The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 16 – Advice from a line editor

Chet is a line editor. He gives us a solid crash course on line editing and shares practical examples of common author mistakes.

Writing is a craft that no one ever masters fully and it's always helpful to get inputs on how to improve. Chet delivers lots of tips and tricks.

Whether you're an experienced writer and a newbie, there's lessons for everyone in the conversation Chet and I had.

Enjoy some advice from a line editor.

During the video, Chet mentions The Emotion Thesaurus. It's written by Becca Puglisi and
Angela Ackerman. It's an incredible helpful tool for authors.

You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression-ebook/dp/B07MTQ7W6Q/ref=sr_1_2? 

New episodes EVERY single Monday. To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC 

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Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ 
Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 
Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (12s):
Welcome to amwritingfantasy together with autumn. I run this, uh, the amwritingfantasy website where we share blog posts and uh, there was these YouTube videos, there is a podcast episodes of these videos as well. So if you're listening on podcasts right now, welcome. Uh, but today we are gonna talk or I'm going to talk with Chet about editing, which I thought was quite interesting because actually we haven't had any real videos or episodes around editing before, so, so this was an excellent topic to get into today.

Jesper (47s):
And uh, thank you so much for joining us on amwritingfantasy. Chet.

Chet (51s):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jesper (55s):
Maybe you want to share a bit about yourself and what you're up to.

Chet (59s):
Yeah. Uh, my name is Chet Sandberg. Um, I am a fantasy writer, uh, as yet unpublished probably because I'm an editor so I'm pretty hard on myself. Uh, uh, I'm aligned in solid earth, which is kind of in between a copy editor. Proofer is, is getting the typos, getting the punctuation and I copy and he's doing a lot of that is also to make sure it things from ATPCO. Correct. I'm aligned in style editor. So what I do is I am not going to just make sure that your dialogue is grammatically correct. I'm going to make it sound like something somebody might actually say.

Chet (1m 30s):
So I'm going to do things like if you, if you've got two people in a conversation and they're using one another's names, a lot, we don't do that. We rely on context to do that. So, I mean, we don't need to completely sound like real human beings, but I would take out some of those things that are more artificial or would sound a unnatural or I would take out or point out, um, dialogue that is only there as a storytelling technique. Uh, you know, as, as you well know, magic works like this while blah, blah, blah. You know, instead of technically having it as exposition, you have it as dialect.

Chet (2m 3s):
You really don't. Uh, so stuff like that. Um, uh, my first major client was a journalist, uh, background, and so he gets a little tingle of excitement when I cut his five words down to to. So I focus a lot on concision. Um, if you're gonna, uh, talk about, say a top, you're going to say in front of, I'll say before, you know, a lot of stuff like that where I tend to cut things down. I also tend to, um, uh, well for a couple of things and I've got like a, a Google doc that I, uh, usually try to give out to people with their data perspective clients or, uh, I don't really have to do with my main client cause he, he understands everything when I'm cutting stuff.

Chet (2m 44s):
Um, w there are some things very, you know, if you've signed a lot of the word Barry in your approach to replace that word with what is, so if you say the thing very fast, you can say, you know, ran, walked very fast as rant or, or hurried or whatever it is, it gives more of a flavor. It's more unique. Um, I tend to really am stomp all over the use of the past continuous, which is, I don't know if it's completely unique to English, but I know beginning English writers love to do this and it makes total sense.

Chet (3m 17s):
I do it all the time and have to cut it out. And the reason you do it is because you're describing the scene in your head as it's happening. So you say he was standing by the door, she was talking, but every time you do that, you have a was in an ING around a unique verb when it's much, much has much more bite. If you give all of your verbs, uh, their own unique flavor in, in, in the reader's mind and in their mouth, if they're reading out loud. So instead of saying he was standing, you say he stood, it happened in the past tense. Like I said, the reason you do it while you're seeing it in your head is because you're literally seeing it as it happens.

Chet (3m 49s):
For the same reason, um, began or started to ends up in a lot of people's pros, especially beginners, um, where you'll say he began to you never, you only write began for, uh, activities that don't complete because that's all you have to tell them that something began. He began to say, but it was cut off, that kind of thing. If he completes it, you can just say it. He or she, if the character complete it, you can just say the simple past tense. They, they did the thing right. You can say, you know, instead of saying, well, he began to stumble, he started, he began to stutter.

Chet (4m 21s):
You just say he started. OK. um, and the reason you do that is because I'm in small works. These things don't really, uh, cause that many problems. But over the course of a long and fantasy run hobbles let's face it, we write a lot of long do works. You're getting what you really want unique. You really want concision. You really want to get rid of those things that can be repetitive. Uh, another thing that I tried to work on is something called new. During. The verb make a plan is planned. Make is a general all purpose verb that can apply to a whole bunch of things.

