Publishing Malpractice

I've written here before about the murder mystery book club I joined a little over a year ago at my local independent bookstore. They tend to pick books outside my usually noirish taste--lots of cozy-adjacent recent novels heavily featuring cats, recipes, or sometimes both--but they're a fun group, and many months I get exposed to a solid read I wouldn't otherwise have encountered.

Then there are the other months.

This month we read a novel that I won't specifically identify, because I'm not here to call out a particular author by name for things that are not entirely their fault. I will say that it was published within the last five years; that it's the first in what is currently a three-book series; and that the author's professional background is heavily emphasized in the promotional materials as contributing to the subject matter in the book. It was also published by an imprint of one of the major publishing houses. Let's call it, oh, Bimon and Booster.

Toward the end of the book, we encounter something like the following paragraph. I've changed the character names and some of the details here to avoid identifying the book specifically, but the structure of the paragraph was exactly this:

Velma said, "We know Shaggy is supposed to have left the manor house at three in the morning, and that Fred and Daphne claimed to see him on the ocean road at four. But we also know that can't be true, because the fog that night would have prevented them from being able to identify the Mystery Machine," Velma said.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's two instances of the same dialogue tag identifying the speaker in a single paragraph. Not to get too technical with my lingo, but this is what we in the biz call Bad Writing. And in terms of my patience with the book, it's what we call the Final Straw. 

Now, of course, any writer might produce a paragraph like this, in the heat of composing a rough draft. That's what rough drafts are for, and heaven knows mine are full of stupid errors. What's astonishing to me is that this survived not only the writer's own revision process (assuming there was one), but also the entire editorial system at a major publishing house. You would assume a book like this went through, at a minimum, a developmental edit and a line edit, to say nothing of any input there might have been from the writer's agent. And yet there that ugly second tag sits, something everyone in that chain should be ashamed of.

I think of the great editors I've worked with--folks like Barb Goffman, Michael Bracken, Rusty Barnes, and Josh Pachter. Not one of them would have missed that second tag. So what the hell is going on with the editors at Bimon and Booster? I can think of some explanations. Probably the editorial budget has been slashed in recent years, and the remaining editors are simply overworked to the point of missing things. Possibly they're relying on AI to do some (most?) of the work, with predictably embarrassing results. Or, maybe, they just don't care. "They" here should be understood to be the number crunchers at the publishers. After all, their algorithms had no doubt already told them the book would sell, based on title, subgenre, cover design, the author's background, and comparable books--meaning recent bestsellers the novel, in places, shamelessly apes. With financial success more or less guaranteed, why bother making it good?

If it was just this one mistake, I wouldn't be writing about it. By the time I hit this paragraph, though, I was already seething. The entire book is rife with this kind of clumsy prose; there's not a scrap of dialogue that sounds like the way people actually talk. The characters are all paper-thin. The central heroine is annoying (though not as annoying as her obligatory "wacky" sidekick), and, despite repeated claims that she's brilliant, doesn't actually do a single thing that contributes to solving the mystery (not that the solution, when revealed, makes any sense). The plot doesn't hold up to the barest scrutiny in terms of logic or causality. Characters move around randomly, having the same conversations over and over again every time they encounter each other. The author either ignores or doesn't understand one of the most fundamental pieces of writing wisdom: to show, not tell. Even the much-vaunted professional background that's supposed to distinguish the book because of the author's specialized knowledge is employed only very briefly, and in a completely unconvincing way.

If you've ever seen Tommy Wiseau's movie The Room, which has become an object of cult obsession as possibly the least competent piece of filmmaking ever threaded into a projector, you have a pretty good idea of the level of narrative ability I'm talking about here.

Reading the book, I was repeatedly reminded of Gun in Cheek, the hilarious 1982 volume in which Bill Pronzini (himself a first-rank writer and superb stylist) dissects some of the worst mystery fiction of the Golden Age (highly recommended reading, by the way). Pronzini, though, was talking about decades-old novels and stories that were largely recognized as disposable trash when they were published, mostly being churned out by pulp writers desperately trying to produce enough work to feed themselves at (if they were lucky) a penny a word. By contrast, this is a brand-new book from a top-of-the-line publisher, heavily promoted, accompanied by bafflingly positive reviews, and successful enough to justify at least two sequels (I wouldn't be shocked to hear there's going to be a Netflix adaptation). None of that prevents it from being every bit as bad as Pronzini's targets.

Pronzini's book made me laugh out loud, a lot (again, it's worth seeking out, as is the sequel, Son of Gun in Cheek, and Six Gun in Cheek, which similarly savages terrible Westerns). This book made me actively angry. I know a lot of great writers who will likely never have the opportunity to be published by a major house or get this kind of promotion. You could argue that's because they write primarily short stories, and the market today doesn't value short fiction. But that market was, to a large degree, created by the major publishers, and by the readers they've trained to have such a narrow, impoverished understanding of what crime fiction is and can be.

The fact that bad books get published is nothing new, of course. But am I alone in thinking there seem to be an awful lot of them these days?

So I'm angry on behalf of the skilled writers who are shunted aside in favor of books like this. I'm angry on behalf of readers who get mediocre work shoved down their throats. But I'm also angry on behalf of the writer of this book, because they do, on some level, have potential. I can imagine a world where an agent or developmental editor reads this book and gives it back with a detailed explanation of the many problems, encouraging the writer to start over and gradually helping them produce polished, readable work. We all start out writing badly; there's no way around this. If you get lucky, work hard, and have the right people helping you, you get better before your work ever appears before the public.

This writer wasn't lucky, and certainly didn't have the right people helping. Because of that, it's all too easy to imagine some future heir of Pronzini, in a couple of decades, absolutely eviscerating this novel as an example of all the worst elements of crime fiction in the first half of this century.

So--are you noticing anything like this in the new books you're reading?

AND NOW, THE NEWS

Having spent several paragraphs bemoaning the output of another writer, it might seem the height of hubris for me to now promote a little of my own work, but here we go with a handful of new publications.

The new issue of the excellent online zine Yellow Mama includes my story "Things That Never Happened in a Place that Doesn't Exist." Any resemblance between this story and recent news items about powerful men committing terrible acts with no consequences is not entirely coincidental.

