Guest Bloggers – Page 19

Guest Blogger Karen Hart reveals secrets about how to Keep Calm, Carry On and Let the Magic Begin: How To Breathe Life Into Your Work Through Revisions.

During my thirties, I wrote my first novel, Butterflies in May. It tells the story of a 17-year-old high school senior, Ali Parker, who discovers she’s pregnant. I gave her characteristics, created a family, a best friend and boyfriend, and described where she lived. I effectively created a situation and characters, and the mechanics were in place. After nine months of work, I had a novel, but the story was flat. It was discouraging after all that effort, but in the words of Hemingway: “The first draft of anything is shit.”

The goal in writing a novel (or any body of work) is to capture the magic, give it a heartbeat and touch your readers in a relevant way. Revising and editing are essential to breathing life into your words.

So how to capture the magic?

There’s no clear formula other than to learn how the magic manifests for you. For me, it begins with the mechanics, then somewhere along the way, an idea takes hold and takes over. That “idea” could be a word, a phrase, a scene, a scent or snatch of dialogue. While revising Butterflies in May, a scene between Ali and her newborn baby woke me up at 5 in the morning. I got up, went to my computer and started writing. Today, teen girls often tell me that passage makes them cry. The passage still brings tears to me, because I cried as I wrote it. Here are a few ideas to get your writer mojo on and capture the magic.
- Set your first draft aside. Save your original, then save it again under a different file name so you can be freely ruthless with changes later. Refrain from showing it to your friends who will most likely find a polite way to tell you it’s awful. (Remember what Hemingway said? It’s not ready.) Return to it one day at the time you work best.
- Take a look at your book chapter-by-chapter. Print it out and pull it apart. Eliminate slow starts, and tighten descriptions. Check for the following: Does the story move forward at a good pace? Do the characters engage you? Do they have flaws your readers can relate to? Can you clearly see who they are? Next, fill in sensorial details to breathe life into your work. Can you smell the coffee brewing? Feel the sweat along your character’s hairline? Hear the door creak open?
- Make sure your dialogue flows. Eliminate unnecessary dialogue. Make sure your characters sound natural, not stiff. Be sure your characters don’t all sound the same. Let their use of language, word choice, slang or cursing set them apart.
- Follow your instincts. Trust what comes to you. In my first novel, I gave Ali’s newborn son a name, Jonah. I’d heard it one day, liked the sound of it, not giving it any more thought than that. Later, Ali has a dream in the hospital about him. In the dream, Jonah is a young boy and says, “It’s okay, Mommy. I’ll always love you.” Then I wrote that he turned into a bird and flew away. Months later, I learned that “Jonah” means dove and made changes so Ali would discover this, too. (This is the stuff of magic, and a story writing itself.)
- Allow your characters to take over. In my second novel, I’d written about a character named Beau, whom I originally planned to be an all-around nice man. Later, as I worked on revisions, Beau came more fully to life and I didn’t like his behavior. I stopped writing; the novel came to an abrupt halt. When I allowed Beau to take over, the writing flowed, I followed Beau’s lead and the story changed for the better.
Karen will be on a panel of editors at Writers Forum in Petaluma on May 21, 2015.

Join us and learn how to keep calm, carry on and catch the magic.

Award-winning writer, editor and novelist, Karen Hart, has served as the editor for two corporate magazines and a newsletter and continues to be slightly obsessive-compulsive about all writing endeavors.
Guest Blogger Mark Burstein elucidates about the different types of editors.

“Editor” is a catchall term for a host of different functions in the publishing business; here we will look at six different kinds. It’s an amorphous field, one in which our roles and definitions are moving targets. Sometimes we are hired by the author, sometimes by the publisher. Often the same person can take on diverse roles for different clients, or even the same client. So, in more or less chronological order:

The first, at the top of the food chain if you will, is known simply as the “editor,” but is also called the “book,” “project,” “literary,” “substantive,” or “developmental” editor. S/he is the person who is in charge overall, helping with organization, the story arc, consistency, features, structure, transitions, “assets” (images), permissions, and possibly even advising on design and layout. S/he is also your friend, ideal reader, collaborator, spouse, sparring partner, babysitter, psychologist, cheerleader, hand-holder, slave driver, and/or therapist … doing whatever is necessary to pull those lovely words out of your head and onto pages.

