It’s more than pen to paper

Image by Patrick Tomasso

The final chapters of my current manuscript have always needed rewriting. It was a soft ending, didn’t explain anything, and was abrupt. That’s what I did last week, worked on those final two chapters. Writing, rewriting, deleting the whole mess, writing and rewriting again. Rinse and repeat.

I sent those last chapters to my brilliant beta reader, who sent through some feedback, including a rather obvious plot hole I’d completely missed. Of course, this is the point of having a beta reader! She said the rewritten chapters were much better than the old ending. I replied that reading a similar genre solidified how the ending needed to happen for me. “Gosh,” she said. “Writing is so much more than putting pen to paper!”

So here’s a non-exhaustive list of how novels get written.

Writing

Obviously, the novel has to be written. There are so many things to remember when writing! Interesting characters, narrative arc, descriptive words, world-building, writing effective scenes & dialogue, the all important climax and conclusion…

There’s zillions of websites, books, YouTube videos etc that teach writers how to write. Yes, there’s talent, but there’s also a ton of skills to be learned and applied. Some break the rules. Some invent their own rules. Some adhere closely to rules. Some just write and work it out later. There’s archetypes and tropes and genre conventions to work with.

Basically, give people a familiar story done in a different way with a satisfying conclusion. And the bad guy has to die.

1. Research

Every novel has some level of research. Historical fiction has research of the time and place where it is set. Science fiction has sciencey bits which plausibly make sense. Romance… we’ll, I’ll leave that to your imagination!

Some authors research before they write, some do it concurrently, and others write first and fill in detail later. For The Magpie’s Call, I did a mixture of all three.

2. Draft

When I was young, I threw away so many stories because they were rubbish. Of course they were rubbish, they were first drafts! I was comparing myself to published works. I didn’t know there are several drafts, a thousand rewrites, substantial editing 🤦🏻‍♀️

Author Kali Napier says her debut novel started life as a 110,000 word epic. She stripped it down to the bare bones and basically rewrote it, ending up with ~80,000 words which was published.

3. Editing

Similar to drafting, editing is where someone reads the manuscript and suggests edits. Anything from spelling and grammar to story, changing paragraphs or whole chapters, deleting this, adding that.

Usually the author does this several times. Then, if they can afford it, they hire a professional editor. If the work is sold to publishing house, another editor comes on and does it all again.

4. Querying

Querying is the process in which an author finds a literary agent. The agent who loves it will shop it around to publishers. This process can take years. I’ve heard of authors who find an agent within months, but I’ve also heard of authors who haven’t found an agent after several years. And once you land an agent, they may or may not find a publisher willing to buy the book.

5. Legal

This won’t apply to most authors. When a prominent person writes a memoir, they’re gonna be name dropping and saying things about living people. The publishing house will have a legal department who need to read the manuscript (either whole or relevant bits) to avoid a defamation lawsuit. Sometimes the legal team of the person you mentioned reads it as well.

Interestingly, you can (usually) say anything you like about someone who has passed away. You can’t defame the dead… That’s why many stars of Old Hollywood are surrounded by allegations they were gay.

6. Publishing

Whether you’re represented by a publishing house or you’re self-publishing, there’s a lot to be done to get a book on shelves. Cover design, formatting the text (ie making all the lines nice and neat, no orphan words etc), printing proofs which need to be checked and double checked, then printing.

But there’s more! Marketing. It’s a big part of the publishing journey no matter which road you choose.

And then you do it all again…

Everyone makes mistakes… right?

