Featured Author: Sarah Andre

Normally we save our featured author posts for the end of the month, but since Sarah Andre's Capturing the Queen (Damaged Heroes, book 2) releases tomorrow, this seemed like the perfect time for an exception.

I've had the pleasure of working with Sarah on all three of her novels. From the very first set of notes I sent her and every time since, she's blown me away with her ability to internalize and process critiques, then truly transform her story during revisions. Her willingness to accept feedback and her drive to create gripping romantic suspense allow her to improve immeasurably between drafts, with just a nudge in the right direction. Underlying her skill with revisions is also an incredibly creative mind that keeps me (and her readers) guessing with exciting, unpredictable plot twists.

I'm so glad to have the opportunity to help her writing grow into its vast potential, and I already can't wait to read book 3 in the Damaged Heroes series! 

For her visit on our site, Sarah decided to share some thoughts on writing compelling heroes for romantic suspense:


This June marks the third consecutive year I’ll publish a romantic suspense edited by Anya, and the third consecutive year she’s virtually shoved me from my unwavering path toward irate reviews.

Perhaps it’s my myopic view as a writer to assume everyone knows my protagonist like I do, because it’s always a shock when both my critique partner and Anya read the first drafts of my novels and send back the blanket summary: Your hero is an ass.

Editor's note: I have never said that sentence to her. 😉

What? How could that be? I adore him! He suffered a terrible childhood and has now made a success of himself. Surely it’s clear why he behaves this way, utters that remark, or how every decision he makes plunges him into deeper chaos? And how can you not feel sorry for him when his world finally crumbles at his feet?

Last year I sent a four-page email filled with anguished questions like this back to Anya. I’ve been writing for twelve years, what basic craft principle am I not getting? Her answer was simple:

Externally you can keep the same plot issues with his fiancée, his dad, etc., but internally there has to be more at stake—a status quo that’s shaken from the moment of his return, and keeps falling apart.

Stakes. A status quo that’s shaken. Keeps falling apart… Her words were a two-by-four to the head. For all the online classes, craft books, and workshops I’ve absorbed, I’d made the most basic newbie mistake: I focused on my protagonist’s external conflicts (plot-driven approach) when the riveting aspect of a novel is the internal struggle (character-driven).

We’re all flawed in real life, and we all hold a world view or universal truth that is somewhere on the bell curve of skewed to destructively wrong. But it’s our belief, it’s what makes us feel "safe," and it’s basically unshakable.

The character arc and happily-ever-after part of a romantic suspense is when the hero sees the error of that belief and grows as a person while also capturing the bad guy. My task was to make his world view much more tangible than: he had a tough childhood, so he acts like this now. It meant distilling that broad paintbrush stroke to a fine point: he wants extreme wealth and power with no emotional ties so he’ll never again face the emotional and financial destitution he experienced as a child. NOW, in this distilled form, I’m going to shake that belief system like a can of soda!

Why is the character-driven approach more riveting than plot-driven? She went on to explain:

It’s good that you have him pulled in a thousand directions and therefore he has to prioritize, but right now those directions don’t really matter because his internal world doesn’t really matter [to the reader]. 

This also meant I had to rewrite and revise in much deeper point of view. Every thought and action out of him or the characters he interacted with had to be filtered through the hero's fear that the life he’s built is cracking and falling apart.

Although this was my story’s status quo, I hope Anya’s insight has helped you look at your protagonist in a new light too.

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Sarah Andre is a 2017 RWA RITA® finalist and writes "romantic suspense that keeps you up all night." She lives in serene Southwest FL with her husband and two naughty Pomeranians. When she’s not writing, Sarah stays crushingly busy in various volunteer positions which she complains about loudly, but secretly enjoys. Her latest romantic suspense, Capturing the Queen, releases June 13, 2017.

Connect with Sarah on Twitter & Facebook, or sign up for her newsletter!

Featured Author: Janine Southard

Last month, we started a new type of post here on the Touchstone Editing blog: guest posts by featured authors! We've worked with some amazing authors over the years, so we've invited some of them to provide additional perspective on both the editing process and publishing in general.

I am probably Janine Southard's biggest fan. She and I first worked together in 2010 when she submitted a short story for a call for submissions I had out for my Circlet Press anthology Masked Pleasures. (Her story, "Heir Apparent," is one I still remember vividly, all these years later.) It's strange, looking back now, to think that hers was a name I once didn't know, that at one time she was just another name in the slush pile. Since then we've worked on a handful of projects together, each one more fun than the last -- I remember, while editing one of her books, when I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard at a tongue-in-cheek comment one of her characters had made. (That book became Cracked! A Magic iPhone Story, which you should definitely check out if you like to laugh.) Not every writer can successfully pull off comedy, but Janine does it, amidst her talents of writing science fiction, fantasy, erotica, and more. 