When the editor and the author are satisfied, the manuscript (ms.) then goes to a copyeditor, whose functions were well described by Linda Jay in an earlier post on the Write Spot Blog. In brief—copyedits range from “light” to “heavy”—s/he checks grammar, spelling, punctuation, consistency, usage, continuity, facts, voice, phrasing, tone, and the like. On the “heavy” end of the scale, s/he might suggest rewording, moving sentences and paragraphs around, or adding to or eliminating text.

The third kind of editor is your publishing and proposal consultant. S/he will help you craft a proposal and get it looked at by appropriate publishers or literary agents. (Many small-to-medium houses will look at unsolicited mss., but the larger houses need to go through known literary agents.) Both of these kinds of submissions require a polished proposal.

Number four is the acquisitions editor who works for a publisher. S/he will be the one who decides if the proposal warrants further attention, and ultimately decides if it is right for the house. S/he may also say that it would be perfect for them, if only it had a bit more of (a) and (b) and a little less of (c), in which case it goes back to step one (the “editor”) to work with you for resubmitting.

Once a book has been accepted for publication, it goes to a designer. The designer will put the text and assets into layout (aka galleys) and will send it back to you for approval or tweaking. Having secured that, it will go to a proofreader who will again read the ms., but also specifically look at things that may have gone awry in layout: headings, page numbers (folios), missing lines, bad line breaks, “widows and orphans,” spacing, figures, captions, etc.

Category six is the production editor. In a major house, s/he is responsible for reviewing all aspects of the editorial and production process, including hiring editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, and designers; plus scheduling, shipping, warehousing, and distribution. For an “independent” (formerly known as “self-”) publishing title, this can also be one of the editor’s responsibilities, that is, finding a designer and printer/binder—or formatting your ms. so that it can be accepted by a POD (print on demand) house like CreateSpace, Lightning Source, Blurb and so on, and leading you through that process.

Sometimes these functions can be the province of just one person. Or up to six or more individuals. But each stage of the editorial process is necessary—to greater or lesser degree, depending—and will do wonders for your book.

Mark Burstein is a freelance editor of both nonfiction and fiction. His clients include Chronicle Books, Insight Editions, Harry N. Abrams, and Welcome Books, as well as many authors.

Mark will be on a panel of editors at Writers Forum in Petaluma on May 21, 2015.
Guest Blogger Elaine Silver writes about why writers should reconsider using “of course.”

With growing concern I am noticing sentences in my clients’ books that begin with the words “Of course.” These sentences sound like this: “Of course, I was devastated that I had to move.” Or, “Of course, I knew I shouldn’t look but I did.” Or “Of course, he was overjoyed to see her again.” As a developmental editor, it is my job to serve as the eyes and heart of the author’s future readers and to make sure that those readers get the most bang for their reading buck.

So, loudly and emphatically (and with a lot of hand gesturing) I let these authors know that each time they use the words “of course” they are essentially cheating the reader out of a full exploration of the experience of the book’s character (this goes for fiction as well as memoir). “Of course” implies that the author assumes the reader understands the emotional life of the character and probably feels the same way. We can never make that assumption as writers, nor should we. One of the more delicious pleasures of reading is to experience the inner lives of others. To use “of course” is to diminish the uniqueness in the way we each meet the world.

Let me give you an example. A client of mine is writing a memoir about her short marriage to a sociopath (it’s actually a very funny book!). In one pivotal scene, she accidentally discovers a box of papers that provides all the proof she needs to confirm her suspicions that he has lied to her about pretty much everything. Her original line in the book was “Of course, I should have just closed up the box and not looked, but I am not that virtuous.” In our discussion about this chapter, I pointed out to her that assuming that the reader would share her point of view both diminishes her particular experience and she loses out on an opportunity to enrich the story.

She could, instead be sharing her particular truth: how she was very timid even in the face of all the misery her husband had caused her. She still felt like it was wrong to look through his personal papers. She considered sacrificing her own sanity in order not violate his privacy. There is no “of course” about this.

