The Elements of Active Prose

by Tahlia Newland

  All books benefit from the eyes of a line editor, but the line editor might make some fairly big changes to your sentence and paragraph structure, so it can be a bit scary to hand your book over. It’s less threatening to your ego to just have your book copy edited, but a copy edit alone will not make your book better. It will only make it free of grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors, and a book free of such errors is not the same as a good book. A line editor can’t make all books great, but they can make most books better.

  When you get your book back: Take a deep breath before looking at it, remind yourself that the edits are to make your book better and tell your ego to take a walk. It’s time to be objective, not defensive.

  Look at the edits objectively. Remember that the editor thinks they have improved your book, and since generally they have more knowledge than you and they definitely have a more objective eye than you, they probably have—unless you’ve booked someone who isn’t really qualified (avoid big egos, no actual editing qualification, little experience and few recommendations from other authors). If you can’t see why something is supposedly better, ask, and research their answer to see if others agree with their perspective. A good editor will leave comments to explain why they’ve done anything major, anyway.

  What they shouldn’t have done is change your voice or intention. A skilled line editor can cut words, reorganise paragraphs, combine or cut up sentences, and change your sentence structure without changing your voice. So don’t panic when you see that they’ve done a lot of it. It should strengthen your voice, not weaken it. And it doesn’t mean your book was bad, it just means that now it’s a lot better.

  If your book doesn’t need a lot of work, then an editor should be able to do a line and copy edit together, but always—I can’t stress this enough—always make sure that a different person does a proof read.

  7

  Giving & Receiving Feedback

  Giving and receiving feedback is part of the job for authors—particularly receiving it—and it’s an area that causes a lot of unnecessary pain. A great deal of that pain can be avoided through understanding the following points and through learning how to give and receive feedback in the most beneficial way.

  The Necessity of Honest Critical Appraisal & How to Give it

  Writers in the online writing community generally give each other a lot of support in the form of knowledge sharing and encouragement. That’s great, but sometimes what authors consider support might be a little short-sighted. Does our desire to be supportive mean that we always say something is good, even when it isn’t? This may appear to be supportive, but it’s not helpful in the long run because honest critical appraisal is a vital ingredient for improvement on both a personal and an industry level. Without genuine feedback on our work, we could think our book is ready to publish when it isn’t, and every book published in an unfinished or unedited or poorly conceived state diminishes the status of every self-published work in the minds of readers. This is why self-published books are considered inferior by some. Frankly, a lot of them are, and their authors need honest feedback if they are to improve.

  I say authors are ‘generally’ supportive because bullies and those who like to complain loudly do exist. Reviews are often the stimulus for this kind of behaviour, which is no doubt the reason so many of us are reticent to tell the truth when evaluating others’ work. We don’t want to upset anyone, so we don’t say anything unless we can say something good—fair enough. No one wants a backlash of negative reviews by authors who don’t like what we’ve told them, so we don’t risk it.

  The downside of not saying anything if we can’t say something good, however, is that we have authors who think they are writing great books when they aren’t. If no one tells you, then you simply don’t realise. We can say that readers won’t buy their books so they will get the message that way, but quality is not a guarantee of sales, good salesmanship is. Sales do not equal quality. A lot of indie books have great stories and sell well, but the execution is just a little sloppy. The inadequacies in the writing and editing are not necessarily something an ordinary reader would notice. Many authors think that so long as readers don’t notice, or don’t mind, it’s okay. The trouble with this attitude is that, over time, the quality of written English deteriorates, and though they don’t realise it, readers are missing out.

  So the industry needs genuine critical appraisal, and, as fellow authors, it’s best we give it in a polite and respectful way—this is one of the aims of the Awesome Indies. We also need to learn to take it like a professional, even when it’s rude. Negative feedback can always be given privately, but published authors must expect the occasional public negative review—it comes with the job. The important thing is not to let it destroy your peace of mind.

  Giving good critical feedback is not easy, but with a bit of thought, we can improve our ability to be helpful, and though dancing around people’s egos shouldn’t be necessary, we can write feedback in a way that will minimise the hurt.

  Always point out the good aspects of a work. This isn’t just to massage the author’s ego, it’s because knowing our strengths is as important as knowing our weaknesses.

  Don’t attack the author as a person—you’re evaluating their work, not them—and try not to use inflammatory words.

  The most helpful feedback is specific. Something generic like ‘it needs work’ is not that helpful. And the very best feedback is where the reviewer suggests how something can be improved. They point out the problem, then point out the solution. Writing that kind of feedback takes a lot of time and consideration though. So anyone who gives comprehensive and honest feedback—no matter how negative or how wrong you think it might be—is showing the greatest support. They care enough to give you their time and to risk your being upset with them. That level of care is a rare and beautiful thing.

