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Episode 4: What Editors Wish Authors Knew
57 Plays2 months ago
Paul asks Lindsay what editors wish their authors knew. Drawing on over a decade of experience as an editor, Lindsay shares tips and insights that will help save you time, money, and heartache as you prepare your manuscript for editorial feedback.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Quilling It' Podcast
00:00:16
Lindsay Franklin
Hello and welcome. I am Lindsay Franklin.
00:00:20
Paul Regnier
And I'm Paul Regner.
00:00:22
Lindsay Franklin
And this is Quilling It. And today we are talking about what editors wish authors knew.
What Does Editing Entail?
00:00:29
Paul Regnier
Now, Lindsay, you yourself are an editor. i am not. All right. So I will be grilling you with all the difficult questions that authors want to know.
00:00:39
Lindsay Franklin
ya
00:00:40
Paul Regnier
But no, I think this is really good because um when I first got started, i didn't, I would say I don't really, I didn't realize what all went into editing.
00:00:52
Paul Regnier
I didn't realize there was multiple layers of editing. Kind of from my limited framework, I would think, oh yeah, they clean up typos and maybe make your sentences flow a little bit better, which is a part of it. But that's actually a small part at the end.
Lindsay's Editing Experience
00:01:07
Paul Regnier
So maybe it would be good to, um well, actually, if you could maybe quickly talk about your editing experience and and and all about that, just so that people know where you're coming from.
00:01:19
Lindsay Franklin
Sure, absolutely. And you're right, there are a lot of different types of editors. And so my experience is in most types of editing.
00:01:30
Lindsay Franklin
And I say most because I have never been an acquisitions editor. So we're going to talk about what each of these types of editors ah is and what what they do.
00:01:34
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:01:40
Lindsay Franklin
So I have been a developmental editor, freelance. So developmental editor is going to be looking at the broad overview of your story.
00:01:51
Lindsay Franklin
So stuff like the plot and the pacing and the characters and your magic system, or if you're writing historical, you know your historical research and all of those sorts of things. So the developmental editor is looking at broad, big picture stuff.
Roles in Editing at Enclave Publishing
00:02:06
Lindsay Franklin
And sometimes that's called a content editor. Sometimes people call themselves book doctors. There's a lot of different names for everything in publishing, which makes it really confusing when you're first jumping in.
00:02:16
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:02:17
Lindsay Franklin
So that's all of the big picture content editing. And then you have a line editor, which I also do that. And it's actually one of my favorite kinds of editing because it sort of sits in the space between creative and technical.
00:02:32
Lindsay Franklin
And so I like that space. And it's that your line editor is going to be smoothing out your sentences and looking at everything on a paragraph level and a sentence level and making sure that, you know, your voice sounds really smooth and appealing and your sentences are are cobbled together well and correctly.
00:02:54
Lindsay Franklin
And, um, I i just really enjoy that personally, um because it sort of uses both sides of my brain. So that was probably one of my favorite types of editing to do when I was freelancing.
00:03:06
Lindsay Franklin
Um, and then there are copy editors who now we're getting into the territory that people think of when you say editor, this is like the detailed detail stuff where they're looking for typos and, uh,
00:03:13
Paul Regnier
Right. Mm-hmm.
00:03:19
Lindsay Franklin
you know, punctuation and that sort of thing, all those details, but also continuity issues. Copy editing is not the same as
What is the Role of an Acquisitions Editor?
00:03:26
Lindsay Franklin
proofreading. there' There's a little bit more that goes into it. It's more in depth. And then there is the proofreading phase, which I also did as a freelancer. i started freelancing in around, let's see, 2014, I think.
00:03:41
Lindsay Franklin
So I've been editing for, oh my goodness, over 10 years now. It's a long time. um Yeah, so...
00:03:46
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Lots of experience.
00:03:49
Lindsay Franklin
lots of experience. And I did ah freelancing for a number of years. And then now I'm managing editor at Enclave Publishing. So yet a different type of editor. And that's somebody who is involved with editorial stuff, yes, but also heavily with production. So the logistics of getting a book from a to Z, from author's draft to Reader's hands, a managing editor is going to be heavily involved with um most parts of that process.
00:04:20
Lindsay Franklin
And what else? Acquisitions editors. They are the ones that if you're going to a writer's conference and you're pitching to editors at that conference, you are pitching to acquisitions editors. They are the ones who look at the submissions or listen to the submissions and decide if it is something that they want to see more of and that they're publishing house might be interested in acquiring.
00:04:46
Paul Regnier
Kind of like the scouts in a you know in a sports term,
The Importance of Developmental Editing
00:04:50
Paul Regnier
right? The scouts going out looking for the best players to call onto their team and all that kind of stuff.
00:04:56
Lindsay Franklin
Absolutely, that is exactly what they are doing.
00:04:59
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Well, very cool. Yeah. I think, um, like I said, I think my, the first thought of editors was kind of that last stage of cleaning up grammar, finding typos and kind of thing. But my, actually my favorite part of editing is that first stage that I didn't even, I wasn't even aware of that developmental edit. Um, and there's other, there's other terms for that, right?
00:05:25
Paul Regnier
For developmental edit.
00:05:25
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:05:26
Paul Regnier
what What else do they call that?
00:05:26
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. Well, there's also levels to that type of work. So if that makes sense, so you can like you can hire a developmental editor to do a full developmental edit.
00:05:33
Paul Regnier
ah
00:05:41
Lindsay Franklin
And so if I was going to do that for a client, that means that they're going to get an editorial letter from me. They're probably going to get margin notes throughout the manuscript. They're going to get like a full analysis of what I think their story could use what they're doing really well, areas that we could strengthen it, tighten things up, you know fix some of the errors, fill some of the plot holes.
00:06:06
Lindsay Franklin
So they're going to get a really like a report, like a full breakdown kind of of what's going on.
