When is a novel finished?

This is a kind of zen koan - a mind-bending unanswerable question - for many authors. But as I'm getting ready to send off my next manuscript, these are the ten questions I ask myself:

1. Prose - is it fresh, evocative, vivid, agile? Is it clean, with the occasional sparkle? Are the first five pages as good as they can possible be? Does it have a killer first line? Does the reader get a feel (or at least a hint) for the upcoming conflict in the first few pages?
2. Characters - are they memorable? Do they each have their own voice? Does the protagonist undergo a change by the end of the book?
3. Dialogue - is the dialogue sharp, never banal? Do characters interrupt each other? Do they occasionally say things that can't be taken back?
4. Setting - are places described using all the senses, as perceived by (and reflecting) the characters' views of the world? Do settings imbue their own character on the novel (could it only happen there, or could it happen anywhere?) Do the settings signpost the mood(s) of the book?
5. Pace - does every chapter advance plot and character? Is there a good pacing of action/drama, and dialogue/exposition/internal scenes allowing the reader to go deeper inside the characters, without ever becoming either too static (aka boring) or breathless? 
6. Story - is the story coherent, every apparent loose end tied up, no deus ex-machina? Once the reader gets to the end, could she/he tell a friend what happened and why, and what it all means? 
7. Genre - is it clear what genre it fits into, and what sub-genre? Does your novel follow the etiquette for that genre? [you have to read in your genre to know this]
8. Motive - are you clear why you wrote it? Vanity and profit making are valid reasons. But if there is a part of you trying to come through in your writing, does the novel do you justice? Because it is personal.
9. Essence - can you already boil it down to a handful of killer tweets? It's best to 'get' the essence of your novel before it's published.
10. Cover - does the cover reflect the novel/s genre and essence? Because the cover matters.

Okay, back to my editing. I hope the above may interest or even help a few other writers.
JFK

Writers on the edge...(Genius)

Yesterday I watched the film Genius, in which Jude Law plays the utterly driven writer Tom Wolfe, and Colin Firth plays the (genius) editor Max Perkins, who also edited Fitzgerald and Hemingway, both portrayed admirably in the film.

I think writers should go watch (or rent) the movie. Here's why.

Wolfe has been rejected by every publishing house in town, until Max sees something in his work. Most writers, even successful ones, had a rough start, or have not yet even had that 'lucky break', which seems lucky when it happens to others, and hard-earned when it finally happens to them. There is a moment when Wolfe realizes he has been accepted for publication, and he practically screams. As a writer, I found this both satisfying and appropriate.

The mechanics of the editing process is both fascinating and funny. Funny when Max is handed the manuscript for the first time, and he says 'at least tell me it's double-spaced' (the answer is that it is not). Funny when Wolfe turns up with book 2, and its 5000 pages long. Fascinating when Max edits a long paragraph, which sounds beautiful the first time you hear it, and then he forces Wolfe to cut it back to the bare bones, a simple two lines, and you think, he's right, it is better.

One of the points of the film, however, is how destructive writing can be, often for those around the author, as excellently portrayed by Wolfe's muse Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) as she slowly unravels, then turns stone cold against him. I've often wondered if all serious writers should indeed live alone in a garret in Paris or New York, occasionally venturing out for a coffee, but otherwise keeping away from the world and not harming those in it, or those they profess to care about. A bit harsh, but maybe not if you're like Tom Wolfe.

The counterpoint is given by Fitzgerald, who is the stable and professional writer, still very much in love with his wife and putting her first, and Hemingway, who puts life first.

But the film revolves around Wolfe and Perkins, and reminds us, as Bernstein states, that the people around us writers are not fictional, unlike the characters inside our heads and books.

One thing the film didn't bring out was the pure joy of writing that most writers experience, rather than the manic obsessional got-to-get-ths-done periods many writers go through, and where Wolfe seemed to live non-stop. This is also because the film largely focuses on editing rather than writing, and one is fun, and the other is hard and sometimes cruel.  

Because the film is set circa 1929, it did not deal with that other modern stressor that writers currently have to deal with, namely the jungle that is social marketing, wrestling with Twitter, Facebook, Websites, etc., trying to get their voice heard above millions of others. From that perspective, I sometimes think I might have preferred to have been around back then...

I had just finished a manuscript for publication, and going to see this film was my reward. But I came out in deep reflection. How many thousands of hours have I committed to writing when I could have been interacting with real people?

Of course it didn't last long, because I'm a writerholic, and this morning I disappeared for a few hours into a Parisian brasserie to write a chapter of the next book. And I really enjoyed myself. But I'm going to go off-grid for a few days and pay attention to the non-fictional world, and the non-fictional characters who really matter.

By the way, the title of the film refers to the editor, not the writer, which I found interesting. I now have an editor for the first time in my writing, and she has certainly helped me raise my game. All the words are mine, but without her insights it would be a lesser novel.

So, here's to editors everywhere, you help to make our words better.


