Category: The Editor’s Hat

Advice for writing and editing, along with some thoughts about working with editors.

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Death of the Author (Literary Term Explained)

I don't remember where I first heard the term, but I had encountered an entire conversation on one of my social media channels about the death of the author. It turns out that it's a term that refers back to an essay from 1967. In that essay, entitled The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes postulated the idea that at some point (after publication), a story takes on a life of its own, separate from the writer's intentions.

The idea makes sense when you think about it, because readers will add their own context and meaning to things based on their personal experiences. However, the essay has been debated for many long years about how much an author's intent should be incorporated into literary discussions about the meanings behind a written work.

In today's post, I want to take a look at this death-of-the-author idea, pointing out how I'm watching my own death unfold before my eyes… and my novel is still a newly-published work.

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Woman with knee tucked up in front of her while typing on a laptop and enjoying a cup of coffee.

Write Fast Now! Editing Hell Later?

We are rapidly approaching the time of year when writers around the world embark on one writing challenge or another, with the most common writing challenges focusing on writing a minimum of 50,000 words within 30 days. Some of these challenges will extend to the idea of editing and publishing, extending the challenge out to 90 days. But the idea is still to write a lot of words, completing a long-form story within a short period of time.

To some writers, the whole challenge is a daunting task. But for many people who have never written before, embarking on the challenge can be freeing, as it encourages you to turn off the inner critic and just write! However, for many writers who have been writing for a while (myself included), such a challenge forces us to examine our writing habits—and sometimes, reset our routines.

Every year, I share my thoughts about how aiming for a high word count shouldn't be your ultimate goal. In my opinion, the challenge to write 50,000 words in a month is not really about writing those 50,000 words. It's more about developing writing habits that will carry you through into your future writing career.

With that in mind, we need to address certain practices that will help you write fast now but avoid the editing hell later.

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Deciding between First Person and Third Person

If you’re anything like me, when you’re in writing mode, you’ll have a narrative style that you naturally gravitate towards. For me, my default style is third person, past tense, using deep point of view. But again, if you’re anything like me, you will encounter that one story that makes you question whether your default is the right choice.

Perhaps there is something within the narrative construction that makes you think you need to be a little bit closer to the characters. Or maybe there is something within the narrative that wants you to be more distant. Or maybe you just want to experiment and see what you’re capable of doing.

But there are some things about certain narrative constructions and certain stories that lend themselves more to one particular style of narrative as opposed to another. Making that decision as to which is most appropriate is not an easy thing to do.

In today’s post, I want to explore this idea of whether a narrative wants to be in first person or whether it should remain in third person. And I want to discuss what is similar about first-person and third-person, deep-point-of-view narratives and what is different.

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Does my story need to have a romance subplot?

For some time now, there has been this push to include a romance subplot in books. And I've heard an ill-informed push that says, "Sex sells."

But I've read far too many published stories where the romantic subplot failed to integrate properly into the overall plot. And the number of sex scenes that I've read (including in published works) where I questioned the need for the scene altogether is higher than it should be.

In my work as a developmental editor and writing coach, I'm watching new writers crumble as they try to tackle romance subplots and open-door sex scenes. And I am seeing their stories suffer as a consequence.

It's time to tackle this issue head on and highlight why romantic subplots and open-door sex scenes could be working against you, not for you.

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What type of series are you writing?

I've been thinking about the construction of series when it comes to fiction for some time. This is in part because I have several clients who are working on series, but I too am working on multiple different series myself within my own fiction writing.

How exactly one approaches a series will depend on the nature of the series itself. Each type of series comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. And there are some commonalities between the different types of series, but there are also some distinct differences.

In today's post, I want to break down the different types of series that might exist and point out some of the things that you will need to consider when working on a series of that type.

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