship to be healthful and helpful. And for the record, I shred those letters, especially if you've added commentary like "Stupid bitch" or "Damn faggot" in the margins after I write the original sender a note.

5. Please DO NOT offer me favors that are in fact threats on other people. Do not tell me you're "going to take care of X person or Y person" for me if I take you on. I might not like X or Y person, they may not like me...but that's not really for you to worry about (this is especially troubling if you happen to mention people I've dated, who I KNOW don't like me now). Basically, threatening others to incent to me work with you is not happening. I just call the police.

6. Please DO NOT include hateful things about my friends along with your manuscript. (This is not me reverse bragging, I do have a point here) I know a lot of celebrities and semi-celebrities. Yes, many of those people may have different sexual, racial, religious, political or alcoholic preferences than you do. You don't have to disparage them (or their opinions, lifestyles or beliefs) to prove you're a tough person. It won't encourage me to respond.

NOTE - If you're going to question my sexuality or habits (insisting that I must enjoy the company of same sex partners or that I am in fact a person who has sex with female parents or that I lack 'racial purity' if I don't take you on as a client) you're absolutely not getting a response.

7. Please DO NOT include "things you think I might like" along with your submission. I am a nerd. I do not hide this fact. Lately, I've stopped hiding the fact I enjoy really good food. And I remain an ardent Xbox enthusiast. If you want me to work with you, just send the work. You do not need to go out of your way to include new Xbox games, thumb drives, pens, mugs, catalogs for bathrobes, sex toys or whatever else "you saw and it made you think of me". Let's just talk about work, shall we?

NOTE - I will likely not send the thumb drives or pens back. 

8. Please DO NOT send daily follow-ups. I receive mail everyday. I do my best to take about 2 hours to go through my mail and sort from it packages and manuscripts and all kinds of not-bills from it. After paying the bills, everything else gets prioritized and either delegated or answered. I do this DAILY. The mail here locally is known to be slow. I cannot predict when I'm going to get your package, let alone what specific time of that day I'm going to have time to sit down and respond to it. Calling me EVERY DAY after you've sent it is NOT going to encourage me to move faster towards your material. (You should though follow up about 3 to 4 days later with anyone you've sent material to but not heard back from).

9. Please DO NOT send "art" along with your manuscript. I put art in quotes because I'm not talking about book covers or graphic files. I mean the map of your fantasy world made out of cheese or the sausage shaped like your protagonist. If you want to hook me into the "feel" of your work, let your pitch, query and manuscript do the talking.

10. Please DO NOT send feces, urine or other bodily fluids. Seriously. Just don't. Ew. (This did not happen to me, but rather to an industry friend of mine, and she will be closing up shop for a few months because of it).

The moral of the story? When someone (an editor, a publisher, an agent, somebody) says "Send me X", that's all you send them. And if you're confused what 'X' is....ask.

Happy writing.

What NOT To Send An Editor

As a consulting writer, I see a lot of submissions, either from people who send me their work and want an opinion, or people who send me their work hoping it will lead me to taking them on as a client.

Here's a small word of advice - If you'd like to be my client, talk to me a bit BEFORE you send your manuscript/masterpiece/board game/script/etc, if only for a few reasons:

1. It is entirely possible you won't like HOW I work.
2. It is entirely possible that you won't like how much I charge.
3. It is entirely possible I won't like how you comport yourself.
4. It is entirely possible that what you want to do/have done is not something I actually can assist you with. (Like website coding, managing your finances, making your ex realize the error of their ways or helping you figure out what to wear)

Talking to me first (send me an email or find me on Twitter if you want more immediate conversation) is a good idea. AND IT'S FREE. Take advantage of it.

Now, this evening, as I wait for things to be backed up online and people to reply to emails, I dig into my pile of "Things To Be Read" and grab a pen. This pile has already been vetted by TWO people by the time it reaches me, so usually, the contents of this pile are either things I need to follow up with, or fantastic teaching opportunities. Or they're stellar shining examples of great work that I don't shut up about.

But sometimes, things stay in the pile because they're so.......bad (let's be honest here) that, as the kids say, they're there for the "lulz".

Not "Oh wow this is comedy gold", but "Oh wait, no, no this has to stop, please, I beg you, no more". And it is to that point I speak tonight.

