Writing Advice from an Editor to Writers in General

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          Last week I wrote about writing advice I gave to an intern. This week, I’m giving advice to more experienced writers.

          I have edited three local monthly magazines as well as a state-wide monthly magazine at the same time. The common challenge is filling all the space between the ads on all the pages.

To accomplish this, every month I have to come up with six to ten topics for articles for each magazine, depending on page counts, a month or two before deadline. Then I assign them to writers who will interview people, write comprehensive and well-organized pieces that meet the word count on deadline. I also have five columnists on staff covering sports, gardening, family life, books, and observations on life. Two columnists also write articles.

Finding good writers is essential which means there are writing opportunities out there. Experienced writers with tear sheets (previously published articles from other publications) are good to work with as they know what to do—although it may turn out these writers have been edited heavily. However, new writers are excited and willing to learn. Their energy is infectious and fun. 

As long as new writers are serious about completing assignments, they should ask for assigned articles submitting writing samples when requested. I often assign new writers articles I need in two months to see if they can meet a two or three week deadline. This gives me time to recover if they fail.

Short Inquiries:

To get published in a magazine, a serious writer should send editors short inquiries about article ideas he or she would like to write (or have already written) that fit a publication’s style. Be familiar with the publication. Make sure your ideas will be compatible. As I mentioned, editors have to generate a lot of story ideas every month so having good ones suggested by writers is helpful.

Put Article Inquiry in the subject line.

These inquiries should be short and sent to the editor by his or her name. If you cannot be bothered to find the editor’s name, you are making a bad impression and, worse yet, you are unfamiliar with the publication.

It’s best to pitch ideas for the future as issues are planned a month or two in advance. (Example: pitch December topics in September. National magazines may have even longer lead times.)

Introduce and discuss your article idea—what it is, why readers will enjoy it, and why you are interested in writing it. Then summarize your expertise and writing experience. If a new writer, offer to submit writing samples. Then end with: Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you. Include your contact information, phone and email address.

Do not expect an immediate response. Give an editor two or three weeks to respond. If no response, send the inquiry again. Editors receive emails from dozens to hundreds of readers, advertisers, the production department, the printer, press releases, compliments, complaints, and established writers so it might take a week or two for the editor to get to inquiries, longer if your email arrives during deadline week.

Once contacted, be prompt in answering an editor’s questions in response to your inquiry.

Assignments:

Once the editor gives you the assignment, a style sheet, word count, and deadline, deliver what you promised—an engaging and professionally written article about the idea you pitched that includes quotes from at least one person.

Interview Tips:

Do not procrastinate. Set up interviews immediately as there are always scheduling conflicts. Also, if interview has to be rescheduled, you have time to do so.

Make sure you spell each person’s name, title, and organization      correctly.

Have at least 10-12 questions prepared before interview.  Ask follow up questions where appropriate.

Make sure some require short or numerical answers to break up all the longer quotes for other questions.

Two questions I always ask:

                            

          What do you like best about your job or the event?

                   (Personality shines through in answers.)

And end of interview ask: Is there anything else you would like the public to know?

(This gives the person a chance to discuss things you might not know about so follow up questions might be needed.)

I write all the questions in the margin of my notepad if it’s an in-person interview.

If emailing questions, double check for spelling errors before sending.

When emailing questions, put the deadline date for answers in the subject line and again before the questions.

Always thank people for their time before the interview or before the written questions in an email.

Listen to answers or read them carefully.

Ask follow up questions as needed.

If handwritten, type up your notes as soon as possible after the interview.

If you can’t read some of your notes or an answer isn’t clear when you are writing your article, contact the person again to get the right answers.

Drafts:

In your first draft, organize your thoughts then include every quote, fact, and point you want to make regardless of word count.

Use the strongest and clearest interview statements as quotes in your article. The rest of what the person said become facts in the text. Weave these facts in with any other researched facts along with the quotes which breathe life into your articles.

Know the correct punctuation for quotes. Also, some publications use said, some use says. Use right style.

Once first draft is written, reread it. Read it aloud. Often you will find you buried your lead (best start to your article) in paragraph two, three, or even six. Reorganize paragraphs as needed.

Then rewrite and polish your article repeatedly until it is the best work you can produce and within the word count.

Look for better choices of words—i.e., one word that can replace a wordy description. (Every writer in my opinion should have and use the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus. Read the Introduction “In Search of the Exact Word” by Richard Goodman, pp. xi-xvii, to see exactly what I mean. )

Check spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

For reference: I spend less than 40% of my time writing and over 60% rewriting my articles for publication.

