THE EDITOR DEVIL: tips, tricks and editorial sass from a 25-year editing veteran

3 Rules of Scene Building

2012-05-16T11:09:00.001-07:00

[Excerpted from my Sensational Scenes class at www.SavvyAuthors.com ] Nobody likes to be bound by rules. As The Editor Devil, I especially hate rules. But the rules of scene building help you better meet the goals of storytelling. Here are a few that will keep you moving the story forward not backward, show not tell, and entertain not bore your reader. Rule #1: Each scene in your manuscript

ENCORE POST: Create Characterization through Dialogue

2012-05-08T14:29:00.002-07:00

[Here is an encore post, based on an excerpt from my Editor Devil's Guide to Dialogue book...] Characterization is the painting of a character in a story through narrative, dialogue and action. Done well, the character will come to life on the page as if they are a real person.Done poorly, and the author has succeeded in creating cardboard. And the reader will never forget it.As Noah Lukeman

Delineate Characters through Dialogue

2012-04-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from "The Editor Devil's Guide to Dialogue"... How a character speaks tells us who they are. Hence, no two characters should sound alike in your story. Dialogue is the writer’s chance to give the character a unique voice, so it’s imperative that the characters speak uniquely. This means the tone of the words (think the temperament of the character—angry people would sound crisp while

Let Characters Charm Your Readers

2012-04-10T15:47:00.003-07:00

One trick to making your characters pop off the page is to charm the reader. This doesn't mean your male hero speaks like a stereotypical Romeo. Or your heroine acts like a helpless dame looking for her prince in shining armor. Charming the reader is more down to earth, more home-grown than this. Most of us love complicated heroes/heroines who've had a dark past, or at least been through a

NEW Character Developement Book Now On Amazon

2012-04-05T13:42:00.001-07:00

Please bear with me as I squirm and giggle. I'm so excited to announce that my new book "The EditorDevil's Guide to CHARACTERS" (http://amzn.com/B007PTQKXA) is finally up and available on Amazon for Kindle. This book is geared toward fiction writers who want to create fascinating characters—characters readers want to take home for dinner. Whether you want to create the next James Bond or

Use Foreshadowing in Dialogue to Establish Believability

2012-04-03T15:25:00.005-07:00

Here's an excerpt from my recent book, "The Editor Devil's Guide to DIALOGUE": Foreshadowing is a great tool in dialogue to establish believability. The reader sometimes needs help to swallow whatever truth is coming. By dosing information in small amounts along the way, such as through foreshadowing dialogue, the reader can “work up to” the truth. For example: An old lady who kills her

My Dialogue Book Now on Kindle!

2012-03-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I published "The Editor Devil's Guide to Dialogue: top tips and tricks for fiction writers" as an eBook on Kindle. This is a compilation of the dialogue class I taught online, so all my top advice is packed into this eBook. "Likes" and "tags" on the book's Amazon page are appreciated! Just click the Like button next to the book title, or scroll down and select the tags that best fit

My First Book On Kindle

2012-02-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

I'm thrilled to announce I published my first book to Kindle. No, it was not my romantic suspense but my book honoring my working dog, Bo, who died of cancer over Christmas (see "Bo Doesn't Know" http://www.amazon.com/Bo-Doesnt-Know-ebook/dp/B007A53PKK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329712144&sr=8-1). This book was a total work of love, a photo story about his time living with cancer and the silly

2012-02-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

Well, if you've wondered why I've been so silent, I can answer you in one word: PUPPY. *One of us (obviously not you!) forgot that puppies are like babies for the first few weeks--up every 3 hours and ready to be entertained and fed. Needless to say, sleep deprivation has taken its toll. I'm doing dumb things like putting my keys in the silverware drawer. Hey, they're shiny and silver, right?

Vote for My Book Cover

2012-01-13T12:28:00.000-08:00

I am putting my book covers to a vote. Here are two potential book covers for my romantic suspense. NOTE: these are mockups, so the images have not been purchased yet and therefore have watermarks and quality issues. And I'll change out the guy image, so the gun is more evident. But the color/layout will be the same. Also, this is going to be a series, so the other book titles are "A Taste for

Hope is A Puppy

2012-01-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

Our first week without Bo was not easy. My eyes are tired. I've cried every day since his diagnosis, every night since his death. And my home feels empty, alone. Like love is missing. Because it is. A third of my family is gone. Keeping myself busy isn't enough to fast-forward the grieving process. I've been finishing the book on Bo, working on photographs, prepping to teach my dialogue class

