THE WRITER/EDITOR RELATIONSHIP: PATIENCE
I’d say 95 percent of the clients I work with on book editing projects are filled with impatience. As a writer as well as a book editor, I of course understand this feeling perfectly. It makes sense. For the most part, developing writers approach me with a first or second or third draft, or even sometimes a memoir or novel they’ve worked on for years, and they have a specific plan for how they want that project to go. The problems with this approach are many-fold. For one thi
CREATING TENSION IN FICTION AND MEMOIR
One of the toughest things to do in fiction or creative nonfiction writing, in my professional opinion, is to create strong, believable tension. Without tension—between the protagonist and a villain, the protagonist and him/herself, the protagonist and the environment, etc—you really don’t have much of a story. And it’s unlikely readers will want to follow you far through the jungle of your narrative. Tension seems to be lumped in usually with plot. I agree that plot and tens
MY BOOK EDITING PROCESS
I want to talk about my book editing style and process. First off, here’s my background. In a sense, I have been writing my whole life. Ever since I was a kid, I’d pen poems and prose like a mad-child, bordering on obsession. My mother and I would exchange apologies via long-form letter when we fought. Etc. After landing my BA in writing from San Francisco State—and turning down an acceptance for the MA in Writing program—I decided to intern with a literary agent in the Bay A