Deadlines:

Submit assignments before or on deadline date. No excuses.

I advise that new writers especially submit their articles well before deadline. Editors will remember you for doing it. This means you can be counted on and will receive future assignments provided you also wrote a good or, better yet, a great article.

What constitutes a great article?

In every article emailed to me, I want to see:

a pertinent, even clever, title,

a byline,

an article with paragraphs,

only one space between sentences,

line spacing of 1.15 or 1.5,

do not start any article with a quote,

people need to be introduced to readers before being quoted,

organized thoughts,

smooth transitions,

quotes woven seamlessly into the text,

an attention-grabbing intro paragraph ,

and an ending paragraph that ties up the article well.

In between the first and last paragraphs, I look for:

proper punctuation especially for quotes,

good grammar,

correct spellings of words, names, and titles,

attention paid to details like dates, times, places, etc.,

true facts, statistics, etc.,

word count (within 100 words under to exact number),

and that the magazine’s style sheet was followed.

Q&A articles begin with an intro paragraph or two.

If submitting a photo, write a caption that includes (left to right) people’s names.

Writers can recommend pull quotes, but editor has final say.

Overall, I look for:

a strong writer’s voice and style,

creativity,

Is lead paragraph enticing?

Is article fun to read and informative?

Are the facts clear?

Are quotes distributed throughout the article?

Is anything jarring? (bad transitions, out-of-order facts, person quoted without being introduced)

Are the contact phone number, email address, & web site listed if readers want more information?

Editing:

Corrections are made following rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The rest of changes are made to fit magazine’s style or the editor’s sense of words and style.

Most articles have excess words so editors tighten up the text by cutting these words or replacing them with more exact words.

Magazine editors do not usually discuss changes with writers unless want total rewrites

Writers may ask about changes, but not during deadline week. If you want feedback, ask the editor beforehand to see if it’s possible. Then turn article in early in case has editor has time before publication. Feedback takes a lot of time so the editor may say no. If that is the case, compare what you turned in to what was published. Changes should result in clearer or tighter writing.    

If a lot of text is missing, space may have been tight on the page so change may have nothing to do with your writing. (I’ve had ads come in very late. They always go in, so text must be cut. It’s a tough business.)

If you see a pattern in the edits, work on that area of your writing.

Once an editor knows you are a professional writer who turns in great work within word count on deadline, you will get more assignments. More assignments lead to tear sheets to use when inquiring about assignments for other magazines which is the start of a writing career.

The Benefits of Recycling Writing

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          I have taken on writing two more columns for the facebook pages of the magazines I write for and edit. Each week I alternate between book reviews and musings of my choosing. Sounds like a lot more work—and it is—but there are many benefits.

          For the book reviews, I often recycle the ones I’ve posted here. However, since they are slanted towards writers, I have to rework them to fit a general reading audience. This is an excellent way to hone my editing and rewriting skills. It means looking at every line to see if it works for a different audience. Great lines have to be cut, but, when I’m working hard, new great lines appear.

          This is fun work as I love these books. I want more people to discover them.

          Conversely, my musings for the facebook column have led to rewrites for posts for this blog.

I have the freedom to write about almost anything in the column. This can be overwhelming, but the deadline means pressure so thoughts I wasn’t planning on appear on the page. The surprise of discovering what I think is one of the best benefits of this type of writing.

                    How do I know what I think until I see what I have to say.

                                                                   --E. M. Forster

  

While I’m editing these facebook columns, I often see a way they tie into writing. With a bit of rewriting, I’m sharing these thoughts with my blog audience.

          Taking on more work is working for me. Getting two pieces from a blog post or column topic as well as strengthening my editing and rewriting skills are all terrific benefits to recycling my writing.

Recycle your writing whenever you can. Writing more leads to more writing. As writers, that’s the whole point.

The Best Writing Advice Ever

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          Concise writing takes more thought, more work, more drafts. However, the results can stand the test of time. Updated 3/30/16: See posts on Mary Oliver on 3/21/16 & 4/4/16. Her thoughts: Give your writing power and time--look for verbs of muscle and adjectives of exactitude.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, published 1935

Omit needless words (page 23).

          Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. (62 words)

Gettyburg Address, 1863, the Nicolay version—thought to be earliest copy of the speech—is copied here:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal”

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow, this ground—The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people for the people, shall not perish from this earth. (235 words)

I’m not sure I can legally print lyrics here, but these songs are surprisingly concise:

“Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce, from 1971, is 128 words long.