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66 Metres will be Released 25th August by CarinaUK, HarperCollins

Is it worth paying for a copy-edit?

First, I'm an author, not a copy-editor, and I'm not selling any services. For my first four books I didn't use a copy-edit as it would have cost me around a thousand pounds to do so per book, and I didn't think it was worth it. Now I have a large publisher behind me, and have just had a copy-edit done for me (for free), I've basically changed my mind. 

The last stage before your words are locked in forever

When your manuscript is heading for publication, after you've done all you can to polish it, there are always two remaining items to consider. Copy-editing and proofing. Proofing can be done mostly automatically via grammar and spell-checking, and having careful readers go through your manuscript. Copy-editing is different, though. 

So, what is copy-editing, and why is it a good idea? 

Here's a formal definition:

The goal of copy editing is to ensure that content is accurate, easy to follow, fit for its purpose, and free of error, omission, inconsistency, and repetition.^[

Here's another way of saying it: A good copy-edit will:

1. Smooth out your prose, making it flow better and read easier, and remain fresh (e.g. by avoiding repetitions)
2. Ensure consistency throughout the book - not just names and places and timings, but what people know or should know at various points in the book
3. Making sure your character stays true to their nature (e.g. asking whether a particular character would really say such things?)
4. Pointing out (usually minor) plot holes. The reader can often bridge these gaps, but will be aware of them. 
5. Point out strange, antiquated or specialized usage of language that may jar with the reader. These things can stop a reader, making then think 'huh?', and either make them get out their smart-phones to try and work it out, or just stop them reading.
6. Identify where something should have been explained earlier in the text
7. Detect position or layout anomalies - e.g. someone stands up but we didn't know he was sitting down - or an action scene only the author can visualize
8. Cases where 'less is more', e.g. where the author had successfully made a point but then carried on, weakening it.
9. Noting where machinery or the environment seems to have been forgotten, e.g. I originally had the skipper of a boat try to seduce someone, and he (apparently, because I 'said' nothing) just left the controls with the engine in gear. No real skipper would do that.
10. Helping to isolate the best word, or as the French say, le mot juste. I'd said that someone had disappeared, when in fact they had been abducted. An important difference. 

Why can't authors do they down copy-editing? 

Of course we all do, to an extent. But we are too close to things. In our heads the characters and their motivations are perfectly clear, as are things like locations and what is going on around the characters. But this 20:20 vision of what the novel is supposed to say sometimes makes us blind to what we have actually committed to paper.

I belong to a writers group in Paris, and we all review each others' work. But an author is not usually a copy-editor, nor vice versa. These are different skill sets. Of course, the more people who read your novel, the better, but even so, a skilled copy-editor is likely to come up with new issues that do need to be fixed. My book had been read by nine people (four readers, four authors and an editor) before it was copy-edited. 

Copy-edit as an acid test - is your manuscript really ready?

Another important reason for a copy-edit is to gain feedback. Not whether they liked it or not, but just how many comments or queries did you get? For mine, which had already been reviewed and edited, I had around a dozen queries, for a 97000 word manuscript (I'm discounting the simple grammatical corrections, of which there were a couple of dozen). If I had received fifty queries, I would have realized it simply wasn't as ready as I'd thought. 

Eliminating reader potholes

Each of those dozen queries contained something that made me think - okay, I need to change this. A couple of times I replied to the copy-editor "good catch" (or 'nice save'). I want my thriller to be a page-turner, and it can't be if there are potholes scattered along the reader's pathway. It only took me 2.5 hours to go through the copy-edits for the entire manuscript, make the changes, and then send it back to the publisher. Probably the best 2.5 hours I spent on the book since I started it.

But it costs so much...

But what about the cost? If you have a medium or large-sized publisher they should do copy-editing for you, so just sit back and wait for those track changes. But for many writers, particularly those self-publishing, an extra 600-1000 pounds/dollars/euros seems a lot, given that you have to also pay for formatting, front cover, etc. So, is it worth it?

If you want to be serious/professional about your writing, I'd say 'yes'.  Either of two things will happen. One, you'll get comments and think, oh gosh, yes, I need to change that, or else you'll get very little, in which case you can be confident that your novel is in very good shape. 

Another way to think about it is to reflect on how long it takes to do a copy-edit. This is no speed-read with a glass of wine in your hand, but is a very careful reading, making notes, continually referring back to earlier sections for consistency checking, etc. Think about how many hours it must take to do a copy-edit.

Where do I find a good copy-editing service?

Okay, so this is where I have to say I don't know, as I've never paid for one. However, two literary services I trust in the UK are Writers Workshop and Cornerstones, but hey, shop around, find other authors who have had copy-editing done and ask them who they'd recommend. 

Final thought

Think what a sprinter would pay to shave off half a second. You've written the best novel you possibly can. Don't sell yourself or your novel short. Make it that little bit better.

Good luck!

Sixty-Six Metres is released 25th August