Do you worry your style will be edited into mindless conformity?

[Ransonwrites]

The article which has inspired me to post this new thread begins as a discussion on self-publishing, but as this is an 'issue of writing' I thought this was best placed here, rather than in one of the publishing forums.

This dropped into my Inbox over lunch:
Do You Read Self-Published Books Differently? Yes, You Do!

Google the website of Catherine Ryan Howard for the full text. Sorry, no links as I'm still a noob without posting credit, so please do visit the blog, make a comment, retweet, like, or whatever you prefer in order to reward Ms Ryan Howard for her time.

The article begins by reporting the results of a poll taken on Ms Ryan Howard's blog that tested whether respondents read self-published books differently from traditionally published books. According to this, a majority do:

33% of you said that yes, you were sure you read self-published books differently
25% of you said that you wish you didn’t, but you can’t help it
Which when combined, makes it
58% of respondents who say they read self-published books differently, i.e. judge them differently to traditionally published books

But what is interesting is the reason for this difference:

A few commenters said that when they read a self-published book and spot an error, they know something can be done about it: they can contact the self-published author, who is probably easily located online, and let them know. Then the error can be removed and future editions will be free of it.


I have to say this horrifies me a bit, because while typos are cut and dried, it comes back to the main point of the original post which is why do you assume it’s a mistake? As an Irish author writing in British English (and I know I’m always on about this but it’s a problem that self-publishing created and a major point of bother for me), I get e-mails from people correcting not my mistakes, but British English into US English, among other things.

And now, at last, we get to the point I'm trying to explore, encapsulated in the topic title: Do you worry your style will be edited into mindless conformity?

But what does that mean? Another quote, please, Ms Howard:

I do wonder how a self-published author could ever write an experimental novel, or one that plays with language like, say, Everything Is Illuminated. If that novel was self-published, would Jonathan Safran Foer get e-mails complaining about Alex and his broken, thesaurus-powered English?

I've written an experimental novel, more or less. Two, in fact. Both are fantasy, set in a generic ancient world, but their chief characteristic is my use of language. I have intentionally adopted an antiquated, often lyrical, frequently alliterative grammatical style for both the narration and much of the dialogue. I've done this in order to best convey a sense of time and place and to create an atmosphere. In other words, I'm writing the fantasy I want to read (which is never a bad approach to writing in general) because so much fantasy tries to take me back to an ancient world whilst using terribly modern language and idiom in the narration. It doesn't work for me. I want to be immersed in that world, not dragged out of it in every other paragraph by a storyteller with a modern voice.

If necessary, I can post a couple of extracts to illustrate my point but have not done so because this post is already long, and because I'm not sure of the rules/etiquette of posting my own stuff at this stage.

So, anyway... how do you as an amateur, or professional, writer feel about the idea that your readers will try to edit you, or that a Copy-editor working for a publishing house might edit your work so much that it loses it's identity?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I only have a bit of experience of being edited -- two professional edits and a revise and resubmit for an agent -- and they've never tried to change my style. They'll tell me if something is clunky, or if it doesn't quite work, but not to change it altogether.

When I write my Irish based stuff I do get comments along the lines of what does this mean, (loughs cause huge confusion as does eating tea), but so long as most people follow it I don't change it.

So, no, I don't worry about it at all. If something changed too much for me, it wouldn't sound right to my ears -- my voice would be gone, if you like -- and then I'd dig in and go no further. Plus, if you've sold to an agent or a publisher, they'll have gone for the voice anyway (so said Mr Jarrold at Worldcon), and they won't want that to change.

 

[The Judge]

If necessary, I can post a couple of extracts to illustrate my point but have not done so because this post is already long, and because I'm not sure of the rules/etiquette of posting my own stuff at this stage.