Recent days brought the welcome news that a new owner is reviving Down & Out Books, and I hope that venture will prove successful. In the meantime, other publishers continue to bring back some of the anthologies D&O published, under snazzy new covers. If you missed any of these, don't let them get past you again--every one of them is filled with powerhouse authors richly deserving of your time and attention.

Crimson Gate Books has the new edition of PROHIBITION PEEPERS: PRIVATE EYES DURING THE NOBLE EXPERIMENT, edited by Michael Bracken. In my story, "Getting Away Clean," the junior partner in a PI firm takes on his first big case, tracking down a crew of blackmailers working in the orbit of one of the country's most powerful bootleggers.

Open Road Media is publishing the revived HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE BEATLES, from editor Josh Pachter. My contribution is "Baby, You're a Rich Man," in which a powerful family's fixer sets out to deliver a huge ransom and uncovers a devious plot.

Also from Open Road and editor Josh Pachter is the reanimated FRIEND OF THE DEVIL: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD. For this one, I came up with "The Music Never Stopped," about a pair of drug dealers who come to a serious misunderstanding while attending a music festival.

And on one final note, my collection CRIME SCENES just celebrated six months in the world. While it hasn't leapt to the top of the NYT bestseller lists, I have gotten a lot of gratifying reactions from readers, and positive reviews in places like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Thrilling Detective, and Crime Fiction Lover. Doesn't it sound like it would make a swell holiday gift for the two or three dozen people closest to your heart?

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

As this column goes up, the US is a little over a week away from what might reasonably be described as the most important midterm election in our history. Polls are predicting massive wins for the Democrats--but, as is often observed, polls don't vote. You can count on Donald Trump and his pathetic gang of lickspittle grifters to do everything they can, legal or not, to suppress the vote, challenge and deny the results, and ultimately fail to abide by them, possibly even refusing to seat the new Congress. The more overwhelming their defeat, the more difficult it will be for them to make such attempts. Every vote is important, even if you live in a place where the local outcome is not in doubt. This may be our last opportunity to turn back the hatred, division, greed and stupidity which have made the last decade of American life so miserable. In short--GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!

The Second Time Around

 

I came to a crucial decision recently. The second draft of a story is my favorite.

I go through a lot of drafts.  I agree with Gore Vidal who said "I have nothing to say, only to add."  The novella I plan to send to a magazine this month is on its eleventh draft. But Numero Dos is my darling.

The first draft, well, that's hard work.  Sometimes the words flow like a waterfall but on other days it feels like pushing a marble uphill with your nose. Just trying to get something down on paper.

But the second draft, ah... 

You see, it's the first time I actually get to read my story.  It exists from beginning to end.  I see it with all its gifts and flaws.  I usually find pieces that need to move to different parts of the story, and realize that whole paragraphs or even scenes didn't make it from my teeming brain to the computer screen.  This is the part of writing I like best.

After that each draft shifts more from the building process to the polishing process.  There is a danger, of course, in polishing too much, to the point where you lose the excitement that you started the story with. 

To be honest, if there were more markets available for my stories I would probably do fewer drafts.  Hey, I can only send so many stories per year to the three or four pro mags.  

But also, being honest, on that eleventh draft I still find a few improvements to make...

Awk. Strike. Huh? Underline. Check.

When I was a kid, there was a daily aphorism published alongside the  funny papers in The Philadelphia Inquirer.  I involuntarily read hundreds of them, but only one stuck in my mind:  “A good father is priceless. Nobody needs a bad father.”

            One could debate the absolute validity of the second half of that, but not if you substitute “editor” for “father”.  I might even substitute “A bad editor is worse than no editor at all.”  This is particularly true when a writer is just starting out, filled with confusion and uncertainty.  The editor in this case is usually someone older, more confident and experienced, at least on paper (so to speak).  It’s the classic power imbalance, where the junior party is highly vulnerable, and the consequences of poor advice can be devastating, even fatal to the nascent creative spirit.

            A good editor, on the other hand, can change your life.  Learning to write is a lot like searching for your contacts in the dark, sailing with a broken compass, fixing a watch wearing oven mitts, or any combination thereof.  Poignantly, the novice writer is aching to improve herself, while her heart is laid bare by the dueling forces of ambition and raging insecurity.  What she needs more than anything is encouragement, any excuse to plow ahead despite the constant threat of embarrassment, or worse, loss of nerve.  A good editor knows this, and guides gently, carefully, instilling knowledge and craft without shattering her fragile emotional state.

            If you think that’s all a bit too precious, you haven’t worked with professional writers, some with years of hard-won experience, yeomanlike work ethic, awards on the shelf, etc.  If you want to get the best work out of them, you first tell them what you like, before telling them what’s missing, what needs to be improved.  A capable writer will know how to listen, how to take direction seriously, but not if you’ve undermined their confidence in what they’re doing.      

            Ultimately, you can’t teach a person to be a good writer.  The same goes for editors, though I think it’s easier for the less capable to hide behind their implicit authority, academic credentials, or the pretense of fashionable standards, and standard practices. 

     

        Editing is not engineering, it’s an art form.  It is not to impose your own preferences on matters of style or subject matter.  It is not to write the book for the writer.  You need a baseline of technical expertise, but the real work is understanding what the author is intending, and helping her achieve that goal. 

            I’ve found that cutting out words, sentences, even paragraphs, is almost always a good idea, but I once had an editor who cut so much I thought she was beguiled by that slashing motion with the red pen.  Lucky for me, I was able to put a lot of it back in again.  Often less is more, but occasionally less is just less.

            I’ve known a few copywriters who failed miserably as creative directors (essentially editors in the advertising business.)  The problem was they wanted to be a player-coach, but always hogged the ball.  The better creative leaders made you do it yourself, as many times as you could stand, until they were satisfied.