Several months ago, I criticised someone for a #spellingfail. Turns out, I was the one who was wrong, a fact the other person did not let me forget. I was criticised for it, then re-tweeted around the Twitterverse. Ouch. Suddenly the joke was on me, but I wasn’t laughing. I was actually quite hurt about it, that I could be so brain dead as to mix up one letter and change the meaning of a word (I got ‘complimentary’ and ‘complementary’ mixed up- it’s an easy mistake). It bothered me for a long time and I deleted my Twitter account for this and a few other reasons (such as, I still don’t quite get Twitter…)

Today, I read a quote from Joyce Carol Oates, from her memoir A Widow’s Story. She talks about the lonely life of a writer and the criticism they face; such is the nature of writing. I stepped back for a moment to think about that. She’s right, of course, we’re all criticised in myriad ways over the course of our lives. But when something is so close to us, so raw, so inherent plus we make a living from it, it hurts. Although writers pride themselves on having a good grasp of language, we’re only human. That’s why white-out and erasers were invented. And when something’s on the internet, it stays on the internet for everyone to see your mistake. So, how ’bout that criticism, hey?

FYI Twitterverse: thankyou, but I can tell the difference between affluent and effluent. If you need help in netiquette, let me know.

Confessions of a Copywriter

Dear world,

I am a copywriter.

With those few words, suddenly I’m in the spotlight. People look at my grammar and spelling and pounce when I make a mistake (they’re all typos, I swear!) Here’s a list of small confessions.

1. Wot’s grammar?
There are few people today who use exquisite grammar. There are fewer people who know what it is. In this day and age of internet and 140 character limits, grammar is a forgotten skill. I wonder if most people would recognise proper grammar if they read it? (Although I have several pedantic friends who definitely could…) The truth is, when a copywriter writes, they’re writing for the general public using everyday language that is easily understandable. There’s no point in writing exceptional English by the book if no one can understand it. By the way, I still have trouble remembering when to use its or it’s.

2. We make up Words
Oh noes! Who’s seen the latest ads for McDonalds’ M Selections menu? Here are two words that are used which aren’t actual words: Schmancy and Deluxier. Those were written by a copywriter who, presumably, knows they aren’t words in any dictionary. Personally, I’m not a fan of making up words and catering (ha!) to a nation of grammatical retards, but that’s an entirely different matter. (The “Schmancy” campaign recently won an advertising award in the UK).

3. Australian Spelling is Optional
This is something I’m trying very hard to come to terms with. Last week, my copywriting coach presented a piece of work she’s recently completed. I have no idea what the point of the presentation was because my attention was completely absorbed in one little word: personalize. I picked her up on it, asking why she’d used the American spelling. She explained that a few years ago, she was pedantic about using the UK/Australian spellings but only recently resigned herself to using American as well, and increasingly. She mused it was probably her software’s spell check that auto-corrected her S’s to Z’s to the point that she doesn’t even notice her spelling anymore. I’m not sure I will ever be that comfortable with using Z, but I’m certainly trying not to get so upset over it!

4. Breaking the Rules
In the first heading, you’ll see I’ve written “Wot’s”. Some words were meant to be played with. Recently, my sister asked if “agreeance” was a word, as in, “We’re all in agreeance”. Of course, the correct word is agreement but she argued agreeance sounds better. There are other silly words that I use regularly: bestest is probably the one that appears the most. I may even use that in a campaign at some point…

5. Everything is awesome, and don’t you forget it!
I got into trouble this week for saying what’s on my mind. Copywriting is all about making things sounding amazing and irresistible; you can’t possibly live without these products or services. A few months ago, I wrote a promotional piece about a diet shake. I’m not a fan of diet shakes and writing how amazing this one was proved to be a challenge. Earlier this week, someone asked what I thought about a new doughnut. I may have said something rather unflattering about it, likening it to something my dog may have done last week that is still un-picked up in the backyard. Unprofessional? Absolutely. Tactless? Certainly. True? I thought so. It’s not often people ask what I actually think about a product, so it’s refreshing to say something a little bit nasty occasionally.

Afterthought
I’m finishing an essay for uni today. It’s been a while since I wrote an essay. When I started, I really wanted to use bullet points to get my thoughts across (bullet points and white space are essential when writing web copy). It was interesting moving away from my copy writing into essay writing, felt like I was learning a new skill, using different parts of my brain.

Or is that brane?