Storytelling

Writing Characters With Great Backstories (Without the Backstory)

KWhipkey 10 Comments

As an editor, I get to bear witness to all kinds of writing pitfalls. (In fact, I have a post series dedicated to that planned for the near future.) But one of the most prevalent, by far, revolves around divulging exposition — especially of the backstory variety. There are varying degrees of offense, but my personal favorite (and by “favorite”, I really mean eye-roll inducing, hair-pulling, editing nightmare) is when writers feel the need to divulge a character’s entire, complicated life story in the first chapter. Why is that bad? Well, think of it like this: your first chapter is the reader’s introduction to your character. So in real life, it would be like meeting someone for the first time and having them word vomit their life story all over you. What kind of impression does that leave? Yeah, I bet you’d avoid that person like the plague after that.

I can already hear the murmurs of confusion and disagreement.

“But, we have to make sure our characters feel well-rounded and real,” you say, “We don’t want them to feel like cardboard cut-outs or Mary Sues.”

You’re 100% right. But you can do that without resorting to the word vomit introduction. How? Well, that’s what I’m here to show you. 😉
 

Step 1: Creating Backstory

 
Before you can begin to write a well-rounded character, you have to actually make them well-rounded. You need to know that person intimately. They need to be real — as real as your best friend from high school, or your quirky aunt with the 82 cats who lives in a motor home. The best way to do that is by making what’s known as a character profile. (There are tons of templates available online, but this one is particularly thorough.) Document all those tiny little details and experiences that make your character who they are. Don’t just stick to the superficial details, like eye color and body type, but really get to know them.

How’d they get that scar on their right knee?

Who was their first crush, and who broke their heart for the first time?

What’s their strange nightly ritual? And why do they keep that weird nick-knack on their bookshelf?

In a separate document, flesh out your character from top to bottom. Until, like an actor, you can step into their skin and write with their voice. This process is as essential to your novel as plotting is, so don’t skimp. You’ll need to do this for every major character, and, to some extent, the supporting cast as well. You’ll see why here shortly.
 

Step 2: Writing as Character X

 
By now, you should have pages and pages of notes. You’ve created all these exciting experiences and nuances that shape your character’s personality, and you can’t wait to share them all with the world. Right? Wrong. This is where pet peeve #208 (listed above) comes in. Writers assume that since they’ve created all this material, they need to use it. That it’s a disservice to their character not to, and that stuffing every minute detail into their novel is the only way they’ll be able to illustrate just how intricate this person’s life is. But guess what? We’re all intricate, complicated people. And we don’t care that you’ve managed to create another one.

Your character spent 8 months backpacking through Europe three years before the events of chapter 1? Great. Who cares?

Your character has a great grandmother who can bake the world’s best pot roast, but who died ten years before the events of the story? Okay. Sad, but so what?

Your character’s favorite childhood dog only had three legs, but could run like a greyhound? Weird and slightly interesting, but what does it have to do with the story?

My point is, unless one of these anecdotes or facts has a direct affect on the current plot, it doesn’t make it into the book. Why did you just waste hours writing all of that, then? Because, even though it’ll never be stated outright, it will color the way your character reacts to any given situation. Essentially, by creating that profile, you built their “voice”. Every experience we go through changes our fundamental outlook on life and will have a subtle affect on the way we behave, the things we say, and even our perception of a situation. That’s the definition of personality. It’s a reaction filtered through our individual set of traits and life experiences, and is what makes each of us unique.

For example, the character with the three-legged dog is likely to be compassionate toward animals as well as people who are differently-abled. While someone without that particular backstory may be callous and insensitive to the needs of others. The person with the grandma may have a certain affinity for pot roast, reacting to it much differently than someone who’s, say, a vegetarian. And depending on how your character got the scar on their knee, they may have an ingrained fear of something that makes absolutely no sense to anyone else.

It’s the history behind the character that makes them feel real. Even if we never hear the story of every experience, we’ll respond to that feeling of depth, of fullness. It’s not about creating a detailed biography of these fictional people, it’s about making them feel human so readers can connect with them. So go ahead and create those elaborate backstories, but remember, 90% of it will never be used outright in your book. And that’s okay. The authenticity you’ll be able to create for having done this exercise will far outweigh the “wasted” time you put into it. Because, at the end of the day, fiction is nothing without its characters.
 

