Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing!
You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway?
Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to develop and playtest your writing, build community, and enter one of the best and friendliest competitions on the web--has devoted a lot of time and space to teaching writing. This year, we want to focus on learning what it is to be a writer. So if one of your new year's resolutions for 2019 was to take your writing to the next level, you're in the right place. Our Year of Fearless Writing is focused on the craft of being a writer. We'll take you through subjects like how to submit, developing a professional presence, finding and working with professionals, and what it takes to get your story, essay, or novel in the right place at the right time, so that by this time next year you'll be able to say "I'm a writer" with confidence.
January's topic: tracking your submissions. By this point you've probably got a backlog of stories or essays and some idea of where you'd love to get them published, but how does that work? There's a little more to it than just hitting the "submit" button, and we're about to walk you through what that is- and why you should do it.
February’s topic: how to find a home for your writing. Sure, everyone says “submit” or “keep an eye out for calls for submissions” but what does that process actually look like, from your side of the keyboard? Let’s find out.
March's topic: finding and working with an editor. You may have the greatest idea in the world, but you're not the best person to make sure it all got onto the page in a form that can be understood. And you can't see your own blind spots. That's where finding the right editor comes in.
April's topic: all about critique groups. How can you tell if your idea is good? Are you stuck on a plot point? A critique group can help you sort out in-progress writing that isn't ready for an edit, or figure out what's missing in a piece that's racking up rejections.
May's topic: your bio and website. If a writer writes, and nobody reads it, did the words happen? Your professional bio and website are two related—and important—tools to market yourself as an author.
June's topic: networking on- and offline. Like it or not, getting published is—at least in part—about who you know. But who do you need to know, and how do you meet them?
July's topic: summarizing your work. We’re helping you answer the dreaded question "so… what do you write?” Learn how to talk about your work quickly and concisely while keeping your listener (or potential agent) excited to hear more.
August's topic: pitches and queries. Now that you know how to talk about yourself and your writing, and who you should be talking to, how do you put those pieces together and finally see your work in print? Learn more about taking your writing from concept to page.
September's topic: back to school. Is an MFA right for you? Or do the cons outweigh the pros? We can't make the decision for you, but we're discussing what you should consider and evaluate not just for an MFA, but for that workshop or conference you have your eye on, and what alternatives are out there for you.
October's topic: don't quit your day job. Or should you? Here's another tough decision we can't make for you, but we can - and do - talk about what a job in writing looks like, for levels from hobbyist through fulltime novelist, and the adjacent career options in between.
November's topic: taping together your time confetti. We all have a few seconds in the day here and there. But how productive can you be in five minute chunks? The answer is, very productive for some things, but not at all for others.
December's topic: so you're a writer; now what? Being a writer isn't a static thing. You'll need to keep working on each and every skill you've developed, and then some, for your whole career. While we structured this year in terms of things you must have in place before you can move on to the next thing, in December we'll take a look back through a different lens.
Every great writer needs an even greater editor
And I’m not just saying that because it’s my day job. No matter how great a writer you are, there is a zero percent chance that you successfully translated your entire idea from brain to page. Somewhere in your writing there’s a misplaced comma (probably more than one, honestly), a missing phrase or description, or a really problematic character.
Here’s a piece of advice that applies whether you love or hate your writing right now: you are not the person best placed to evaluate it. That means that your story is probably neither as great nor as terrible as you think. But here’s the good news: All stories can become great stories with a little massaging from your friendly neighborhood crit group and editor.
What does an editor do?
Spoilers: there’s more than one type of editor. What your editor does depends on what your writing needs, but at its most basic, the editor’s job is to make your story sound like the best version of itself – while still sounding like you wrote it. Learning to identify your issues and needs will help set expectations and parameters. Here’s a quick rundown (we’ve given you some of it before) of different types of edits:
Developmental or Structural edit – This kind of edit involves organization, major plot or thesis points, and (as the name suggests) the overall structure of the story or essay. This edit should come early in the revision process. There’s no real point in wasting time on niceties of grammar or language because the developmental editor will generally be returning the work to the author for a complete restructuring and a lot of rewriting. At this point, the reader should spend more time on “the cousin from chapter two turned into an uncle, but neither character was actually in the country when the murder took place so maybe this part of the plot needs to be rebuilt” than the difference between “lay” and “laid.” The one exception is that if the writer has a significant repeating grammatical error like missing articles or verb tense agreement it’s useful to point that out to them so they can be aware of it in the rewrite.
Sensitivity read – This “edit” isn’t an edit in the traditional sense of the term, but a readthrough by a competent reader who can spot issues with phrasing, characterization, presentation, and inadvertent use of problematic tropes. This, too, should happen early in the writing process, ideally before you get so attached to an idea or phrase that you’re not ready or able to hear that it’s harmful. When selecting a sensitivity reader, remember that people different from you in one way aren’t different from you in all ways. A person with competence in disability advocacy doesn’t necessarily have competence in racial issues. And a person with competence in issues involving one aspect of race doesn’t have broadband competence in all racial issues (just like you wouldn’t ask someone from New Jersey about the authenticity of a story set in Idaho, or someone from Rajasthan about a story set in Kerala). Sensitivity readers can also help you figure out if this is your story to tell.