Thanks for not posting them. An odd line or two, even a short paragraph or so, wouldn't be a problem here in GWD as long as it's intended to show a point -- though it would still be better to use a published author's work (with attribution, obviously) to avoid even the suspicion of self-promotion which is frowned upon for new members. Otherwise, once you hit 30 counted posts you can put something up in Critiques for feedback which might help in seeing if your alliterative poetic language is any kind of barrier to your work or if, on the other hand, it's greatly admired.

So, anyway... how do you as an amateur, or professional, writer feel about the idea that your readers will try to edit you, or that a Copy-editor working for a publishing house might edit your work so much that it loses it's identity?

Um... frankly I think that's one of the last things we need to worry about. If a publishing house takes you on, it's likely that your style -- whatever it is -- will be one of the deciding factors. They're not going to junk that in toto -- which would be a helll of a lot of work -- for no good reason.

As for self-publishing, it's perhaps unfair to say that most self-publishers need all the help they can get with spelling and punctuation... p) but again, it's not something that need worry someone even one undertaking an experimental style. If a reader comments, he/she must have read the book, or at least part of it, which is the object of the exercise, in which case thank him/her for the time spent and say, actually that spelling was intended. And if a reader is so pulled out of a story that he/she feels the need to comment at length, I think there's a lot more to worry about there.

 

[Ransonwrites]

Otherwise, once you hit 30 counted posts you can put something up in Critiques for feedback which might help in seeing if your alliterative poetic language is any kind of barrier to your work or if, on the other hand, it's greatly admired.

Hmm... judging by what's been going on in my introduction thread on the Introduce Yourself forum, I think we have our answer!

If a publishing house takes you on, it's likely that your style -- whatever it is -- will be one of the deciding factors. They're not going to junk that in toto -- which would be a helll of a lot of work -- for no good reason.

Fair point. However, it's worth bearing in mind that the publisher will still insist on emending the text to conform to their own house style, and will probably also want to 'internationalise' the English, which basically means US English norms, if not full-on Chicago spelling. I have the privilege to know a published author who was formerly a self-published wannabe (no one famous, so I won't drop the names of either him or his publisher). I vividly recall how much more bald he went from the hair-pulling that was induced when he received the corrected transcript of his first book and discovered his carefully crafted, and beautifully grammatical, fantasy novel had been bastardised into modern pseudo-international English syntax and spelling.

They had edited his style. (I thought they weren't supposed to do that.)

Needless to say, he rejected most of the changes, wrote some fairly pointed remarks and made no friend of his editor. I think his commissioning editor finally gave in and replaced the sub-editor in question with someone a little more sympathetic.

I suppose this was what I had in mind when posing the topic, but I am not sufficiently experienced to know whether this sort of thing is typical, or my friend was just unlucky.

 

[The Judge]

Amended spelling is likely to be inevitable for a book written here but published in the States, as would be changing words which publishers might believe a US audience wouldn't understand. (Was it "muffin" JK Rowling had to change, among other words?) Regrettable, and I too would be hopping mad, especially since we don't have the same courtesy extended with US books which are brought over here -- but it might help to think of it as a book which has been translated, which necessarily involves change of some kind. But actively changing the writer's style isn't something I'd heard of, -- and I understand professional translators go to great lengths to try and evoke the original's style -- and I can only assume your friend was particularly unlucky. And, of course, he achieved his end with a change of copy editor, so the publishers were evidently not so intent on changing his style as might be inferred from the question.

 

[chrispenycate]

Hmm... judging by what's been going on in my introduction thread on the Introduce Yourself forum, I think we have our answer!

Could this be my contribution to said thread? It was in no means intended as a criticism; I merely rise to a challenge like a trout to a fly. I can resist almost anything but temptation. And flattery. And my grandniece.

But I never try to modify anybody's style or voice. Unless, that is, your intention is to produce incomprehensible, ungrammatical and ill punctuated text, in which case I will point out these details, not insist on change. The universe would be a very strange place if anybody else, let alone everybody else, attempted to copy my techniques and structures (though I consider it passing strange as it is now, so perchance it would not be a major shift). I have not yet submitted any of my work to an editor, so am not aware how they might consider it, but the piece I wrote for the Grantville Gazette (1632 series) was 'dumbed down' twice for the American audience (who I suspect of not being as stupid and ignorant as the editor assumed) but my essential, tongue in cheek, nothing too serious, underlying way of getting ideas across was left alone, and only spellings were changed to protect their innocence.