Step 3: Murder Your Exposition

 
(I make that sound so dramatic, don’t I?)

Exposition has its place, but rarely is it needed as much as writers imagine. Storytelling is about conflict and emotion. And, as they say, “show, don’t tell” whenever possible. Exposition is telling at its worst. It’s that irritating person that walks into the room while you’re trying to watch a movie and forces you to press pause in order to pay attention to them. It breaks whatever action you have happening and says, “look at this irrelevant bit of info” instead. Which is why your final mission for this lesson is to go through your manuscript, find any spot where you stuck a random memory or some other detail from their past, and ask yourself, “Does this really need to be here?” I guarantee, the majority of the time, the answer will be no.

You can convey a lot of backstory simply through subtext and the way the character reacts to the environment and situation around them. Sometimes it is necessary to supply the details, the history, but even then, exposition is rarely the key. Try to find some other way to divulge it whenever possible. Dialogue (although never use dialogue as a convenient vehicle for giving the reader information as it will instantly feel false and unnatural), inner monologues, passing comments, etc. Flashbacks are even preferable to straight info-dump exposition. But if you do have to resort to a flashback, make sure that your character is in an appropriate situation for one. Don’t halt the middle of a battle to have them daydream about how they received a commendation for whatever umpteen years ago. If you do that, congratulations, your character is now dead. Because, while he was standing there daydreaming, the guy he was fighting lobbed his head off.

Once you’ve identified your exposition, strip it out wherever you can. Read the chapter, paragraph, sentence, without it. Does removing it in any way change the clarity of the message? If the answer is yes, then weave it back in, but only as much as necessary. If the answer’s no, bravo! You successfully killed a bit of exposition. And if you just aren’t sure, well, that’s why editors exist. Be ready, though, because they’ll be the first to go after your exposition with a butcher knife.

So, in summary, (since I seem to have rambled more than normal in this post) great characters require equally great backstories. But great writers know when and where to divulge that information, relying heavily on the subtleties of voice and subtext to convey the majority of it. Do they have journals full of notes and character profiles and unpublished material? You bet! How much of that creeps into their actual books? Maybe 10%. But you feel its existence. The work feels authentic, the characters real. Follow in the footsteps of those writers and show us your character without resorting to a word vomit introduction. Readers (and editors) will greatly appreciate it. 😉

The Writing Process Blog Hop

KWhipkey 6 Comments

This week, I was invited by the lovely Elsie Elmore to participate in the Writing Process Blog Hop. Normally, this hop is aimed at writers, giving each an opportunity to swap notes on how and why they work the way they do. But Elsie and I thought it might be nice to take advantage of my editorial insight and provide a look at the process from an editor’s perspective.  So we’ve modified the questions slightly in the hopes that my opinions will help those of you currently revising and/or querying for publication.

But first, let’s say hello to the sponsor of this post, Elsie. Without her, I wouldn’t have even known this was happening. So be sure to give her a shout out and check out her hop post from last week: Sharing the Writing Process.

Image of Author Elsie Elmore

Elsie Elmore

Elsie’s Bio:

Outside the city limits on a small patch of North Carolina land, Elsie Elmore lives with her husband, two kids, and two dogs.

She’s a science nerd with creative tendencies. And the stories she writes come to her from life’s experiences after her mind has warped them almost  beyond recognition. Her first YA PNR romance is due out this year from Curiosity Quills.

 

The Questions:

 
What are you working on?
 
Honestly? Too many things to list. If I were to talk about each one, we’d be here for eons!

The life of an editor is never calm, orderly, or filled with hours of blissful reading. (I just wrote a post about this, actually.) Neither are we typically allowed to reveal what we’re actually working on. But, I can tell you that I recently finished work on the newest release from REUTS Publications: Dracian Legacy. It’s coming out Feb. 25th and is currently available for preorder. 😉

I also have several more titles I’m working on for REUTS, as well as a few freelance projects. To give you an idea of just how busy I am, my calendar is filled with deadlines all the way to the end of December, and I’ve even got a few scheduled for the beginning of 2015! But that’s all I can say. For information on exactly which titles I’ve had my sticky little fingers in, you’ll have to check back. I’ll post an announcement about each under my From the Editor’s Desk series.