00:06:06
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:06:11
Lindsay Franklin
But you can have an editor look at those
The Value of Self-Editing and Manuscript Critiques
00:06:14
Lindsay Franklin
same elements just from maybe a less in-depth perspective or giving you a little bit of a broader overview.
00:06:21
Lindsay Franklin
And that's sometimes called manuscript review. and, ah let's see, or a manuscript critique. So this is a lot of the kind of work that critique partners do for each other.
00:06:28
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:06:32
Lindsay Franklin
But of course, if you have a developmental editor doing it for you, it's a little bit more of an expert opinion. We're all, as authors and writers and aspiring novelists, we're all kind of experts because we're growing in our craft.
00:06:44
Lindsay Franklin
And so it it is different than having a reader look at your your work. It's, you know, like a step above that. But a dev editor is going to be, hopefully, multiple steps above that too, because they should be an expert.
00:06:51
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:06:57
Paul Regnier
Yeah, well, um I've actually, for my last couple of books, I've been using two editors. And with one, I get sort of that scaled down developmental edit you were talking about called the manuscript critique.
00:07:09
Paul Regnier
She calls it the manuscript critique, um which is less involved, but it's it's more affordable to me at this point.
00:07:16
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. Yep. That is the benefit.
00:07:20
Paul Regnier
But like to me that is... um like the most valuable to me, at least I look at it as the most valuable part of the editing process.
00:07:33
Paul Regnier
Now people can you know disagree with that or whatever, but just as as the writer trying to come up with these stories and trying to make them as strong as possible, There's always a part of that that's going to be like, I've lost my objectivity somewhere along the way, and I'm too close to the material, and I really value that outside voice that's going to tell me like, oh, you know there's some plot holes, or oh, this character's a little weak, or...
00:07:51
Lindsay Franklin
No.
00:08:01
Paul Regnier
you know, the theme needs to be strengthened or whatever it is, like, I don't know what happens, but when you are in the midst of it, it's like all these things that maybe seem so obvious when you're reading someone else's work.
00:08:14
Paul Regnier
It's just like, I don't know, they're not obvious or anymore. I don't know what happens, but um but that feedback to me is so valuable. And that has strengthened like so many of my books where I get that manuscript critique back and I'm like, oh my gosh, how did I miss that? How did I miss that? And then I change it. I'm like, man, the story iss so much better.
00:08:35
Paul Regnier
This was so bad.
00:08:36
Lindsay Franklin
Yep.
00:08:36
Paul Regnier
Because like to have a story that you're putting out there and to know like if I didn't make this change, it would not be as strong as it is. I mean, cause once it's out there, it's, it's out there. Right. And then you're just like, Oh, I hope people like it. So to have kind of like that extra, um, input to make it that much better, like my goodness, cause it's still your story, but now it's stronger and better and more impactful. And, um,
00:09:03
Paul Regnier
Yeah, I don't know. So
Common Manuscript Errors to Avoid
00:09:04
Paul Regnier
to me, that stage is really important. um But OK, so that's kind of like the various stages of editing and so forth. But keeping with the theme of you know this episode, you as an editor, you've seen a lot of these manuscripts come into you. And I'm sure there's been times along the way where you're like, man, I should probably just have a list of things that editors need. or that authors need to know before they even submit their stuff to me. So maybe like, what are some of like the common mistakes you see so much that you kind of just wish like, oh I wish authors would know this because they could avoid a lot of headache and a lot of changes along the way, if they would have just kind of had this to begin with.
00:09:49
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, absolutely. It's such a good question. And really, it it is something that benefits authors so much if they will take some time to work on some of these things before they engage an editor, before they submit to a publisher or an agent, or before they're indie publishing, of course. So the reason that I say this is because it's going to save you so much time and so much money and probably some rejections if you work on these things in advance. And ah Steve Lobby, who is my boss at Enclave and you know one of the top literary agents in the Christian publishing space, he said something years ago that just embedded in my mind. And he said, don't give me reasons to say no.
00:10:37
Lindsay Franklin
don't give me reasons to say no to your book because he's inundated with submissions all the time for the agency, for Enclave, all over the place.
00:10:37
Paul Regnier
Ah. Hmm.
00:10:46
Lindsay Franklin
So he is looking for that manuscript that as he reads through, there isn't, he doesn't run up into a wall where there's a barrier and that barrier can be something about your, well, the first thing that came to mind was platform, but that would be more like at the agency.
00:11:03
Lindsay Franklin
He'd be maybe thinking about platform, you know like for his nonfiction, potential nonfiction clients, it's, it is less of a factor at Enclave, but, um which is really nice and kind of rare in, in the traditional publishing space, but, um and that has nothing to do with editing, but, um you know, a barrier could be story related, certainly, but it can also be about the mechanics of your writing.
00:11:27
Lindsay Franklin
So an editor may really, at a publishing house, may really enjoy your story ideas. But some of those things we consider more technical and kind of less fun. um If that's really lacking and not up to professional standard, that is a reason for Steve or whoever you're submitting to to say no. And we don't want to give them reasons to say no. So if you are indie publishing, this is going to save you money. And if you are trying to traditionally publish, this is probably going to save you some heartache if you can work on these things in advance and maybe avoid the
Finding the Right Starting Point for Your Story
00:12:05
Lindsay Franklin
rejection. Maybe. Maybe.
00:12:07
Lindsay Franklin
So, and I say that because we've we've talked about how there's a lot of reasons why manuscripts are projected.
00:12:09
Paul Regnier
And so.
00:12:14
Paul Regnier
Right. Yeah, right.
00:12:16
Lindsay Franklin
It's not always that your your craft is lacking or something like that.
00:12:16
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:12:19
Lindsay Franklin
So I don't want to put that out there that you just write craft, you know, you get your craft up to a certain standard and like, oh, the contracts are just going to start pouring in.