            A word about writers groups.  They can be quite useful, and even enriching, if composed of the right people.  I’m in one myself and get a lot out of it.  The members have widely varying levels of experience, but they’re all naturally capable practitioners.  I take everything they say seriously, jumping on the good stuff and letting the rest just drift on by.  But I think these arrangements can be treacherous for inexperienced people –  writers and commentators.  Amateur editors are often either too harsh or too lenient, since they have some notion of the role of editor without the requisite skills to actually ply the craft.  Rookie writers are like survivors of a shipwreck, lurching for any passing debris, without knowing if they’ve glommed onto a sinking mattress or inflatable raft. 

            I have no solution for this, except to advise caution and broaden the field of people examining your work.  Over time, you might learn who to listen to.

            I’ve come to understand that editing, or any form of comment on another person’s work, is an awesome responsibility, for all the reasons touched on above.  It’s not to be taken lightly, but rather humbly, with advice and caution in equal measure.

How Do You Count?

Some of Michael’s many publications.

How do short-story writers tally their literary output? By the number of acceptances? By the number of publications? Or by some other metric?

It’s easy, in the beginning:

Imma Writer is the author of three stories published or forthcoming in Anthology A and Magazines A and B.

Imma Writer is the author of more than ten stories, including stories published or forthcoming in Anthology A, Anthology B, and Magazines A, B, and C.

But, when the numbers creep into the dozens, the hundreds, and especially when they top a thousand; when acceptances and publications include reprints; and when publishers fail to send contributor copies, how does one determine one’s actual accomplishments?

Lately my bios have included some variation of “Michael Bracken is the author of several books and almost 1,300 short stories.” But what does that actually mean?

Damned if I knew. So, I took a deep dive into my short-story publication records, which immediately made me wish I had a database rather than a 111-page Word document listing all my acceptances and publications.

ACCEPTED AND PUBLISHED

As I write this on September 15, 2024, I have received 1,466 short-story acceptances.

These include 1,263 original stories and 203 reprints.

I have 1,172 confirmed short-story publications—997 original stories and 175 reprints.

FORTHCOMING AND MISSING-IN-ACTION

While I have several dozen stories—original and reprint—forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Crimes Against Nature, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Tough, Wish Upon a Crime, and many other anthologies and periodicals, I am uncertain of the status of a few hundred stories.

Early in my career I wrote for several publications that never provided contributor copies and regularly changed story titles, and I wrote under pseudonyms the editors sometimes changed. Finding copies of these publications and confirming actual publication is damned-near impossible. I wrote ’em, I was paid for ’em, but I have no idea if the stories were ever published and, if so, under what titles and what bylines.

(Side note: I have no idea how many stories I’ve actually written. I lost much of my early unsold work in a flood, and I didn’t try to track complete-but-unsold work until a few years ago.)

WHAT NOW?

My records would be better if every publisher automatically sent contributor copies and if, years ago, I had done a better job tracking down copies when they didn’t. While most of the missing-in-action stories would remain buried in my files even if I had copies of them, a few have reprint potential that I might be able to exploit if I could confirm their original publication.

But I can’t.

What I can do, however, is ensure that I keep good records and contributor copies of every sale going forward.

And you should, too.

* * *

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

“Black Mack” was reprinted in Crimeucopia: Let Me Tell You About….

“Beat the Clock” was reprinted in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS

Along with John Connor and fellow SleuthSayer Barb Goffman, I will participate in “Truths, Lies, and Myths Debunked: Editors Tell All,” a panel at this Saturday’s virtual conference WriteNOW! Jay Hartman will moderate.

September 26-29, I’ll be at SleuthFest in St. Petersburg, FL, where I will lead “The Business of Writing Short: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques to Build a Sustainable Career,” a 75-minute presentation covering some of the same information I presented at ShortCon earlier this year. If you missed ShortCon, you won’t want to miss my presentation at SleuthFest.

Rookies

In the past two years, I've become a professional editor in addition to writing. I'm still good at writing as a writer, editing as an editor, and reading as a reader. When I'm doing any one of these things, my brain doesn't want to do the other.

But after fifteen books for Down & Out plus a couple of freelance jobs, some things do make my inner editor scream. One is the inevitable neophyte writer's rant online about "The Rules." We're all familiar with Elmore Leonard's list. 

It's a good list. It's also written based on how Elmore Leonard wrote. Ever read Elmore Leonard? This is how he got good. But his rules and Lawrence Block's rules and Stephen King's rules are all different lists. I'm not talking about those lists. I'm talking about the temper tantrum of a newer writer getting frustrated with the editing process. I recently ran across such a list. My wife found my own "Get off my lawn!" rant toward it quite entertaining. Really, it showed the writer's lack of experience. And it's not unfamiliar to me. I used to think the same way. What were they complaining about?

• No head hopping - Now this one infuriates me, even if it took me the longest time to understand it. What brought it home was Tom Clancy, an unrepentant head hopper. Clancy would give you whiplash starting in Jack Ryan's head, bopping over to some sonar technician's POV, then ending with some admiral's or politician's. I can't read it anymore. Head hopping is disrespectful to the reader, who has to follow the writer's ADHD-inspired point-of-view shifts. Now, I violently disagree with the "One POV Per Chapter" rule. I always thought that was stupid because it makes for short, short chapters. But one POV per scene should be an ironclad rule. Only four writers I know of since World War II have managed to head hop smoothly: Frank Herbert, Stephen King, George Pelecanos, and SA Cosby. Everyone else needs to remember someone's gotta read this at some point, and more people will if they can follow along.
  
  
• No adverbs. Okay, editors need to really chill about this one, but outright rebellion? That needs to be stamped out aggressively. Mind you, I'm spoiled. I've only beta'd (but not fully edited) one neophyte writer, so the adverbs are usually at a minimum. By the time I get them, they're invisible. But my first professional editing job came from a guy who's been writing longer than I've been alive. (And my puberty began to the strains of Blondie, which was not a bad way for a pre-teen boy to get his hormones flowing. I digress.) So by the time I get most manuscripts, I'm not treated to a flood of "ly."
  
  
• No repeated words. Now let's be clear. I don't have long lists of overused words. I do a crutch word check. I'll leave about 33% of passive voice intact, either for context or because it's been about three pages since the last instance. But repeated words. Yes, you'll use a word multiple times in a manuscript. That's a given. But let's take a word like "peculiar." Unless it's a verbal gambit, that word shouldn't appear again for at least another page. Twice in the same paragraph? There's a reason we do multiple drafts. While I'm not a big fan of thesauruses--I've seen them abused too many times--you may want to pick one up if you find yourself leaning on one word to say the same thing.
  