But that’s only what I’m doing as an editor. I’m also a writer. (And part superwoman, if you couldn’t tell. ;)) As with editing, I’m never one to commit to a single project. But, for the sake of keeping this relatively short, I’ll only talk about one — Unmoving. It’s an urban fantasy containing shades of Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Inception, and A Christmas Carol. Strange combination, right? Here’s the “official” blurb:

Derek Richards renounced his humanity after losing the woman he loved in a horrific car accident. Like flipping a switch, he turned off his non-cynical emotions –- including compassion and empathy –- and closed himself off from the world. But, three years later, his callous disregard has finally caught up to him.

After watching his current fling angrily storm out, he meanders through the streets of Portland to his favorite spot –- a park bench by the river. His peace and quiet is interrupted by a homeless woman, and he quickly finds himself entangled in a confrontation where money isn’t the only change at stake.

Now, literally turned to stone, he realizes karma’s giving him a second chance. Like Ebeneezer Scrooge minus the helpful ghosts, he has to relive all his bad decisions –- every selfish, incorrect choice he’s ever made –- and reevaluate his life. If he can’t find a way to redeem himself, he’ll spend eternity as a statue. But after what he’s done, maybe he deserves it.

 
Interested? I’ve done something a little crazy and made Unmoving available as a serial subscription, while it’s being written. What am I talking about? Click here for the full details.
 
What helps a writer’s work stand out from others in their genre?
 
Okay, back to editing mode. (Could I have stuck any more sales plugs into that previous section? Jeez!)

This is a hard one to quantify, since there are several ways a manuscript can catch my eye. But, I suppose, I would have to say that the fastest way to hook an editor is to bring something fresh to the table. Nothing is original, not in its entirety, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be unique. The thing about storytelling is that it revolves less around finding a plot no one has told before, and more around how you tell it. Even the most well-known, tired plots can be infused with something different and intriguing — the writer’s voice.

It can be as simple as a unique gift for unusual analogies, or it can be as grandiose as throwing a twist on a familiar concept that we didn’t see coming. But — and here’s the important part, writers — it has to be uniquely, authentically you.

A lot of times, people will hear this kind of advice and work too hard to craft what they think qualifies, resulting in a contrived, artificial style that editors see right through. We don’t want you to tell us the story you think we want to hear, we want you to tell us the story the way you think it should be told. It’s that subtle variance in perception that will make a work stand out, at least for me. None of us live exactly the same lives, so infuse your work with your own personal set of experiences, ideals, and outlooks, and it’ll ring true, rising above the others even in genres that are heavily saturated.

(As a small side note, it is true what they say about trying to follow the trends. While I would never discourage anyone from telling the story they want to tell, they should be aware that if they choose to write about a subject that’s over-saturated — e.g. vampires, zombies, demons — it will increase the difficulty of finding publication. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. 😉 )
 
What makes you fall in love with a concept or ms?
 
Hmmm . . . another hard one. This is a highly subjective question, so take what I’m about to say as the opinion of just little ole me. Other editors will have widely varying thoughts on this.

Contrary to what you may think, I don’t look for professional-grade polish. That’s my job, so why would I expect you to have already done it? (Note: most other editors do want this. So I’m definitely odd in this respect.) I look for potential. How do I define that? Well, part of it stems from my personal reading preferences, part of it comes from what I think the market would gravitate toward, and part of it is an assessment of the core message underneath the story.

So when I read a query, I’m not looking at how perfectly you wrote your hook, or how solid your synopsis is, or even if your first 5 pages are grammatically flawless. (That never happens, by the way.) I’m looking at what your story is really about. Things like whether or not the overall plot is intriguing, the character’s voice, and the underlying emotional context your tale is promising to deliver. As a structural (a.k.a. developmental or conceptual) editor, my gift is stripping away all the surface layers and understanding the core of a work. If that core message is engaging, chances are good I’ll overlook any other flaws, because, like I said, those are my job to fix anyway.