00:12:19
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:12:26
Lindsay Franklin
There's more to it than that, but...
00:12:27
Paul Regnier
Right. you know As you were describing all those things, it really kind of brought to mind um almost like in your story you don't in or in your writing, you don't want there to be any giveaways that's where the editor or the publisher that you're submitting to goes, oh, rookie.
00:12:48
Paul Regnier
Right? Like any of those little signs that like, oh, maybe this person is more of a rookie author. They don't have enough experience. Like this is a rookie mistake. do you it do do do think When I say the word rookie mistake, do things come to mind that you've seen in manuscripts over the years?
00:13:07
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. So first, I think we're going to talk about this from the dev editor standpoint. So those kind of broad overview story type things. And so your editor wishes that you knew that you may be starting your story in the wrong place.
00:13:19
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:13:25
Lindsay Franklin
This is something we see all the time. So if you've ever gotten feedback about your prologue needing to be nixed, you know, get rid of that prologue, start with chapter one. um This is kind of that, that that falls into this camp.
00:13:41
Lindsay Franklin
um Also, I said,
00:13:42
Paul Regnier
don't Don't start in the middle of a dream, right?
00:13:45
Lindsay Franklin
Don't start in the middle of year. there's a lot of cliches with how we start books, how we open books. And sometimes it works where you open up the book and there's a prologue there and it starts, you know, 1000 years before the action of the main story or something, you know, if you're Tolkien or whatever, you know, sometimes that works.
00:14:04
Lindsay Franklin
but But more often than not, you're starting in the wrong place.
00:14:04
Paul Regnier
Yeah. alla
00:14:09
Lindsay Franklin
And even if you're not kind of doing some of those common prologue type mistakes. I cannot tell you how many times when I was doing either manuscript critique um or a dev edit for a client or how often we see it at at Enclave or when people are talking to me at conferences because I don't do acquisitions for Enclave, but I go to a lot of conferences where I'm on faculty throughout the year. And so I sit in a lot of meetings with authors who are hoping to be published by Enclave. And so I kind of get their pitches, even though that's not really what I do. um
00:14:42
Lindsay Franklin
And I cannot tell you how often... I'm flipping through pages or working on an edit and I get to maybe chapter three or chapter five. And it's like, oh, so this is where the story actually starts.
00:14:53
Lindsay Franklin
And but yeah.
00:14:53
Paul Regnier
Oh, ouch. Oh, that hurts.
00:14:56
Lindsay Franklin
And I mean, it's it's not as as a fellow author, I understand what's happening here. It's that we're we're trying to lay the groundwork and we're trying to you know build up to what's going to happen and and make sure that our reader really understands, okay, you know, this is, these are all of the little things you need to know before we start the story.
00:15:05
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:15:12
Paul Regnier
Right.
Balancing Story Beginnings and Reader Engagement
00:15:16
Lindsay Franklin
Usually not.
00:15:16
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:15:17
Lindsay Franklin
Usually they, the reader doesn't need to know all the things we as the author are are really afraid that they're not going to understand where we're going if we don't give them all that, that information or give them that, you know, glimpse into what happened before the story started.
00:15:20
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:15:34
Lindsay Franklin
So very common.
00:15:34
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Well, let wait, let me let me stop you there for one second, because this is a common... I'm trying to put myself in the mind of a writer, especially maybe it's a beginning writer that might be hearing that, what you just said, and go, wait, i I keep hearing the instruction like, show the character's normal world, and then have an inciting incident, and then...
00:15:57
Paul Regnier
pull them into the doorway of no return of the, you know, call to adventure and all that kind of stuff. So now like, how do you do both? How do you do it where the beginning is not just too much of the, the character's normal world, boring until something exciting happens. And like, as you put it, the story actually begins.
00:16:16
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, it it is definitely a balance. and like all things related to story, it is subjective where that, you know, that happy place is. um So I'm going to use myself as an example here because i i will put myself on blast. That's fine. I don't mind. You can go into my reviews on to Amazon and see for the story peddler that half of the readers who mentioned the beginning of the story peddler um felt like it was too slow. And like I did this, that I didn't start, you know, it it it just didn't get going fast enough for them.
00:16:54
Lindsay Franklin
The other half who mentioned the beginning, I really love how we kind of eased into what's going on. And, you know, like, so it is subjective and your mileage may vary with this.
00:17:03
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:17:04
Lindsay Franklin
You know, readers have different opinions about how quickly they want to jump in. so I like to have a bit of an on-ramp usually, but the way I try to manage this, not feeling like I'm starting too slow or starting before the story actually begins is by making sure that something gripping and exciting is happening in that opening scene and in that first chapter.
00:17:27
Lindsay Franklin
So for the story peddler, we jump right into the middle of Tanwen. My main character is telling a story for a crowd of villagers and their strands coming out of her hands and she's getting to the, moral of the story, but she starts going off the rails and the story explodes.
00:17:42
Lindsay Franklin
So she has this unsuccessful moment um of trying to do her job, basically. So that was, yeah.
00:17:49
Paul Regnier
Yeah, so you it was that's interesting. It was like a catastrophe, but that happened in her normal world experience. So it was exciting, but still doing the the hard work of showing what her normal life is like.
00:17:57
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:18:03
Paul Regnier
Okay, that's good. That's a good tip.
00:18:05
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. So that's kind of how I handled it there. And again, some readers felt like that wasn't enough. They wanted me to do, you know, to engage with the main action of the story, what the story is really going to be about a little bit sooner.
00:18:12
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:18:19
Lindsay Franklin
And so it, you know, it just depends, but that's kind of how I handled it there. And you do have to strike a balance. And the the only way to really know if you are
00:18:27
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:31
Lindsay Franklin
succeeding or not on these things is to have somebody else read it. So if that's your critique partners, if it's your dev editor, whoever, you need some of those outside opinions about whether or not you have achieved that balance.