Chet (4m 53s):
Planned is a very specific word. But when you, when you say make a plan, you've made the focus, the verb, a very generic verb, and then you made the plan. Would you actually did, you made it a noun, makeup line. Uh, manage. If you write manage, I will write you a snarky notes in the comments about, uh, you know, like a Denny's what he's talking about. You know, man, if she managed to manage demand, these are things that I see a lot of times too where you just cut that out. Um, here's a big one. Um, could, could he could something, something, well, anything could happen.

Chet (5m 25s):
Tell us what actually did happen. And the reason people do this is I think sometimes they're trying to tell us through the POV character that they're unsure about something and occasionally that works. The main thing that I look for when I see code though is that people are putting in filtering. And this is one that's something I just was watching with Autumn's thing. Get the census involved, get all the senses I have to under described on my first draft and then have to go in and really described. Um, or sometimes there's two things I like, I want to talk about here.

Chet (5m 56s):
One is something I'm still trying to learn how to do really well. Can't really always add it in as a line style editor. It's something I like to use is if you've ever read the magicians, he does a lot of things that drive me up a tree, but I w Lev Grossman writes his description from his character point of view in such a way that he never really has to tell you directly how these characters feel because you can get so much about what his character's mind state is by how he describes things. It's amazing. It's like magic powers. I'm like, wow.

Chet (6m 27s):
I if, if, if you wanna I, I'm sure there are a ton of authors that do that. The first one that I really noticed it on, uh, was Lev Grossman with conditions and like I said, you know, there's a lot of stuff he does pass, continues up the wazoo he filters a little bit and now I want to switch over into filtering. Filtering is when I want to do this specifically because of something autumn said where you're talking about using census. I love using census. You really want to ground people in the scene and you need to do it with more than just the eyes. It's the one really great thing that people say the book was better than the movie.

Chet (6m 59s):
Part of what they're saying is in a novel, like with Lev Grossman, of course you can, you can use a description to tell something about the character. The character is what, what they're going through. But the other thing is you have all of these other aspects, internal monologues and thoughts. Uh, you know, you might have an internal argument with yourself. You might have, you know, uh, you might notice a smell that has a significant, she might notice a sound or, or something might spring to the foreground that you can't always do very well with cinematography.

Chet (7m 30s):
And, but with that, uh, that, uh, cinematography, he never asked you, what is that? Try not to filter the sensations through your character. Every time you do that, you were reminding the reader that they aren't the character and it pulls people out of immersion out for some things. You're going to want to do that. Uh, very occasionally, if you're writing something very disturbing, you're going to want to pull people out of it. But instead of saying something like, she heard shot from across the room, okay. You don't have to tell her that. Sh tell us that she heard it in her POV. You can simply present it. You can say a shot rang out across the firm, across the, from the other side of them.

Chet (8m 1s):
Okay, tell us the location, tell us what happened. But you don't have to remind us that we aren't, they're experiencing, when you say a sh, something simply happened, you know, um, um, the moon Rose, the moon Rose over the horizon or dips down or whatever the sun Rose, uh, from her eyes instead of saying he saw the sunrise, you know what I mean? We know he saw it because we're describing it. We're in their third close to the point of view. So as much as you can, if you can get rid of filtering, um, you know, instead of saying she felt sweat rundown, you know, that's that he'd say, you know, a drip of sweat, uh, you know, you can go to on more specificity, but you can just say it happened and the, and the reader will automatically insert themselves into the POB, a character's point of view.

Chet (8m 45s):
So filterings a big one. Um, and I think especially with the sweat there, you know, if you can sort of get into what it feels like on the skin and stuff like that, because

Jesper (8m 57s):
then it works. Right. Rather, I was flying back from am, I had a business trip to Cairo last week and I was flying back and then on the airplane and somebody was sitting next to me reading a book and it just sort of peaked over in it. And it was quite interesting because it has a, it's not really filtering, but it's more like a, I don't know if you have a more correct, if that's a word for it, but you know, it was summarizing a lot. So every piece that was more like, okay, and then in the morning this and this happened and that doesn't tell me the dialogue and then tell me what a day, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jesper (9m 29s):
Something happened. It was just like I was looking at it and like that, that's so boring. You know, it just, I don't feel connected to what's happening at all. This is just a summary of whatever happened that day, that day.

Chet (9m 40s):
And that's what tell him versus, no. Okay. You'd have to show people and one of the best tools for that. Well, I don't think I have a Wiki cause I think I had a backward, I do most of my writing, which is as an ingredient one in there, but it's the emotion thesaurus uh, for English writing especially, it's, it's amazing. Um, you don't have to trust your reader. You don't always have to tell them that somebody said is feeling something. You can show it, you know, you can have the fidget if they're nervous, you can, uh, point out showing versus telling is something people always talk about.