  
• Show, don't tell. I've got a whole rant about why editors and veteran writers really need to give this one a rest. But I saw this on one of those "lists" and realized writers like this are never going to let editors or veteran writers give it a rest. My problem with show-don't-tell is overzealous beta readers who love rules lists too much and people who can't sell their fiction selling writing courses. (You know who you are.) But ignoring this rule leads to lazy writing. "I don't need to describe Sarah's reaction. I'll just say she was angry.)
  
  Oh, no. That's precisely why editors and more experienced writers won't ease up on this. The inexperienced writer tends to use this as an excuse to write less. If Sarah's reaction is a minor detail, then yes, just say she's angry. Better yet, cut the anger altogether. It will likely become obvious further into the scene. If Sarah is the POV character, we need to see her jaw clench or fists tighten, hear her growl, see her vision turn red.
  

There are others. Passive voice, which is abused by experienced writers as well, including this one. The fact that some writers use "that" to join dependent clauses too often. 

But when a writer says they're going to ignore all these rules? That just shows inexperience. I know. I used to say this myself. And a friend who started writing a couple of years ago needed to be guided, particularly in POV issues. He's now an editor for Running Wild Press. And he calls me when he gets overwhelmed by a neophyte writer who thinks the rules are, "Like, oppression, man!"

 The rules exist for a reason. They work when they're applied with nuance, which means you have to know how to use them to know how to break them.  Ignore them at your own risk.

Reading for Gems

Some of the many
reasons Michael doesn’t
have much time for
pleasure reading.

Last year, 120 short stories appeared in projects I edited or co-edited. I’m on track to edit or co-edit projects containing a similar number of stories this year, and I have projects in the works that should have me working with a similar number of stories each year for several subsequent years.

For every short-story manuscript I read that ultimately sees publication in one of my projects, I read at least two that don’t. So, reading for entertainment and pleasure has almost disappeared because I now read a significant amount of unpublished fiction.

And I’m becoming jaded. A few years ago, when I wasn’t doing as much editing, I had time to work with stories that showed potential, and I could work with writers who showed potential but hadn’t made the leap to regular publication. These days, I’m looking for stories that are as close to publication-ready as possible.

That means I’m doing fewer open-call projects (as a percentage of total projects). (The Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir anthology series remains open call and Black Cat Mystery Magazine, when it reopens to submissions at some indefinable date in the future, will also be open call.) Instead, I’m mostly working with writers who have proven they can deliver on-time and on theme, and who have proven themselves easy to work with through the revision and/or editing process.

EDITORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

I’ve been involved in several discussions recently where it has been clear that writers don’t understand all that editors do. They see “editors” as people who fix spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors and maybe point out plot holes and faulty story structure.

That’s part of what they do. In fact, if it’s an editor hired by the writer, that may be all they do.

But an anthology or magazine editor does much more than that. When working on an anthology, editors develop the concept and pitch the idea to a publisher (or work with an organization or publisher who presents the concept to the editor), determine how to obtain content, work with writers to ensure that content fits within the concept, prepare manuscripts for publication, and proofread galley proofs and/or page proofs. (FYI: No one produces galley proofs these days.) A magazine editor—especially the editor of a small-press magazine—does much the same.

In short, an anthology or magazine editor—especially those working with smaller presses—is often a concept generator, acquisitions editor, development editor, fact-checking editor, line editor, copy editor, and proofreader all rolled into one.

While doing all of this, editors maintain records, ensuring they know what stage each manuscript is at; maintain contact with writers to ensure all deadlines are met; and maintain contact with the publisher’s staff to ensure all deliverables are on time and in the correct format.

Editors’ responsibilities continue after publication. They may be involved with marketing and promotion, and a good editor ensures the work they publish is considered for all appropriate awards and best-of-year reprint opportunities.

DISCOVERING GEMS

What compensates for a decreasing amount of time for entertainment and pleasure reading is finding story gems in the submission queue, regardless of whether the stories were solicited via an invitation call or unsolicited via an open call, and then shepherding those stories into the world where readers can find them.

Knowing I played a small part in entertaining readers when these stories appear more than compensates for all the reading pleasure time I’ve given up.

“Got Milk?”—a blog post about how Temple’s great uncle was indicted for his involvement in the Louisiana Milk Strike of 1947 and how my father-in-law’s research led me to write “Spilt Milk” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November/December 2023)—was published at Trace Evidence.

When Ignorance is Bliss

We've all heard the advice that authors should write what they know. (And before you roll your eyes, it doesn't mean write only about things you already know about. It means do your research before you write about something so you get the details right and your story is believable.) Along the same lines, editing what you know makes sense too. If I were to edit a police procedural novel, it sure would help if I knew about police procedure. Ditto for a legal thriller. Knowing what a summary judgment motion is and how it works would be important if I were to edit a novel with one of them in it.

But sometimes when I'm editing, I find that ignorance can truly be bliss. It can result in my asking questions an expert in a particular subject might not. Take, for instance, the topic of farming. I'm not a farmer. I've never lived on a farm. I don't even like to go outside. Twenty years ago, a woman in my writing group was writing a novel set on a farm. Each week we'd go over another chapter and I would ask questions that made her realize she'd incorrectly assumed certain things were common knowledge. When that book came out, she gave me a copy and inscribed, "Barb, your ignorance of farming was invaluable." It still makes me laugh.

It's not the only time my ignorance came in handy. Several years ago, a client used an acronym that I'd never heard of before, and I noted it when editing her manuscript. She was surprised. It was a common word in the military, she said. After polling a bunch of people she knew, she realized she either needed to explain the acronym or change it because enough non-military people didn't know the term, and its meaning wasn't obvious from her story's context. If I'd had a military background, it might not have occurred to me that many readers might not know that acronym. 

Ignorance can be bliss. So can pizza.

So, where does the line lie between when an author wants an editor who's a subject-matter expert or one who isn't? I'm no expert on answering this question (ha ha), but I think it depends on how much of an expert the author is on the subject at hand--or how much research the author is willing to do. 