00:18:34
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:18:40
Paul Regnier
and
00:18:44
Paul Regnier
That's nice. Way to bring it back to the editor topic. That was good. That was good callback.
00:18:47
Lindsay Franklin
A little segue, bringing it at home.
00:18:49
Paul Regnier
no It's funny too. I'm thinking like, i wonder if it um I wonder if attention spans are even shorter now, like in our culture, just with movies and books in general. Because I'm thinking like, um like they read I think this year that new Superman movie came out.
00:19:11
Paul Regnier
And I remember like the old original, I guess from the 80s, the Christopher Reeve Superman.
00:19:17
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:19:17
Paul Regnier
um That movie, like I think 20 minutes of that movie goes by before he even like puts the suit on, right? So it's 20 minutes of like showing his life on the farm, and you know he runs really fast along a train.
00:19:26
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:19:31
Paul Regnier
So there's like some cool stuff, but like this the story, quote-unquote, doesn't really get... But i wast it's it's not boring. It's just like a slower pace.
00:19:44
Paul Regnier
But now, meanwhile, fast forward to like the Superman movie that came out this year. It's like you know crazy stuff going on right away. you know So I wonder if it's just a matter of shorter attention span or it's just that...
00:19:51
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:19:58
Paul Regnier
Um, so many movies and books and things have been done. It's almost like you have to like get in there quicker or else people will be bored. I don't know. Like, what do you, what do you, what's your take on that?
00:20:10
Lindsay Franklin
It's all of those things, in my opinion.
00:20:12
Paul Regnier
Uh,
00:20:12
Lindsay Franklin
And this is something else your your dev editor wish
How Culture and Technology Shape Storytelling
00:20:15
Lindsay Franklin
you knew. And that is that styles and storytelling, it does change over time. And that's because people change over time.
00:20:22
Lindsay Franklin
Culture changes over time.
00:20:23
Paul Regnier
right.
00:20:24
Lindsay Franklin
And so when you talk about attention spans, absolutely.
00:20:24
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:20:28
Lindsay Franklin
So I have ADHD. I've had this my entire life. But I can tell you that the short form content that we consume all the time now via social media, via you know the internet, YouTube shorts, reels, TikToks, all of that stuff where it's like 30 seconds, one minute, 15 seconds, and we go boom, boom, boom, boom from one to the next to the next to the next.
00:20:46
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:20:50
Lindsay Franklin
Now we will sit there and hyper-focus on that for hours, right? If you're not monitoring your social media time, you can sit there and and stare at that for a very long time, but it's these little bursts.
00:21:03
Lindsay Franklin
Each one is only a few seconds or a minute. And that does impact the way that our brain takes in information. And so people's attention spans are shortening and it's mimicking ADHD.
00:21:18
Paul Regnier
Oh, soon we all will have ADHD.
00:21:21
Lindsay Franklin
Yay, come join my party, guys.
00:21:24
Paul Regnier
ah
00:21:24
Lindsay Franklin
It's so fun.
00:21:28
Lindsay Franklin
Goodness. So yes, and that's something that we need to adjust for as people who are creating art and creating content. Not that we want our novels to be like TikToks.
00:21:39
Lindsay Franklin
Please don't do that. But we we are competing with that.
00:21:40
Paul Regnier
Yes, right.
00:21:43
Lindsay Franklin
And so we need to have an awareness of it. So
Why Self-Editing is Crucial
00:21:46
Lindsay Franklin
some of these books that we love, that we grew up with, writing in that style is not going to work for the modern reader because they're going to pick it up read the first chapter, even if they love that classic too, it's just different when they're picking up a new story by a new author.
00:21:46
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:22:03
Lindsay Franklin
They read that first chapter. And for a lot of them, they're going to go, nope, didn't grab my attention. It's boring. Moving on. What's next? Because there is so much out there to choose from.
00:22:10
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:13
Lindsay Franklin
So they're going to want something that just gets them right away.
00:22:13
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:22:17
Paul Regnier
Well, I'm going to throw in my own take or advice. Before it even gets to you, the editor, i think a lot of self-editing on the part of the author is really important.
00:22:31
Paul Regnier
um I do a lot of self-editing. In fact, I do editing that I've often heard discouraged because I'll usually write for the day and then I'll review it you know before you know before I shut my computer off for the day. um And you know I've heard like, no, no, no, you're supposed to wait a day or or no. I've even heard people say like, no, like write that whole, just bust through that whole initial draft, that rough draft, just get it all out there and then go back. And I'm i'm like, no, I don't wanna, no, that's crazy. I don't wanna do that. So I do a lot of self editing like daily, really. you know if i If I write that day, I'm going to review what I wrote and like fix things.
00:23:15
Paul Regnier
Now, everyone's got a different process, right? like So for some people, that advice where it's like, no, no, no, just get it out there and get the whole rough draft out there.
00:23:19
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:23:23
Paul Regnier
Okay, yeah, that works. But again, i I've learned there's just like no right way you know to do things. it's It's really just what works for you. and But either way, no matter how you do it, no matter where you self-edit along the way, I think a lot of that self-editing is important because then when it gets to you, um I feel like the editor can focus on those more important, bigger picture things like what's wrong with your story that needs to be fixed before this goes out rather than like, oh my gosh, there's 10,000 typos.
The Role of a Book Coach in Developmental Editing
00:23:58
Paul Regnier
This is going to take up all my editing time. Because you, I mean, I'm sure you only have a certain amount of time for each project.
00:24:01
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:24:06
Paul Regnier
So as an author, don't make your editor waste their valuable time with your sloppy typos and, you know, bad grammar and all this kind of stuff.
00:24:07
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:24:17
Paul Regnier
Like, would you agree with that?
00:24:18
Lindsay Franklin
It's also,
00:24:19
Paul Regnier
I'm sort of answering for you on that one, but what what do you think?