This is a very specific response to a specific situation by a unique individual. It is the author’s obligation to unpack and explain these emotions with no mitigating phrase like “of course.”

When you are writing, claim and proclaim your characters’ interior experiences. They are the jewels of your writing. And whether it is actually written or just implied, of course, please ban ‘of course!’

Elaine Silver, Conceptual/Developmental Editor, AKA: Book Midwife

Elaine S. Silver is a writer, editor, journalist, playwright, storyteller and performer. She has written for The New York Times, BusinessWeek Magazine and a bevy of design and construction magazines and newsletters for worthy not-for-profit organizations. One of her most unusual and fun gigs was ghostwriting for the media sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Click here to find out more about Elaine.

Elaine Silver She will be on a panel of editors at Writers Forum in Petaluma on May 21, 2015.
Guest Blogger Brooke Warner writes:

One of the most powerful things an author has ever said to me was a comment by Mark Nepo, reflecting on his personal journey over the past three years, which, due to the support of Oprah, has been pretty meteoric in nature. He told me, “I’m just so glad that I kept writing back when no one was listening.”

This reverberated in me, perhaps most profoundly because of the number of clients I work with every year who reach a crisis point, led by the voices of their inner critics that say things like, “Why are you bothering?” “No one is going to want to read this.” “Who cares?!”

In my work as a writing coach, I’m pretty hard-pressed to think of a single client who hasn’t struggled with messages like this at some point in their process—some more than others of course.

Mark’s simple statement spoke to me for a number of reasons:
1. You never know when people are going to find your work. Oprah found Mark’s book, The Book of Awakening, ten years after its first publication. The fact that he had so much work already out in the world is undoubtedly what’s allowed him to soar. You can get a big break like an endorsement from Oprah, but even with a big break, you have to have done (and continue to do) the hard work and discipline of writing.
2. If you let the critical voices get the best of you, you’re accepting defeat on someone else’s terms. Your inner critic is a bastard, so let’s just get that out of the way. It does not want you to succeed. It wants to keep you small. I’ve witnessed a lot of writers allow the inner critic to talk them out of pursuing their creative dreams. It’s the single most widespread creative tragedy I know of.
3. It’s important to find your own grounding in your work. This one is big. So many writers want to be heard, but they’re looking for outside validation to tell them that they’re good enough, or they’re only measuring success based on who else cares about their work. Writing whether or not anyone is listening means that you are writing for your own expression, desire, creativity, gifts—and people finding it, and/or finding it important, is secondary.
4. The only way to be successful as a writer is to publish. This is obvious in terms of how we measure success, but so many writers are just sitting on their work—waiting for what? Mark published lots of works on very small houses over the years. He’s incredibly prolific, and he writes to publish, as well as to process, to teach, to connect, to commune. But in this mix must be publishing because this is the only way to gain readers (listeners). Be consistent about getting content out into the world. (And it’s good that social media, blogging, guest posting, or digital only strategies be a part of this—content is content!)
5. You have to be your own best listener. If and when no one is listening, and whether it’s true or not that no one is, you need to feel the way your message affects you. If you know the feeling of flow, then you know the feeling of connection and resonance with your own words. It’s powerful stuff. Addictive even. Feed on this rather than the words of your inner critic.
Of course, the number of people who are listening is going to shift as you grow. Part of your growth will come from practice; part of it is gaining confidence that what we say matters; part of it is owning that we want to be successful and that’s okay. You may start with ten listeners and grow to a few hundred and then to a few thousand and then much more. Even the most famous and widely published authors started with a first piece of writing and a first published book.

Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes Press, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of What’s Your Book? and How to Sell Your Memoir, and the co-author of Breaking Ground on Your Memoir. Brooke’s expertise is in traditional and new publishing, and she is an equal advocate for publishing with a traditional house and self-publishing. She sits on the board of the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Bay Area Book Festival, and the National Association of Memoir Writers. Her website was selected by The Write Life as one of the Top 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2014 and 2015. She lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Brooke will be a presenter at Writers Forum in Petaluma, California on April 16, 2015
Guest Blogger Linda Jay writes about copyediting.

