Myth Busting

Senior Editor at Arthur A. Levine Books, Cheryl Klein, (that would be my editor, Cheryl Klein---we authors are so possessive) is interviewed by Shelli at Market My Words. Go say hello.

Cheryl and I will meet each other for the first time this weekend at the Austin SCBWI Destination Publication Conference. We'll be doing a myth-busting session on the author/editor relationship. We have at least three myths to bust, but I'm curious:

What do you want to know about the author/editor relationship?

Is there a myth you'd like to see busted---or confirmed?

If you have an editor you're working with, what surprised you about the process?

P.S. Are you a fan of the TV show, Mythbusters? If not, why not? aqua fortis and I agree that a series of Mythbuster-based YA fiction or non-fiction would be awesome. Here's a link to the only Mythbusters book I can find.

Conversations: Spine and Form

• Truth is an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline." ---Parker Palmer

Twitter conversations, on the other hand, are a confounding cacophony about things that matter, conducted with passion and almost no discipline! Yesterday's chat with my editor, Cheryl Klein, was like that, and yes, I enjoyed it tremendously (when my head wasn't spinning.) 


I did try to impose some order for you by posting a transcript here.  I would also like to share two of the questions Cheryl prepared for me in advance (most of which we never got close to getting to) and my answers.


Part of the reason I'm sharing this today is that Linda Urban (CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT, MOUSE WAS MAD) and I are having a nifty conversation about spine and form over on her blog. Linda initiated the back-and-forth, but I had also been thinking about some of the same stuff because of these two questions Cheryl asked me:

• Cheryl: OPERATION YES has a unique structure that alternates two primary points of view through all of the first section (Plan A), then integrates them in Plan B, then spirals out through the world from there. Was this structure pre-planned? If not, how did it evolve? 

Sara:  I think I knew early on that this story was going to be carried by more than one character. After all, how can you write about the power of community through just one POV?

But in the book's beginning, Bo and Gari are focused on themselves, their own POV; it's only when they are jolted into thinking about the bigger picture that that spiraling out happens. And by the very, very end, even the reader of the book is invited to be part of the largest circle.

• Cheryl: You use multiple points of view in certain sections throughout. This is generally regarded as a writing no-no. Why did it feel right or important for you to break the rule here? Did you set any new rules or guidelines for yourself in using this technique? 

Sara: I don't think it's a no-no if you have a reason and a plan. I used the technique to build tension---see the food fight scene!---and to show the falling apart and then the widening of the circle of community, as each character turns from their own private battles to uniting in one mission together as a class.

Also, since the book's about the stage, the dramatic or cinematic viewpoint seemed like a natural fit.

I realize it was a risk to attempt this, but I trusted you as my editor to show me where it was working and where it wasn't. That's the only rule I had: does it serve the story?

• More leftover questions will be posted next week!
  
  

No one tells you this but...

...laughter should be a part of revision. 

This past weekend, I spent hours and hours pouring over the copy-edits for Operation Yes, dealing with em dashes and line spacing and even re-writing two key scenes. 

Part of it was exhilarating: it's going to be a real book! 

Part of it was terrifying: it's going to be a real book!

Part of it was tedious:  Who wants to consider every last comma placement? Not me.

Part of it was embarrassing: I had spelled "gray" as "grey" over and over and over as if I were secretly British. Although my daughter made me feel better by saying that "grey" looks more "gray-ish," if you can follow that.

Part of it was annoying: why does the Chicago Manual of Style not want air force to be capitalized except for when referred to as the U.S. Air Force?  I understand the logic of it, but aesthetically, it bugs me. But if I tweaked each instance of capitalization, then the manuscript as a whole appeared inconsistent. I guess that's why style manuals exist. Sigh. 

But the whole process, as exhilarating, terrifying, embarrassing, and annoying as it was, started with laughter because my editor had tucked into the package a Captain Underpants eraser. Nothing like a flying guy in undies to make you lighten up a bit.

I used that eraser a lot as I changed my mind on various issues. But it always reminded me to smile.  As did my editor's occasional non-editorial notes like: mmmm, pudding!  (Sorry, Cheryl, but that makes me think of  you as Homer Simpson. Which is so ridiculous that it makes me laugh. Again.) 

P.S. After I had mailed off the copy-edit package to the land of Will-Be-A-Real-Book-Soon, I decided to check out a new gym in the area: L.A. Boxing.  Every muscle in my upper body hurts today, two days later. But what I remember most was that as I tried to follow the instructor's combo drills, flailing at the mitts on his hands, ducking when I should've been hooking, crossing when I should've been jabbing, weaving when I should've been punching, I laughed. Several times. It really felt good.

Round Three: Line Edits

Yes, I'm here.  I'm line-editing.  Round Three.

That's where we bring the manuscript (in the words of my editor) to "complete and breathing life."  