00:24:19
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. It's such, such a good point. And it's time, but it is also energy, if that makes sense. So I can only take, as an editor, I can only take a manuscript from where it's currently at when it comes to me and move it up so many levels in any one pass that I'm doing, no matter what I'm looking at.
00:24:28
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:24:42
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:24:44
Lindsay Franklin
If I'm looking at dev stuff, you know, I'm looking copy editing stuff, it's, I can only take it from point A to, you know, like maybe point G or something.
00:24:54
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:24:54
Lindsay Franklin
So if your starting point is really kind of unprofessional or not, not as clean as you can get it as an individual, or as you can get it between, you know, feedback from your, your critique partners or your beta readers or whoever, then we can only get you to a certain point.
00:25:13
Lindsay Franklin
And if you're investing the money in a freelance editor, or if you're going ahead and submitting to that publishing house, you really want to make sure that it is as good as you can possibly get it on your own, right?
00:25:25
Paul Regnier
h
00:25:26
Lindsay Franklin
So yes, there's only so far we can take it because I can't take something that is so green and doesn't know anything, an author who doesn't know anything about plot or structure or something like that, or their characters need so much work.
00:25:42
Lindsay Franklin
And there's just tons of typos and grammatical errors and all of this stuff.
00:25:43
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:25:46
Lindsay Franklin
Like we can't take that manuscript and bring it up to professional quality in one edit. It's just not going to happen. And so there is a lot of self-editing and self-learning that should happen on the author's side before it even is getting to an editor And if you are kind of stuck where you feel like you've been trying to do that, but your craft is still kind of not up to ah to standard or you're hearing, you're getting a lot of that feedback, you're trying to submit and people are saying no and, you know, whatever, then you may want to look into hiring like a book coach and somebody going to be book coach.
00:25:53
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:26:21
Lindsay Franklin
who can be a mentor.
00:26:21
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:26:22
Lindsay Franklin
And so that's kind of like before we get to some of these editorial stages, and that's somebody maybe who is going to charge hourly to have meetings with you and just work one-on-one with you and really get you past whatever barriers you're experiencing.
00:26:37
Lindsay Franklin
So there's a lot of options for how to kind of get out of that space before you maybe bite the bullet and hire a dev editor. but it it is not cheap, guys.
00:26:48
Lindsay Franklin
I'm not going to lie to you.
00:26:48
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:26:49
Lindsay Franklin
It is expensive to hire a dev editor for a full developmental edit of a full-length novel. It's expensive.
00:26:58
Paul Regnier
Yeah, that's why I do the manuscript critique. I can afford that.
00:27:00
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. And you're experienced, too. You're an experienced novelist. And so you know once you get to that point, like you have a strong grasp of story. and ah And a lot of these things, you maybe are not needing somebody to dive super, super deep into you know the nitty gritty and give you that full analysis so you can have somebody point out some of those blind spots that that you can't see because you're inside the fishbowl on your own story.
00:27:27
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:27:27
Lindsay Franklin
We all are. And so once you get to a certain level craft-wise, you can do that perhaps and not not have to invest as an indie author, not have to invest thousands and thousands of dollars for every single book that you're trying to release.
00:27:40
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:27:40
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
Preventing Technical Errors for Better Reader Experience
00:27:41
Paul Regnier
Or even like um ah the first time I worked with the the editor that does the manuscript critique for me, she told me this cool thing. She goes, okay. She goes, right off the bat, I'm going to say, this is a good story, but let's make it great.
00:27:58
Paul Regnier
right So even even if you've done a lot of work, even if everything's pretty ship shape and you know you've got ah you know something pretty solid, like that manuscript critique or developmental edit can make it like explode.
00:27:58
Lindsay Franklin
Yay, I love that.
00:28:12
Paul Regnier
right Like, oh, let's take this diamond in the rough and really make it shine.
00:28:12
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:28:16
Paul Regnier
And that's what I really like too, because you spend a lot of time on this.
00:28:17
Lindsay Franklin
Yep.
00:28:21
Paul Regnier
You want it to be the best it can possibly be. So yeah, that's so important. um Before I move on to, I got a bombshell question for you, but before I hit you with that, the controversy, I'm going to ask you the controversial question, but before I do that, is there anything that we missed along the way as far as like maybe those rookie mistake things to avoid or or something else you you would love it that authors knew before they submit their material.
00:28:32
Lindsay Franklin
ah the Yay. yaa
00:28:48
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. So since we talked a lot about the dev side, and that is kind of the most relevant stuff I feel like um in in this conversation. However, the details also matter.
00:28:59
Lindsay Franklin
And so we talked about not giving people reasons to say no, which also includes your reader. So if you are indie publishing and there are fewer gatekeepers between you and your reader, right?
00:29:10
Lindsay Franklin
Because you could theoretically just indie publish anything you want to today, right? You could throw a Word doc onto, you know, KDP, publish it, boom, done. there There isn't a gatekeeper except the ones that you put in your own process, right?
00:29:25
Lindsay Franklin
so
00:29:25
Paul Regnier
right
00:29:27
Lindsay Franklin
the, I just completely lost my train of thought. Speaking of ADHD, right?
00:29:32
Paul Regnier
ah
00:29:32
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, this is where we're headed, guys. I'm so sorry. but you We're all headed this way because of TikTok. Like you just, that, that, oh my goodness.
00:29:38
Paul Regnier
wait let's hit the reset button
00:29:41
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. Reboot. Okay.
00:29:43
Paul Regnier
ah
00:29:43
Lindsay Franklin
What in the world was I even talking about?
00:29:45
Paul Regnier
Okay, so the question i posed I posed was, before we move on to like the controversial thing, um like what are those things...
00:29:45
Lindsay Franklin
um
00:29:52
Lindsay Franklin
Oh, I know. I got it.