In 2012, Joel Friedlander asked Linda Jay to offer readers of his popular blog, The Book Designer, advice at that time, on “one of the most important decisions a self-publisher makes: hiring a copyeditor.” Here’s her reply, still pertinent today:

Agreed. You’ve spent months (or possibly years) writing the manuscript that will one day be your book. You’ve distilled all those handwritten notes from pages or scraps of paper, those often-incoherent e-mails to yourself, and those ideas racing around in your brain, and typed every one of them into the computer, in some loosely organized format that vaguely resembles a book. Then one day… hooray… it occurs to you that… you’re done!

Now you can’t wait to get your little gem “OUT THERE” for all the world to marvel at. You are indeed a writer (which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny)!

Oh, yes, you’ve given a sneak peek at your masterpiece to a few people whose opinion you trust—relatives, longtime friends, business colleagues. And, sure, they may have spotted a few misspellings, or a weird sentence construction here or there, but what the hey—everybody makes mistakes.

They’re just tickled that you’ve had the audacity, capacity and tenacity to write a book; a few glitches only show that you’re human. After all, who’s perfect? It’s time to send your “baby” on its way to possible fame, and reap the glories of being a published author!

Are You Serious?

Oh, but wait… if you really want to be taken seriously as a writer, stop and listen to that little nagging voice in your head that keeps saying, “Shouldn’t you be running the manuscript past an experienced professional copyeditor before you send it out?”

Yes, you’ve read that in order to make your book as good as it can possibly be, you must take that vital step of investing in the services of an editorial pro. And just think—in the twinkling of a well-trained eye, a topnotch editor could burnish your precious prose so it sparkles in the sunlight.

But if you submit (interesting, the ramifications of that word “submission” when it refers to sending in a manuscript, isn’t it?) your pages to the hyper-scrutiny of a nitpicky copyeditor, won’t your authentic voice be changed or deleted or mangled beyond recognition?

The answer is… no, not if you properly vet the copyeditor to make sure you can work together well, and if the copyeditor stipulates that one of his or her goals is to make your manuscript publisher-ready… but not change your unique voice.

A good copyeditor will offer to edit a few pages of your work as a sample, to see if you two are, literally and figuratively, “on the same page.” You can usually judge from his or her edits whether you would be able to work together happily or not. For example, if you question some of the edits and the editor responds in a haughty or rigid “only my way is right” tone, run as fast as you can toward another editor.

If your manuscript is about the life and times of the artist Edward Gorey, and the editor you’re considering has never heard of Edward Gorey and, furthermore, has no interest in learning anything about Edward Gorey, bid farewell and turn quickly on your heels.

6 Ways Copyeditors Make Your Book Better

A good copyeditor brings so much to the party. He or she can:
1. go over grammar, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure with a fine-tooth comb;
2. check for consistency of verb tense, tone, and mood;
3. find instances where sentences or paragraphs could be moved to make more logical sense;
4. ask questions about clarity of idea, or accuracy of fact;
5. call attention to parts of the text that could be tightened, expanded, livened up or deleted;
6. make suggestions — synonyms for overused words, deletions of redundant words or phrases.
With a good copyeditor on your team, misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, its/it’s, to/too and other hair-raising/hare-raising errors will melt away. Skilled editors say that mistakes “leap off the page” at them. And potential readers of your book will not be distracted by sloppy copy.

You can find professional book manuscript copyeditors through organizations such as BAIPA and the Bay Area Editors’ Forum (BAEF), through online editorial sites, through ads in magazines that are targeted toward writers, and through looking up “copyeditor” on search engines.

A good copyeditor can make your book’s message shipshape—and that’s not just editorial spin!

Originally published as “6 Ways Copyeditors Make Your Book Better,” a guest post on Joel Friedlander’s popular blog, The Book Designer, on May 25, 2012.

Linda Jay is a manuscript copyeditor with decades of experience, specializes in business, novels, memoirs, spirituality, women’s issues, academic topics and fantasy (vampires, zombies).

Linda Jay will be on a panel of editors at Writers Forum in Petaluma, California on May 21, 2015.
Guest Blogger B. Lynn Goodwin talks about Taking Your Writing to the Next Level – A Look at Editing and Polishing

So you’ve been inspired, found the time, and drafted a story or memoir that you really want to share with the world. Maybe you’ve even shared it with a critique group, or had a good friend read it to you so you could hear your own glitches.