Dogs Dont' Cry

2011-12-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

I've been very absent from blogging, mostly due to deadlines, vacation, and now my working dog, Bo, who was diagnosed with cancer. Please follow his story at EveryoneLovesBo.blogspot.com. We are raising money to pay for his surgeries, so I'll be posting items for sale here and on his blog site, and I'll be publishing stories on Kindle about lives he's touched. Here's the first entry on his blog

ENCORE POST: Creating Characterization through Dialogue

2011-11-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here is an encore post from my Dialogue class (which I'm selling as a PDF now http://editordevil.blogspot.com/p/upcoming-classes.html): Characterization is the painting of a character in a story through narrative, dialogue and action. Done well, the character will come to life on the page as if they are a real person. Done poorly, and the author has succeeded in creating cardboard. And the

Getting to the Heart of Characters

2011-10-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

Because it's such a difficult subject to get right, let's talk more about inserting Heart into your novel. Not the Heart of the story, but the Heart of the character, so that the reader cares whether the character wins or loses. First, what ISN'T Heart... When a character "owes" their life/career/marriage/etc to someone else, that debt does not constitute Heart. Neither does the fear of losing

Tips for Self-publishing Your Best Work

2011-10-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Since we've been discussing the self-publishing eBook path (and I spent the weekend doused in such conversations at NW Bookfest in Kirkland, WA.) I thought I'd give those who choose this route a few tips and tricks. 1. This Writer's Weekly article, Top Signs a Book is Self-Published, helped point out some of the no-no's that make you look like an amateur. 2. The reader forum on Amazon titled "

Know Your Business: Indie eBook or Traditional Publishing

2011-09-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading about the indie eBook publishing revolution till my brain is numb. But that's part of being a good author--being a solid business person. You have to know your business as well as your craft. After all, if I can't afford to stay in business, I won't produce much writing! My advice to fellow authors is to do your research and think very carefully about which direction you should to

Change Your Flat Tire Verbs

2011-09-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

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Protecting Your Character's Voice

2011-08-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

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Heroes as Villains: 6 Tips to Still Achieve a Character Arc

2011-07-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

In literary fiction, we get all kinds of heroes, from sassy and brash, to sweet and romantic, to the anti-heroes who are self-loathing or wildly edgy. I personally love the anti-heroes of James Joyce's "The Dead" and "Ulysses". Know the Villain Inside & Out Typically, heroes in fiction face an external villain as well as the villains inside themselves. Doing battle with both really ups tension

Description vs Plot

2011-07-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

One way to drag pacing and undermine reader engagement in fiction is to not offer a strong plot. And one reason for this problem is the substitution of extreme detail in lieu of plot. Some authors are so good at writing description and setting and micro events, such as body movements, that they focus on this material at the expense of a larger plot. They literally give play-by-play movements of

When to Stop Editing

2011-05-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

One lesson I've had to learn the hard way, but I warn students about all the time, is that over-editing is worse than not editing at all. Tightening is good and healthy, and it usually involves dropping the fluff words and moving toward more powerful verbs and nouns. But when I kept editing for word count, dropping and dropping every word I could find that wasn't critical, I lost both flavor and

Rattle the Reader's Cage Early

2011-05-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

First impressions count in this world, however unfair we may feel about it. Just ask agents and editors, who look at those first lines and decide if they will keep reading or not. Most folks think the beginning of a story starts with the first page of Chapter One, because that’s where the book starts. The real answer is: not always. Find Your True Starting

RE-POST: Hook vs. Heart in Story Openers

2011-04-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

SINCE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HOOKS LATELY... LET'S REVISIT HEART...Many students in my recent Create Characters That Last! class asked me about introducing a main character in the first scene of the book and what was required to make the intro powerful. Well, besides the necessary scene details--setting/location, time (at least night or day, future/past or present) and POV--we should get a

On Hooks & Crooks

2011-04-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

The Whidbey Island Writers Conference is small and intimate. Just the place to get all your questions answered and pitch agents/editors without pressure. Or just socialize and take classes, which is what I did. So nice to be the student once in a while, and I got the lovely opportunity to work with Mary Buckham, a great teacher, who bent my brain about hooks. Now, as a journalist we learned to

Using Scenes to "Show, Not Tell"

2011-03-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of screenplay writing is that it forces the author to focus on Dialogue and Action, the two critical aspects of the "show, don't tell" theory. This winning formula in screenwriting is also good for writing book scenes. NO Prattling Allowed In screenwriting, Dialogue IS Action. In other words, what people say in a scene should move the story forward. Such as conveying