If you were looking for more of a bullet-type list, these are things I typically respond well to:

  • Strong MC voice (especially snarky ones)
  • Well-developed and unique world/culture/setting that I haven’t seen before (mostly pertains to speculative fiction genres)
  • A clearly defined message (What are you trying to say through this story? Every story has a message, whether you intended it or not–what’s yours?)
  • An engaging plot that speaks to my sense of entertainment
  • That spark of authenticity I mentioned in the above question’s answer 😉

 
What is the biggest editing tip you could offer that could help writers?

 
Believability and authenticity are king. Regardless of genre. Nothing kills a manuscript faster, in my eyes, than underdeveloped worlds or characters, lack of authentic details, and unbelievable motivations or actions. Storytelling is about emotional resonance. We need to connect with the characters, to live vicariously through them in this world you’ve created. And to do that, it needs to feel authentic and real. Often times, writers forget this fact, going for what I call “cool factor points”. Meaning they throw in far-fetched things that could never possibly happen, and then don’t even try to explain them. Obviously, I’m a fan of fantasy, so I’m definitely not saying that you shouldn’t push the boundaries of reality, just make sure that it feels like it truly could exist that way.

I’ve written quite a couple posts about these subjects, so instead of rambling on for days, I’ll just give you the links. Peruse if you wish. 😉
 

 
The second piece of advice I’d give is to divorce your words. This is one that will make going through the process of publication so much easier — on everyone. Often, writers submit their work under the illusion it’s perfect. I mean, why wouldn’t they? They slaved and slaved and slaved, and then slaved some more. But the reality is, a manuscript is never perfect when it lands on an editor’s desk. That’s why we exist. To help you achieve that next level, to provide an objective, expert eye. Can you guess what that means? Yep. We tear your precious, “perfect” baby to pieces and then stitch it back up again.

Now, what do you think happens when an author who’s married to every single word of their manuscript comes face to face with the brutal editing process? Yeah. It’s not pretty. So save yourself some trouble, learn how to detach yourselves from your words, and go into the querying process knowing full well that that “perfect” draft you submit is really just one more revision waiting to happen. Oh, and trust that your editor knows what they’re doing. I swear, we’re really not trying to hurt you on purpose. 😉

I did a longer version of this here: Divorce Your Words; Save Your Story.

That brings my portion of the blog hop to a close. I hope some of what I’ve said is helpful. I am always willing to answer questions, so if you have one about editing, indie publishing, or writing in general, please feel free to contact me. I promise I don’t bite. Most of the time. 😉

My part may be done, but the blog hop is far from over. Head on over to the blogs below and see what others have to say about the writing process. Take it away, ladies!
 

Author Photo of Sarah La Fleur

Sarah LaFleur

Sarah LaFleur:
Until December 2012, Sarah LaFleur was a working pianist and teacher. In the midst of a career change, she started writing a story. Less than 17 weeks later she completed her first full-length novel currently being shopped around for traditional publication.

Who Is Evelyn Dae? was born when Sarah decided to launch her writing persona (lafleurdeplume) on social media. By early September 2013, she connected with a wonderful community of writers and readers who convinced her to publish the website story as an eBook.

Sarah continues to write, and has several projects in the works including a sequel to her first novel, an adult science fiction book that stands alone, and multiple guest blog spots. She lives in the greater Chicago metropolitan area with her children, husband, cats, and piano.
 
Website: http://lafleurdeplume.com
 
Twitter: @lafleurdeplume
 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/lafleurdeplume
 

Author Photo of T.A. Brock

T.A. Brock

T.A. Brock:

T.A. Brock spends her days gleefully plucking words from the chaos of life and dressing them up so they look pretty. Then she calls them stories and tries to convince people to read them. She resides in the great land of tornadoes (Oklahoma) with her husband, two children, and her beloved Kuerig machine.

You can catch her on Twitter @TA_Brock or visit her blog ta-brock.blogspot.com
 

Author Photo of Jamie Ayers

Jamie Ayers

Jamie Ayers:

Jamie Ayres writes young adult paranormal love stories by night and teaches young adults as a Language Arts middle school teacher by day. When not at home on her laptop or at school, she can often be found at a local book store grabbing random children and reading to them. So far, she has not been arrested for this. Although she spent her youthful summers around Lake Michigan, she now lives in Florida with her prince charming, two children (sometimes three based on how Mr. Ayres is acting), and a basset hound. She really does have grandmothers named Olga and Gay but unlike her heroine, she’s thankfully not named after either one of them. She loves lazy pajama days, the first page of a good book, stupid funny movies, and sharing stories with fantastic people like you. Her books include the first two installments of her trilogy, 18 Things and 18 Truths. Visit her online via Twitter, Facebook, or at www.jamieayres.com.