“Sunshine on My Shoulders” by John Denver, from 1971 is 113 words long.

“Three Times a Lady” by Lionel Richie, from 1978, is only 51 words long.

          Make every word tell. I think that is the best writing advice ever.


Please note: This advice refers to the polishing/self-editing stage, not during early drafts when the goal is to get all your thoughts down on paper.

Time Well Spent

   

From Kate's Writing Crate…

Last week, I wrote a post only 463 words long. According to Word Properties, I spent 172 minutes writing and editing it. Looks like I wrote about 2.7 words a minute. That would be embarrassing if I actually wrote at that rate.

The reality is I wrote the post in 78 minutes. The word count was 528. But I revised as I wrote so I probably wrote 700+ words and then edited and revised down to the 528 by the time I finished. This took about 45% of my total time on this piece.

It's hard to get an exact breakdown of writing versus rewriting as I write until my thoughts stop. Sometimes I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling while thinking. Sometimes I stare out the window. Then I reread what I wrote, rewriting as I work down to where I left off and then I'd start writing again. I don't know how to quantify the writing versus rereading and rewriting, but I'd guess about 15 of the 78 minutes was reading and rewriting.

It's more interesting to me that I then spent another 94 minutes over the next two days to create a finished post that was 65 words shorter through rewriting, editing, and polishing my work.

The final post was worth working the extra 94 minutes. My first draft had every idea I wanted to include. It wasn't in terrible shape, but it wasn't ready for publication. Waiting for a day or two gave me a better perspective on what worked and what did not. I could cut sentences and paragraphs out more easily, expand on others, and add new ones as well as change the title.

If asked, I would have guessed writing versus rewriting a post was about a 50/50 proposition. But I have been tracking myself with Word Properties while writing the last three posts and discovered writing runs between 35-40% of my time and rewriting, editing, and polishing 60-65%.

This proved to me that:

Writing is really rewriting—making the story [or, in this case, post] better, clearer, truer. –Robert Lipsyte

and

If you haven't revised, you're not finished. –Patricia T. O'Connor

Being a writer is not just writing, but honing our thoughts and words, refining them. Writers write—and then they rewrite.

How much time do you spend rewriting?

Tips for Self-Editing

From Kate's Writing Crate...

            Learning to self-edit is a skill we can improve. There are books and classes, but, in my experience, actual experience is the best way to learn. 

When I first started working for a monthly magazine, I was a good writer with room for improvement. Writing up to four articles a month for years taught me to be more organized, concise, and clear. Writing up to eight articles in a month for several magazines then became possible. Fact checking and copyediting for all these articles made me a better writer and a beginning editor, too.

     

I was good friends with an editor at the time so I asked her how I could become an editor one day. She gave me some excellent advice: Pick up a local newspaper and read it looking only for errors—grammatical and factual—then correct them using proofreader's marks and writing corrections like a professional. (I used Go Ahead…Proof It by K. D. Sullivan as a guide.) Rewrite captions to be punchier. Pick paragraphs at random and cut the word count by 10% without losing any facts or meaning while making sure there are transitions, then work up to 20%.

      

These practical exercises build our skills to catch and make corrections, smooth transitions, generate interest, and help make our writing more pleasurable to read. However, other editing changes are more subjective. Style varies person to person and publication to publication. The more you practice, the more your style will develop.

      

When it comes to your own work, it's best to build into any deadlines a day or two to put pieces aside so self-editing can be done with fresh eyes. Then print your work out and use a red pen to make corrections.

      

Start with the basics. Check for grammatical and spelling errors. Use references like The Chicago Manual of Style and refdesk.com. Double check the spellings of names and titles. In fiction, keep a list of each characters' physical attributes so you don't change eye or hair color partway through the story.

   

As we self-edit, it's vital to keep our writing voices strong. Our voices are what first appeal to our readers then become memorable to them.

     

But also keep your readers in mind. Among other things, this means using the appropriate vocabulary and correct technical jargon. Be clear. Give your readers credit for general knowledge, but include background information or explanations where needed.

      

Self-editing is in part instinctive, too. We recognize what sounds good so read pieces aloud. Rewrite passages that are awkward or unclear. Clarity counts. We know when we use the right word in the right place; double check that you did. Write true to yourself and your voice will shine through.

      

As the saying goes: Easy reading means hard writing—and great self-editing!

   

What makes self-editing easier for you?