Chet (10m 19s):
And nobody really, I hate these little snippets, you know the adverbs things because you need to know the why. If you don't know the why, you can follow the rules. But it's like being blind and carrying the lamp. You know, it's an old Zen story. Uh, I'm a, I'm a Zen Buddhist, so there's old gen story. He says, you know, there's a blind man and the son usually carry around. I says, why do I need a lamp? I'm blind. I'm gonna be able to see any way. So he's, you know, but you should carry a lamp because other people can see you. So he's walking around and somebody slammed into him, he gets upset. It's like, didn't you see my lap? He says, he said, you you crazy old names is your lamp has gone out.

Chet (10m 50s):
And if you don't know, he didn't know cause he's blind. So that's the thing. You don't know the why. So the reason for adverse, you know, Stephen King has said road to hell is paved with adverbs. And the reason he says this isn't because adverbs are always wrong. Good luck trying to, you know, don't spend three sentences explaining what doing something gingerly looks like when you have gingerly change release, just easier to get there. We get there faster. Where you really don't want it is in dialogue tags. You don't want it in dialogue techs. And the reason you don't want to dial it takes is one of two things is happening.

Chet (11m 22s):
Either it's in the dialogue but you don't trust it. It's in the dialogue. Okay. Um, in which case trust us in the dog or it's not in the dialogue and you think that you can tack it on by having an adverb. And I pull back on this for purely mechanical adverbs. So you know, if, if you want to say said slowly, okay, that might be the more preferable thing to say then slow then growled or S. cause sometimes those, those unique, um, dialogue tags, uh, distract from over there.

Chet (11m 56s):
Anything else you said is invisible? Yeah, I was just about to say because it, because you can also overdo that stuff. You know, it can be like, it's, it's almost a tour reading it because there's so many tax all the time and it's just like, what the hell? These emotional people all the time, you know, sometimes it's just better to just Chuck in as she said, and then move on as an experiment. Remove all your tags, remove all your tags when you're doing editing, do it in substitution mode and just move all your tags and then put back the ones that you actually need because you will, you'll find, especially if you get further into it or work, your characters will know the tone of voice of you writing your characters really well.

Chet (12m 35s):
See, part of what I'm, I'm kind of a slower writing compared to a lot of people and reason is eight I. I don't do as much telling you to go out my showing. But the other thing is I really entered the eyes and enter the experience of my characters. And so when you do that, they speak like different people. Um, so yeah, definitely stripping out tags. So what I look for is I look for covid could I always like, could cause, could, if you look for, could, first of all, it's, it's, it's, uh, you're really, um, uh, what's the word I'm looking? You're equivocating when you don't need to.

Chet (13m 6s):
But the other thing is that almost always is involved with filter work. Almost always it's could see, could hear, could whatever, could remember, you know. Uh, and so it's a very good hint to look for a, an equivocating filter. I filter in general. I also hate things like a little, a bit and a little bit in small short works, they don't matter so much, but Oh my God, if you writing along work, you know, and you're writing chapters that are, some people I write short chapters, people write long chapters, 2,500. If you have a bit, a little, a little bit in, you know, 16, 17, 18, 25 times, you know, imagine how repetitive that gets and it adds nothing.

Chet (13m 43s):
It doesn't tell us. It's not specific enough to really give us anything. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, there is as a repetitive flavor that you really don't need. I was just about to say instead of a little or a bit or whatever, if you just say it is a small ass, what do I know? Then you're showing what it is as small as instead of just saying a little, which is, it doesn't really say anything and let a competitor what yeah, it's exactly, it's completely, it's the same thing about slightly, I don't like slightly, you can use it sometimes, but people over it.

Chet (14m 21s):
These are things that people overuse slightly. It's the same idea. Here's one that one of my critique partners early on really keyed me into that is amazing and has always helped me. And that is, this follows a rule that I'm going to go into a little bit right after this. But look, you look for these, let me search for these times. Turn or turn look or looked. And what it is, is that almost always we assume if somebody's speaking to somebody, they're looking at them. Um, uh, you know, um, you don't have to tell us every action that leads to the, when it's implied in the next, in the final action.

Chet (15m 0s):
So like you can say, and sometimes you want to, if you're, it's like I say, if it's a very first time you're describing your major preparing to spell, you might want to go into great detail about what that looks like. Okay. But if it's something like paying the bill, the waiter, you don't have to say he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and pulled out his card and handed as a waiter then signed it when it came back and doing some things. He paid the waiter. You know what I mean? We don't care enough. We need to know that things have concluded. We don't need to know every little piece of detail. You don't have to say he lifted his left leg then is right and in, in sequence until he ended up arriving at Heather's house.