Featured Animation: Nightwolf Productions Logo

KWhipkey 2 Comments

Many of you know that my first creative aspirations were in the realm of animation. But how many of you have actually seen something I’ve animated? Exactly one–my mom, and she doesn’t count. (Sorry, Mom!) I think it’s high time I fixed that, so I’m going to reveal a small piece I did during college. I had something else planned for this week, but if I don’t post this now, I’ll lose my nerve and you’ll never get to see it. What am I afraid of? I’m not sure. I’ve just never really showcased my animation skills, even though, supposedly, I’m pretty good. But, like all things creative, it’s hard to trust the opinions of others when you’re your own worst critic.

Anyway, I’m stalling. The following video is a line drawing (known as a pencil test) of my non-existent animation company’s logo–Nightwolf Productions. If you’ve followed me for a while, you may remember me talking about how I envisioned a living logo, inserting the Nightwolf into the beginning of each film like a seamless part of the story. This is not that. This would be akin to the standardized logos you see–Dreamworks’s moon, or Disney’s castle. It features a basic walk cycle, a howl, and the company name. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

It’s not. Each frame took roughly an hour to draw, and a four-legged walk cycle is notoriously the most difficult thing to capture. So between the hours I spent watching my dog running around, and the hours spent drawing, you’re probably looking at upwards of 100 hours of work. That doesn’t include the time spent mixing the soundtrack and sound effects (because, yes, I did create that music mash-up you hear in the background) nor the time spent inputting/syncing everything in Flash. My point? Animation is hard.

But when it all comes together and you hit play, seeing your drawings come to life for the first time, it’s oh so worth it. Even now, years later, I can’t watch this without a stupid grin of pride plastered to my face. So here’s hoping you enjoy it!
 

 

**This video was created as part of a college assignment. It’s solely for personal use and has never been used for profit or actual business transactions. Nightwolf Productions is a fictitious company name.**

Music Credits: (I mixed the music, but I do not stake any claims to it beyond that. These are the people truly responsible for creating it.)

“Prologue” by Alan Menkin, from the Broadway rendition of Beauty and the Beast. Copyright belongs to Disney Theatrical Productions, LTD.

“Bonus Track” by Guy Whitmore, from the Shivers 2: Harvest of Souls Soundtrack (featuring music from the original Shivers game–i.e. the wolf howl). Copyright belongs to Sierra Entertainment, Inc.

Animation Credits:

Art and animation by Kisa Whipkey. Copyright, 2008. All rights reserved.

What it Takes to be an Editor

KWhipkey 14 Comments

Now that I’m becoming more known in the literary community, I’ve had people approach me for advice on how to break into an editing career. They all have this bright-eyed illusion of what being an editor entails, envisioning (as I did) days filled with nothing but reading. Sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? Every book lover’s dream job. But let’s have a candid (and snarky!) discussion about the reality of being an editor. Because that pretty image in your head is nothing like the real thing.

A lot of people falsely believe that writing and editing are parallel careers. They’re not. They’re more like distant cousins than the sibling status everyone thinks. If you enjoy the process of creation, editing is not for you. If you love reading, devouring books like life-saving sustenance, editing is not for you. And if you like entertainment that keeps your brain active and stimulated for hours, editing is not for you. If, however, you love puzzles, methodical routines, and helping others, then maybe you’re fit to be an editor.

The truth is, editing’s hard. It’s monotonous, dull, repetitive, and there is absolutely no glory in it. It’s messy, annoying, and time-consuming. And it uses absolutely none of your creative juices. It’s analytical, more than anything, relying on thought processes normally associated with math and logic, rather than those involved with writing. It requires a completely different skill set, and, contrary to popular belief, good writers do not necessarily make good editors. And vice versa.