I could go on and on talking about how much I love Janine's books -- and I do, frequently, to anyone willing to listen -- but for now I'll let you hear from her in her own words: 

The Editing Process: A Writer’s POV

By Janine A. Southard

Yay! The first draft is finished! For many writers, this is the hardest part. But that draft isn’t ready for general human consumption yet. So: what next?

Everyone has a different editing process (usually rooted in their drafting method), but here’s how it looks for me.

1. Put the draft away and don’t look at it for a while. (Steven King recommends 6 weeks. Sometimes I’m too impatient—or get too distracted—to make the exact 6 week mark, but I try.)
2. Re-read it myself and make changes like I would if it were someone else’s. Usually, this is just line editing stuff (i.e., making the words more prettier), but sometimes it turns into a huge plot upheaval.
3. Send this neatened draft to my critique group... or force my spouse to read it first.
4. Whichever didn’t happen in step 3.
5. Make necessary changes and send it off to my developmental editor. What? You don’t have an editor? Have you thought about Touchstone Editing? (Yes, I’m shilling. Because Jen Levine has been a wonderful editor for me. One book she helped me with won a Cygnus Award in 2016.)
6. Wait impatiently for notes from the editor.
7. Receive notes from the editor and be too scared to open them because what if it’s horrible and I don’t know what to do?
8. Actually open the notes. Freak out because I don’t know what to do. (8.5 Get over the freak out and start brainstorming fixes.)
9. Spend two weeks adding and subtracting scenes. Every song on the radio is about my manuscript. Every moment is thinking about how I could fix things. Every podcast contains some little nugget that would make the book so much better.
10. Send it back to the editor. Sometimes, it doesn’t need a second developmental look and is ready for line editing. Sometimes, we repeat steps 6-9.
11. Receive notes to make the words read more smoothly, or where to maybe reorder things. Try to take all the notes, but sometimes they’re just wrong. For instance, I once had an editor who was brilliant at story, but didn’t do science fiction. She didn’t think “Terran” clearly meant “from Earth.” I ignored that note after polling my friends/family/mailing list, but that was the only note I tossed. Most of the time, though, the editor is definitely right. Remember, you picked the one you’re working with for a reason. Take the advice. (Unless it really bothers you. Because, in the end, it’s your manuscript.)
12. At this point, I’m sick of my book. I’ve read it too many times. Made too many tweaks. Even reading it to my cat has lost appeal. I am relieved when I send it to the copyeditor/proofreader. (This is usually a different person than the developmental editor, who may or may not have been different from the line editor.)
13. Get the proofed version back. Slog through it in one night. Even if it takes 6 hours to go over every misplaced comma and consistency check. It’s painful to read at this point, so getting it done fastest is best. (Lucky for me, my spouse recognizes this activity and makes me dinner while I moan about how awful this whole book is. Why did I write it in the first place? Waaaaah.)
14. Finish! At this point, I’m formatting and self-publishing. You may be choosing to send it off to agents and publishing houses. The point is: the manuscript is as ready as it’s going to be. You’re as ready as you’re going to be.

There you go. That’s my whole editing process. Hating the book is actually helpful at the end, by the way, because it helps me accept editorial notes on tiny things that make the piece better. Like, all I want to do is make the manuscript go away, and that’ll happen faster if I don’t fight for obsolete comma rules.

Remember that you trust your editor. Your next book will have different problems after all you’ve learned.

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Photo by Jeremy Barton

Janine A. Southard writes speculative fiction from coffee shops in Seattle, WA. All her books so far have been possible because of crowdsourced funds via Kickstarter. She owes great thanks to her many patrons of the arts who love a good science fiction adventure and believe in her ability to make that happen.

Get a free piece of fiction when you sign up for Janine A. Southard's newsletter. The newsletter will keep you current on things like her latest release dates approximately once a month. Your address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Plus: free ebook!

Featured Author: Deek Rhew

Welcome to a new type of post here on the Touchstone Editing blog! We've worked with some amazing authors over the years, so we've invited some of them to provide additional perspective on both the editing process and publishing in general.

First up is Deek Rhew. Deek impressed me from the very first time I worked with him. He swears he was intimidated by the notes in my first editorial letter, but rather than getting discouraged, he sent me a detailed list of both questions and proposed solutions to the problems in that draft of 122 Rules. Ever since, I've been excited to watch where that combination of humility and determination will take his career!