To a certain extent an agent will attempt to steer an author towards writing that he or she can sell to a publisher, and eventually to a wider audience, In this present day and age you can ignore advice and maintain your 'artistic integrity'; this has always been the case if you had enough money. They (the agents and publishers) are gambling on recognising what the general public want to read, or at the very least to buy, and their livelihood depends on them getting it right more often than not. You could argue that they are forming public taste by only offering what they approve of, which might even have been true a decade or so ago, but if they thought they could sell something, even if they did not personally like it, they believed they could sell, they'd go for it (well, some of them might have moral objections to printing racist propaganda or instructions for poisoning a town's water supply, but given what is on sale, not enough for such works to find a publisher).

 

[Brian G Turner]

The only people who fear being edited into mediocrity are poor writers who need a good kick up the ego!

I'm not directing this at you specifically Ransonwrites, I'm merely addressing the subject.

More than 12 years ago I finished my first draft and thought I was an artistic genius.

It was a totally self-obsessed delusion. I knew nothing about writing, writing tools, and didn't know how to benchmark it.

Nowadays - I'm still not yet at the commercial publishing level - but I'll get there through hard work and determination.

I welcome the red pen! Because good editors know what they're talking about, and they are trying to encourage your work to be stronger.

Btw, big publishers do correct their ebooks for typos and errors.

 

[Kissmequick]

Hmmm

My copy editors have never (at Orbit and at other publishers) edited my style*. They have suggested that it might be clearer if I...or had I thought about...? I am then free to take the suggestion or thought and agree or not. They do not change the work. They make a suggestion and I either accept it or reject it. I almost always accept that there needs to be a change (though sometimes we discuss whether a different change might work better. Which I then implement)


*With the exception of house style. Currently my work is in British English, but I have had spellings changed to US before now (only the spellings though, except inn one case where I'd used an idiom my US editor didn't know, so I changed to one she did). But then, if I had a problem with that, knowing that the publisher uses US English, I would not have signed with that publisher -- why would I? House style, as the name suggests, depends on the publisher but most of my changes have been very minimal. The type of dash used, for instance, or whether to use " or '. Nothing to pull your hair out over. But if the publisher uses a style you don't like, well either don't sign with them, try to negotiate (unlikely they'll change style but you never know) or accept that it happens.



That said, I'm sure there are some horror stories about copy editors -- they can't all be fantastic! But mine have saved my blushes more than once....

 

[Ransonwrites]

Chrispy, nothing of the sort! I was very impressed by your poetical interlude!

I welcome the red pen! Because good editors know what they're talking about, and they are trying to encourage your work to be stronger.

Amen. I have also been on the receiving end of professional editing, and as a result of that learning process have been granted the compliment of being told that I now write commercial and publishable* material by more than one industry insider.

*is that a word?

Which begs the question: why am I not published?

Answer: they keep saying no I guess I'm living proof that it's marketing that sells books, not quality, and if the marketing department can't think of a way to sell it, the commissioning editor just has to shake his head and chuck it in the slush pile. But this, I suspect, is an entirely different topic...

Kissmequick, thanks for your insights.


And now for something completely off-topic.

This is not the first time, nor the last, that I've quoted other people's online handles in a post. And every time I do, I cannot get over the feeling of living in the twilight zone. This is not to denigrate anyone's choice of name (I've gone by some howlers in the past) but by the same token, I've just attempted serious discourse with someone I've referred to as Chrispy, someone who goes by a subject-noun sentence fragment, and someone who seems to be offering a one night stand, if I recall the Elvis song accurately.

Ain't the internet marvelous?