The literary world is the only one I know of that doesn’t clearly differentiate between its specialized skills, lumping them into one single category — wordsmith. No one would expect a dentist to be able to perform heart surgery, so why can’t we figure out that editing and writing aren’t the same thing? Yes, they’re both grounded in a love for words. And both do conform to the rules of the English language (most of the time). But that’s pretty much where the similarities stop.

So what does it take to be an editor? Let’s find out.
 

Requirement #1: No Life (Workaholic)

 
You know those nights and weekends, holidays, family and friends? Kiss them all goodbye. If you want to be an editor, you better be a workaholic, because otherwise, you’ll be buried up to your eyeballs before you can blink. And don’t think that’s temporary. Oh no, you will never again have a moment to yourself. Your inbox will be filled to the breaking point every time you log in. Your morning run, every meal you eat, and even long car trips will become reading time. And sleep? Yeah, you’d probably get more of that if you’d popped out that baby your mom’s been nagging you to have.

Every single second of every day from the moment you get your first assignment will be filled with something. And if, God forbid, you take so much as an afternoon off, you’ll spend the next two weeks trying to climb back on top of the mountain.

Editors have one of the highest burn-out rates of any job on the market. If you survive past two years, you’re considered hard-core. Because none of us get to do what everyone somehow assumes we do: sit in our offices, leisurely sipping coffee and reading to our heart’s content. In fact, if we get to read at all during the day, it’s probably at home, or crammed into the fifteen empty minutes between tasks. The majority of an editor’s day actually consists of answering emails, planning out structural edits, line edits, project management, more emails and then more line edits. Reading’s at the bottom of the list, unfortunately.

So if you’re an anti-social, agoraphobic insomniac with a workaholic tendency, editing will be the perfect job for you. The rest of us have to learn how to juggle life and work. And sadly, life almost always loses.
 

Requirement #2: OCD (Detail-Oriented)

 
Editing is highly detail-oriented. It’s slow and tedious, and during the course of a single project, you’ll read each chapter so many times you could nearly recite the thing verbatim by the end. So being slightly OCD helps.

There’s a strange (as in sick) sense of satisfaction to be found in surgically removing and altering the smallest things (things normal humans don’t notice) in a sentence. As an editor, you don’t just gloss over everything, you hone it, until there’s absolutely no better way that statement could be phrased. There’s not an ounce of fluff left in the entire manuscript, and, by George, you made sure that thing sings! How long did it take you to do it? Here’s the kicker: about 6-8 months (that includes the amount of time spent back and forth in revisions with the actual author. Because, you know, editors don’t actually write the books). And how long does it take a reader to read those beautifully honed words? About a week, if you’re lucky. I actually watched someone breeze through a project I’d slaved on for nearly a year in a single afternoon!

The point here is that editors are a strange breed of OCD (ahem, I mean detail-oriented) individuals who hold themselves and their authors to a crazy standard of perfect, and will accept nothing less. If you’re not willing to read a manuscript 52 times, invest upwards of 6 months of your life into someone else’s work, then walk away. You’re not one of us.
 

Requirement #3: Skills (Not Just Grammar, Folks)

 
This should be a no-brainer. Clearly, an editor needs skills, right? But which skills?

There’s an assumption out there that editing consists of one thing — fixing grammar. Editors are all a bunch of pompous English professors who couldn’t sell their own writing, and so, bitterly hand down judgement on everyone’s inability to follow the rules of the English language. In short, we’re grammar Nazis, and that’s it. That assumption is incorrect. And why so many writers get taken advantage of by shoddy editors who do nothing but fix superficial punctuation and spelling mistakes. (**Ducks from the impending barrage of hatred.**)

A real editor does so much more than fix your grammar. They’ll do that too, but more importantly, they’ll fix your story in its entirety. From plot holes, character development, and timeline re-sequencing, to sentence smoothing, and fact/detail cross-referencing, an editor is a master storyteller. Not only do they fully understand the various narrative methods and their uses, but they do all this without compromising the writer’s voice. They’re chameleons, morphing into a version of the author and enhancing that person’s style so that no trace of the editor is visible to the outside world. (I mentioned there was no glory in editing, right? All the applause and accolades go solely to the author — as they should. You don’t exist to the world of readers.)