Line or Stylistic edit – What most people think of when they think of editing. By the time a piece is ready for line edits most structural issues should have been addressed. At this point grammar is cleaned up, style is smoothed out, and sentence and paragraph structure is revised for clarity. Writing is tightened up and unnecessary digressions are deleted. Your line editor is the person who will murder your darlings for you.
Copy edit – Sentence by sentence and word by word analysis of a piece, working for consistency and clarity. This edit usually involves a style guide (does one character never speak in contractions? which names are italicised? which titles are used for alien nobility?). You may need to come up with that style guide for your editor, or they may help you generate one by asking questions as inconsistencies arise in your work.
Proofread – This is the last edit before publication, whether on a blog or in a book. At this stage, the last typos and spelling errors, as well as punctuation and capitalization, are cleaned up. The extra the between the the and the is deleted.
Beta read – A combination of line edit and proofread, usually by a nonprofessional. We’re going to talk a lot more about beta reads later in this series, but this month we’re focused on professional relationships.
What should you expect to pay?
Here’s another secret, or I guess not much of one: good editors don’t come cheap. But it’s worth it, to have a polished, print-ready final story. That applies whether you’re self-publishing or submitting to an anthology or journal.
Editing costs different amounts depending on the complexity of the task. The Editorial Freelancers Association publishes a list of ballpark rates for different editorial tasks. If you live in (or your editor lives in) a higher cost-of-living area, expect to pay more. For example, a New York editor told me once that their employer didn’t take freelancers seriously if they weren’t charging nearly double EFA rates. And if your editor proposes a rate much lower than EFA, unless you’re getting a friends and family discount, that may be a red flag indicating that you have an inexperienced editor.
Editing is only one of many costs that goes into making a book, but it’s one of the biggest, and it’s not one you want to skip. And I don’t know how many editors have confessed to me that they’ve bounced off of submitted stories simply because they found the text such a struggle to read. In an ideal world would that happen? Maybe not – especially when the publication may use its own editorial staff to work with writers on polishing stories. But it does happen, and you can avoid it easily, so shouldn’t you?
So how do you find an editor?
Well, it’s kind of like finding a good therapist. You’re either going to guess and search, or you’re going to get a referral from a friend or colleague. But not all editors (or therapists) are created equal, and not all good editors are good for all writers. So let’s talk about what makes a good relationship with an editor:
- You can talk honestly to each other
- You respect your editor’s opinion
- You are willing to hear that you have made an error in judgment
- You are open to the idea that they might know more than you on a topic
- Your editor makes the story sound like you wrote it, even after edits
- They respect and use your voice
- They respect your character decisions
- They fix grammar errors but not deliberate changes to standard grammar that enhance your voice
- You can communicate openly and respect each other’s schedules
That’s not an exhaustive list, but you get the point. Your relationship with your editor should be based on mutual trust and respect. If you’re struggling with your editor’s feedback, take a moment to sit with it and figure out if the problem is the editor, you, or just your relationship with the editor. We’ve given you a few tips on how to figure out if criticism is fair. But if your criticism is fair and you still can’t hear it without getting upset, the problem may be the way that it’s presented. If that’s the case, thank your editor for their hard work, pay them, and let them know you probably just have a style mismatch. They’ll probably be happy to refer you to someone they think is competent who’ll be a better match for you!
March’s YFW assignment is:
Identify three editors you’d like to work with.
or
Hire an editor to review your work.
Yes, that’s two options! This month we covered a fairly broad topic, and I have no idea what stage of writing you’re in. Maybe you’re still at the “this will be a book someday” stage – in that case, looking for editors you’re interested in will still be useful. Follow them on Twitter, read their websites, get ideas. Or if you’ve got a story you’ve been shopping and you don’t know why it’s not accepted yet, hire an editor to give it a professional going-over. (Shameless plug: we do this.)
You’ll notice we didn’t say “edit someone else’s work.” We’re going to get to amateur edits and beta reads when we talk about forming critique groups (online and off) so don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of chances to appreciate how hard it is to give constructive criticism and fix mistakes while making sure the author still sounds just like themself.
About the authors:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She blogs at textwall and CrossKnit.
After a long stint as a Russian scholar and composer, Christine rediscovered her passion for writing in 2006. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor. A lover of beautiful stories in small packages, her primary focus has been microfiction; she also writes flash fiction, short stories, and the occasional personal essay, much of which has been posted to her blog, Trudging Through Fog. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker. Her short fiction has been published by MidnightSun Publishing, and she is currently editing her first full-length novel.
