Robyn Conley and I met at a time when we both had books on journaling newly out from Walking Stick Press.  Robyn’s role at the Society of Southwestern Authors‘ conference we taught at involved individual editing sessions with conference participants.  Her skills as a book doctor involve sentence editing for grammar and punctuation as well as making useful suggestions concerning structural arrangement (i.e. out of place scenes and background information intruding upon rather than absorbing the reader).  In this week’s article, Robyn describes her work and her helpful book for writers, Be Your Own Book Doctor; she provides helpful examples about things every writer should look for when editing.  (Remember to put your work on the page first though without a red pencil mongering critic on your shoulder!)  Although editing does come last, it is very significant to the creative process:  a well structured and edited book is not only a pleasure to read, it actually allows its author to understand the material in a deeper, more resonant way.

Book Doctors are freelance editors who diagnose and help heal unhealthy places in your writing.  Because I’m a writer first and a book doctor second, I have respect for style and voice.  I analyze the writer’s unique approach to his or her material and make suggestions that will enhance that style, not change it. I look for ways to tighten flabby sentences and prescribe dialogue exercises to breathe more life into the writing.  I point out distracting repetitions in word choices and sentence structure and work on all elements that detract from the writer’s core style, whether it’s a literary flow, an academic approach, or a gutsy, hardboiled style.

Does everyone need a book doctor?  Certainly not.  If you’re lucky enough to be in a well-rounded critique group, you’re probably already receiving objective feedback regarding your writing.  Sometimes having even one buddy read your work and offer that objectivity gives you all the assurance you need to submit your stories or articles.  Most of my clients are folks who work such long hours that they barely have time to put their creativity on paper, let alone go over it the number of times it takes for a solid revision to emerge.  And revising is crucial.  The objective eye is crucial.  Often, we love our poofed-up words too much to nip and tuck them right away.  Successful writers, however, learn to keep their writing lean.

How do you do that?  I use a checklist of therapies for healing writing.  The therapies serve as the anchor of my book, Be Your Own Book Doctor:

Give Anesthesia Its Due
Give yourself permission to NOT edit right away or you’ll stifle any objectivity before revising. Unless you’re facing a deadline, ignore any desire to open that file one more time or review those freshly printed pages immediately after finishing the rough draft.  Give the newness time to settle by leaving the manuscript alone for a few days.  If time is a factor, then at least give yourself a good hour or so, maybe change your location by taking a walk or doing a little housekeeping chore to give your mind some distance from the project. Then go back and tackle it again.

Respiratory Therapy
Read your work out loud to pick up on long sentences, point of view problems, or unrealistic dialogue. When you can’t finish a sentence without taking a breath, I think it’s too long!  Count the number of lines after reading a passage out loud and see where you can divide it.  Here is an example of a sentence that needs attention in all three areas:

“Hello, it is ever such a pleasure to see you,” Mary said, wondering if Sam really liked the new hat she had on, but Sam could care less what she had on her head because he couldn’t take his eyes off the fact she had one long eyebrow crossing her forehead, so he simply said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Mary’s dialogue does seem inappropriately anachronistic and it is almost impossible to read past the word “fact” without gasping for air. Reading aloud, you also become quite aware that Mary’s point of view begins the sentence and Sam’s point of view ends it.  Although books may have multiple points of view, these are not usually in one paragraph let alone in one sentence!

Speech Therapy
Study your work for bland tag lines, bland dialogue, or dialogue that is so long in places it loses its authenticity.  Bland tag lines are the he saids/she saids of literature. They’re not wrong, just bland when overused. Try inserting body language, gestures, and facial expressions to help the reader stay interested in the characters who are speaking.  This also serves as a sneaky way to add insight into characterization.  For example: John became angry and said, “No!” would be much stronger as:  John’s face blistered within and he slammed his fist on the okra.  “No!”

Bland dialogue repeats mundane things that we already know from other segments in the book.  If your dialogue runs on and on lines at a time, it’s not going to feel authentic.  If you do have a scene where one character has to say a lot (as detectives do at the end of a mystery), then insert reactions from people in the room or the character’s inner introspections as he’s speaking.

Pump Up the Heart Rate
Circle those passive verbs (was, is, had, seem, appears, be, etc.) and find stronger, active ones to make your writing stand out above someone else’s in the slush pile.  Why say, “The land was fresh in the morning” when you could show your audience something: “Grassy fingers tickled the morning sun.”

There are other elements I look for, of course, regarding plot, structure, and the requirements of each genre or non-fiction category.  Romances, for instance, need equal point of view segments to be considered in the marketplace, as well as a hero and heroine who are believable, with strengths and weaknesses, and who grow in themselves as well as toward each other because of the story’s highlights.

Writers who are considering using a book doctor often ask how they can make a good choice; after all, there are different styles of editing, just as there are of writing.  First and foremost, make sure that the doctor/editor has been in the field for a while and can prove it with either a list of client or publisher references. If they aren’t willing to provide those items up front, then look elsewhere. Likewise, if a literary agency offers to represent your work but only after you send it through “this editorial service,” look elsewhere.  Most likely that agency is tightly connected with the editing service and makes a nice kickback income, rather than an agency income off its writers.  There are legitimate agencies that refer book doctors, but those agents will give you at least two or three people they trust for you to query.

I’ve been enjoying my practice for almost thirteen years, and during that time many of my writer patients have made such wonderful progress that they’ve become cured–published.  What a super feeling that is for me!  If you have any questions you’d like to ask a book doctor, I’d be happy to address them. Just email me at: bookdoctor@earthlink.net.  Happy writing and revising!

You might be wondering how to evaluate your readiness for a book doctor, how much their services cost and whether you should invest in having one help you make your book “presentable.”  The answers are not clear cut.  Robyn tells us about people who are too busy to make the edits and changes and want a book doctor to take care of that part.  If you have written a book that you believe is very marketable, you may feel like investing in editing help (warning: a quick search on the Internet reveals book doctor pricing ranges mightily) before you bring it to editors and agents.  They are so busy that they do not offer book doctoring help even if they like the manuscript.  If you have submitted a manuscript that many editors and agents have said is interesting but have passed on publishing, you might want a book doctor to give you an opinion about why.

Robyn’s advice about using a book to assist you in doing your own first pass book doctoring is very sound.  The more you know what to look for, the better you’ll get at editing your own work and the better you can evaluate what you want another person to do for you to ensure your work reaches the audience you intend.