Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen, @JennyHansenCA

Editing and Proofreading: Two separate processes that equal one great story.

Like most writers, I hang out with a boatload of other writers. Still, I never saw much of other peoples’ works in progress until I coordinated a contest several years ago. Coordinating contests changed the way I see writing. Period. It was a window into both sides of the submission process.

Plus, I saw firsthand one of the important talents that separates the amateurs from the professionals: the ability to both edit and proofread.

In novel-writing, editing is King and proofreading is Queen.

Professional writers, whether published or pre-published know: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. They work hard to make a great first impression.

As a contest coordinator, I had to read every piece of paper sent between the judges and the contestants to ensure everyone played nice with each other. (It should be noted that nearly everyone did.)

There was an area on the score sheet called “Mechanics” worth a whopping twenty points.

One well-known author gave a contestant FIVE points, along with an amazing gift: she chastised the writer that these twenty points were the easiest points to ace in the entire contest. She told the contestant that “there is no excuse for not taking the time to get all twenty points EVERY time.”

Spelling, grammar, punctuation and neatness are nearly the only thing you can be completely confident of when you start writing because things like voice and pacing take a while to master.

I let this (very blunt) comment stand because I knew it might save that contestant’s career.

Many writers see editing and proofreading as the same thing. In reality, these two techniques employ very different parts of your writing brain.

Think of it like building a house. You can lay a solid foundation, frame the house correctly, hang the drywall, slap on some paint and that house is structurally sound, sealed and dry. It is a well-edited house and the floor plan is amazing.

BUT, if you don’t take some extra time on the finish work: painting the trim, adding some scrollwork or lining up the crown molding, fewer people will want to buy it. Worse, if they do buy it (for a much lower rate) they’ll walk away from the exchange thinking you did half-assed work because now they have to take time to fix it.

How is editing different from proofreading?

Here's a great article that discusses the differences between the two. These rules apply whether you’re dealing with business documents, such as white papers, articles or novels.

Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Editing

Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft.

• You reread your draft to see, for example, whether your work is well-organized, your point of view correct, whether all the scenes support your plot and the transitions between these scenes are smooth.
• Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences?
• Do you tend to use the passive voice too often?
• Do you use an excessive amount of clichés?
• What about the more subtle editing techniques like deleting your echoes?

Note: Sharla Rae wrote an amazing blog on this topic, called Echoes – Repeat Offenders. It's a must-read.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.

It’s recommended that you proofread only after you have finished all of your other editing revisions (so you only have to do it once) but most writers do it as they go along. The danger in this habit is that familiarity can make you blind.

Some tips to help you to search (and find) your errors:

• Don't rely entirely on spelling or grammar checkers.
  
  These programs work with a limited number of rules, so they can't identify every error and often make mistakes.
• Proofread for only one kind of error at a time.
  
  If you try to identify and revise too many things at once, you risk losing focus, and your proofreading will be less effective.
• Read slow, and read every word.
  
  Try reading out loud, which forces you to say each word and also lets you hear how the words sound together.
• Circle every punctuation mark.
  
  This forces you to look at each one. As you circle, ask yourself if the punctuation is correct.
• Proofreading is a learning process.
  
  You're not just looking for errors that you recognize; you're also learning to recognize and correct new errors. This is where handbooks and dictionaries come in. Keep the ones you find helpful close at hand as you proofread.
• Ignorance may be bliss, but it won't make you a better proofreader.
  
  You'll often find things that don't seem quite right to you, but you may not be quite sure what's wrong either. If you're not sure about something, look it up, and don’t be shy about asking others to proofread your work.

Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading

Get some distance from the text!
It’s hard to edit or proofread a work in progress that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still too familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. In his book, On Writing, Stephen King recommends a minimum of 2-3 weeks.

Do something else.
Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. Someone who is reading the paper for the first time, comes to it with completely fresh eyes.

Below are some techniques from the University of North Carolina article I referenced up above – I highly recommend reading the entire article if you have time.

• Decide what medium lets you proofread most carefully.
  
  Some people like to work on the computer, while others like to sit back with a printed copy that they can mark up as they read.
• Try changing the look of your document.
  
  Altering the size, spacing, color, or style of the text may trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing an unfamiliar document, and that can help you get a different perspective on what you’ve written.
• Find a quiet place to work.
  
  Don’t try to do your proofreading in front of the TV or while you’re chugging away on the treadmill. Find a place where you can concentrate and avoid distractions.
• If possible, do your editing and proofreading in several short blocks of time, rather than all at once—otherwise, your concentration is likely to wane.
• If you’re short on time, you may wish to prioritize your editing and proofreading tasks to be sure that the most important ones are completed first.

Whew! Writing this made me feel like I’ve run a marathon already…how about you? I’m going to take a walk and come back and do some serious editing on the current novel.