What do you need to do to take it to the next level and make it ready for publication?
1. Look at the content. Does everything contribute to the story you’re telling, or do you have extraneous material?
2. Do your characters struggle, try, and give it their all? If not, is there a clear reason not to? Does that change before the end of the story?
3. Now that you’ve drafted it, what is your story about? It might have several themes or messages. Make a list.
4. How does the story end? Is there an epiphany? Does the ending reinforce your message? Has the protagonist changed?
5. Do you feel stuck? Try listing 5-20 things that aren’t likely to happen. It’s a circuitous route for opening yourself to new ideas.
6. Why is this story important? What matters? What’s at stake?
7. What makes this story unique and what makes it universal?
8. Is there some kind of tension and how does it enhance the story? Does the pace work?
9. Are your mechanics polished until they shine? Do they make you look professional?
10. Who is your audience and why will they care about these characters and their situation?
11. How will your audience find this story? Who can help you bring it to them?
12. Condense your story into 45 words or less. That’s your pitch, the speech you use to tell your story. If you can’t do that, what do you need to cut, and what do you need to sharpen?
Sharing with readers is different from sharing with writers. Readers can tell you what they like and what troubles them. Writers and editors can tell you how to fix those problems. You might consider sharing with both before you submit.

Then make a list of ten magazines or e-zines or editors you’ll send it out to. As soon as it’s gone out, make a list of another ten. That way if you get a rejection, you can keep sending it out. Be sure you send to places that are looking for your subject matter, your style, and your level of skill.

Be courageous, not arrogant, whether you’re responding to acceptances, fan mail, or even rejections. And keep writing, even on the days when you’re down and discouraged. As my husband says, “You don’t lose until you quit trying.”

Lynn Goodwin is the owner of Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com, which is currently holding its 10^th Flash Prose Contest. She’s the author of You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers, and a YA called Talent, which Eternal Press will be publishing this year. Her short pieces have been published in local and regional publications.

Lynn will be on a panel of editors at Writers Forum in Petaluma, California on May 21, 2015.
Guest Blogger Linda Jay writes about self-editing and wordsmithing:

I’ve noticed a topic popping up more and more in books, workshops and seminars, even those offered by Writer’s Digest. Targeted mostly toward indie authors (perhaps you’re in that category), these books, workshops and seminars encourage writers to self-edit their own work before they self-publish.

Now, self-editing is fine. Going through your manuscript’s rough drafts several times over a period of weeks searching for errors and omissions, perhaps even reading the text aloud to catch awkward phrasing or redundancies or overcomplicated construction, is certainly not going to hurt—and possibly might even improve—your writing.

But let’s face it, there’s only so much self-editing an author can do. Frankly, you as the author are too close to the subject matter to be objective, even if you take a break from the material and come back to it later.

In my opinion—and I’m not just saying this because I happen to be an experienced book manuscript copyeditor—an author truly needs an editor’s fresh perspective to make his or her writing as excellent and polished as it can possibly be.

Recently I made editorial suggestions to an author, pointing out missing information and details in her novel; of course, she hadn’t left out facts intentionally. But on the other hand, she hadn’t noticed that she needed to “fill in the blanks” in that particular section of text so that a reader could understand the characters in-depth.

I also offered specific ideas for improving the text that the author hadn’t thought of, but was happy to implement immediately:
- short titles summing up each chapter,
- translations of Latin terms and phrases so that the reader will understand their meaning,
- clarification and explanation of obscure historical points,
- easily understood transitions between scenes.
The Role of Traditional Publishers?

Traditional publishers no longer pay for the routine editing of manuscripts, and self-publishers often believe that they cannot afford to hire a professional editor.

If you as an author have done your best self-editing but are still convinced that you want a professional editor to work with you, ask the editor to work on just a few chapters at a time. That way, it’s within the realm of financial possibility.

Far beyond being merely a spell-checker, a good copyeditor is essentially able to “hear” what an author has written, and sense how a piece of writing will be received by other readers. An experienced copyeditor will also notice if the writer has made unfounded assumptions about the subject matter or the intended audience.

