Hallie on editing is bliss... except for the plot knots

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Welcome back to WHAT WE'RE WRITING week. 

First, DRUM ROLL! Here's the cover of CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, due out in August! What I love most about it is the star. I was a big one for wishing on the first star of the night, never realizing that the first one is usually a planet. 

Which brings us to today's topic: editing.

A week ago I received the copyedited manuscript. What I adore about this stage of writing is cleaning up the nits. Streamlining. Eliminating redundancies. Obsessing over minutiae.

What I don’t like is when the editor picks up something that a) makes no sense, or b) Is contradicted by something else that happened in the book, or c) that character would never do that, or d) screws up the timeline, or e)…. I call them plot knots, and working each one out often means fixes that ripple through the book.

Working out a plot knot often requires an overnight during which I toss and turn, what-iffing like crazy and taking fork after fork until (usually the next morning when I’m half awake and still in bed) I find one that works.

For instance, here’s my next-morning notes for the plot knot: Why didn’t they hear the camera click. Trust me, this is an essential plot twist. The camera in question is an older DSLR with a mechanical shutter, and as the editor rightly points out, the characters WOULD have heard it click. Yet for the story to work, I need them not to.

This required fixes in FIVE places in the manuscript (see my list) which I checked off as I made them, and marked the places in the manuscript so I could go back and read them one after the other.

Here are some of the easy edits the copyeditor made. (I’m leaving out all the commas I misplaced. Seems like where I put them, they get taken out, and vice versa.) See if you can tell what needs fixing. The edited versions are below.

1. She dumped a load into the bag, then crouch-walked further in.
2. She logged onto her computer
3. When they’d gotten back the latest test results back a few weeks ago Frank had seemed relieved.
4. Mrs. Murphy held the picture to her chest for a few moments, then lay it facedown on the piano.
5. When they billed Mrs. Moore a bill for the unbudgeted hours, she refused to pay
6. Frank sniffed his sleeve. “And I really do need a shower.”
7. But she missed and the key dropped onto the concrete floor. Bending over to pick it up, blood rushed to her head.
8. Under the pulsing showerhead, her head cleared.
9. Emily rolled the map back up and slipped it into the tube, anxious to put it back on the shelf where she’d found it.
10. Walter Newell had dark hair and a mustache and beard like this guy, but that was hardly enough to say it was he.

FIXES

1. She dumped a load into the bag, then crouch-walked farther in.
2. She logged on to her computer.
3. When they’d gotten the latest test results back a few weeks ago Frank had seemed relieved.
4. Mrs. Murphy held the picture to her chest for a few moments, then laid it facedown on the piano.
5. When they billed Mrs. Moore for the unbudgeted hours, she refused to pay
6. Frank sniffed his armpit. “And I really do need a shower.”
7. But she missed and the key dropped onto the concrete floor. When she bent to pick it up, blood rushed to her head.
8. Under the pulsing showerhead, her mind cleared
9. Emily rolled the map and slipped it into the tube, anxious to put it back on the shelf where she’d found it.
10. Walter Newell had dark hair and a mustache and beard like this guy, but that was hardly enough to say it was him.

How'd you do? What are the kinds of nits that trip you up, reading or writing?