How big is my book?

by

The biggest reason to worry about the size of your book is printing costs. It costs more to print a 500 page book than it does a 200 page one. Yes, it’s possible to decrease the number of pages by printing on a larger page—a 250 page book with 100,000 words will fit into fewer than 120 pages if you use 8 ½ x 11 paper instead of the standard 6×9…but then your book won’t fit on the shelf with all the others in the same genre. You do want to stand out, but not for that reason.

The book needs to be long enough to tell the whole story, but short enough to keep the reader’s attention. The actual length will depend on what genre you’re writing in. (If you can’t identify your genre, then your writing is too loose—keep the focus!) Certain genres tend to run longer than others do (history), and some run shorter (mystery), so check out what a common length is for the one you’re writing.

If you’re too long

When you’ve written more than is needed, the first thing to consider is if you put things in the reader doesn’t need to know…or should already know from a previous section—don’t explain too much. Let the reader figure things out for himself. Info dumps give the reader an opportunity to set the book down—and not pick it up again. Either the reader already knows the historical background of all the characters…or it isn’t necessary for the particular story you’re telling.

Another problem is giving too much detail when you shift scenes. We don’t need to see each and every character get up, walk across the room, and exit…only to enter the next scene the same way. Just end each scene with a quick cut and start the next with a short intro of who, where, and what.

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.—Truman Capote

A rather irksome tendency of some writers is “As You Know, Bob”. AYKB is where characters discuss things they already know…just so the reader can hear about it. How many times do you stand on the corner watching cars drive by and comment on how interesting it is that they all have four wheels? Not very exciting…either for you or the reader. Leave it out.

If you’re short

This isn’t going to be a problem for most writers, but if you find yourself in this situation, look for sections with little dialogue or action…places where you are telling the story instead of showing it. Expand that exposition into a full scene. Consider adding in a subplot in Act 2…pull in a secondary character and give him something to do.

Some books end too abruptly…almost as if the author gave up and just quit. Make certain you tie up all the loose ends (or imply that they will be taken care of in the next book!).

More Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

by

In our first posting about Essential Keyboard Shortcuts, we went over some really basic ones. This time we’re going to go over a few more that everyone should know and use daily. (The more you use them, the better you’ll get at using them.) As before, where there is more than one possible keystroke, I underline the one I like, but you’re welcome to use any that work.

File, rather than content:

  • Create new document – Ctrl-N
  • Open existing document – Ctrl-O or Ctrl-F12
  • Save document – Ctrl-S or Shift-F12 or Alt-Shift-F2 (Save often, to avoid losing your work)
  • Save document as new file name – Alt-F, A or F12 (use a timestamp, to keep track of version)
  • Close document – Ctrl-W
  • Print document – Ctrl-P or Ctrl-F2 or Ctrl-Shift-F12

Window instead of content:

  • Switch windows – Alt-Tab (to get to other programs)
  • Maximize the document window – Alt-Space, X or Ctrl-F10 (so you only see this one)
  • Restore window down from maximize – Alt-Space, R or Alt-F5 (so you can see multiple windows)
  • Minimize window – Alt-Space, N (hide it for a while, when you’re working on something else)
  • Close single document – Ctrl-F4 (if you’re done with just this one)
  • Quit program, close all docs and window – Alt-F4 (if you’re done with all open documents)
  • Expand or collapse the ribbon – Ctrl-F1 (gives you more room to see the important part)
  • Go to the next document window – Ctrl-F6 (if you have multiple documents open)
  • Go to the previous document window – Ctrl-Shift-F6
  • Go to the next pane or frame – F6 (access other parts of the screen)
  • Go to the previous pane or frame – Shift-F6

Undo and Redo:

  • Undo the last action Ctrl-Z
  • Redo the last action Ctrl-Y or F4

Help and Cancel:

  • Open help – F1
  • Cancel – Esc (“I keep hitting escape, but I’m still here.”)

Informational:

  • Word Count – Ctrl-Shift-G (you need to know that you’re progressing)
  • Start spellcheck and grammar check – F7 (useful, but not always right)
  • Go to next spelling or grammatical error – Alt-F7
  • Open thesaurus – Shift-F7 (handy if you keep using the same words over and over)

That’s about it for now. We’ll hit a few more useful ones in a later post.

What is this POV thing?

by

How your reader sees your story depends on both the camera and who the main character (MC) is at any given time. Just as in a movie, the camera could be a character…only seeing what that character sees, First Person, using “I”. Usually the camera is close to the action, watching the MC as well as all the others, so we get to see what the MC is doing, Third Person, “he, she, they”—further broken down by how far the camera is from the action. Yes, there is a Second Person, but it’s rather rare, using “you” to tell the reader what to do.