So without further ado, meet Deek:

I'm honored to get to guest post for Touchstone Editing. Anya Kagan was the editor for both of my books, Birth of an American Gigolo and 122 Rules. So when she invited me to write about editing from an author's point of view, I jumped at the chance.

I can write a rough manuscript in about three to four months. I started my latest sci-fi thriller, Xtractors, at the end of January and am about 2/3 done with it. Forgoing life throwing me a curveball, I should be done with it by May. Sounds great, doesn't it? A whole book in three months! Send out the press releases and line up the agents, here comes the next best seller!

Only not.

While I can finish the rough in a few months, I will spend six to nine months editing it. This sounds like a long time, and I suppose from the outside, it might be. To clarify, here's a rough timeline of the process:

Months 1–4: Rough draft. This is the no-holds-barred, raw writing of the manuscript. This process is ONLY about story. The manuscript will have passive voice, adverbs aplenty, talking heads, on and on and on. But that's okay. Here, I let my imagination off of its leash and kennel my analytical mind as it will only get in the way and stifle creativity.

Months 4ish–12ish: Editing, Round One. In this phase, I:

• Dive deeper into the characters, their motives, their thoughts, and their lives.
• Iron out story flaws and plot holes.
• Remove as much "telling" as possible (this is harder than it sounds). "Telling" is information told to the user as apposed to showing them. For instance:
  
  
  Jane dove like an insane person into the car.
     VS:
  Jane ran full speed, her arms pumping and her sneakers pounding, across the street. At the last second before she ran into the side of the vehicle, she leapt. Landing on her butt, she slid across the slick, hot hood of the car. She caught the rim of the window with her fingers and flipped, like a gymnast going for the gold, into the front seat.

• Work on the character arc, making sure that the characters grow.
• Remove passive voice.
• Remove grammatical errors.
• Fix word choice.
• Etc. etc. etc.

There are a lot of things going on during this pass, not the least of which is fixing my writing weaknesses and bad habits. These are sometimes incredibly difficult to catch because, well, they're my writing weaknesses and bad habits, but I do my best.

After I finish each chapter, I read it out loud. This is a often a multi-pass through process to ensure that everything sounds good to my ear. I think this is especially good for dialogue. Until it sounds just right to my ear, I'll keep reworking it until I'm satisfied.

Okay, so Round 1 is done! Grab a Coke and a pizza, finally time to celebrate! Well, actually no. Now it's time to let this thing ferment and work on something different. Mid-January of this year, I finished a nine-month round of edits on the second novel in the 122 Rules series: 122 Rules - Redemption. This book is now sitting on a shelf waiting for me to get back to it while I write Xtractors. I need to distance myself from this work for a while and get a little perspective before I go back to it.

I'll finish a full round of edits on Xtractors, and then I'll do another round of edits on Redemption. This will probably take another month, most likely two. Only after I'm satisfied with this pass through will I turn it first over to my wife, Erin Rhew, who is not only an author but an editor too. Once she's done, I'll turn it over to Anya here at Touchstone for her to do her worst.

No matter how good I think it is, Erin and Anya will find a ton of problems. Honestly, I think that's awesome. I know that being an author is an evolving, learning experience, and that each manuscript will (hopefully!) be better than the last but never perfect.

Ever.

Erin is good at content edits and amazing at line edits. She'll grammar the stink out of my book. Anya will help me tear it apart and put it back together in ways that I never imagined. The first editorial letter I got from her for 122 was a sucker-punch to the gut. Even so, I look forward to seeing what ways she'll find to improve my book.

Excerpt from an editorial letter for 122 Rules

If you get an editor that tells you to give them your raw, unedited manuscript, you give your editor the boot. If they tell you that your work is great and doesn't need much work, you need to tell your editor to take a hike. Unless you're Shakespeare or Stephen King, that's not going to happen. You want someone willing to work hard. You want someone that not only knows the truth about what you need to fix but is also willing to tell you.

If your editor doesn't tell you, then the reviewers on Amazon will.

Thanks so much, Touchstone Editing and Anya!

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Deek Rhew has been enthralled by the written word and storytelling since he picked up his first Stephen King novel It. On his way to work one day, a scene so vivid flashed through his mind that he felt compelled to pull over and put it to paper. Having neither quill nor parchment in which to document the image, he laboriously pecked out the first chapter of his debut novel, 122 Rules, on his phone.

Connect with Deek on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest on his books, news, and upcoming events.