00:29:53
Paul Regnier
Oh, good, good. I jogged your memory.
00:29:55
Lindsay Franklin
I'm sorry.
00:29:55
Paul Regnier
Okay.
00:29:56
Lindsay Franklin
So sorry. Yes. So about...
00:29:58
Paul Regnier
It's your cat. Your cat is distracting you, I think is what's going on.
00:30:01
Lindsay Franklin
Oh my goodness. I know I have two of my cats. Anybody who is watching on YouTube can see my boss cats, as we call them, in the ah the back of my shot here. They love my new electric blanket.
00:30:12
Lindsay Franklin
um Anyway, so sorry. I was talking about reasons to say no. So when you have fewer gatekeepers in your process... The person who is saying no at that point is your reader when they they open your sample, if they're trying to decide if they or they open your book on KU, Kindle Unlimited.
00:30:26
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:30:33
Lindsay Franklin
And they read the first few pages and they go, nope, not for me. And they decide not to buy it or they close it and move on to a different title or whatever. That's them saying no. And so it doesn't matter if we're talking trad or indie, we are always looking for reasons to not have people say no to our books.
00:30:52
Lindsay Franklin
So the details can really, really do that.
00:30:52
Paul Regnier
ye
00:30:55
Lindsay Franklin
If you have a book that is maybe the story is so exciting, but grammatically it's a mess. The reading process is not enjoyable when sentences are not strung together properly or even just cleanly and smoothly and in a way that just is easy to digest where the reader can feel swept away by the story.
00:31:01
Paul Regnier
Right. Hmm.
00:31:04
Paul Regnier
right
00:31:18
Lindsay Franklin
That's that's the benefit of good, clean grammar and not having a bunch of typos is that is allowing, it's removing another barrier and allowing your your reader to just be swept away by the story.
00:31:30
Lindsay Franklin
And that's what we want. We don't want them thinking about our sentence mechanics while they're reading. All of that should be very invisible. We want them focused on our exciting plot and our deep characters and our cool magic and all of those other things.
00:31:45
Paul Regnier
Yeah, right. And and ah I'll repeat what I said before. you You want to clean it up as much
Can AI Replace Human Editing?
00:31:51
Paul Regnier
as possible before it even gets into the editor's hands so that you as an editor can focus on the most important things, which is like strengthening the overall story and the characters and the theme and everything that's going on rather than having to spend hours on typos and whatnot. so Yeah.
00:32:10
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, exactly.
00:32:11
Paul Regnier
Okay, good. Okay. I'm going to move on to the controversial question and I'm sure you've guessed it.
00:32:16
Lindsay Franklin
Here we go. Yay.
00:32:18
Paul Regnier
AI, we're going to talk about AI a little bit.
00:32:20
Lindsay Franklin
yea
00:32:21
Paul Regnier
Everyone's favorite topic. you know This is where everyone puts the hate comments in. um Okay. So AI, I, It's so funny because I just had a conversation last night with an author, and he was a newer author, and he was telling me like, oh, you know I tried you know some AI to get some feedback, um and he even called it like developmental feedback, and I kind of cringed when he said that.
00:32:47
Paul Regnier
Yeah, he's like, oh, yeah, and it gave me all this feedback, and I'm like... So I just very kindly tried to say like, okay, well, um you know, AIs typically...
00:32:58
Paul Regnier
are going to be very affirming in what they tell you. That's kind of like part of how AIs work. They're just very enab enabling, it would be the ah the negative way of saying it.
00:33:08
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:33:10
Paul Regnier
But they're very like, ah, you know, you're this is great. You're going to be a bestseller. Like, good job. you know It's perfect. Don't change a thing. So which is you almost have to, I think I was listening to someone, you almost have to put in prompts or some kind of guardrails to where the AI will be like brutally honest with you on certain things.
00:33:31
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:33:32
Paul Regnier
um But even if you did that, even if you did that, um i my personal opinion is I could see AI being valuable sort of at the tail end of the editing process. I could see it being pretty good with like copy edits. And I've heard that it's pretty good with that kind of stuff.
00:33:51
Paul Regnier
And really even there's probably in a minor way already some AI in like, even like a Microsoft Word where it's giving you that red squiggly line under typos and things like that.
00:33:51
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:34:02
Paul Regnier
I mean, in a very, you know, small way, that's kind of like AI saying, Hey, you got to fix this. um Obviously, it's a lot more complex now, but um but the developmental edit, gosh, I think that's crazy because I would always want...
00:34:20
Paul Regnier
Because a lot of that is intuition and experience with story and just how it hits another human being, like how your story hits another human being.
00:34:22
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:34:30
Paul Regnier
That's my take on it, but like I'm going to throw that to you, that whole AI question and like what do you think about all that? AI and editing.
00:34:38
Lindsay Franklin
AI and editing. Here we go. All right. so So yes, I agree with you. I think that when it comes to story and when it comes to art, and this is this is one reason why generative AI is so controversial, I think, in artistic spaces.
00:34:54
Lindsay Franklin
There there are a number of reasons. And we have you know environmental impacts. And we have the the issue of art being you know taken without consent to kind of train the models and and all kinds of different issues with it.
00:35:06
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:35:08
Lindsay Franklin
so So there's all of that. But even if we put all of that aside, so if we just say 100% ethically trained and there's no environmental impact and all of those things, okay, fine.
00:35:20
Lindsay Franklin
There is a human component to creating art and to storytelling that I think is very difficult or impossible to replicate with large language models. And you're 100% right about how kind of chatbots, ah you know, LLMs um interact with people is they are they are designed to keep you in the conversation and to keep you talking to them. And so they are super affirming. And as an author, i can tell immediately when I am getting spam that has been generated by
00:35:57
Lindsay Franklin
ai um In my author inbox where they're like promoting, we're going to spotlight your book at our book club or we want to, you know, do promo over here.