New lines are born and must find lungs.

Old lines expire. Wheezing all the way. 

Some lines move to get fresh air.

This "breathing life" business is exhilarating. And exhausting.

Down to five more breaths. Five more changes. Then I'm reading the whole thing yet again.

Good thing I love bringing a story to life more than most anything. 

250 words

My son is writing college application essays. Some are 250 words or less. Ouch. Short is hard.

Which brings up an interesting question: should writers help their kids with writing assignments? Around here, it goes like this:

• They always, always, always do the rough draft with no input from me.
  
• They get to decide when to ask me for advice, if at all. Sometimes, they share work just because they like what they've written and are proud of it. I'm not lying when I say that both of them are far better writers than I was at their age.
  
• The most common thing I ask to see is more detail. Personal, vivid detail. No "I participated in outdoor activities" when "I chased an armadillo" is the colorful truth.*
  
• I encourage them to go at it again. They usually do.
• They can bring any piece of writing back to me as often as they want. I'll read it. We can talk about it. But the work's all theirs.

One more thing. They know how many times writers---all writers---rewrite their work. I tell them. Repeatedly. My husband recently backed me up, telling my son that he re-wrote an important briefing nine times. Nobody in this house ever gets it right the first time. Except the dog. She's brilliant.

*I'm not sure if an armadillo pursuit belongs on a college application, but it's 100% true and one of my son's favorite memories of our time in Mississippi.

P.S. This blog post is exactly 250 words.

Split Personality

I'm deciding how to use the present I bought for myself.




Should I wear the FROG side when I'm writing a rough draft?

And the TOAD side when I'm revising?

Because I want
the Frog and Toad parts of me


to be friends.

Do you think of the composing/editing sides of yourself as different personalities?

Do you have tricks for calling out one side or the other?

And hey! Did you know that if you flip those letters around, you can get FOOD and TROD, too? Who are they?

My Frog and Toad bracelet (and the photos) came from Etsy, and from the imaginative mind of Bookshelves of Doom.

How can I help you?

I bookmarked this image because of those ultra-cool paperclips. But now that I look at it, that "HELP" message coming from the D- is bugging me. I don't think a student would find that amusing. What if someone wrote on a draft of one of my poems: Help me! I'm trite and confusing and annoyingly obtuse and over-wordy and under-imaged and the only thing I'm clearly, clearly saying is: D-. (Not even a satisfying F. A hanging-by-my-pity D-.)

Not that I ever had a poetry professor that handed out that kind of nasty feedback. I only took one English class in college* ---(GASP)---because I majored in physics and that sucked up a lot of time and I could test out of the required freshman English rigmarole. Then I had the great idea to switch majors when I switched schools, and cramming all the requirements for that major (government) into two years left little time for English classes with reputations for requiring 10,000 pages of reading a week.

But the point of this story is that although I had but one English class, it apparently holds sway over the women of this family, because I recently discovered that my daughter is taking the exact same class with the exact same professor that I did.

ME: How's your Poetry Writing teacher? Interesting?

DAUGHTER: Yes, he's nice. Kind of eccentric. Wears an eye-patch.

ME: Eye-patch? (memories come flooding back)

We go to the college faculty page and look him up. Yup. Same professor. Same class. It's not confirmed yet, but I'm betting you it's the same syllabus, too.

I still have poems that I wrote for that class, but only one has teacher comments written on it. The feedback is gentle---checkmarks with "nice touch" beside a few lines, and then, several penciled comments, asking me to clarify and expand on my first attempt: "Good impulse, but I can't quite apprehend the comparison." "The penultimate section seems to promise more. Any strong possibilities?"

I remember being scared in that class. Scared of failing to produce a poem each week. Scared of what the other students would say about what I did scrape together. Scared of appearing ignorant when one boy called me up to discuss his opus to John Coltrane, and he went on and on about jazz, and I had no idea, no idea what he was talking about. But the teacher didn't give me reason to fear. And I'm grateful for that.

Years later, I've had the pleasure of working with a few different editors, and my agent, who've all given me feedback on my work. To a person, they have all been exquisitely polite, insightful, and kind. It's obvious that they care passionately about the words I've given them on the page, but they serve the greater good of the work by offering to me, the creator of that work, their best thoughts and support as I struggle to answer their questions for myself.

You might be afraid of editors or agents---they are wicked smart after all, and they hold the keys to publishing's doors---but I've never met one that would diss you like that paperclip talk bubble does. Sure, their honesty may hurt, sometimes---and they most definitely will turn down manuscripts that aren't right for them---but they are in the business of truly HELPING writers, and who else can you honestly say has the patience for that?


* I'm not counting Linguistics, although I loved it. And I did take one French literature course, but as it was taught entirely in French, I had to analyze the most amazing French poems in my horribly stumbling and inadequate French vocabulary. All in all, it was tragique.