What editing and proofreading techniques have you found the most helpful? Are there resources that you rely on during your editing or proofing phase?

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
** Writers In The Storm is getting a makeover! **
We're moving to our new digs June 2nd. Stay tuned for party news (and giveaways)...

About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA or at Writers In The Storm. Jenny also writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.

photo credit: sidewalk flying via photopin cc

Turning Whine into Gold
By Kathryn Craft, @KCraftWriter

Last year, Janice Gable Bashman and I co-wrote an article for Writer’s Digest Magazine, The 7 Deadly Sins of Self-Editing, that turned out to be quite popular. Apparently sinning resonated with writers (go figure!) who recognized that greed, lust, gluttony, pride, sloth, envy, and wrath might be waiting to trip up their creative souls.

But recognizing pitfalls is only half the battle when seeking a fruitful career and a meaningful life. We know what to avoid—but what should we be reaching for?

Many years ago I found great answers within the Toltec wisdom that inspired Don Miguel Ruiz’s 1997 book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom.

It’s a little book with a big message. Embracing its wisdom improved all aspects of my life. Today, however, I want to look at what the first tenet has to offer us as writers.

Be impeccable with your word.

Editors love authors who meet their deadlines. (Think about the implied threat here: cross the line and your story is dead.) Doing so shows you are respectful and focused and humble enough to see that publishing is a business concern much larger than your story alone.

Editors, however, will not be the only people to whom you will make commitments. As you take your rightful place within the time-honored lineage of artists who have passed on their knowledge to those who need it, the conferences, community groups, and other writers to whom you’ve made promises will also laud you for honoring your commitments. That said, everyone misjudges from time to time. If you can’t meet an obligation, renegotiate it as soon as possible to preserve your relationships.

Above all else you must act with integrity toward yourself.

Only by keeping your word to yourself can you can be the person you want to be. If you want to be an author, that means showing up at your chosen job so you can pursue your writing goals.

Is this important? We’re creatives after all—if we aren’t in the mood to write today, can’t we switch it up and watch TV instead?

Not if you told yourself you would write. Keeping your word with yourself is the only road to inner peace.

Interestingly, it is also the only road to achievement.

As someone who witnessed her husband’s self-destruction, I know a little something about the stakes here. To ignore this agreement is to introduce dangerous psychic dissonance into your life, which is the result of believing one thing, and doing another.

If you cannot hold yourself to your word and meet your writing goals, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of inner failure.

Think ten years down the road. Who will you be?

a)      a family joke
b)      an imposter
c)      a failure
d)     a dreamer
e)      a working writer
f)       a recorder of truth
g)      a go-getter
h)      an inspiration

I’ll take “e” through “h,” thank you.

To succeed in writing you must show up and do the work you’ve identified as your life’s mission. Or renegotiate the terms of your commitment, and find a life that you can live with greater integrity.

It’s okay to say that you will journal and learn and doodle for another year or two while your kids are little. It’s okay to say you’re going to work for one hour each day instead of pretending you can churn out an unrealistic word count.

I know for a fact that this sounds a lot simpler than it is. Writing is hard. Finding time to do it is hard. But whining doesn’t get you published. If you are ready to ramp up your career, you will have to raise your expectations, then meet your obligations to self.

I’ll explore the other agreements in future posts. For now, feel free to use the comment section as an opportunity to shout your personal truth to the universe.

What are your current writing and career goals, and how do you intend to keep your word to yourself?

*  *  *  *  *  *

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
** Writers In The Storm is getting a makeover! **
We're moving to our new digs June 2nd. Stay tuned for party news (and giveaways)...

About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks: The Art of Falling, and a second novel due Spring 2015. Her work as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft, follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she now serves as book club liaison for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She hosts lakeside writing retreats for women in northern New York State, leads workshops, and speaks often about writing. She lives with her husband in Bucks County, PA. Although a member of The Liars Club, she swears that everything in this bio is true.

By Kait Nolan, @kaitnolan

I’ve been around since the fairly early days of self publishing. My first ebook went live in early 2010. Since then, the market has exploded and a thousand things have changed. Something that’s true this month may not be true the next.

But two things have remained more or less constant:

1. Ebook formatting, while it has evolved, is still essentially as it was when I started.
2. People keep perpetuating the myth that it’s hard.

If you happen to have seen me around since the early days, chances are you heard me railing against the latter. I have bullied (insulted?) more than one author into taking the plunge and educating themselves. I’m here today to tell you why you should, too, even if you opt to hire someone.

1. It is not hard.

Y’all, it’s really not. Formatting ebooks can be many things—a gigantic pain in the butt (depending on how many egregious formatting mistakes you commit in drafting), tedious, headache-inducing—but not hard. If you can read instructions, you can learn to format ebooks.