Please DO NOT SEND THE FOLLOWING THINGS TO AN EDITOR, EVER:

1. Please do not send your fan-fiction, relationship melodrama or "rewrites" of your favorite TV shows. Yes, I get it, you didn't like the whole Dawn-is-a-Key angle in Buffy, but that doesn't mean I want to read 300 pages about how you'd turn Dawn into a Slayer who kills with BDSM sex powers. Nor do I care that you think 'Huddy' was the ruination of House.

Chances are that what sinks your fan fiction isn't the premise but the execution. You may have some very valid perspectives and takes on an existing world. You may suggest some interesting plot variants. But the quality of your writing.....well, let's just say it should be professional. That means yes, check your spelling and grammar, and yes please oh please use paragraphs, complete sentences and punctuation.

2. Please do not beg that I take you on as a client. Yes, you may be the 99%. Yes, you may be deeply afflicted by terrible phobias and illnesses, and yes that is unfortunate. You may be the victim of abuses or neglect or short or tall or hungry or whatever you are -- but it is my job to make your work better and make you a better producer of that work, NOT get you over some therapeutic hump so that you can THEN get around to writing. I am not Freud, Jung, Rogers or Skinner. If you need help, get help. I'm here to help your work, and by extension, you - not the other way around.

3. Please do not send photos of the people "you'd like to prove wrong" by getting your book published. First, that's way creepy. Second, I would prefer not being an accessory to whatever plot you've cooked up late at night while you listen to Fleet Foxes in the dark.

4. Please do not send me information about my own life, to prove what you know about me. Great, you found me on the internet, and maybe you know who I dated, lived with, or what I did at this place or date. If you're doing that to coerce my working with you, that's creepy and mean. If you're doing that to create some sort of friendship...that's not how my friendships operate. Please don't do that.

5. Please do not send the same material under multiple names. (Names are made up in this example) If I don't reply back to "Erik", I would trust that "Erik" moves on and doesn't suddenly conscript "Erika" "Karen" "Skylar" "Darla" "Tim" and "Luigi" to send me the same email with the same attachment from new and exciting email accounts. Just like in life, NO means NO. Improve the pitch, improve the material, try again, yes, but don't think you're going to wear an editor into submission.

6. Please do not barter "favors". If you want me to work with you, it's easiest if you straight out ask, and make a good argument. Don't suggest that you'll wash my car, have your attractive friend sleep with me, offer to let me watch you sleep with someone else or, my personal favorite, "owe me one later." Really, it's not that hard to get me to work with you -- do a good job asking, work really hard, take my advice. Done.

7. Please do not do something 'above and beyond' what's asked. If I say, "Email me and we'll talk." I want you to....email me. If an editor says, "Send me a SASE", then they want an envelope. This is not code for "I'd like you to come to one of my workshops and sit in the back and stare at me for ten minutes before you speak" or "send a packing crate with hearts and glitter on it." An editor's job is exponentially easier if we can trust the writer(s) we work with to follow directions. If the directions are unclear, ASK.

8. Please do not push. I am known to be a quick and efficient email writer. If you send me a message, my reply is prompt and thorough. If for whatever reason it's taken me some time to reply to you (whether due to illness or busyness or business or the fact that I'm not in the office), sending multiple emails asking the same question is NOT going to help your cause. I do not respond well to being pushed. If the problem is urgent, yes, there are ways to reach me, but for the most part, you don't have to push if you want an answer.

9. Please do not make your editor your last resort. Just like I don't like being pushed, I don't like hearing that if I don't help you, you're killing yourself. I neither want the guilt or the knowledge. Don't.

10. Please do not send your editor dirt on other editors. So, you've come to me because Editors 1 - 6 weren't helpful? And you've decided to detail their flaws to me in an email, as if this will help persuade me? Interesting move. I should point out that it is very likely that the afternoon after you've sent me that email I will see Editors 1 - 6 some where and we'll have lunch or talk shop. Some of those people are my friends, I've been to their homes, played with their dogs and seen their babies. Yes I agree they can be irritating professionally, but you're not currying favor by telling me my friends suck and here's proof. Be professional, be adult, and as my mother says, "Suck it up, get a life, and move on."