If you're a homicide detective writing about a homicide detective, working with an editor who's never been a police officer might be useful. The editor could bring a helpful outsider's perspective, enabling you to see when you're making assumptions about what most readers will know. But if you've never been a police officer and you don't love doing research, then you'd be well served by working with an editor who knows enough about how police investigations work to tell you if you got something wrong or if you might've gotten something wrong so you should check. 

That said, sometimes you won't be able to find the exact expert you need. If I wanted to write a story about a gravedigger, I might be able to find a gravedigger who could answer my questions. It might be more difficult to find a gravedigger or former gravedigger who also edits mysteries.

So, if you can't find an expert to edit your manuscript, look for one who isn't afraid to question things, asking if you checked if certain things are correct. (It also wouldn't be a bad idea to find a subject-matter expert who will read your manuscript, not to edit it, but to tell you if you got the details right.)

Even as I type this, I can imagine someone reading this column and thinking, even a homicide detective could benefit from the expertise of another insider, someone who might have suggestions a lay editor wouldn't think of. And that is true too. It's why it's a good idea to know your strengths and weaknesses and know exactly what you want--and need--from an editor before hiring one. Sometimes someone with certain expertise is exactly what's right for you. But other times, the person who's right for you is an editor who's ignorant about your field--and who isn't afraid to show it.

Building the Perfect Editor

A magazine issue, an anthology,
and a couple of collections
make for a pile of editing.

Over the years I’ve had several thousand pieces of writing accepted for publication, ranging from fillers, jokes, and anecdotes to essays and various forms of non-fiction, to short stories in a variety of genres, to a handful of novels. My work has appeared in anthologies, journals, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, webzines, and other types of publications. I have sold original work and reprints. I have written on assignment, on invitation, and on spec. I have been paid bupkis for some projects and have received payments in the low four figures for others. I have been paid promptly but often not, and too often promised payments never materialized. Through all of this, I have worked with many great editors and with a few who should die from a thousand paper cuts and be left on the side of the road for feral hogs to devour.

Because I have recently been doing more editing than ever before and because I don’t wish for my paper-cut-riddled body to be left on the side of the road, I’ve been pondering the attributes of the perfect editor.

For me, that editor responds promptly, pays promptly (and handsomely), publishes everything I submit, edits with a deft touch that puts a brilliant shine on my near-perfect prose, puts my name on the cover, sends numerous contributor copies, ensures that my work is seen by the most influential reviewers (all of whom recognize my brilliance), and ensures that my work is considered for every appropriate award and best-of-year anthology. No matter how much of an ass I am to work with, a great editor never badmouths me, my work, or my highly inflated ego, and always picks up the tab when we go for dinner and drinks.

CREATION

The reality is that no editor can meet my expectations. All are constrained by the budgets and policies of their publishers as well as by their own strengths and weaknesses.

Still, I can dream, and my dream is to play Dr. Frankenstein and build the perfect editor from the best parts of the editors with whom I’ve worked, all the while hoping my assistant doesn’t bring home the brain from “Abby Normal.”

I would start by creating the environment in which the editor works: A well-funded publishing company that believes in treating content providers (writers, artists, photographers, and others) as important collaborators to be respected and not as necessary evils to be tolerated.

The editor would have an unlimited amount of time to accomplish tasks and would have stellar support staff, from editorial assistants to designers to contract managers to bookkeeping and accounting staff.

The editor would have all the necessary tools, from the latest hardware and software to appropriate reference materials to comfortable seating and favorite writing implements.

The editor would have the ability to focus on a single task when appropriate and the ability to juggle multiple tasks when necessary.

The editor would have a superior sense of story and the ability to pinpoint exactly where and why a story jumps the rails.

The editor would have superior copyediting skills or a trusted assistant editor with these skills.

The editor would have infinite patience to work with new writers and guide them through the publishing process as well as to answer the same questions ad nauseam.

The editor would have exemplary people skills and, perhaps more important, a sense of empathy that allows the editor to understand what writers experience when they sit at the keyboard to create or when they anxiously check email every thirty-seven seconds awaiting responses to queries, submissions, and revisions.

RELEASE

Alas, once I release the perfect editor into the world of publishing, the newly created creature, lovingly assembled from the best of every editor who has ever existed, is likely to become a jaded, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, hard-drinking SOB whose days consist of rejecting the brilliant work of new writers, publishing the work of washed-up hacks, introducing errors during editing, complaining about the production department, lobbying for a raise (if on-staff) or a bigger advance (if freelance), and bemoaning its failed writing career.

Damn, I really need to quit staring in the mirror when I write these things.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this post is intended to resemble any actual editors, living or dead, except those devoured by feral hogs.

James A. Hearn and Michael Bracken
at the 2019 Shamus Awards Banquet
in Dallas.

“Blindsided,” co-authored with James A. Hearn and published in the September/October 2021 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, has been nominated for an Edgar Award.

Congratulations to fellow SleuthSayer R.T. Lawton, whose story “The Road to Hana” (AHMM, May/June 2021), was also nominated for an Edgar.

Next to Last Step

I always read my work aloud as the last step in my editing/revision, but there's one last step I take before that. It's the "Readability Statistics" in the review menu of Microsoft word. When I "Review" with "spelling and grammar check," this chart appears after I've made or ignored all the corrections. This is after my final pass-through on the most recent Woody Guthrie novel, Words of Love.

We see a word count, character (letter) count, sentence count, paragraphs, sentences per paragraph, words per sentence, and characters (letters) per word. I don't pay much attention to these, but Microsoft uses them to determine the values below them: Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level. The grade level is in grade and months as a decimal : 7.3 means seventh-grade, third month.

The Reading ease is the percentage of readers at that grade level who can understand that passage. Basically, long sentences and long words are harder to understand, especially if they appear in a long paragraph. My average paragraph is probably five or six sentences. But sometimes, you want something longer.

This is the same tool applied to a long paragraph at the beginning of the late Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which tells how she rebuilt her life after both her husband and grown daughter died unexpectedly within months of each other. John Gregory Dunne suffered a heart attack, and she called 911.