  Not everyone can see the specific problem, however, and even fewer of us can see solutions. These are skills that not everyone has. And that’s why hiring at least one professional to critique your work before publication is a good move. Manuscript appraisals do not have to cost the earth—mine don’t.

  But everyone can be honest and say there is a problem where they see one. Not speaking up is not real support.

  I’ve critiqued several truly substandard books where the author has cited accolades from his or her online critique groups as a reason to discredit and disregard my considered feedback. In all instances, the critique group had given plenty of support, but no real critical appraisal. The result was that these authors published their books in a state that did their writing career no good at all. Perhaps the members of the group simply didn’t have the skills and knowledge needed to see the faults—something to be aware of when choosing a group, and another reason to turn to someone with experience in manuscript evaluation.

  The least we can do when asked for a review is give our honest opinion. And on the other side of the fence, we must learn to think more of the person who tells us the truth, not less—it takes courage to tell the truth when you risk a backlash. That they’re prepared to do that for you shows they care.

  If all we give each other is support without the real help of honest critical appraisal, then we could be contributing to ending a potentially beautiful career before it’s even begun. Would you rather have false accolades, or real honest feedback that will help improve your work? One feeds our ego, the other feeds our progress as authors.

  A Review Structure

  My decision several years ago to formally review others’ work had a profound effect on my development as an author. Through it, I learned to view my own work in an objective manner, and that ability is a huge bonus for an author. So I recommend that you give it a go even if you don’t actually publish the reviews.

  To avoid the kinds of difficulties authors can get into when reviewing, I suggest that you make a rule never to review a friend’s book—at least not on request. Expectations can ruin friendships, and even
those who say they only want an honest review can turn snarky or at least argumentative when your honest review is less than 5 stars.

  But how do you go about writing a review?

  Answer:

  Hook + Summary + Analysis + Closure = Book Review

  The hook is a statement, fact, quote, or question that draws readers in and, in a more professional capacity where you’re enthusiastic about a book, can potentially give authors a snippet to work with in their promotions.

  The summary is a quick summary of the content, preferably without repeating what is readily available in the book blurb.

  The analysis analyses the writing itself. It provides a detailed evaluation along with justifying examples. The goal being to touch on at least half of the following: plot, descriptive elements, dialogue, target audience, grammatical and editing elements, characterization, character development, conflict, pacing, prose, flow, and point-of-view.

  The closing statement ties everything together. This is also an opportunity to supply one last encouraging push of recommendation or, in some cases, a regretful warning.

  Recognising Personal Preferences

  There are basically two kinds of reviews. Both are valid, but readers and writers of reviews need to recognise which reviews fall into which category so that we know what a particular review is evaluating. If we’re a professional reviewer or book blogger, then we need to make sure that we write fair reviews.

  The two main review styles are the ‘did I like it’ style and the ‘is it a good book’ style. When these are clear, they are easy to read, but when someone attempts to write an ‘is it a good book’ review without separating personal preference and objective evaluation of craftsmanship, we get something that is unfair to authors and confusing or misleading for readers.

  The ‘Did I Like it’ Review

  This is easy to write; you either like a book or you don’t. You’re not evaluating how well it’s written; you’re just saying what you liked and what you didn’t. It’s good if you can try to find something good to say about a book, but the important thing in this kind of review is to make it clear that it’s your personal opinion. On Goodreads you see mostly these kinds of reviews, so ratings there are more about how many people liked a book than about the quality of the writing. You can have high rating books that are really badly written, but the reviewers either didn’t mention it or didn’t realise.

  Alternatively, you can have well-crafted, even brilliant, books with low starred reviews simply because they push people’s buttons.

  If readers see ratings as an indication of quality, then books that are controversial can suffer from the ‘did I like it’ kind of reviews. The book’s overall rating is brought down because readers got offended, or disagreed with the book’s underlying philosophy, or found it too dark or too light, or they didn’t like the ending, for example. However, if readers check out the low starred reviews, they may find opinions that help them decide to purchase the book.

  For example, one person may complain that a book is too Christian, while another reader may find that that review confirms that the book is exactly the kind of book they want to read.

  So don’t assume that a mediocre overall rating indicates a bad book and that a high overall rating indicates a good one.

  The ‘Is it a Good Book’ Review

  This kind of review is harder to write. It’s the kind of review that professional reviewers write and that authors should be writing about other authors’ work. Any review will be subjective to some degree, but to be fair to the author, if we’re attempting to say whether a book is good or not, then we must separate our ‘likes’ from our evaluation of craftsmanship.