Chet (15m 36s):
You can just say here that, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, um, these are all things that usually ends up in the second draft where you have to go back in and say, okay, how much of this, it's the same thing and this is more of a developmental stuff and style stuff. But I like to do time jumps. I like to jump to what is important. I don't, I'm not a token ask. Uh, uh, I mean I love him. He is my one of my first fantasy but I don't, it's just like, uh, George RR Martin, you know, I don't need pages and pages of banners, man-to-man stuff that, it literally, I'm, I'm already forgetting the first part of this.

Chet (16m 7s):
Like a math problem, a complex math problem where I'm already forgetting the first part of what you said. By the time we get to the third part of what you said. Literally none of this information is in my head anymore. I have spaced out halfway through. So, so I tend to like to do a time jobs, but you know, what I'm trying to work on is that about one in five people. Um, I ended up just losing somebody. They don't make the jump with me. So I've learned how to like put a little summary at the very beginning saying it was a day later, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jesper (16m 32s):
Yeah. Well I think that the description part that that's obviously a very big matter of taste. I mean some people really love to have more description, which is fine as long as the stuff that you're describing is something that is relevant for me. Because also from a character point of view, I character wouldn't start to explain to them. I mean if you, if you go to visit, visit one of your friends, know you're not going to start explaining the friend that how you opened the car door and you put in the key into the ignition and then I turned on the car by turning to the right and you know, you don't do that.

Jesper (17m 4s):
You just say, I took the car to get here because we all know what it means. And even even in the fantasy setting, two characters talking to each other who might know what this means, but the reader might not exactly meet no one. It made you want to have a way to, to give that information because the characters won't start telling each other about it because they both know how it works.

Chet (17m 24s):
Expository dialogue. Exactly. That's what I'm saying and that was something I was talking about earlier, but what I really like to do there is just, just especially happens in Laura, could you, you know, there are terms that you can have there and be like, we need to explain this. No, you can get it from context of J one or two more paragraphs and you'll get it from context or I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing things wrong, but, but you can't just shortcut to what magic is your blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. A word that you can oftentimes get almost as another word that I like to get rid of almost. You know, it was almost as if it was as if it doesn't add anything.

Chet (17m 55s):
Again, um, that the word that there are so many places where you just do a search for that and every time you see it, ask if you really need it. Very, very rarely do you actually need the word that. Um, of course, if you're gonna say, of course it's not dialogue. There's no point in mentioning it. It is. Of course it is. It should already be evident. If it isn't, then it isn't. Of course. And you shouldn't write that decided is another filter. But it's one that people, a lot of people, well they decided to do this. You know how we know they decided it.

Chet (18m 25s):
They did it. Now you can have them grapple with the question. You know, man would he have gone left? You know, he was going here. He might've gone, yeah. Am I done this? And then he went left. Well you know, we decided to go left because he did it. You don't have to tell us that you decided to do it cause you're showing this to me. I'm talking about filter. We talked about actions as soon by later actions. Okay. This is a big one that I'm really working on and that is a dialogue. Tags versus action tags. Now, some people really prefer if you read am Oh was it Patterson?

Chet (18m 56s):
And I know he doesn't write his own stuff anymore. I was reading that it was a thriller novel and there was literally not a single dialogue tag and it was all action. Now if you do too much of that, it's going to sound like you're doing a screenplay about methods. Okay. Cause everybody's jewelry is L get out in there then they're just stumbling around. But what you really don't want to do is something like, and what I wrote here is um, you know the rules either dialogue or action but not both. So I would say this, don't forget the sausage Jerry said, looking me straight in the eye and make sure I knew how important it was, but we were better is to say don't forget the sauce period, not a comma.

Chet (19m 32s):
Jerry looked at me straight in the eye and make sure I get home port was, you don't have to tell us that he said it if he's literally doing an action right after it. The way we do this in paragraphs is, you know, the dialogue and the act are in the same paragraph, should have a new actor. You put them in a new paragraph typically. So get rid of the dialogue, take if you have action, you know. Um,

Jesper (19m 51s):
yeah, and I also quite like to do that on purpose in the way that the I put in a bit of action here, there just to get rid of not having to say this person said, and that person said, because it also gets a bit jarring to keep reading who said what? Where's it's nice to have it breaking up sometimes with somebody. He uh, he slammed the door and then he said, Oh, you know, and, and then you can add what he said. So he slammed the sniper guy full stop. And then there is the, uh, the, the dialogue piece there, right. I mean, but then it also shows you emotion then apparently he's angry about something.

Jesper (20m 21s):
So, and then you'd be, you don't even have to explain that then start saying if he looked at her angry or whatever, you know. Exactly.