POV Examples

  • First Person
    • I woke up earlier than normal and watched the sun slowly creep over the edge of my window. I threw my legs out of the bed and strode over to the window. Squinting to see the city through the fog, I wondered what I was going to encounter this time.
  • Second Person
    • You wake up and notice the sun hasn’t fully risen. Climbing out of bed, you step over to the window. The slowly rising sun glares in your eyes, so you raise a hand to block the light. Gazing at the city, trying to see through the fog, you nod your head slowly, realising that yet another day is upon you.
  • Third Person
    • He woke up suddenly as the room slowly brightened from the rising sun. He stood up and stumbled over to the window, shading his eyes with a hand as he stared out at the foggy city. He scrunched up his forehead as he contemplated the day.

All of those show the same scene but from different POVs. You can see how getting closer or farther from the MC changes how you feel about him and his situation. Also, notice that the fact that he is a ‘him’ is only obvious in Third Person, so you could hide his gender until later in the story…startling your reader with a revelation!

Third Person Depth

In Third Person, the camera could be at the top of a building, watching the action of a whole city, knowing everyone’s thoughts, personalities, backstories, being Omniscient. Or the camera could zoom in to be a fly on the wall, Limited to reporting only what can be seen…no internal dialogue or thoughts. We have to assume how characters feel by what we see them do (as in the example above). The third option is to have the camera so Close that it’s as if we are sitting on the character’s shoulder, close enough to catch what he’s thinking and feeling. We hear conversations he has with himself, so we know why he’s doing what he’s doing.

The problem in Close Third Person, is that we can hear only his thoughts…no one else’s. We have to depend on his interpretation of other folks. (And he might be unreliable in that aspect.) Head Hopping is a problem in Close Third Person when the author wants us to know someone else’s thoughts. You’ll find that most of your readers have only lived in one head their entire lives, so try to avoid bouncing around through your characters’ heads. If you need to tell what someone else is thinking, then you need a break…either a small scene break, a larger chapter break, or a huge section break. Yes, you can tell your story from multiple POVs…as long as you stick to one in each part.

Story Essence

by

In the Extra category this month, we’re touching on the content of your ms, assuming fiction, but many of these concepts apply equally well to non-fiction: keep the reader reading…and talking about your book when done!

We want happy readers, not confused or annoyed ones, so look to see if all the right words are used, they’re spelled correctly, and the grammar matches the current standards. A smooth flow is vital, too. Be careful of jumping from scene to scene without bringing the reader along. At the beginning of every chapter (and section), set the scene—we want to know where we are, who is there, and what’s happening.

You may need to hide some information from one of your characters, but unless he’s the POV character, don’t leave the reader out. (If the POV character doesn’t know something, then the reader can’t know it either—everything the reader gets comes through the POV character, but remember that readers really like it when they know something the characters don’t!) Also, we want to know why someone is doing something. Do the characters have a reason, a motive, for doing what they do? (You can fix that by having a foil—as Robin is to Batman. When Batman does something baffling, Robin asks why. Batman explains it to Robin, and the reader listens in, understanding the motive behind the action.)

Most people have spent their entire lives in only one head, so if you need to switch to a different POV, make certain that the reader knows: new chapter, section break, different font. Starting each chapter with the name of a character reminds you that he’s the POV for the entire chapter.

Readers like your work because it’s entertaining, so be careful to avoid painting yourself into a corner with all the plot twists. (Beta readers or Critique Groups can help spot these and other similar problems.) Avoid coincidences. If it happens once, it’s an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a conspiracy! Yes, a bag of money can fall out of an armoured car in real life, but if you have it happen in your book, readers won’t believe it.

“The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.”—Tom Clancy

“Truth is stranger than fiction.”—Lord Byron

A good ending will stick with the reader, so make it strong. The ending is the last impression the reader will have before going out talking to friends and neighbours about your book, and the best (or worst) advert is always word of mouth. Having a surprise ending is good, but make certain that although it’s unpredictable, it’s logical and fitting (avoid Deus ex machina).

Bottom line: for fiction, Escape. What readers really want is to get away from the real, mundane world. Give them excitement, adventure, and emotional new experiences.

For non-fiction, the bottom line is Information. Readers come to you to learn something. Did they learn what they wanted? Did they learn more?

Active or Passive?

by

Many professionals tell us to write in active voice, but what does that mean? Two issues here, but we’ll get to the second definition later…after we discuss grammatical passive voice. Although some editors claim you should avoid passive voice at all costs, it is not true that it is an error. “There are legitimate uses for the passive voice,” says Paul Brians, professor of English at WSU. “If you don’t know who is responsible for an action, passive voice can be the best choice,” says Mignon Fogarty (aka Grammar Girl). Apparently many writers talk about this problem without knowing what it is, thinking that any ‘to be’ verb signals passive voice, per Bryan A. Garner, yet the sentence “I am holding a book” uses ‘am’ (a form of ‘to be’) while being in active voice (the actor is the subject).