  Anyone writing this kind of review should have a clear criteria for how they set their stars.

  Separating our Preferences from our Evaluation of Craftsmanship

  The following aspects of craftsmanship are either right or wrong.

  Basic grammar (except in dialogue);

  Misuse of words such as their, there, they’re; its and it’s; lightening and lightning, effect and affect and so on;

  Spelling and punctuation—but you must be aware of the differences between UK/Australian and American English conventions. Also the use of commas can be a stylistic choice. If it’s stylistic choice, then usage should be consistent.

  These aspects of a novel are either well-crafted or poorly crafted:

  Plot structure—such things as, is there a protagonist and an antagonist? Do the characters have clear goals that are thwarted? Without these, there is no plot. Does the plot wander aimlessly?

  Info dumps—where information is placed in the text in chunks that are not integrated into the story;

  Scenes either move the story forward or they don’t;

  Writing quality, e.g. as explained in Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King (passive writing, POV issues, good dialogue, etc.);

  Overwriting is always poor craftsmanship, i.e. pages of writing that say the same thing and could be said succinctly in one or two paragraphs;

  Head-hopping in third person intimate is always poor craftsmanship—no, it’s not personal preference. Remember the section on point of view?

  Although relevant to craftsmanship, our evaluation of the following is subject to personal preference:

  Amount of description;

  Character believability, i.e.

  appropriateness of their motivations and reactions, e.g. what a person of a certain age might do or not do, or say or not say;

  How well we feel we get to know a character;

  Degree of repetition;

  Plot pacing—some people like slow beginnings, others like to jump into the action. Some like a plot never to slow down. Others prefer breaks to take a breath;

  Clumsy phrasing. What you find clumsy may be a common expression in another country;

  How well the ending was tied up;

  The believability of fantasy worlds in speculative fiction;

  Whether there are plot holes or not.

  The following are not relevant at all to the quality of the book:

  Handling of the subject matter, e.g. how lightly or darkly the subject is taken, or how deep the perspective is;

  The balance of action, humour, sex, horror etc. in the story;

  Character likeability;

  Our understanding of the book’s subject matter or underlying themes (unless it’s so poorly expressed that no one could understand it). Our understanding depends on our cultural, philosophical, and scientific knowledge and conditioning;

  Our interest in the subject matter. What you find boring, I may not. What I like, you may not;

  Whether or not we liked where the story went and how it ended. This is the author’s choice.

  Style. It’s easy to make the mistake of assuming that the author is trying to write the kind of book you would write, so it’s good to identify the author’s style and see how it differs to how we might treat the same story. What kind of a story is the author trying to write? Is s/he aiming for a gripping sci fi or a more laidback philosophical treatise? We must evaluate their book in terms of what they were trying to do, not in terms of what we would aim for if we were the author.

  And the point of all this is . . .

  Be clear on what kind of review you are writing. If you’re writing the ‘is it a good book’ review, then make sure it isn’t just about the last two categories. You should also consider things in the first two categories and note what is well done, even if you really don’t like the book.

  You know a good ‘is it a good book’ reviewer when they can say something like, “Although I didn’t personally like some aspects of this book, it’s a well written, well thought out book, and those who like [insert relevant preference] would probably love it.”

  A Beta Readers Checklist

  Here’s a checklist you can give beta readers to help them organise their thoughts and focus on the kind of feedback that will be most helpful
to you:

  Use Track Changes comments to write your thoughts on the manuscript as you read.

  Tell me where:

  You particularly enjoy something;

  You lose interest;

  You find something unbelievable;

  You think of something that should have happened and didn’t, e.g. a reaction;

  A character does something that seems inconsistent with their character;

  Something seems unnecessary, too obvious to be stated or doesn’t lead anywhere;

  There’s a plot hole;

  The dialogue sounds wrong or unnatural;

  Anything else comes to mind.

  In general, tell me:

  Were the characters complex, well developed, easy to relate to and realistic?

  Is the story interesting?

  Does the book end in a satisfactory way?

  Does the story move at a good pace? Are there places where it lags?

  What do you see as the main issues?

  What suggestions do you have for improvement?

  How to Handle Negative Feedback

  Truth is essential, but it can also be painful.

  It’s natural to feel disappointed, even devastated, after critical feedback, but if we can deal with it in a positive way, it can be the best thing for our development as a writer.

  For the unseasoned writer, defensiveness kicks in automatically. You take the feedback as personal criticism, and that hurts. Understanding the psychological process that follows from viewing it in this light is the first step towards recognising our reactions and making the decision to look at the whole thing in a more positive, less painful, way.

  Shock: You thought your book was pretty good. You’ve worked so hard on it. It can’t be true. They must be wrong.