Chet (20m 28s):
There's so much you can put in the context of actually, that's why I really love the emotion of the source for that. Um, something else you got to remember is like even the way we're talking, right. We're trying to be very respectful of one another but we interrupt each other. Yeah. And people talk that way. You when you, when you write dialogue, don't write dialogue thinking they have the luxury of going on on a a 10 sentence monologue. Right. I'm going to say what I'm going to say as concisely as possible because I'm afraid you might interrupt me at any second. Okay. The other thing is am got, Oh, a dialer preamble.

Chet (20m 60s):
Yes, yes. Comma blah, blah, blah, blah blah. If you asked me a question, I don't have to say yes. I can just give you the answer. The only time he really going to say yes a lot. You might do it occasionally but that is if you're slowing down cause you're trying to think of what to say next or if that's all you want to say where you here. Yes, but, but what's not said there is the important part of that dialogue. Yes. And then you should show it action saying he's the shows that he's a reluctant to keep going. Otherwise you could just get rid of the yes and you can just have the actual answer, you know?

Chet (21m 33s):
Yeah. Um, I told you about adverbs in the dialogue tags. Boy, I tell you that's, that one is one that I had to go, I had to go on a hunt through my own stuff. You know, there's really funny, like sometimes you, um, are there other things that are more developmental? And I'm still, I'm still trying to learn them so I'm not, I'm not really that great as our developmental editor for, for all the genres. I don't like prologues. Uh, if you are going to have a prologue for the love of God, please let it be me and character or at least introduce the main character somewhere in the prologue.

Jesper (22m 5s):
Yeah. And it cannot be an info dump. It, there has to be some relevant action taking place in the prologue. Just sort of like if you ha, I mean there are situations where I do think that a prologue is beneficial to have, but it has to be written in a way that is engaging and ups on a piece of history dump of stuff that happened 2000 years ago that maybe it would be nice for you, dear reader to know. Uh, I mean, well fine, but couldn't you just tell me when it becomes relevant in there in the chapter then

Chet (22m 32s):
it's the same thing with POB jobs. Don't make, don't you know you can do this with romance, but he said, she said romance. Yeah, as long as you've got was founded early, his point of view, her point of view, his point of view, her point of that, you can do that. But if you're writing, so imagine you're writing a fantasy novel with multiple points of view. You write a prologue connected to nothing. And anyway, then you write the main character for a chapter. Then you skip to another chapter. You've now gotten me about five to 10, five going on 10,000 words into your book and you've made me start it three times.

Chet (23m 3s):
That's three times you have to get me so involved that I will not put the book down. Good luck as a new way. Right? Cause what we all do as new writers I'm sure you did this on yours. I do this online. My God, it took me 15 chapters to get to the inciting incident. Now they're short. Thanks. We'd be Jesus the short the short chapters, but, but it, you know, you don't want to take that long. Now on the other hand, I don't really like books that start with action with characters. I don't know what care about yet either. So it's a fine line. Um, but just think almost every first novel writer I ever seen that does fantasy or scifi starts with a prologue and I would say 80 to 85% of the time it's either the wrong prologue or it shouldn't be there at all.

Chet (23m 49s):
That you can, you can, you can fill us in as we go. We can learn a lot from context. I'm still trying to learn how to write very compelling openers and I'm getting better with every new work that I start. But am

Jesper (24m 2s):
yeah. And I think we should probably also point out, you know, because the opening of a novel is the hot, one of the hardest things to write, uh, uh, it is, uh, well, okay, fair enough. Every part of the novel is difficult, the middle of social difficult because you need to keep the attention where sometimes in the middle of sort of gets a bit boring and it just sort of drags off because we want the, we want to get to the end. That is exciting again, but, but, but there is so much tied up in the beginning. There's so much you need to achieve with the beginning to read the same that it is very, very difficult to write.

Jesper (24m 36s):
And it takes a lot of the of uh, let's say, uh, trial and error. And even when you're written several, several books you there's still a lot to learn to do the better intro. So it's, it's not easy stuff, but that's also why you work with an editor to help you.

Chet (24m 51s):
It's hard, and I'm not a developmental editor. I am not always. Now, there's some people I have helped and I've worked with her. I said, you can cut all of these paragraphs away and start with them at the bureaucrat getting, getting their benefits denied. That's really where the story starts. That's where we have character. They're in a jam. I don't need to know how he got into the gym yet. You can let me know as we go. Okay. If it's just background stuff, you know, I don't need to know the political structure. I should learn that fruit interacting with the bureaucrat, interacting with the streets, interacting with the people on them, all of these things.