00:35:58
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:36:07
Lindsay Franklin
More readers should be discovering your books or whatever. And authors are receiving these en masse right now.
00:36:10
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:36:14
Lindsay Franklin
And you can tell it's AI generated stuff because it is important. effusive and over the top with like how it talks about your story. And, you know, it'll tell me teen readers, their hearts are being ripped from their chest when they read this book.
00:36:28
Lindsay Franklin
And I'm like, are you kidding me? Knock it off. Come on, come on, stop trying to poke at my ego. It's gross. Um, Yes.
00:36:35
Paul Regnier
ah
00:36:36
Lindsay Franklin
So yeah, not the best place to be getting your developmental feedback because is this the kind of, uh, you know, system that's going to tell you when your, your story is lacking in some way, probably not.
00:36:49
Lindsay Franklin
And it, I think it does require another human being analyzing all of these different elements of story. Um, so I agree with you about that. Now let's talk about other kinds of AI and editing.
00:37:02
Lindsay Franklin
Um, other kinds of editing too. So you are correct that we have been using AI tools for a very long time because spellcheck is an AI tool. And this is different than generative AI, right?
00:37:11
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:37:15
Lindsay Franklin
So it's different than the the the tools that are very controversial right now and and all of the the whole AI conversation. But these tools we've been using for a really long time are becoming more sophisticated because of what's happening in the generative AI space.
00:37:30
Lindsay Franklin
So Spellcheck, Grammarly, these are ai tools that we have been familiar with for a long time before we started even talking about AI. There's also tools like PerfectIt, which is a piece of software I love. That is something that is really helpful um for scanning, for things like where you have a word if there's two correct spellings of a word where it will scan and say, hey, you've spelled, you know, banister with one N this many times and you spelled it with two N's this many times or something.
00:38:03
Paul Regnier
Ah.
00:38:03
Lindsay Franklin
And yes, very helpful. So great tool to use when copy editing. um And so ah that stuff has been out there for a long time, and it's only going to get better and better and better as AI improves.
00:38:18
Lindsay Franklin
And it does not have the same type of ethical concerns generally as you know people raise when it comes to generative AI tools. So um that said,
00:38:27
Paul Regnier
Because it's local it's local software on your computer.
00:38:31
Lindsay Franklin
yes, yes.
00:38:31
Paul Regnier
It's not from some big server farm somewhere. Yeah, got it.
00:38:34
Lindsay Franklin
Right. And it's not kind of scraping content in the same way. um It doesn't make it does make mistakes kind of um or it can be wrong. If you've ever seen the green squiggly lines, you know, in Microsoft Word, if it's checking your grammar in addition to your spelling. um those suggestions are often wrong.
00:38:53
Lindsay Franklin
um So it, and have been forever. ah Word does not understand things like subjunctive mood um and just all kinds of these more complex grammatical things.
00:39:05
Lindsay Franklin
And English is a very complicated language um and difficult to to, get, you know, all of the the details right in because it's a very inconsistent language.
00:39:16
Lindsay Franklin
And so it's a tough one. Yeah. So it can be wrong in a sense, but not in the same way that the LLMs can just give you like straight up fake information or lie to you, um even when they're not trying to, you know, they they will accidentally lie to you.
00:39:28
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:39:33
Lindsay Franklin
So I do foresee a future where these tools can be extremely helpful. Maybe, maybe replace proofreaders and copy editors. However,
00:39:46
Lindsay Franklin
having a human being there to understand things like grammar. Grammar is complicated. And so there is no, in English, there are not rules like, oh, well, before the word but, you're always going to have a comma.
00:39:59
Lindsay Franklin
No, it's very complicated. It depends on what your clauses are doing. And, you know, is this a restrictive clause, non-restrictive clause? Is this a complete ah complete sentence over here? yeah Or, you know, there's just so many different nuances to that. And so I don't know if AI is ever going to be able to fully do that as well as a human brain can.
Preserving Author's Unique Voice
00:40:21
Lindsay Franklin
i i don't know. But stuff like scanning for typos and getting those kinds of things cleaned up, yes, I do think that that is ah in our future, maybe even our near future.
00:40:34
Paul Regnier
Yeah. You know, another thing I recently heard is, and I don't know if, I think um where I heard it, they weren't talking about one of the huge AI systems, like we've heard, like ChatGPT or Grok or, you know, one of the others. um I think it was um like a software, like ProWritingAid or Grammarly or one of those, I forget, but they were saying that it it has this option. and And I guess there's certain sliders. i haven't used those, so I don't know.
00:41:03
Paul Regnier
you know i can't speak of you know direct experience, but they your grammar. they fix your grammar in certain ways.
00:41:12
Lindsay Franklin
Yep.
00:41:13
Paul Regnier
And you could set it to, like I guess, pretty high, like, hey, like clean up these sentences and make them flow better, whatever. But ah what happens is it um it almost has like a typical way that it does everyone's stuff to where it all comes out very like uniform and similar sounding.
00:41:33
Paul Regnier
So it kind of takes away like one of your most valuable things as an author, which is your voice, right? Your style, that thing that makes you unique, that thing that stands out to you know people that might become your fans and say like, oh, I love their style.
00:41:41
Lindsay Franklin
yep
00:41:49
Paul Regnier
i love the way they write, which could be if you input it into one of these software tools might seem clunky or, oh, let's fix this. you know Let's generic it out and take away all your personality, right?
00:42:02
Paul Regnier
So where it might be thinking like, oh, I'm doing a good thing here. um It might be taking away the very thing that makes you interesting and unique and sets you apart. um Have you heard of similar things like that?
00:42:15
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, and that is such an excellent that is such an excellent point because there is a ah big difference between something that is technically perfect, okay?
00:42:26
Lindsay Franklin
there's And that's fine.