Grammar

We are going to call the person in the sentence who is doing something the Actor. (Linguists call it the Agent.) The person being done to is the Target. (Their term is Patient or Theme.) Consider:

  • Amy hit Bill.

Amy is the Actor and Bill is the Target. In this case, the Actor is the subject, so this is active voice. We can trade things around, getting:

  • Bill was hit by Amy.

The same thing happened, but now the Actor is the object and the Target is the subject, but the subject isn’t doing anything…he’s passive, and so is the sentence—but it can get even more passive if we leave Amy out completely: “Bill was hit.” It happened, but no one is admitting doing it.

As we saw, a clue to passive is that the subject isn’t actively doing anything, but that isn’t always bad:

  • Focus on the Target
    • The cookies were taken. (not the cake or pie)
  • We don’t know the Actor
    • The store was robbed. (police are still searching)
  • Focus on the Actor
    • He was killed by his own doctor. (not by his wife)

As with other style choices, over use is the real problem. Keep your passive sentences under control and no one will complain.

Passive Verbs

Now comes the second part. You may be writing in Active Voice, but are the verbs themselves active, that is, do they give your reader a sense of action? We aren’t talking about Stative and Dynamic verbs here, rather we mean wimpy or exciting verbs.

  • Did your character walk across the room?
    • Or did he stride, pace, stomp, sway, storm across the room?
  • Did he pick up the ball?
    • Or did he grab, snatch, confiscate, secure, choose it?
  • How about the jewels? Were they just stolen?
    • Or were they pinched, swiped, lifted, purloined, or did someone simply walk off with them?
  • Did the girl cry?
    • Or did she weep, sob, snivel, wail, or just whimper?

Get out your thesaurus, expand your vocabulary, and find new words with interesting connotations—see what it does to your writing!

Getting Ink on Paper

by

Printing a document can be a rather involved process…or it can as simple as ^P, but printing a book is a whole ’nother thing. Sometimes when you want to print a document to share with a few folks (or even just keep a copy in your file cabinet), your ink jet printer is a fine choice. You can even get colour without having to worry about upgrading. If you happen to have a laser printer, then you probably don’t have colour…unless you went for the big ones. The problem with printing out a document locally is that you typically don’t get to select any kind of binding. If you go to the nearby office supply store, then there are often a few different binding choices: spiral, comb, tape, and wire, as well as the ubiquitous saddle staple, so your result looks like a comic book.

The problem with any of these methods is that you can’t print a book…not a real one anyway. If you want to print only one book, then you can try any of the print and bind methods available on the web, but I’m assuming that you have bigger things in mind.

Espresso

We’re not talking coffee here. Rather On Demand Books has created the Espresso Book Machine (EBM). It’s not something that you’ll want to get, though…at an estimated cost of $125,000, it’s something that only a big bookstore or library might invest in. Close to two dozen machines are spread across the US—if you happen to be near one, check it out! Here in the Sacramento area we’re lucky to have one right downtown: The I Street Press. The next closest one is in Los Angeles, and after that Provo, Utah, so count yourself lucky if there’s one near you. (Check the map.)

Watching the pages of your book come together, the cover wrapping around, the gluing, the pressing, and finally the book falling out the slot in the back are sights that every writer will want to experience. The book literally comes out still warm—hot off the press. (We can arrange tours for interested folks.)

The EBM is good for small print runs and for local distribution, but for bigger plans, there are POD options. Print On Demand is just one process of getting ink on paper—it does not necessarily mean Self-Publishing, so don’t connect the two. Some Big 5 books are such low volume that they are printed only when ordered, and a few self-published books use web printers. (‘web’ printers have nothing to do with the Internet—instead of using sheets of paper, web presses use paper on huge rolls that forms a web in the press, getting cut down to size after printing.)

Whatever method of getting ink on paper you opt to use, remember to proofread before going to press. It’s easy enough to update an ebook, but once the ink dries, it’s rather difficult to change it.

Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

by

For our first posting on keyboard shortcuts, we are going to present some really basic ones. We don’t want to jump ahead (as much as we’d really enjoy doing that), so this list may seem a bit rudimentary, but that’s our intent. Even folks who’ve used computers for years may have not seen all these, so pay attention—you may actually learn something.

Moving around:

  • Right one character – Right Arrow
  • Left one character – Left Arrow
  • Down one line – Down Arrow
  • Up one line – Up Arrow
  • Beginning of current line – Home
  • End of current line – End
  • Beginning of document – Ctrl+Home
  • End of document – Ctrl+End
  • Right one word – Ctrl+Right Arrow
  • Left one word – Ctrl+Left Arrow
  • Beginning of next paragraph – Ctrl+Down Arrow
  • Beginning of previous paragraph – Ctrl+Up Arrow

The next group would involve selecting text, but instead of listing them all again, I’ll just point out that if you hold Shift and use any of the above, you’ll select the text as you move across it.