Chet (25m 23s):
So much things that are in cinematography. You know, people, it's so funny. You know, you look at something like star Wars or Marvel movies are so, so much as is, and you don't have this when you're writing, but you see it when you look at good movies in that. So you think about star Wars, remember, um, all of those machines were beaten up and dirty and messed up. Right. So much is told to you about the world that unconsciously you don't even know you, you're getting, it does that you don't get with with writing. So you really have to learn how to give enough description. The other thing too is that um, this is something I see a lot too.

Chet (25m 56s):
Sometimes people go into extreme specificity about their, about their am description and the problem with that is I get lost and then I get anxious that I'm not visualizing it correctly every single time they come up now I'm like, am I, is that I get that jacket right? And they switched, they change. Give me some highlights and some things I can remember and you know what, you're just going to have to live with it. If the jacket that I conjure in my head differs from yours as, as if you really want me to know exactly what you should go into writing you should go into, into uh, making movies and doing some photography and all that kind of stuff.

Chet (26m 29s):
Cause then you can really, really guy. But, but give me some highlights and then, and then from that point on, you know, it's really, it's really my, it's going to be my story now. At this point. You're, you're using telepathy, you're showing me important things. But you know, if you go into the exact physical details of a situation, you're going to lose me. Um, you're going to write acres, acres of words. You don't need a board to write. And the other thing is too, like if you're a reader like me, I start to get anxious about whether I actually know if I've got it right in my head, you know? And that's something a lot of times people don't think about.

Jesper (26m 59s):
Yeah. Indeed. I, I still have a, well, at least a one paragraph. Uh, I remember in my first book that is still, it's in the published version, however it got through all the editing. I don't know, but I that one's still pains me. It's like every time that those plays, I can't remember the exact details of it, but I'm explaining that it's a very dark place and they'd just go way too much into the specifics, specifics of how dark it is and move on. But you know, it happens to all of us.

Jesper (27m 29s):
It's a learning process.

Chet (27m 31s):
Yeah, no, it's so that's funny that you say that. You know, I got dinged really hard on the critique, uh, a person because I actually wrote sense via touch as afraid. I said that's a ridiculous phrase. Like, you know, felt that's what that was to be a touch. And my critiquer, you know, Ryan, he says, he says, he says, I sense to be a reading that maybe you got a little lost in it.

Chet (28m 1s):
I always so hilarious. You know, and you gotta you just gotta laugh cause there's stuff where you're going to be like, you know, and then of course there's the obvious stuff that I catch that that w copy editors will catch two, which is the repetition of awards three times in two sentences. You know, starting, you know, stuff that pro-rider aid is great for is are you starting three sentences or four sentences in a row with exact same pronoun or proper noun or word in general, you know, um, yeah, don't ever write very unique. There is no such thing. Unique is not a scale. Unique means one of a kind unique, you're not very unique, you're not pretty unique.

Chet (28m 34s):
Unique means there is one of these items is one of those things. Um,

Jesper (28m 41s):
yeah and I, I think, I mean with all of it is so good to, you know, get some editors perspective on writing and sort of what are other things that you, once you be careful about it. But I also sort of want to tell everybody who's watching and listening here that when you are doing your first draft, don't worry about all of this, you know, just get the story. I would get it onto the page and then in the later drafts you can revision all of this together with the Hill up, the editor's notes. They'll sit there and agonize over, am I not doing this or I'm not doing this right, or is this wrong at the first rest States?

Jesper (29m 15s):
It doesn't matter. Just get the story out. However choppy it's going to be, it doesn't matter. Just get it out. So that's the one thing I would say, don't, don't worry about it that at that point and just move on because otherwise go into after the fact. Yeah. Because, because you kind of get stuck in editing mode and then you'll kind of be kind of go over the same chapter again and again and again. And at some point did the amendments or corrections you're making is probably going to move the needle. Like what? Less than 1%. So it maybe, yeah. Which one reader album a million who would appreciate the energy?

Jesper (29m 47s):
Just sit, but there nine, 999,999 other readers don't give a

Chet (29m 53s):
crappy or they were good to notice. They won't even know. Um, you know, the guy that, that, that the main author that I, that I started at anything with a journalist, um, he said he spent an extra year and a half on his first novel and probably only improved it by about 5%. Right, right.

Jesper (30m 9s):
Yeah. So it's important to everybody who gets into writing, especially when you're starting out. You know, the thing with, with the writing as I've said over and over and over again, it, it, it, it improves your training and your only way you can improve this by writing more. So if you, if you get stuck up on, on the first three chapters and editing out 200 million times, you know, you're not gonna get any better, you're just going to sit there with the same stuff over and over. So, so just keep running, keep producing work and, and then what would somebody who knows what they're doing work with the emphasis that I would never, I mean obviously I'm not native English became so I would never ever put out a book that I hadn't gone through an editor because I make grammar mistakes all the time because this is not my mother tongue.

