From the Editor’s Desk: Strengthen your story—and your book’s chance for success
As an editor I’ve been working with independent authors for many years now, and it’s often the case that they don’t know what type of editing their manuscript needs. As a matter of fact, many don’t have an understanding of the editing process as a whole, a topic I wrote about in an earlier blog post that you can find here.
Editing may seem like a not-too-important (not too exciting) subject, but it’s one of those deceptive things. Because it’s extremely important. As an independent author, you need to know where your strengths lie. If you have limited editing skills, you must prepare to purchase these services. Yes, the costs are substantial, but the cost of trying to get away without doing it is far higher. You can’t risk giving readers a reason to deem your book unworthy.
Let me put it to you this way: because you’re self-publishing, your book has to be at the top of its game. It has to prove itself in every way. Unlike the traditionally published books, it’s going to be guilty before proven innocent. Or, more appropriately worded, it will be deemed unworthy until proven worthy. As numerous as they’ve become, self-published books still suffer a stigma because, let’s face it, large numbers of them are filled with errors and bad writing. And this lack of attention to detail gives self-publishing books as a whole an unprofessional sheen.
I don’t like to say this. I wish it weren’t true. But I’ve read a lot of self-published books in the past few months and this is what I have observed firsthand. I’m not saying these books have no value. Some of them provide useful information and/or tell a worthy story. But they’re not living up to the high standards that traditional books strive for and most often achieve.
So, please, after you’ve shared your manuscript with beta readers and have finished the revision that resulted from their feedback, use some of the money you have saved for the purposes of self-publishing to work with a professional editor. The first one you’ll need is a content (or developmental) editor. She will focus on the big things like story structure, character arcs, pacing, consistency, voice, and more. She’ll point out the plot holes, show you where you should dive deeper, and comment on the parts she didn’t understand. Later, you’ll need a copyeditor and possibly a professional proofreader (if you have lots of detail-oriented friends who can read for you, then you may not need a professional).
Do Your Part Before the Editor Does Hers
For the next few weeks, I’m going to discuss some Developmental Editing issues that you can address before you hand off your manuscript to the editor, so that you can get the most out of her professional expertise. This week, the subject is Point of View.
What is POV?
Point of view is one of those large parts of the story pie that many writers take for granted. The point of view character may come to you naturally, or you may have a story in mind and later figure out which character in the story is the best one to tell it.
The way I describe point of view is the filter through which the story is told. Your point of view character, whether first person or third (the most common choices), second or omniscient (not as common), is the one the reader follows closely and lives vicariously through. The reader experiences the story through your POV’s perspective. We learn what it’s like to be this person because they share their thoughts, actions, likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, hates, and loves. The reader experiences the story with him, feels his emotions, feels his physical pain, hears his thoughts, and see his actions. Readers develop a bond with this person.
If the story is written in first person, then the “I” is used. If it’s written in third person, “she” or “he” is used. If you are telling the story in third-person point of view with more than one character, you have to become each narrator when it’s their turn to speak. You must tell the story through the filter that is whichever character is narrating the chapter.
Let’s say the book starts with Matilda. You will write the chapter using Matilda as the filter through which the story is told. In other words, the narration comes through Matilda and is influenced by her wants, needs, likes, dislikes, her personality as a whole. Now, let’s say the next chapter comes from Matilda’s boyfriend, Tom. This chapter is told from Tom’s perspective, the filter that is Tom. If Matilda were narrating this chapter it would be tinged with Matilda’s personality. But it’s not. It’s told from Tom’s perspective, and Tom may know things that Matilda doesn’t know. He also will likely react differently than Matilda would to the things that happen in that chapter. He’ll have different opinions concerning what’s happening, different reactions to what’s happening, different insight into what’s happening.
A book told through the POVs of several characters proceeds in this manner, with different narrators contributing their part of the story, each one giving their particular perspective, their POV.
What is your story’s POV? And is it consistent?
So, who is your narrator? Who’s telling the story? Is it one person? Is it first person (the “I”)? Is it third person (“he” or “she”)? Are there multiple narrators? Is the person you’ve chosen the best one for the job of telling the story? How many people should tell this story, and have you chosen the right number?
The answers to these questions may be obvious, or they may not be.
One universal rule: You can be in only one character’s head per scene or chapter; you cannot start the chapter using one POV and temporarily “head hop” into another character’s POV. That means you can only provide the thoughts of the POV character. You cannot go into the thoughts of any other character in the scene (unless your POV character has the ability to read minds and therefore knows what other people are thinking). The story is coming through the one POV character, who can tell you only what she knows, observes, hears, senses.
Matilda was distraught. Never had she seen such bad behavior. Had she raised her child to act in such a way? If so, she had failed. Mr. Burns wanted to tell her that it was all right, that things like this happened all the time. Matilda stood there for a second, feeling horrible. Then she picked up her child’s lunchbox and walked away.
The underlined sentence indicates where the writer has head hopped into the character of Mr. Burns. In this sentence, the writer has told us what Mr. Burns wants. But “Matilda” is the POV character, and unless she reads minds, she can’t know what Mr. Burns is thinking. Therefore, it can’t be part of her narration. Go through your manuscript with an eye toward POV and changes in POV that you didn’t mean to make.
Getting deeper into POV. You want your reader to feel very close to your POV characters. When they know your character well, they are more willing to follow them wherever the story leads. To do this, they must experience the world as they would if they were inside the POV’s head. So even if you’re not using first person, it should feel like you are using first person. Here’s an example:
First-Person POV:
I walked into the café, smelling the bittersweet coffee, my mouth watering. How long had it been since I’d had coffee? I couldn’t remember, but I knew one thing: I was going to get a Venti Hot. Maybe two.
Third-Person POV:
She walked into the café, smelling the bittersweet coffee, her mouth watering. When was the last time I had coffee? She couldn’t remember, but she knew one thing: she was going to buy a Venti Hot. Maybe even two.
Do you see how it’s practically the same thing? That’s how close you want to be to your POV character even if you’re in third person. (The italics in the example indicate internal thinking.)
As you can see, POV is not as simple an issue as you may have first thought. Take some time to make sure you’ve consciously made the decisions that pertain to point of view.
What questions do you have concerning POV? Leave them in the Comments box below.
Next week, I will continue to discuss various Developmental Editing issues.
Kim Catanzarite has been a freelance writer and editor for almost three decades, and she teaches copyediting for Writer’s Digest University. Her sci-fi thriller, They Will Be Coming for Us, published June 1, 2021. You can subscribe to her self-publishing blog at AuthorKimCatanzarite.com/blog.
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