2. It does not take knowledge of CSS or other coding.

This comes under the heading of formatting being not hard. I can’t count the number of folks I’ve talked to who were under the impression that they needed to be able to do complicated code in order to format ebooks. While you can do it that way, you don’t have to (and, dear God, why would you want to?).

3. Self publishing does not come without expense. Formatting doesn’t have to be one of them.

There’s this saying in publishing that the money always flows to the author. This has changed somewhat with the advent of self publishing, and there are people out there who say you can’t self-publish without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars. I say bollocks to that (because, really, I don’t have enough opportunity to say “bollocks” in real life).

I published my first ebook with only $50 out of pocket (for cover art) and every single publishing expense I’ve had since then came from profits. If you’re on a limited publishing budget, your money needs to go to the important things you can’t do yourself, like cover art and editing.

4. You will want to be able to make changes and shouldn’t have to hire out to do that.

Part of self publishing means that you should be updating your books. Fixing those inadvertent typos that slip through your editor or beta readers. Or, at the very least, you’ll want to update booklists, be able to adapt back matter, add in affiliate sales links per sales channel, etc. These are small, simple changes, but if you don’t have any knowledge of formatting, you’ll have to pay somebody to do it, and this goes back to point 3.

5. You maintain control of the final product.

This just may be the gold standard for why so many of us choose to self publish in the first place. We’re control freaks. Formatting is just another one of those aspects you don’t have to trust to anybody else. Keep that hold on your precious!

6. You need to know what you’re looking at.

If you do choose to hire out because you prefer not to take the time or effort, it’s important that you understand what you’re looking at when you get the product back. You need to know whether the person you’ve hired has truly done a good job. If you know nothing about formatting, chances are you can’t adequately judge this.

7. It only takes a handful of programs.

My system doesn’t take any expensive, specialized software. Just Microsoft Word (which most of us have) or OpenOffice (free), MobiPocket Creator (free), Sigil (free), and Calibre (free).

8. If you train yourself out of bad formatting habits, it doesn’t take long.

Okay, this is possibly one of the biggest points. Authors have all kinds of horrible formatting habits. This is what has led to the idea that formatting takes forever and is the grandest pain in the fanny known to self publishing.

But guess what? If you train yourself out of those bad habits and set up your word processing program not to screw stuff up (Word likes to think it knows what’s best—it doesn’t), then you don’t have to waste scads of time undoing your formatting mistakes. That is, by far, the most time consuming part of the process.

For my own work, I can take a full-length novel and produce the EPUB, Kindle, and Smashwords formats in approximately half an hour from start to finish—for all of them. Because I write a cleanly formatted draft.

9. The people who can’t do it will think you’re a bad ass.

Due to that whole “OMG, it’s haaaaard” perception, if you know how to do it, you can buff your nails and be nonchalant while they goggle at you for your expert knowledge.

10. Knowledge is power (and time is money—save BOTH).

I think this speaks for itself.

And just so I’m not up here doing nothing but giving you a sales pitch, I’m here to share with you the two most common formatting mistakes (a tiny sampling of the stuff that’s taught in my formatting class). Both of these have to do with indents in your manuscript.

The Freebie Lesson

How many of you use either the Tab key or spacebar to make your paragraph indents? Show of hands? It’s most of you, I wager. Well guess what? You’ve just made yourself a lot of extra work. This is not the correct way to indent your paragraphs. The right way to do indents is through Paragraph Styles. But don’t worry. I have a nice little cheat that will get rid of all those unnecessary keystrokes.

Okay, see that little backwards P looking thing up in your toolbar? That’s the pilcrow. In Word they call this the Show/Hide button. It reveals your hidden formatting. In OpenOffice, this reveals what they call non-printing characters. Consider this the blacklight that’s going to reveal all the scary, bad formatting stuff in your manuscript. Brace yourselves and go click it while inside one of your manuscripts.

If You’re A Tabber

See all those right pointing arrows? Those are your tab marks. This is probably THE MOST COMMON bad formatting habit people have. It’s a quick and easy way to insert an indent at the start of a paragraph. And it’s BAD. WRONG. DON’T DO IT.

Open up your Find and Replace box (To do that press CTRL+H). In the “Find what” line enter ^t. The caret t is the symbol for tab. On the Replace With line, don’t put anything. You’re going to leave it blank. Then click Replace All.

If You’re A Spacer

So what if you aren’t a tabber? What if you’re a spacer instead? See that trail of dots in the middle of the line at the start of that paragraph? Same idea applies. Hit CTRL+H to get your Find and Replace box. Then, in the find what box, you’ll hit the space bar however many times you tend to do that for an indent, leave the Replace with box empty, and click Replace all.