Jesper (30m 53s):
But,

Chet (30m 54s):
but you don't have the unique specificity. You know, sometimes you can tell when somebody has looked at the thesaurus for synonyms, right. They don't realize that every synonym is, is contextually dependent. Yeah. Like technically on a broad sense, these two words are synonyms, but you would never in a million people look at you like you were crazy. Do you use this word in place of another and you can't get, I mean, if I tried to learn, you know, uh, uh, uh, um, uh, Danish, you know, I mean, I've tried to learn Swedish. It's hardest. Jesus. Jesus.

Chet (31m 26s):
Well, cause I'm about to Swedish to sign it. You know, my back that Vince Gilligan is Swedish for winterize. Um, um, and I'm probably pronouncing it badly. I'm sorry. It's been to, we're going to Alanon and dad's gone and I'd probably really screwed it up, but it just, we dries, looked at just way too. Like I should have pictures of wolves in the background, kind of looking at the moon kind of. It's very eighties cheesy will sweat, you know what I mean? But at the same time, that really is the heart of, of a cold place. You know what I mean? Writing the second one is all about passion, so it's gone. Um, or elderly I I'm screwed it up.

Chet (31m 56s):
I know him. Am yeah,

Jesper (31m 57s):
but maybe a sort of a in, in wrapping up here, I'm thinking if, especially for, because those who are already further along in their writing endeavors, uh, they, they, I'm, I'm sure that there was some very good points and inputs here that they can pick up throughout the, what we've been talking about on what to avoid and then they can, they can sort of assault that on their own. But right now, I'm thinking a bit in wrapping up around those who are just starting out because that w is there some sort of a few common mistakes that you could advise to say those who are just starting out, but when you're just starting writing, is there like a top three thing that maybe somebody could just internalize it and just on those who are stopped

Chet (32m 40s):
to if you see what I mean? About four things. Four most important things. I think from a line and stop perspective, not from a developmental perspective, because I do not have, you know, you know what they say? They say when you write a book, you think that when you write a book, you learn how to write a book. No, you learn how to write that book. The next book is totally new book in your comment. I totally different. So, so developmentally, I don't have much to say, but style and, and, and that kind of lies. First of all, good Lord. Let's start with grammar. If you want to learn grammar, just read Elmore Leonard. I mean, you're not always gonna be using this line, but that man understands dialogue.

Chet (33m 14s):
But, um, I would say filtering, get your senses in, but don't filter. Okay. Uh, saw, heard, felt, remembered, noticed, uh, recognized I might've already said that one. Decided, you know, look for those filters. Every time you're doing that, you're pulling people out. Okay. And that leads into the next one, which is show don't tell. And what that means is don't tell me how somebody, what something was or how let the reader come to the conclusions by writing what happened.

Chet (33m 49s):
Okay. So to some extent, you know, um, show me anxious, show me angry. He could, his teeth, uh, slammed the door, slammed the door, yet it doesn't have to be that really seriously get, get, uh, the, the emotion thesaurus will you help with this? Um, cause I can always think of two or three different things. But the problem is if you're writing the same emotions over the course of the novel, you're gonna write the same three or four different.

Chet (34m 20s):
But, but, but yeah, so show, don't tell, but what does that mean? That means, um, um, don't, don't tell me what happened. Show me what happened. Put me in the middle of the action. Uh, I love this and know if it's, to me it feels like I have, uh, the federal makes me feel like I have superpowers when I know that the other thing that it makes me feel like I have superpowers is the am past continuous, if you're writing in the past tense was something, was standing, was sitting, was it?

Chet (34m 52s):
Whenever I see that, and I see this in professional writing, I see this in traditional publishing, I see this all over the place and it's not technically wrong. It's just you. I want you to remember that when you have a wall isn't an IMG wrote, every verb you're starting in your ending are all the same. They all blend together and you can give every single one of those verbs so much more bite. And when you put more bite in every single one more more juice and every single one of those verbs, you're doing such a better job at getting your, your reader into the text, into the situation when everything is distinct.

Chet (35m 23s):
It just, and I know, I guess the same thing with neutering the verb made a plan. Nope. Managed to Nope, don't found myself. No thought. Found myself as okay colloquial like you as like a folksy way of saying things every now and again. So I would say yeah am the big ones are filtering past continuous am and showed him to and I hate that hate even leaving somebody with show don't tell because for the longest time I had no idea what that meant.

Chet (35m 53s):
Yeah. Bit tough here. That show don't tell. What does that mean? You know? And what it means is, you know, Mark said angrily is telling am what the fuck was that for? You know, Mark balled his fists or you and he slammed his hand on anything. Why didn't you do that? You know what I mean? So sometimes it's just straight up in the dialogue. You don't even need an action. Like if you've got an exclamation point that you know, a lot of that gets, it gets to do with the context. Um, um, and instead of don't with fantasy so many people want to put you on a travel log, then we went here and then we want to hear them.