In other words, self-editing is indeed useful, but it will never take the place of the opinions and comments of a professional wordsmith.

The two processes should be used in tandem.

Originally posted in Joel Friedlander’s blog, The Book Designer, on October 5, 2012

Linda Jay is a manuscript copyeditor with decades of experience, specializes in business, novels, memoirs, spirituality, women’s issues, academic topics and fantasy (vampires, zombies)

Linda will be on a panel of editors at Writers Forum in Petaluma on May 21, 2015.
Guest Blogger Jane Merryman writes about the silence of the L’s:

            In the Danish language nearly 32 percent of the letters are silent. In French the number approaches 28 percent—I would have thought much more than that. About 16 percent of the letters in English words are silent. Think about it: would, could, should. And half. That l shows up in the strangest places. And then there’s wall—why do we need two l‘s there?

            I attended junior high and high school at a Catholic school for girls in Menlo Park, California. The nuns were Americans, but the religious order was French and operated schools around the world. All students, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, attended a French class every single day. By the time I graduated from high school I had advanced even into the dense forest of subjunctives. (That was when I learned English also has subjunctives, but we just ignore them.) In college I decided to branch out and signed up for Spanish. What a joy, what a relief, what an ace of a class! Every letter is pronounced. Yes, you have to get used to the fact that the j sounds like h, but you can depend on it—when you look at a word you know how to pronounce it. Much later, when I planned to travel in Italy and took evening school conversation classes, I found that Italian was much the same as Spanish. Of course there is the c gotcha— sometimes it sounds like ch, and sometimes has the hard c, or k, sound, but otherwise Italian has none of the silent letter pitfalls of French or English. Learning Indonesian also proved to be a similarly giddy pleasure. It has the same c/ch effect and, for that reason and its musical quality, is called the Italian of Asia. When I have to use a phrase I find in my handy little Indonesian Berlitz manual, I am confident I can pronounce the whole thing correctly and be understood.

            I commiserate with students of the French language. They have to learn to add silent letters to the end of many words, especially verbs. The only consonants that are pronounced at the end of French words are c, r, f, and l, the consonants in the English word careful. What a great mnemonic. I learned this lesson in one sitting. So we have avec with a final hard c sound; gentil and hôtel; pour and jour; and chef. However, tu parles (you speak) and ils parlent (they speak) are pronounced the same as je parle (I speak). Aaargh!

            As much as I feel sorry for French schoolchildren, I pity all those newcomers in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. As if they didn’t have enough problems, they have to contend with the inconsistencies that crowd into speaking English. For every rule of grammar there are exceptions. English seems to be nothing if not exceptions, and silent letters are typical atypicalities.

            We have that pesky combination of gh. Sometimes it’s silent on the end of a word as in though. And silent in the middle of a word: blight, slight, ought. It can change the vowel sound as in bough and thought. Then it assumes a sound quite unlike its spelling, as in rough, tough, cough, trough (which can be pronounced with a final f or a th).

            There’s the curse of the final e. It’s supposed to tell us that the vowel that comes immediately before it has a long sound: hate, delete, cite, cone. We have lone, pone, and hone, but where did gone come from? Prelate and prejudice are among the words that break the rule.

            Consider the strange case of sure. In this instance a letter is missing, the h after the s. And there’s that final e. The u is not the sound of the u in dune or perfume; it’s more like an e, but not a long e, or a short e, just something like an e, but certainly not a long u. And, speaking of u, why does u have to come after q. It makes sense in quagmire but not in mystique (from the French, so of course it has silent letters!).

            Melvil Dewey was a fanatic about reformed spelling—notice the spelling of his first name. This is the same Melvil who invented the Dewey Decimal System, which is used to arrange libraries around the world. When not sorting out books, Dewey championed the elimination of extraneous letters from English words. But it never caught on. He was just regarded as a crackpot.

                        The problem of all our silent letters stems from the fact that English is a mongrel language. Anu Garg, the guru of the A.Word.A.Day website, recently explained it this way:

If the English language were a cake, its batter would have Germanic flour. Sugar, butter, and milk would be of Norse, French, and Latin origins, not necessarily in that order. And on top of that would be icing with little flourishes here and there made up of dozens of languages—Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, and others—it has borrowed from.

