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Ask An Editor: Theresa Stevens’ Line Editing Series

Editor extraordinaire THERESA STEVENS is back with with an in-depth example of the line editing process.

This month we continue our line editing series with an entry we are told is YA fantasy.

Chapter One – A Mother’s Sacrifice

We haven’t made it past the chapter heading, and I already have to pause for comment. There’s a tendency with new-ish YA writers to focus too much on the adults and not enough on the kids. Because we’re told that this chapter will be about the actions of the mother, I’m already wondering if this book will fall into that trap. I will be watching as we read for evidence that the young people are the central characters.

Midnight, 30th September, 1509

Serena wanted to run.

This is a little vague. You can run to something or run from something, and these are very different kinds of activities. If I were line editing this for publication, I would make a note requesting the author clarify this sentence by completing the sentence, or perhaps by revising it.

The hourglass stood on the altar stone in the centre of the clearing. A cruel wind sliced through the trees, stinging Serena’s hands and drawing tears from her eyes, but that was a welcome sensation: at least, for now, she could feel.

Good sense of setting and emotion and tension, but I still want to tinker with this. The colon sounds the wrong tone for this kind of prose. It’s too formal. I’m also not wild about that pair of present participial phrases in the middle of the compound sentences. It’s not the trees stinging and drawing, even though the ordinary rules of sentence structure tell us that those phrases modify the trees. It could be read as a cumulative modifier except that the trees still get in the way of our interpretation. I would reference the trees in the first sentence and get them out of the middle of this sentence. So the new paragraph would read,

The hourglass stood on the altar stone in the centre of the forest clearing. A cruel wind stung Serena’s hands and drew tears from her eyes, but that was a welcome sensation. At least, for now, she could feel.

“Take the glass,” the witch instructed. “Turn it once and see that you have controlled time.”

On first reading, it wasn’t clear to me that these instructions were directed at Serena, so I would add the object to the dialogue tag.

It felt like ice in Serena’s trembling hand as she turned it. Beneath its surface, the rushing sands of time slowed to a trickle and were still.

That first sentence lacks the impact it probably ought to have. Despite the hand/cold, it’s a bit disembodied, perhaps because of the two uses of the pronoun it. