The Last-Glance Editing Checklist

Posted February 4, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

Consistency is a big part of polish. Manuscripts with inconsistency issues will look sloppy and careless no matter how well they’re written. Not only do they make more work for a publisher, but they also suggest to publishers and agents that you aren’t serious enough to pay careful attention to your writing.

I recommend doing a quick “find” for these common issues before you send your manuscript out the door. I don’t recommend a global, automatic “find/replace all” — it’s quick enough to do a “find” on the one you don’t want and fix the few instances that come up. That way you can be confident that you’re not changing anything you don’t intend to change.

Spelling:

It’s common to see these spellings used interchangeably within the same manuscript. In the interest of polishing your work, pick the one appropriate for your region and make sure it’s used consistently.

* gray (US English) / grey (UK English)

* all right (US English) / alright (UK English)

* toward (US English) / towards (UK English)

* practice (noun and verb) (US English) / practice (noun) and practise (verb) (UK English)

* Out loud / aloud. The former is more common in the US, the latter is more common in the UK. I tend to make my recommendation based on time period, too — for something medieval in flavor I’ll recommend aloud because it sounds more formal; for something modern-day I’ll recommend out loud. Either way, I recommend choosing one to use consistently through the book. The only exception is in dialogue, and then only in a case where one character speaks notably more formally/informally than the rest.

* Compound words. Is it innkeeper, inn-keeper or inn keeper? Voicemail, voice-mail or voice mail? Be aware of your usage and make it consistent. Even better, take a moment to look these up instead of guessing.

* Add your character names, place names and invented “foreign” words to your word processor’s dictionary so that misspellings will stand out to you, then run a spellcheck.

* Also be alert for these words to watch out for, from a previous post. From studying and editing your own writing, you will quickly get a sense of which of these common misspellings you fall prey to, so that you know what to watch for in the future.

Mechanics:

* Standardize dashes. Whether you use em dashes or double hyphens, whether there are spaces around them or not, pick a standard and stick with it.

(Em dashes at the beginning or end of dialogue can confuse your quotation marks and make curly or “smart” quotes curl the wrong way. While you’re checking your dashes, keep an eye out for this, too.)

* Capitalization can sometimes depend on context. Titles like Mother, Father, Captain, King, Mayor, etc. are captialized when they’re used in place of (or with) someone’s name, but not when they refer to someone by their position (my mother, your father, the captain).

* Some words are trademarks or based on places and should always be capitalized, like Dumpster and Technicolor, and the O in Oxford shirt.

* Original places and concepts are often capitalized irregularly. If you’ve got a Great Hall or Dreamwalking or anything like that, make sure you’re consistent with it, too. And likewise if you use italics for original concepts.

* Make sure your manuscript doesn’t shift font or color. Especially make sure that it doesn’t do this several times. “Select all”, and then you can set a font and size and set the ink to black.

Last, But Not Least

This is very important. Start at the beginning of your document and do a find for the word “Chapter.” Make sure all your chapter numbers are in order, with no repetition and no skips. If you haven’t used the word “chapter” to denote your chapters, this will take a little more doing and concentration, but it’s still just as vital. If you’ve skipped a number, duplicated, or otherwise gotten out of sync, or if you reached “eight” and stopped breaking out new chapters altogether, it’s better if you find it than if someone else does.

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Promoted to Associate Publisher

Posted February 2, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: .

Breaking News: Dragon Moon Press Announcement

FEB 01, 2010—Dragon Moon Press, publisher of science fiction and fantasy, announced the promotion of editor-in-charge Gabrielle Harbowy to associate publisher.

“Gabrielle has been an asset to Dragon Moon Press since her hire in 2006. She consistently, and with a sense of humour, edits our manuscripts into great works, and interacts with our authors graciously and with deftness,” said publisher Gwen Gades. “Gabrielle will continue her editorial responsibilities, and she will also begin to take a larger role in the operations end of Dragon Moon Press.”

Gabrielle Harbowy joined Dragon Moon Press as a freelance editor in 2006. She was promoted to Editor-in-Charge in 2008, and currently oversees submissions and editing in addition to her ongoing freelance work. She is a vocal resource for writers via her blog (www.gabrielle-edits.com), her connections to the podcast fiction community, and her appearance as a panel participant at various genre and industry conventions and conferences.

Dragon Moon Press has exciting releases lined up for 2010, including works by more great new authors and award-nominated authors of podcast fiction, and anticipated sequels. Catch Dragon Moon authors and representatives at Ad Astra (Toronto, Ontario, April 9-11), Balticon (Baltimore, Maryland, May 28-31), AussieCon4 (Melbourne, Australia, Sept 2-6) and at other conventions and events around the world.

For more information, contact Gabrielle Harbowy at eic@dragonmoonpress.com

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Because the answer can be no

Posted February 1, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you found out that you were a wizard?

What about if you learned that the evil overlord was actually your father?

Have you ever thought about leaving everything you know behind and going out into space to search for alien races and cultures?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you sent a query that started with a sentence like the ones above, and the agent/editor’s answer was no?

It happens more often than not.

At BookEnds, Agent Jessica Faust concludes that if her answer is no, she knows she isn’t going to be interested in what the book is about and doesn’t have to read any further.

Agent Nathan Bransford calls rhetorical questions “a powerful force for evil.”

And Book Bark demonstrates how rhetorical questions could ruin even Harry Potter’s chances:

Imagine what it might be like to live in a closet beneath the stairs and be treated like a second rate citizen by your only family. What if all that changed and you were suddenly thrown into a fantastic world of witchcraft and oddities? What if you were the hero of this world? How would it change you? And what if, overnight, you learned that you had a powerful mortal enemy plotting your destruction?

Many agents and editors don’t like rhetorical questions because they reflect laziness: they beg the reader to do all the thinking and imagining, instead of actively creating a hook to draw the reader in.

Rhetorical questions can also lead people in the wrong direction: instead of thinking about your hook, your question may lead our own imaginations somewhere else entirely. That creates more work for you — now you have to reel us back from wherever your question has taken us before you can even start getting us interested in where you intended it to go.

What if we liked our answer better? Oops!

Don’t ask us (the editors, agents, and even the readers) what we think would happen, tell us what happens and show us what makes your treatment of what could happen different and better than anyone else’s.

While some agents and editors are indifferent to the rhetorical question, so many hate it vehemently that it’s a very risky tactic to use. Unless you know the person you’re querying and you know that they’re receptive to it, I recommend not taking the chance. Don’t ever leave the “Do you wonder…?” question open, when the answer could well be no… or worse.

Since ridicule is often the best medicine, if none of these other experts and professionals have convinced you to avoid the dreaded rhetorical question, visit The Rejectionist, where rhetorical questions receive the answers for which they beg. Don’t query with rhetorical questions — don’t let this happen to you.

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SF Writers Conference

Posted January 28, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

I’ve been invited to participate in the San Francisco Writers Conference, February 12-14 in downtown San Francisco.

I’ll be attending as an independent editor, giving one-on-one consultations with writers and participating in an “Ask a pro” session with other editors and agents.

The conference is in its 7th year, and is a great opportunity for writers to meet and network with industry professionals.

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Slush Rush Wrap-up

Posted January 25, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

Initial responses have now been sent on all the queries I received during the Dragon Moon Press open submissions period. If you have not received either a rejection or a request for a full manuscript, I did not receive your query. Make sure you check the address posted in the submission guidelines and try again.

For a relatively-unadvertised submission period during a month that’s usually hectic for everyone, the volume was encouraging without being overwhelming. It was a great experience and I’ll definitely be doing it again.

    The useful stat breakdowns:

Full manuscripts were requested on just under 10% of submissions. Out of that 10%, I am making an offer to one (1) so far. (Yes, that one knows who they are.) I have not yet received or read all requested fulls.

About 25% of submissions did not comply with the posted submission guidelines, with deviations including (in order of frequency): submitting to the wrong address, lack of synopsis, lack of title (oops!), lack of sample pages and use of attachments.

No submissions were rejected for non-compliance. That is to say, I didn’t receive any queries that would have been accepted had they followed the guidelines more closely; the submissions that did not follow the guidelines had other issues which made them unsuitable.

    Reasons for rejection, in descending order of frequency:

1. The writing simply wasn’t good enough – Mediocre writing or storytelling, wooden and uncompelling characters; consistently poor grammar and sentence structure, etc. Just not at a publishable level.

2. Major plot flaws too deep to change – The premise was deeply flawed, too predictable or overused without offering anything new or notable, wasn’t compelling, or went in a direction that I didn’t think worked.

3. Too slow to get started, or so heavy-handed at setting up a plot that it all just felt contrived and sloppy – These submissions had fifteen pages to get me hooked and make me care. If nothing happened in those first fifteen, I wasn’t interested enough to keep going, and a customer wouldn’t keep reading, either. There’s some overlap here with #1, but sometimes the story can still be flat and not go anywhere even if the quality of the writing is good.

4. Too similar to something already published. OR, used characters or worlds copyrighted or licensed to someone other than the author, or otherwise contained inherent rights issues – Don’t try to get your fanfic published, kids, unless you’re trying to get it published by whatever company officially licenses it.

5. Not a fit. Non-fiction, true crime, gratuitous torture, sexual torture, sexual slavery and gore, mainstream fiction, spy thrillers, mysteries, and bodice rippers.

6. Good, but not quite there yet. Show me the author’s next one.

    The not-so-useful stat breakdowns:

(Trends that had no bearing on acceptance decisions, but are interesting to note)

* Genre breakdown:

    54% fantasy / dark fantasy
    26% urban fantasy
    15% science fiction / speculative fiction
    5% outside DMP’s range (non-fic, etc.)

* Gender breakdown: 40% female authors, 60% male.

* Manuscripts utilizing real historical figures as main or important characters: 5

* Manuscripts previously released as podcast fiction: 4

* Manuscripts that compared themselves to Twilight: 3

* Demons and angels were more popular than vampires by a margin of 4:1

* Manuscripts featuring gender-swapping or other body-swapping: 2

* Abrasive or insulting queries: 2

* Manuscripts with prologues: 20%

* Manuscripts submitted in languages other than English: 1

* Countries represented: 10 — a very respectable showing!

Thanks for participating, everyone, and keep writing.

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The Boom Effect

Posted January 21, 2010 by Gabrielle

The Boom Effect is an auction to raise money for the trust fund for Tee Morris’s daughter, who bears the affectionate online pseudonym “Sonic Boom.” SB recently lost her mother, and the podcasting and writing community has come together to help Tee afford her final costs, and now to help to secure SB’s future.

Podcasters, writers, crafters, artists, musicians and more are offering their goods and services for an online auction on February 27th. You can subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed to stay in the loop, and follow @theboomeffect on Twitter.

For my part, I’m offering up Item SB008: Professionally Edited Short Story.

To the winning bidder, I will give a choice:

If you’re an aspiring writer of short fiction, you can get a free professional edit on one short story under 7,000 words. This will include proofreading and copyediting in the form of a red-lined and commented .doc file, and a consultation, if warranted, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript, with my professional recommendations.

For the long-form fiction writer, I’m offering another valuable service: The same full treatment, but for a query letter. I’ll use my other hat as Editor-in-Charge at Dragon Moon Press and my personal experience receiving queries and submissions, and work with you to structure and polish your query to give your manuscript the best possible chance, no matter where you choose to send it.

There are a lot of tempting one-of-a-kind items already up for bid, and more are still being added. Please give the auction a look and consider bidding and lending your support.

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Query Critiques

Posted January 14, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

An excellent manuscript will outshine a not-so-great query letter, but your query is still your first chance to make a good impression so it should be as polished and compelling as it can be.

I’ve offered a lot of advice on querying on this blog, and will continue to do so. Demonstration is a helpful means of education too, so I had thought about writing up a sample query letter that does all of the things I recommend and none of the things I warn against. Instead, I’m going to direct you to two other sites with examples that I think are very clear and helpful.

Editor Cheryl Klein annotates a query letter that worked for her, highlighting all the bits that made her happy.

Now, to see the process that gets a query to that sweet spot, head over to Ulysses, who won a contest to have his query critiqued by The Rejectionist. This is also a great peek into how the person reading your query letter thinks. Highly recommended.

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Patience, grasshoppers…

Posted January 11, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , .

Several times on this blog and in interviews elsewhere, I’ve mentioned that publishing looks like a very slow-moving industry from the outside. Your editors and publishers look calm, unruffled and unmoving on the surface, even when they’re paddling furiously underneath.

Today I finished up ARCs for Cold Magics by Erik Buchanan. I have two signed manuscripts in the queue for edits, and drafts pending with the authors on two more.

I wrote in my guidelines for the Slush Rush that a 4-6 month response time could be expected. That seems like a very long time, I know. To be honest, I don’t expect it to take me that long. But it means that January 1 was not the day to start mailing me to ask if I’d looked at your query yet, to ask if response letters had gone out yet, or to ask me why I haven’t sent you a response yet.

I understand that it’s easy to get excited and anxious when you’ve got a submission out somewhere, but I’m sorry. I’m not answering any “Have you answered yet?” mails. The time it would take to respond to them is time I need to be spending on work — work that includes reading and sorting those submissions.

1. Wait until the response window has closed, and THEN send a polite note if you haven’t heard back yet. In my case, the response window closes in JUNE. It is not June yet, last I checked. Also don’t immediately follow your submission with a “did you get it?” mail. Gwen Gades of Dragon Moon Press says it best: “Many publishers will tell you how long it should take to get a response to you… but NONE of them will say ‘43 seconds’.”

2. Even if you do wait a reasonable amount of time before you follow up, if you don’t get an answer right away, don’t keep mailing. Sending off another query every day, every two days, or every week, just makes you seem high-maintenance. Things aren’t going to move any faster if your manuscript is accepted somewhere, so don’t give off the expectation that you’ll be constantly prodding for a status update even when you’ve been told not to expect news yet. Publishers have a lot of projects going on at once, and they get to each of them in due time.

3. Use proper channels. You don’t have to mail someone at work, AND at home, AND comment on their blog, AND leave a Facebook message, AND @ them on Twitter. Seriously. If the front door is locked, don’t go around the house trying all the doors and windows. Trying one additional avenue after a reasonable amount of time is okay. Sometimes a server blinks. But don’t think that doing the contact info rounds will get a response any faster, and especially don’t do a full-spectrum blitz.

4. If you’re going to ignore #1, #2, and #3, at least accept responsibility for your actions. If you get a response that asks you to be patient, don’t get defensive and tell me that it’s someone else’s fault that you’re not; and don’t get overly dramatic and repentant in your apology or tell someone at length how busy you know they must be. It’s not going to get you that answer any faster. Just thank them for the response and give them space.

5. If there’s an extenuating circumstance, don’t wait, but do explain the situation. “I know your guidelines say not to expect feedback until June, but I just wanted you to know that X has expressed interest in the manuscript also, and I wanted to give you first dibs on it. Please let me know if you’re interested so that I can give X an answer,” tells a publisher what’s going on and gives them a fair shot to make time to read and respond, where “Hi, I was wondering if you’d looked at it yet,” doesn’t.

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On a personal note…

Posted January 7, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , .

I met Tee Morris my very first day of college. He helped me move into the dorm for marching band camp, and when an unlikely foot injury benched him on the sidelines later that week, we got to talking and clicked at once. We’ve been close ever since, and even though we went in different directions after college, it’s one of those friendships where after just a few minutes together it feels like we’ve never been apart.

I drove six hours to Tee’s book launch for Morevi, his first novel. From that visit and the conversations that came out of it, my own career with Dragon Moon Press was born. People in the podcasting community talk about how Tee’s helped and supported them, and I can assure you that it isn’t just talk. Tee kept me moving, kept me singing, and kept me true to myself through a lot of tough times, and without him I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Wednesday night, Tee’s wife Natalie passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.

The podcasting community, Tee’s listeners and readers and friends and fans, have already been wonderfully generous in their support, donating money and offers of help to see Tee and his young daughter through the significant and immediate financial and emotional burden to whatever degree they can.

I don’t normally make personal posts on this blog, but I think certain circumstances call for exceptions. Tee is an author, a client, and above all, a friend, so I wanted to put a message of love and support where I know he, and anyone else, can see it in their own time.

A trust fund is being set up for his daughter. Much love to Pip Ballantine, too, for generously organizing the online initiative for it. If you’d like to participate, details are here.

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Have a picture of a cat.

Posted January 7, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

There’s nothing I can say today. Instead, I turn to our friends at I Can Has Cheezburger:

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