This paragraph is 310 words, or 23 sentences long, more what I think of as Henry James or James Joyce terrain. You could "correctly" divide it into several shorter ones, but Didion uses one long paragraph to show how the events and her thoughts jumble in a huge confusing rush. Her last understated sentence wraps everything up like a hammer blow to the chest.

That long paragraph is short words, averaging four characters each, and 13 words per sentence. It works out to fifth-grade-seventh-month reading level, and 77.9 % of readers at that level being able to understand it.

Reading level is somewhat arbitrary. It uses the number of syllables in a 100-word sample to measure level with no regard to content. Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time occasionally sounds like My Weekly Reader because the text tries to reduce complex math and quantum physics to layman's terms.

All of this is interesting, but SO WHAT? Well, look at the last statistic on the chart. I care about it because it shows how your writing will "sound." It's the percentage of PASSIVE verbs in your selection. Didion's is 8.6, which is very high, but it's appropriate because she is powerless in the scene, at the mercy of forces beyond her control. Strunk and White say to use the active rather than the passive voice, but Strunk made that same distinction.

My novels are usually at about a 4th grade reading level (It doesn't sound dumb, trust me) and I strive for no more than 2% passive verbs. Summaries and shorter selections tend to be higher. Most of my blogs are more, but I can live with it. For fun, type about 200 words from Hemingway, Crane, King, Fitzgerald, Lippman, Rozan, or Child into your computer and see what their stats are.

The newer Microsoft programs include the readability stats in the review. If you have an older Microsoft program, you can add that command in your editing. I'm not sure you can do it with a MAC, because I've never used one. Here's how:

Click on the little carat to the right of your command icons, and you'll see the drop-down menu. Click on the top line "customize quick access toolbar." (Picture on the left).

Then highlight "More commands," at the bottom of the drop-down list. That's the picture below this paragraph.

When you choose "More commands," you'll get another screen with "quick access toolbar" highlighted, and a long list of commands to the right of that.

At the top of that list, the picture below this paragraph, you'll see "popular commands." Click on the arrow to the right of it, and you'll get three choices. Click on "All Commands."

This is what you'll see, a very long list. Scroll down to Readability Statistics (It may have a new name now, Microsoft keeps changing it, so I have to look for it every time I get a new computer. It might be Reading View Research now, or something else).

When you find it, highlight it, then click "Add," the button in the middle between the two columns. The command will appear in the right hand column, which is the commands you use, and you're ready to go.

Obviously, since this is a computer program and we all use idioms in our writing, it's not foolproof. But I like to have a sense of how active or passive a work is before I do the final read-through-aloud. If I see a lot of passive verbs, I make a point of changing some to active. I don't take the reading level too seriously because it's so arbitrary. Once upon a time, the New York Times read at about a tenth-grade level, but that was decades ago. I have no idea what it– or any other publication– reads at now.

The stats give me a sense of how my writing SOUNDS, and that's crucial to me. I want it to sound like a human voice speaking.

Remember Elmore Leonard's rule: If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.

My Adventures with the Fiction Elves

Something weird happened to me.

Back in 2018 I thought up an idea for a short story.  That wasn't weird.  It happens, though not as often as I would like.

So I wrote the story. But I was editing it a year later (I take a long time to edit a story, usually going through at least ten drafts) and I saw a fatal flaw.  I was basing it on technology that was out of date.  Setting the story in the past would not work as a solution.  I could not think of a way around the problem so, with a sigh, I left the story on the virtual pile of never-to-be-published tales.  Too bad, because I really liked parts of it.

Dimitsana

Jump ahead to 2021, and I am visiting Greece.  Somewhere around Dimitsana I found myself thinking about my poor dead story.  And suddenly I saw a solution to the problem.  It meant ripping out half the story and writing some more, but I could keep the best parts.

So back in the good ol' USA I pulled up the last version of the story and started reading it.  And I got a shock, because that's when I found something weird.

On page two there were a couple of paragraphs I didn't remember.  I had no idea why they were there or what they had to do with the rest of the story.  I kept reading and on the next-to-last page I found another addition, completely unfamiliar to me.  It tied into the first and together they solved my technology problem!  In fact, it was a better solution than the one I had thought of in Greece.

I felt like the shoemaker in the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, who entered his shop one morning and found that overnight elves had finished the shoes he had left half-made.  

Not a big believer in the fae I assume that I must have solved that problem in a bolt of inspiration and then forgotten about it.  The additions appeared only in the last (twelfth) draft of the story.  (Lucky for me that I didn't pull up version 11 by mistake.)

So now I have to start editing and polishing my newly recovered tale.  Only the future will reveal whether the elves provided me with a pair of Manolo Blahnik Gold Grosgrain Crystal Buckle Mules or a couple of cheap knock-off tennis shoes.  Either way, I would be happy if they show up again.

Extreme Editing

On October 15, I finally finished a short story that had been plaguing me for months. I started the story on July 10 after some research. I don’t think I’ve ever taken that long to write a short story without interruption/jumping to another. The story– which I’m being vague about until there is an official announcement– takes real historical people but changes an event in history. 

I loved the concept when asked and immediately knew what I wanted to write, but since I was twisting history that happened in the last twenty years with a decent amount of controversy, I did a lot of research first. I got deep into the weeds bogging down in several areas including government officials and documented “bad guys.” The word count was supposed to be between 5-7k words. It had ballooned to over 13k words in early October. By October 12 I whittled away a lot of obvious excess and got the story down to 10k that had everything I wanted to tell. 

I asked the editor if I could sneak the story in at that word count and to his credit he said no. So I had a lot of cutting to do. Which leads me to this tangent:

Within the short story writing community, it's a common theory that stories should only have four or five characters, that there should be a few scenes so that you don’t confuse the reader and the story doesn’t get watered down. Fundamentally, the reasoning is solid, but I also like to think of the short story as an experimental medium should have limited rules. I would argue that the first and main rule of writing short fiction is to engage and entertain/move the reader. How to do that is up to the writer, not rules. 