Now, go enjoy your weekend. Character 101 begins on Monday.

How to Work With An Editor, Part 1

Previously on this blog, I've talked about the value of editing, and now I want to talk to you about how you can have that conversation with an editor. We are not difficult people to talk to, and there's no reason to think we're the enemy.

So let's suppose now in our first example you're writing a story. Maybe you just completed NaNoWriMo, perhaps this is something you've been writing every night for the last two years while your spouse puts the kids to bed, maybe this is something you started writing now that you're retired...whatever the situation, you've been writing this story and you're at a point where the story is done, and you had a hero and they did stuff and now you want it to be read by other people.

Congratulations, first of all, you've done something that a lot of people wish they could do, and you're taking a brave step in saying you want to do something with the story other than just leave it in your desk drawer. It's brave, not because the editor is about to tear it to shreds like a Skyrim dragon, but because you're sharing something personal to you. That takes guts, and a good editor will recognize and applaud that.

So you find an editor. Maybe you check out their blog, or meet them at a conference, or get referred to one from a friend...it's not hard to find us. And you write an email.

Dear (Editor),

I'm a new author and I've just written something. Can you help me? I want to be the next (famous author).

Your Name Here

Okay, so I abridged it. But let's list some things you should mention in your email.

1. Talk about what you've written, but don't give every plot detail. What I want to hear, what I look for in that email is how you see your story. Is it a love story involving robots and a 70s porn soundtrack? Is it a coming of age story for a young car mechanic? Is it a steampunk memoir of a mad scientist?

Nope, I don't need the plot. Not yet. If the description you give me excites me, then a second email will ask about plot. I promise.

2. Talk about other things you've written/you're writing. It is remarkably encouraging to know that you haven't just handed over your one and only creative endeavor and you're hanging on my every word (and refreshing your inbox every two seconds) waiting to hear my response.

3. Talk about what you want to do with the story. Are you planning on just posting this to your own blog? Is this going to one day be on store shelves? Is this going to be the next hot thing for my Kindle? What's your project endgame?

From there, a conversation starts and a relationship develops.

In our second example, let's say you're a game designer.

NOTE: Not all editors work in game design. Some do...make sure you do your homework.

Alright game designer, you've got your game (aka "your baby"), And you write an email:

Dear (Editor),

I've made a game! I need help. Help me (Editor) you're my only hope.

Your Name Here

All three of the above should be mentioned, but let's throw in two more:

1. Has this been playtested yet? It helps an editor to know if other people have seen it, or checked out the mechanics (see below), or if the project is getting polished before it gets played. Yes, that is possible, and no, it's not always a bad idea. Depends on the project (I can see some people (hi Fred) making a face at this).

2. Is this a matter of text (flavor and exposition) only, or only the mechanics or both? Again, I'm odd in that as an editor, I will take a look at the mechanics if you ask. Also, I will visit the mechanics if the text changes radically, to make sure there is continuity and a cohesive theme.

Again, it's all about the conversation.

Lastly, here are three things you should bear in mind before and during this exchange:

A. By handing your project over to an editor, you understand that some elements are going to change. Keyword: SOME. An editor who slashes and burns without explanation is not someone you should be working with. Always get an explanation. And understand that you're going to find that some of your sentences, paragraphs, commas and phrases are going to go away. You may also hear the word "rewrite" a lot. Writing is not static-craft.

B. You are entitled to an explanation. When you were in high school, that English teacher didn't have to explain why she crossed out the sentence and wrote a question mark in the margin. But this isn't high school. This is the evolution of you as a writer and the production of your work, and you should have answers. A good editor will tell you what's wrong, explain why it's wrong, and tell you how/why it should be altered/fixed. And if you don't understand the explanation, ask questions until you do. If you don't get an explanation, then that's not the right editor for you.

C. You have free will. Just because you give over your project does not mean you have to necessarily make all the changes suggested by the editor. Yes, the changes and ideas are at best suggestions and you can refuse to do them. But at least think them over. Maybe down the road you'll revisit them and they'll make more sense to you. The choice is always yours. Remember Rule #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions.

Part 2 will get a little more in-depth about how a sample edit goes and what a writer can do to make the process easier.

Enjoy your writing!