Chet (36m 25s):
We hear them when really, you know, take me on a journey. Put me in these places, you know, put in certainly into the story. That's what every reader is reading for their reading to be that character in that story. Not doing, they're not reading to read about other people. Notice their reading in order to be all, all fiction reading is, is, is a, is a, uh, it is building up your empathy muscles. It's why so many people would read so many books end up wanting to come writers because it's magic.

Chet (36m 56s):
You know? Am forcing yourself into somebody else's eyes and becoming that person. That's what you want. And so getting rid of the filtering helps with that and then showing instead. So telling you what I mean by that really is trying not to try not to take the easy way of, of angry can mean so many different things, but you can show it distinctively in a way that is very specific to that character that I then now and taking on for myself as as a

Jesper (37m 23s):
indeed. Thanks for thanks for right down. And it is funny because of what you just said made me think because I'm, I'm just, uh, I'm currently writing a nonfiction book on how to plot a or our autumn and I am writing the book, uh, and

Chet (37m 39s):
she's a high rep. she told me only part clause and part pants is right. She knows where to go. Let me, she doesn't tell them how to get there.

Jesper (37m 45s):
No, indeed. Uh, and, and because, and it just makes me think because when you set the fantasy likes to sort of get into a travel log, uh, because one of the things that I just wrote in the chapter the other day was basically that all stories are about the character. It is not about where they go. It is about the character and it's about the change that they go undergo throughout the novel. That's what the story is about. Where do you go matters less. Um, so, so that's, uh, I think it just made me what you said just made me think about that.

Jesper (38m 15s):
So, but, but I want to thank you a lot Chet for, for coming onto amwritingfantasy and sharing a lot of the editing inputs, uh, that, that I hope will be very, very useful for, for those watching and listening whether you're on YouTube or autumn.

Chet (38m 30s):
Yeah. Um, I wanna leave you with, um, a few if you want learn more about story. Um, I think his name is, I think his name's Brad bird. He wrote a book called the secret of story and the secrets of story and it really just mind melting. You know, he uses the word, uh, all kinds of uses that nice way, way, way. He didn't edit it for that, but all my God, like he'll just introduce you to some things where you're like, I never thought of that, but I know that instinctively about story. You don't know that. You know it until somebody really just points it out there, like, you know, so he's got a lot of the really good juicy, if you want to learn stories stuff.

Chet (39m 8s):
So the things I would plug would be that every, every writer should have the emotion thesaurus. If you want to learn how to show, not tell. Yeah,

Jesper (39m 15s):
yeah. We'll put a, I'll put a link to that one in the description field in the show notes so that, uh, for the, for those of you watching or listening you

Chet (39m 23s):
you can find it there if you want it. And, uh, I have a website that runs that is not, it's not optimized. So if, but I do have a am I do have a, a Raider fan group, uh, on Facebook. It's called Chet. Sandberg's close readers. You can find me there and I will probably put up a, I didn't want it. Like I said, I was telling you, I don't want to put a new butter tied, something to get away so people seek, my writing is like, uh, before they looked at it for editing, you know. Um, I typically, um, I usually get most of my jobs to interacting with authors and giving them sample pages.

Chet (39m 57s):
I'll give them a sample chapter. Uh, this is what I would change is what I fixed. A little bit of developmental, a lot of copy, but I'll, but, but I really focus on the stuff that's a little harder than copy, which is a line and style. I'll try not to, I try not to strip out anybody's voice. Uh, sometimes people want to insist on, on, on bad habits as being a voice in. It usually isn't. Usually they have something more distinctive in there that's, that's, that can be fixed with line style. But I hope, I hope that I just get people on the right foot with, with just those three or four little things, you know?

Jesper (40m 30s):
Yeah. That was our purpose here. And, uh, and of course if you email me a link to your website and whatnot, then I'll put it into,

Chet (40m 38s):
yeah. Within that function soon. But yeah, hopefully, hopefully before this comes out, maybe I'll have something that functions. I gotta figure out some way to get, uh, you know how it is. You've got to get a newsletter saying, I am not good at, I'm not good at anything. That requires multiple steps of, you can only do this one way. It's like a bottle of wine and Stella did, or not a proofreader. Okay. I don't want to look to make sure that every period isn't the right place. I want to get you I want to get your dialogue. That sounds like something a human from earth would say. That's what I wanted to do, right? Yeah. Absolutely.

Chet (41m 8s):
All right. Cool.

Jesper (41m 9s):
Thanks a lot. Chet and uh, thank you for listening or watching out there and, uh, we'll see you next time.

Chet (41m 14s):
Monday.