And no, I'm not over 60. But I do remember the Time Before The Internet, when mobile phones needed their own backpack, and computers had nothing but green scrolling text (I learned to type on one of those).

 

[Ransonwrites]

P.S. The Judge, missed your reply. Excellent point about viewing it as a translation. I have, for a long time now, viewed American as a foreign language, anyway, so this will not present problem!

 

[Brian G Turner]

I have also been on the receiving end of professional editing, and as a result of that learning process have been granted the compliment of being told that I now write commercial and publishable* material by more than one industry insider.

The sharp truth is that this is only one person's opinion. If you're getting standard rejections then the obvious answer is that the publishing industry disagrees with that assessment. Of course, if you're getting personalised rejections then that's a different story.

Which begs the question: why am I not published?

Call me naive, but I work on the presumption (because agents mention it) that around 97%* of the submissions made to them are sub standard for one reason or another.

These sub standard submissions include handwritten ones, ones with very poor English language skills, and ones plainly unsuitable for the agents being targeted. (I have a business news website that - for some reason, has received some Romance submissions. I presume it's linked to from a non-English website by the appalling standard of English submitted).

In which case, you're aim is to be in that 3%.

That's still not an all clear, because even if your work is in this category, rejections are then based on factors such as:

- it simply does not personally appeal to this agent
- the agent likes it but thinks they may have difficulty selling it
- a few other general reasons along these lines, which are not due to competence of the writer

That's why perseverance is also listed as an important attribute for an aspiring writer - it's said that Iain Banks was 14 years between first rejection and first sale.

At WFC, Brandon Sanderson's agent said how he kept bouncing MSS back from Brandon Sanderson telling him to stop sending him substandard work when the agent knew Sanderson could do better.

I know there are writers here - good writers, in that 3% of competence - who are looking for agents. Some have already got agents. Some will have to persevere longer. These things take time. The publishing industry is renown for moving at a glacial pace.

So where may you be going wrong? Well, once you reach 15 posts you'll be fine to post links - once you reach 30 posts you can post a sample for critique - first 1500 words from your story.

Hopefully some of the members here will be able to provide useful critical feedback. There are always differences of opinion so you should certainly get something useful back, though whether it's anything you can use depends on what sort of issues are being highlighted, and whether you feel you want to address them (there may be technical criticisms, there may simply be different personal ways of doing things, and some comments will misinterpret context simply because there's not the rest of the story to read).

So hopefully you'll find your time on chronicles useful and helpful, and hopefully we can help you get somewhere - as with all the writers here.



* Carole Blake, From Pitch to Publication

 

[ZombieWife]

I had more editing to my work (in terms of altering voice/style) when I wrote for a newspaper than I ever have for my fiction. Weird.

 

[Kissmequick]

These sub standard submissions include handwritten ones, ones with very poor English language skills, and ones plainly unsuitable for the agents being targeted. (I have a business news website that - for some reason, has received some Romance submissions. I presume it's linked to from a non-English website by the appalling standard of English submitted).

In which case, you're aim is to be in that 3%.

Absolutely correct. Here's a handy little link (scroll down to the list) of why MSs get rejected


Making Light: Slushkiller

If your prose and story telling is of publishable quality, then it's got a much better chance, but also it needs to be the right sort of book -- the sort the publisher wants to put out, that stands out from the rest.

LOTR almost certainly would not be published nowadays - why? Because it's not the sort of book that modern publishers put out, at least not by a newbie. (I love JRRT, but dear gods the man could ramble for England). Ofc if you get to be as big as say Stephen King, you could probably get away with it Horror is a difficult genre to get into atm (again, unless you're King) but you can write your creepy tale with another genre in mind. Not many vamps being taken on from what I hear, unless it's exceptional or you're an established writer. So if you want to write about vamps, it needs to be exceptional, or perhaps you can focus on other areas in that story too, so it isn;t "just" a vamp story. Etc. etc

This is why it's vital to study the market -- not to sell out, but to write the story you want to write, in a way that makes it appealing to current readers. Pick your audience -- maybe it's the kind of people who love Brandon Sanderson's stuff, or China Meiville's. Then know your audience, and what they want. Then give it to them.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Editing is or shoud be a conversation. Editors have their own ideas as to what will work best, the author has another. That's why you as an author don't simply hand your work over to an editor and never see it again. You get it back and you go through the changes, change what you agree with and keep the rest.