Now, after you do that, you may find that in some places you still have one or two space bar spaces before the first lines of your paragraphs. If that happens to be the case, you can’t use the same process to zap all your single or double spaces because that’ll cause you to delete the spaces separating sentences. So the answer is to do a Find and replace on ^p space space, and then replace with ^p only.

This ^p is the symbol for a paragraph return (which looks like a pilcrow in the text), so basically you’re telling Word to replace all instances of two space bar spaces that immediately follow a paragraph return. This way, you isolate the space bar spaces that precede the start of a new paragraph. After THAT repeat it with a find and replace on ^p space, then replace with a ^p by itself.

The Right Way To Indent

Now, in Word you have these things called PARAGRAPH STYLES. These allow you to globally control the styling of your ebook. You’ll apply a different style to different elements of your book, and then to change the styling, you’ll just change the style ONCE and the change will take effect all through the whole book.

Paragraph styles control everything from font to spacing to indents. You’ll use it in the main body of the text, on your chapter headings, on the front matter, title page, etc.

You’re going to start by selecting your entire manuscript (CTRL+A) and setting it to what Word calls the “Normal” style. The default settings for the “Normal” style probably aren’t right either, but don’t worry, we’ll fix that in a bit. Why do we start with normal everywhere? Because the vast majority of your book will be the body—the words and paragraphs that comprise the main narrative. Then later, we’ll change the styles of certain areas, like chapter headings, front or back matter, etc.

Okay, now you’re going to modify the Normal style to actually be what you need it to be. In order to do this you need to click on that little expansion arrow in the bottom right corner of the Styles Box.

That will give you this menu that lists all the various styles Word has. If you hover over the pilcrow beside Normal, it will give you a drop down arrow. Click on the arrow and you’ll get a submenu. (In my class I have slides with screenshots from each point in this process). From there, select Modify.

That’s going to take you to the Modify Style box. In the bottom right corner, click on Format. That will give you another menu from which you need to select Paragraph. That’s going to give you this box.

Now, particularly in newer iterations of Word, there will be all kinds of stuff to fix here. See under Spacing it’s got 10pt in the “After” box and has line spacing set at Multiple 1.15? Yeah, that’s all bad.

You NEVER EVER want it set to read EXACTLY or AT LEAST followed by some kind of point size specification in the At box. There should NEVER EVER be any entry in the AT box. You want just basic single spacing. No spacing before or after. And THIS is where you set your indent properly.

• For print, the standard is usually half an inch.
• With ebooks you often see less, anywhere between .25” and .5”.

I tend to prefer 0.3” for the first line indent. Some people prefer block paragraphs without indents. For fiction, I prefer a standard paragraph indent. Block paragraphs often work better for non-fiction. This is a decision that’s up to you, but pick one or the other, not both. I’ll come back to block spacing in just a minute.

You will keep your alignment set to Left, NOT Justified. Justified does funky stuff in ebooks. Now, when you click on okay in the paragraph window, you come back to the Modify Style page. Click okay again, and look at your manuscript. If you did things right, everywhere you have applied the Normal style, you should have properly indented paragraphs.

Ebook Formatting From A to Z

This is just a small sampling of the detail I go into in my ebook formatting class. Make no mistake—this is a class, not a quick seminar. It’s comprised of four lessons and designed to be done over time.

Each lesson is a streaming video that you can watch on your own time (as many times as you want). Then you’ll have access to interactive classrooms and discussion boards for more in-depth problem solving, as the need arises. At each step you will be expected to upload your manuscript for me to check over and help you correct so that you’re in good shape to move on to the next lesson.

I’m a teacher in real life, so I believe in the power of feedback for proper learning. At the end of my class, you will know how to take your book from a Word doc to all industry standard formats. You will be ready to self publish on any and all major platforms. Click here to register.

And if you’re still not convinced to learn how to do it yourself, I offer my services for ebook formatting over at The Forge. But I know y'all can do it.

Have you formatted your own ebooks already? What were your pitfalls or successes? What questions do you have for Kait?

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
** Writers In The Storm is getting a makeover! **
We're moving to our new digs June 2nd. Stay tuned for party news (and giveaways)...

About Kait

Kait Nolan is stuck in an office all day, sometimes juggling all three of her jobs at once with the skill of a trained bear—sometimes with a similar temperament. After hours, she uses her powers for good, creating escapist fiction. This Mississippi native has something for everyone, from short and sweet to Southern contemporary romance to action-packed paranormal—all featuring heroes you’d want to sweep you off your feet and rescue you from work-day drudgery. When not working or writing, Kait’s hanging out in her kitchen cooking and wishing life were a Broadway musical.

A passionate believer in helping others, she has founded a writing challenge designed for people who have a life (aka we NaNoWriMo rejects who can’t give everything up for the month of November). Please check out A Round of Words in 80 Days.

You can catch up with her at her blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Pots and Plots.