00:42:26
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:42:28
Lindsay Franklin
It's fine to be technically perfect, but... We're all going to word things slightly differently. And we're looking for those readers who really connect with us. You know, if, if it were just as easy as writing technically perfect sentences and kind of hitting all the familiar.
00:42:44
Lindsay Franklin
plot beats, well, you could just sort of have chat GPT spit out novels for you constantly and just read those whatever and and keep readers reading for you know the rest of their lives.
00:42:55
Lindsay Franklin
But but that's not there's a reason that that's not what readers want. And there's like a big movement amongst readers that they will refuse to read anything that they know has been generated by AI in in full.
00:43:08
Lindsay Franklin
So different than what we're talking about with editing, but I mean generated from that.
00:43:09
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:43:12
Lindsay Franklin
And it's I think because it lacks that voice and that flavor and that kind of ah seasoning that we each have our our own unique, the soul, we've got our our unique combo of spices and things that we put into our our writing.
00:43:20
Paul Regnier
The soul.
00:43:26
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:43:28
Lindsay Franklin
And so, yeah, it's like you, you when you make something so technically perfect you can polish the face right off of it and it just becomes super smooth and it doesn't it's not differentiated from anything else that's out there and that's not what we want certainly not in our art you know
00:43:29
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:43:36
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:43:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah. It's almost like if you've heard like this really great band live and you've heard like, you know, and maybe it's not perfect, right?
Editors as Allies in Storytelling
00:43:55
Paul Regnier
Maybe, maybe every, the levels aren't like perfect or maybe it's slightly too loud, but in the same sense, it's like, oh, it's great that it's too loud or whatever it is, right? It's kind of like raw, right?
00:44:05
Paul Regnier
But there's such an energy to it and everyone's responding.
00:44:05
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:44:09
Paul Regnier
And then like, they'll take that same song and they'll go into ah production studio and the producer, if he doesn't know what he's doing, he'll he'll gloss over everything. And then when it comes out, it's like it loses all that heart and energy and just that thing that moved you in the first place.
00:44:26
Paul Regnier
and you're like, what happened? Like, I used to like that song. What in the world? you know So it's kind of like, that's what i would that's what I would compare it to.
00:44:32
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:44:36
Paul Regnier
It's like, you don't want to lose what moves people in your writing. You want to keep that raw, whatever it is, that energy, that soul.
00:44:41
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:44:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:44:45
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, the soul, the spice. Yeah, that's it's so true. And that is such a good comparison. It's like ah turning the pitch correction up too much where it just moves everything out in the music and just makes it too.
00:44:59
Lindsay Franklin
And it's perfect.
00:45:00
Paul Regnier
Auto-tune.
00:45:01
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, that's what pitch correction software is, guys, is like auto-tune.
00:45:01
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:45:04
Lindsay Franklin
There's other brands, you know. So, yes, it it smooths it out and makes it more perfect, but it it ends up having this like flatter kind of sound where it's more homogenous and you you lose the character of the singer's voice And so that is exactly the same as what can happen.
00:45:22
Lindsay Franklin
And even when you're working with a human editor, you as the human author, um i will sometimes have little line edits on my my stories come back and I understand why my editor has made a change.
00:45:35
Lindsay Franklin
Maybe I said something that was too wordy or it was unclear. and she'll make a suggestion for how she would fix that. But I look at it and understanding the heart of why she made the comment in the first place.
00:45:46
Lindsay Franklin
So I understand my assignment and what how I need to clean up the sentence, but I choose to word it a little bit differently than what her suggestion was because the way I'm gonna address that problem that I had in that sentence is just slightly different than how her brain is going to address that.
00:45:54
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:46:04
Lindsay Franklin
And that's my unique author voice. The readers who love what I write They want to hear me. And, you know, that so that even happens, that dynamic with human editors and just a hundred times more if you're throwing your your words into, um you know, an AI tool that is going to smooth the edges much more aggressively and in a much more uniform way.
00:46:30
Lindsay Franklin
A human editor should be at least attempting to match your voice or give you suggestions that sound like you. and not like somebody else and not like them.
00:46:36
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:46:38
Lindsay Franklin
That's another thing I wish authors knew. As an editor, I am not trying to recreate your story in my own image. And if I am doing that, I'm a bad editor. If your editor is doing that to you, get a new editor, because that is not our job. That is not the point. I'm trying to make your story shine. We're taking that diamond and and polishing it and It's still your diamond. It's still you. you know So we we still want it to sound like you. And if someone's trying to rewrite your book and make it sound like them, then they're not they don't understand the boundaries that an editor should have.
00:47:11
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah. Well said. All right. Well, I think, uh, I think that kind of wraps it up for today. We're starting to run a little long. So, uh, any final thoughts?
00:47:20
Lindsay Franklin
We like to do that. we We love to run long.
00:47:22
Paul Regnier
Yeah, I know.
00:47:24
Lindsay Franklin
We got a lot to say, you guys.
00:47:24
Paul Regnier
ah The time just gets away from us. Um, but yeah, any, any final thoughts that maybe be anything we missed along the way?
00:47:34
Lindsay Franklin
I think to summarize, i just want to say that your editor is on your team. We are not against you.
00:47:41
Paul Regnier
you
00:47:41
Lindsay Franklin
We have the same goal of trying to make your story the best that it can possibly be. And so we're here to help you. We're here to support you. We're a valuable member of your team and not trying to be adversarial. If we make suggestions on your story, It should always be coming from that place. And again, for a good editor, it will be always coming from that place of trying to make your story as shiny and wonderful as possible. And so we are, that's our job. That's our goal. We don't have any other motive than to just help you be the best that you could possibly be. That's what we want for you.
00:48:21
Paul Regnier
Awesome. Well, very good. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Hope this was helpful to you in your writing journey and we will see you next time.
00:48:31
Lindsay Franklin
Bye.