True editors can hold an entire book in their heads, shifting and reorganizing the narrative threads as needed. And the really good ones can do this with multiple projects at once. It’s a rare skill, and one that will instantly mark a professional from an amateur. This is the thing that the writers-turned-editors can’t compete with. What the grammar Nazis can’t ever hope to provide. This is the true skill of an editor. So the question is, does this sound like you? If yes, then congratulations, you’re an editor. If what I’ve said sounds like mumbo-jumbo or makes you cringe even the tiniest bit, then adios! You’re better off doing something else.
 

Requirement #4: Passion (Passion Trumps the Suckage)

 
This is the last requirement for becoming an editor, but I’d dare say it’s the most important one. Why? Because passion is what makes it all worthwhile; it’s what trumps all the suckage. As you can see, editing is kind of a sucky job. I mean, for some of us, it’s a calling, and we love it through and through. But to the outside world, it looks brutal, horrible, and leaves you wondering why, in God’s name, anyone would ever want to do it. The answer is pretty simple though: passion. Passion for storytelling, for books, and for the people who write them. If you don’t have this, you’ll never make it as an editor. You might survive for a little while. You may even enjoy it at first. But eventually, the incessant schedule will wear you down and you’ll walk away.

How do you know if you have it? The passion? I’m not sure. I don’t think there’s a quantifiable way to tell. But I’ll leave you with this to ponder:

Writers often talk about how writing is the best part of their day. How it’s a cathartic release, a joy. For them, the creation process is the most beautiful thing. But for an editor, a 100% born-to-be editor, it’s not. That joy will come from the part of the process every writer loathes. Where writers find relaxation pouring words onto a page, you’ll find it in rearranging those words. Where they find joy breathing life into new stories, you’ll find it in fixing them. To you, the best part will be feeling all those intricate puzzle pieces click into place, and then watching, like a proud teacher, as your author and their book graduate to take their place in the world of success.

It’s not a job for everyone, but if you have the skills and the passion, (if you can’t imagine yourself doing anything else,) then it just might be for you. I’m definitely 100% editor. Are you?

Featured Image: The Anchor

KWhipkey Leave a comment

One of my non-writing resolutions for 2014 is to showcase more of my art. I call myself an artist, (I even paid a boatload of money for a piece of paper certifying me as such) but all anyone’s ever seen from me is a single image.  So we’re going to change that. I realize this blog is primarily known for its writing/publishing advice. But you’ll bear with me if I slip in a few art-related posts, right? Especially if, like this one, they somehow pertain to my writing? I hope so, anyway, because here goes . . .
 

The Anchor

 
Image by Kisa Whipkey
 

Some of you may already be able to guess what this illustration is referencing, but for those who don’t know, let me explain. This is Nameless, from The Bardach.

The inception of the short story was pretty simple; it was written solely to explain how Amyli became Nameless, the lead Storyteller and anchor for the Nightwolf. What’s an anchor? It’s like a link, an access point. She’s essentially an empty vessel, strategically placed so that he can leave his realms and muck around in the human one. Wiped of her identity, Nameless’s mission is to travel around, imparting the messages the Nightwolf wants her to. Once human, she’s now a shifter, able to transform into the Nightwolf at whim.

There’s much more to their story, but that’s pretty much all you learn by reading the short version. This image was created around the time I was trying to figure out exactly what their relationship was. Originally, the Nightwolf didn’t have a companion, but after I realized that he was more than simply my logo (I’ve explained this in much more detail here), Nameless appeared. And once it became clear what her purpose was, The Bardach was born.

The sketch version doesn’t contain the wolf image. I’m actually more proud of that than this version, which was created in Adobe Illustrator after. But I couldn’t get it to translate well, so this version will have to do. Plus, you get to see one of my original interpretations of the bond between Nameless and the Nightwolf. Is this how it actually happens in the story? No. It isn’t. She fully transforms, because halfling werewolves are one of my pet peeves.  But this is meant to be a visual representation of their spirit bond, illustrating the fact that she has a wolf’s soul in place of her own.

If you’d like to learn more about Nameless or the Nightwolf, I suggest checking out their story. There’s an excerpt featured in my Published Works section, and there will be a new version releasing by the end of the year. Thanks for letting me share one of my images. I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief interlude from our normally scheduled program. Next week, I’ll be back with something more standard. What? I’m not sure yet, so if anyone has a request, please let me know! 😉