As a lover of flash fiction, it seems many stories in the noir world often have 2 or 3 characters, a bar or basement (or some vice-infested locale), a confrontation, and a resolution ending with an act of violence. The format is not bad for a story written in a 1000 words or less, and I’ve written a few this way myself. My hope as a short story writer is not to write just a scene, but a complete story with a middle, beginning and end. Often I try to have multiple scenes with separation of days, hours or flashbacks within a scene to build the suspense/anxiety and create a well-rounded story within a limited amount of words. Sometimes I have a few character and other times I have than what is recommended. I bristle at the idea that short story writers can’t have multiple characters/scenes/periods of time, but high quality investigative reporters with limited word count write engaging stories based on facts. It can be done if it is done right.  

Okay, tangent over. This brings me back to my October 12 problem. I have to cut out 30% of my story in three days (while working a full time job.)  

Here are some things that I did to pare the story down (in no particular order): 

Add contractions

Most people use contractions when speaking. “I don’t want it” instead of “I do not want it.” Every know and then people will make declarative statements like “This outrage will not be tolerated!” So keep it in those instances, and the declarative moments will stand out more. Also, I’d say most people think in contractions as well so combine internal thoughts and possibly the narrative voice if it makes sense. The combinations can cut down dozens to a few hundred words. 

Paragraph reductions 

Take 2 -4 words out of every paragraph. If you have Microsoft Word (or perhaps another word processor) you can see how many paragraphs and lines you have. Go to each paragraph and look at ways you can compress a sentence. Instead of “He walked up the creaky steps and rang the doorbell.” Perhaps "He rang the doorbell" will suffice. Years ago I wrote an article about how 10 authors had their characters enter through doors.   https://writingwranglersandwarriors.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/ten-authors-walk-through-a-door/   One example I use is the following scene from James Elroy’s LA Confidential. 

“Bud went in the back way — through the alley, a fence vault. On the rear porch: a screen door, inside hook and eye. He lipped the catch with his penknife, walked in on tiptoes.”

The screenplay uses more words than Elroy's prose. That is quite an achievement. 

Combine scenes and summarize 

I had written a few bureaucratic meetings to show the inefficiency of siloed government agencies in a time of crisis. While showing is better than telling, I used one meeting to show and explained that several other meetings had been like this and cut two scenes out.  

Kill darlings 

The darlings are the precious scenes that writer loves and does not want to get rid in spite of the scene having no value to the plot. Although killed several scenes that I labored over and enjoyed I managed to keep on less-than-plot-oriented discussion about ice cream and religion. The rest of the darlings, however, were massacred. 

Have another set of eyes 

I've been fortunate to have a writer’s group over these past several years. Sarah M. Chen and Stephen Buehler were on standby to look at the story and offer suggestion for vicious cuts. Since they were not as emotionally attached to the story as I was, their advice bolstered my resolve to kill darlings that I might have internally fought to keep.

Start late and end early

Anton Chekhov once told a fellow writer, “It seems to me that when you write a short story, you have to cut off both the beginning and the end. We writers do most of our lying in those spaces. You must write shorter, to make it as short as possible.” I think Chekhov was advocating for a quick entry and exit to the story so that an excessive, bloated opening and ending wouldn't weight down a story. I had the bloat on both ends of my story.

While I’m not a fan of literary fiction that builds to a moment, but does not offer an ending– which I consider an act of cowardice– there is something to be said about starting in the middle of action/scene without a slow build up and to end at the moment of resolution and not to dwell much on it. My beginning scene got whittled down to 2 sentences and the beloved end scene was chopped off completely. (Another nod to killing darling and motivation from Stephen to take out the 200+ word ending that was fun, but unnecessary.

In the end I whittled the story down to exactly 7,000 words at around 9:10pm on the 15th (aka 12:10a.m. East Coast Time.)   Whew! And in the end I think the story is much better for it.

Have you had to do drastic cuts on your project?

---

Travis Richardson is originally from Oklahoma and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. He has been a finalist and nominee for the Macavity, Anthony, and Derringer short story awards. He has two novellas and his short story collection, BLOODSHOT AND BRUISED, came out in late 2018. He reviewed Anton Chekhov short stories in the public domain at www.chekhovshorts.com. Find more at TSRichardson.com

Things You Learn from Editing

As the old saying goes, it's never too late to teach an old dog new tricks. (As a dog owner, I can attest that this is true!) The saying also applies to writers. No matter how much writing experience you have, you still can learn more.
I was reminded of this point recently, as I've been editing a lot of short stories for two upcoming anthologies, one coming out in December, and another coming out next spring. Some of the stories have been written by authors I consider to be short-story experts. Other stories have been written by authors who have had several stories published but who haven't broken out yet, and others still have been penned by authors who are just starting out. And I have learned something from all of them--sometimes simply from reading the stories (even the newest writer can come up with a twist or a turn of phrase that turns my head) and other times from editing them.

It's the editing finds that can lead to especially interesting conversations.

Did you know that SOB is in the dictionary? All caps. No periods. The acronym for son of a bitch is a word all its own, at least according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Even more surprising (to me at least), mansplain has made the dictionary too. I won't bother to tell you what that words means. I'm sure you know.

Turning to homophones, two-word terms often become single words when slang enters the picture. For instance, a woman might go to the drug store to buy a douche bag, but if her boyfriend is being a jerk, she'd call him a douchebag (one word, no space). And descriptions of animal excrement are usually spelled as two words: horse shit, bull shit, chicken shit. But when you mean "no way" or "a load of not-actual crap" you spell it horseshit and bullshit (again, one word, no space). And when you mean that someone is a coward, you call him a chickenshit--also one word. (Thanks to Michael Bracken for helping me see the horse shit/horseshit distinction recently.) It's interesting that horses, bulls, and chickens have had their excrement turned into slang words, yet dog shit is just that. Two words meaning excrement. As I told a friend, I might start saying "dogshit," when I want to say "no way!" just to see if it catches on.

Keeping with the one-word or two-words questions, do you go into a room or in to a room? This may be an obvious thing for you, but it's one of those little things I find myself double-checking over and over. Same for on to/onto, some time/sometime, and so many more. Each of these words has their proper place, so I like to make sure I use them properly.

Yep, that's a bear on a trampoline.