Now then, here are a few useful ones for moving large distances throughout your document. (Where there is more than one option for keystrokes, I’ve underlined the one I prefer, but you are welcome to develop any habits you find convenient.)

  • Cycle through the last four edit locations – Shift+F5 or Ctrl+Alt+Z
  • Go to Find field in Navigation pane – Ctrl+F
  • Next find (after doing find) – Ctrl+Page Down
  • Previous find (after doing find) – Ctrl+Page Up
  • Display Find and Replace dialog with Find (advanced) tab selected – Ctrl+H, Alt+D
  • Display Find and Replace dialog with Replace tab selected – Ctrl+H
  • Display Find and Replace dialog with Go To tab selected – Ctrl+G or F5

Cutting (and pasting)

We’ll cover how to use the Spike in a later post.

  • Delete one character to left – Backspace
  • Delete one character to the right – Delete
  • Delete one word to left – Ctrl+Backspace
  • Delete one word to right – Ctrl+Delete
  • Copy text to clipboard – Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Insert
  • Cut text to clipboard – Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete
  • Paste text from clipboard – Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert

Formatting characters:

  • Bold – Ctrl+B
  • Italics – Ctrl+I
  • Underline – Ctrl+U
  • Underline words only – Ctrl+Shift+W
  • Double-underline – Ctrl+Shift+D
  • Superscript – Ctrl+Shift+Plus Sign
  • Subscript – Ctrl+Equal Sign
  • Uppercase – Ctrl+Shift+A
  • Change case – Shift+F3 (cycles through upper, lower, sentence/title)
  • Small Caps – Ctrl+Shift+K
  • Increase font by 1 point – Ctrl+[
  • Decrease font by 1 point – Ctrl+]
  • Increase font one preset size – Ctrl+Shift+ >
  • Decrease font one preset size – Ctrl+Shift+<

Formatting paragraphs:

  • Single line spacing – Ctrl+1
  • 1.5 line spacing – Ctrl+5
  • Double line spacing – Ctrl+2
  • Left align – Ctrl+L
  • Right align – Ctrl+R
  • Center align – Ctrl+E
  • Justify – Ctrl+J
  • Heading 1 style – Ctrl+Alt+1
  • Heading 2 style – Ctrl+Alt+2
  • Heading 3 style – Ctrl+Alt+3
  • Bulleted list – Ctrl-Shift-L

That’ll have to do for now. We’ll get into more interesting (and useful) shortcuts later.

Types of Editing

by

Welcome to the beginning of yet another new year. We here at Turner Editing will be posting helpful hints and tips on how to make your writing process smoother. There will be Grammar suggestions, Story line helps, Definitions of terms used in writing, Discussions of traditions in the printing industry, and even a few time-saving keyboard shortcuts! (I’ve always said that if I have to pull my hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, wiggle it around, push it to where I want, click on something, then go back to the keyboard, I have wasted too much time that could be better spent on creating something wonderful.)

Posting levels:

As you read, you’ll notice that the post categories have a topic and level indicated. This one is “Terms, 1 Introductory”. That means it is a first level discussion on some terminology that’s important to the writing world. The other levels are “2 Basic”, “3 Advanced”, and “4 Excessive”. (If you get to that level, you’re really trying to understand the whole process!) After you get done reading, if you’re still confused, let us know. We hope to be able to answer all your questions.

“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.”—Samuel Johnson, creator of A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755

Let’s start off with a few basic terms. There are at least four different types of Edits that need to take place for any written work to be ready to share with the world.

Types of Editing:

  • The first level is Developmental Editing. It looks at the work as a whole, considering the flow or sequence of information from beginning to end, possibly reordering whole sections—a chapter level edit.
  • The next level is Line Editing. It looks at the work deeper, considering how the information is presented to the reader, focusing on language usage, tone, transitions, pacing—a paragraph level edit.
  • Following that is Copy Editing. At this step the idea is to follow accepted conventions. The Copy Editor will often have a style sheet, specifying the rules to be followed. Very few decisions need to be made. If the style sheet says it, then it must be so. Indexing can also be done now, but the attention is mostly on grammar and punctuation—a word level edit.
  • Then, after the work is formatted and laid out, a final check is made to see that it looks right on the printed page. That’s the work of the Proofreader (reading the Galley Proof). By now the content is done, so the emphasis is how it looks to the reader. It’s a very high level view of the document—a page level edit.

Although we have editors who can do Developmental editing, here at Turner Editing we suggest that you use Beta Readers or a Critique Group for the Developmental Editing (saving you plenty of money) and allow us the opportunity to address your Line and Copy Editing needs. We will also do Proofreading if you need it.