I feel compelled to add that our condiment ketchup is a poor relation of the Indonesian spicy sauce kecap, in which the c has the ch not the k sound. I cood go on, but you wood probably be thoroly bord. And, remember, we English speakers have it easy compared to the Danes. I heard their language is impossible to learn from a book!

Jane Merryman specializes in copy editing: correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, and, as we say in the profession, infelicities.

If you live in the area, join us on May 21, 2015 at Writers Forum in Petaluma, California. Jane will be a panelist on an Editors’ Forum.
Guest Blogger Frances Lefkowitz writes:

The life of a freelance writer is full of the uncertain (“where will my next assignment come from?”) and the mundane (“did I spell that source’s name right?”), coupled with high deadline pressure and middling compensation. But every once in a while, I get to track down fascinating regular people and ask them to tell me stories. That’s what I did for a recent article for Good Housekeeping on the power of storytelling. The assignment was to write about the new evidence that storytelling has benefits for the health and wellness of individuals, families, and communities, and I had to read my fair share of academic research journals and talk to my fair share of M.D.s and Ph.Ds. But I also got to sit back, relax, and listen to tall tales.

The best, most enduring stories, it turns out, are those that contain both hardship and humor. Like the one Evelyn Karozos, who comes from a large Greek family in the Midwest, told me about how the whole family used to eat dinner in the parents’ bedroom on sticky summer nights—because that was the only room with an air conditioner. Or the one a southern grandmother—and who can beat Southerners for storytelling—told me the one about her great grandpa, who once wooed a wealthy widow by wrapping the few dollar bills he had around a wad of newspaper, then casually letting it drop from his pocket, leaving the impression that he was rolling in money.

And then there was the one from Emily Pickle, a young mother from Florida, who recounted a bittersweet story about the time her grandmother was going through a health crisis in which she suffered temporary dementia-like symptoms. “This was the year the Gators won the championship, and the quarterback was Danny Wuerffel,” she told me, adding, “Football is a very big deal where we come from.” When her mother and uncle went to visit Grannie in the hospital, they found her repeating, “Danny Wuerffel, Danny Wuerffel” over and over, as if she were reciting a prayer. When Pickle’s Uncle Jay shared the anecdote with the rest of the family, he mimicked Grannie’s reverence, rocking back and forth, repeating the beloved QB’s name, eliciting laughter and tears in his audience. “It was awful, but it was funny, too, the way he told us,” she pointed out. And beneath the laughter and the tears, Uncle Jay was sending an important message to the rest of the family, that “Grannie’s going to recover from this; she’s going to laugh, we’re going to laugh, and this will be one more family story — not a family tragedy.” And he was right.

Psychologists call these “redemptive stories,” because they “redeem” a negative experience, finding some silver lining in a bad event. The point is NOT to be a pollyanna and sugarcoat the fear, danger, or difficulty. The point is to acknowledge the negativity, and also find some kind of lesson or benefit in it—even if that benefit is simply that the family came together to overcome a challenge. When people hear these stories, they get a laugh, a release of tension, a sense of belonging, and a signal that together, we can find ways to carry on.

I tell you all this because, as writers, we deal in stories. We distill them and write them down and spruce them up and pass them on. And by doing so, we are not only making a livelihood; we are contributing to the health and well being of the people who read us.

Click here to read the Good Housekeeping article.

Frances Lefkowitz is the former Senior Editor of Body+Soul (aka Martha Stewart’s Whole Living) and Book Reviewer for Good Housekeeping, as well as the author of the memoir To Have Not. She writes and edits fiction and nonfiction, and teaches for The Sun magazine’s writing workshops, the Omega Institute’s Memoir Festival (with Cheryl Strayed), Catamaran Literary Review’s August 2015 retreat, and other events.

Frances blogs about writing, publishing and footwear at PaperInMyShoe.com
Photo by Giacco Yanez

Frances will join other editors at Writers Forum on May 21. 2015 in Petaluma . . . meet editors, chat with editors, find an editor to help polish your manuscript.