To answer these questions: you go into a room. Into is the correct word if you are showing motion. The onto/on to question also turns on whether you are showing movement. I jump onto the trampoline. I catch on to my boyfriend's lies. As to sometime or some time, this question turns on whether you are talking about a period of time (writing this blog is taking some time) or if you mean an indefinite date (I'll get back to you sometime next month). Thank goodness for Google, without which I would have to memorize these distinctions. Instead I just get to look them up again and again and again.

Well, I hate to cut this column short, but I'm short on time. (Ha ha!) (And that's two words for ha ha, per our friend Mr. Webster.)

Do you have any interesting word usage issues/spelling knowledge you'd like to share? Please do. I'm always eager to learn something new.

******

Oh, and before I go, two bits of BSP: My story "Bug Appétit" has been nominated for the Anthony Award for best short story! This story was published in the November/December 2018 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and was a finalist earlier this year for the Agatha Award. I'm honored to be an Anthony finalist along with fellow SleuthSayer Art Taylor as well as authors S.A. Cosby, Greg Herren, and Holly West. The winner will be voted on and announced at Bouchercon in November. In the meanwhile, you can read my story here, if you are interested.

And if you're anywhere near Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday, June 8th, I hope you'll come to the launch party for Deadly Southern Charm. This anthology from the Central Virginia chapter of Sisters in Crime includes my newest short story, "The Power Behind the Throne."

The launch party will run from 3 - 5 p.m. at the Libbie Mill - Henrico County Public Library, 2011 Libbie Lake E. St., Richmond, VA. In addition to the usual book launch activities such as book selling and book signing and snack eating, there will be a panel discussion about the pros and cons of writing different lengths of fiction. I'll be on the panel with fellow Deadly Southern Charm author Lynn Cahoon and anthology editor Mary Burton. We hope to see you there!

It Isn’t You

by Michael Bracken

There’s a fiction writers tell one another, though the advice is aimed squarely at newcomers: Editors aren’t rejecting you, they’re rejecting your manuscript.

The editor's toolkit.

While mostly true, it isn’t the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Sometimes editors are rejecting you, but they aren’t likely to admit it.

I’ve edited a handful of crime fiction anthologies, a consumer magazine, a tabloid newspaper, and several newsletters, and I’ve held various non-editorial positions in book publishing companies.

So, I have my personal list of writers I’m likely to reject even if they send me brilliant manuscripts that exactly match my calls for submissions or publications’ guidelines, and I’ve overheard a bit of behind-the-scenes gossip as well.

WELL, MAYBE IT IS YOU

Several years ago, I caught a writer plagiarizing. When confronted, the writer provided several excuses but no apology. Had I heard, “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’ll be more careful in the future,” I might have given that writer a second chance. I heard no apology and sensed no remorse, so that writer’s work will never again appear in anything I edit.

Many writers serve double-duty as editors. A few years ago an editor included one of my stories in an anthology and, despite a contract and the knowledge that the publisher paid the editor (side note to new writers: sometimes the publisher pays writers directly for anthology contributions; sometimes publishers pay the editors and the editors pay the writers), neither I nor other contributors of my acquaintance were ever paid. If I ever receive a submission from that editor/writer, I’ll boomerang it back.

Ready? Go.

Writing may be a solitary act, but publishing is a group effort. There are writers I’ll likely not work with again because they lack professionalism. The process—revisions, copyediting, etc.— was a colossal fustercluck, and timely responses at each step of the process were nonexistent, causing me to work harder than should be necessary. I’m an editor, not a babysitter, and I’ve no desire to again babysit these writers.

There are other reasons writers get on editors’ shit lists, but among the most common seems to be inappropriate behavior. Writers who trash editors in public forums, especially those who identify editors by name or by easily identifiable traits, burn bridges at an alarming rate. Even if those writers never say an unkind word about me, I wonder what will happen when their attention turns my direction, and I’d rather not find myself in their crosshairs.

(Note: If you think you’re one of the writers alluded to above, you’re likely not. The fact that you think you might be, though, is a sure sign you should reevaluate your professional relationships.)

YOU, I WANT YOU

Another fiction writers tell one another, and again this is aimed at new writers more than the rest of us, is that good work will always rise to the top of the slush pile.

What's that word?

While mostly true, it isn’t the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Sometimes the best manuscripts don’t have a chance because editors develop stables, whether consciously or unconsciously.

The more time I spend on the editorial side of the desk, the more I appreciate writers who deliver manuscripts on time and on subject, and the more I appreciate writers who respond promptly and professionally.

If I’m assigning work or if I’m editing an invitation-only project, there are a handful of writers who will always be at the top of my list. These writers have proven themselves time and again. Not only will they deliver what I need when I need it, they are also sufficiently self-aware of their skill and their commitments to decline opportunities outside their comfort zone or which conflict with other projects.

When I’m editing an open-call anthology, I want to discover new writers, so I try not to rely on my unofficial stable. Everything else being equal, though, there’s less risk selecting work by writers with whom I have developed strong working relationships than selecting work by writers with whom I’ve never worked. So, new writers must be just a little bit better, a little bit more imaginative, and a little bit more professional than the writers with whom I’m already familiar. New writers must give me a reason to want to work with them.

OK, LET’S BE HONEST. IT ISN’T YOU, IT’S ME

I know what I want, and the editor side of me puts the writer side of me at the top of the list of writers in my unofficial stable. But the editor side of me is a heartless bastard. I’ve twice rejected my own work for open-call anthologies because it wasn’t as good as what I found in the slush piles.

The bottle was full when I started.

The writer side of me has some choice words to say about the editor side of me, and this is the perfect forum to tell everyone what a tasteless, good-for-nothing, S.O.—

Wait. What? Did I just trash an editor in a public forum?

I guess I’ll never work with me again.

And that’s a fiction none of us can believe.

During the first half of my writing career, I wrote a great deal of erotic fiction—erotic crime fiction, erotic science fiction, erotic horror, and regular erotica—and recently some of those stories have resurfaced as audiobooks. Andrews UK/House of Erotica has released 14 of them since late 2018 and several more are in the pipeline for 2019. I won’t list titles, but if you’re interested, they aren’t difficult to find.