At the end of the day it's your book. You should always maintain executive control.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ransonwrites]

Thanks for the advice, folks.

Wow, Kissme! (Can I call you Kissme?) That link is depressing, particularly the discussion of just how venal the contributors to Rejection Collection can be. I'm glad I've never heard of that site before and have no intention of looking it up. Unlike the denizens of that pit, I don't get offended by rejections: I simply want to know why I was rejected so I can learn from them.

The list is quite interesting... the bottom half, that is. Please don't interpret this as a boast, and if you think I'm spouting garbage, please say so, but I suspect I may have reached as high as category #13 with my last submission of a scifi thriller. I say this because I received a detailed personal response from the editor who spent time he didn't have to in describing his views, pointing out a few areas for improvement (the kind which would, I think, have been fixed in an edit) but, also, discussing the text's virtues before apologising and saying that it wasn't the 'game changer' they were looking for, right now. This I interpreted to mean that I had fallen foul of a commercial analysis that saw no market for it, and/or they already had something similar and didn't want to dilute that brand (if they did, I must have missed it in my pre-sub research trawl of their list).

Nevertheless, I was quite happy because he then invited me to submit again, in the future, direct to him rather than through the usual channels.

Now, if I'm smoking the wacky backy and viewing all of the above through rose-tinted lenses, please do tell me. Like I said, rejections are learning opportunities, as are all failures. (Sorry, sometimes I think I sound like a self-help book...)

 

[Kissmequick]

That sounds very encouraging -- editors/agents do not give detailed feedback (or ask you to sub direct to them rather than through slush) without good reason, believe me. Sounds like a 12 (Author has talent, but written wrong book) or 13 to me. It's at this point that studying the market will pay dividends.


PS Kissme is fine, though I usually go by KMQ (The name is a long story....)

 

[Aleph]

Hmm, I don't think there should be a problem. In my opinion "style" is more than something that can be merely edited out. It is more than grammar, or dash-placement, it is a certain flow of the words, an overarching theme, sentence structure and metaphors and similes and character. I worry that people who say 'editing will strip the life out of my prose" are actually looking for excuses NOT to pay the cost of a good edit!

Also, as much as an e.e. cummings/James Joycean styles are pretty to look at, they become quickly tiresome to read, and the market of folks who enjoy such works are not large. Publishing houses that promise their readers a certain clean prose style are well within their rights to keep it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I received a detailed personal response from the editor who spent time he didn't have to in describing his views, pointing out a few areas for improvement (the kind which would, I think, have been fixed in an edit) but, also, discussing the text's virtues before apologising and saying that it wasn't the 'game changer' they were looking for, right now.

This is good news - you're in the top 3%! (So apologies if I sounded condescending before!)

I presume you've got other books you're working on?

 

[Ransonwrites]

No, no, you weren't condescending. One needs a good slap of reality at regular intervals or the day dreams take over, and you stop writing fantasy and start believing it, instead.

Yes, I've got other books. That one was a scifi but, mostly based on a dare from my published author friend, I had a go at fantasy and now have two of those. These are the books written in a somewhat eclectic style and which inspired the topic that started this thread.

I'm currently hammering away at a synopsis for one of them and plan to submit that to the complimentary editor. I am, of course, hating every minute of the synopsising and blurb writing, as you do, and struggling to resist the thought that it's not as good as the other one, and that I should ditch it and focus on that, instead. But I've invested all this time!

Writing is agony.

 

[Dream Walker]

If they change it, why do you assume the changes will make it worse? Do you feel that if your work is edited into a better vehicle you can no longer lay claim to it in entirety?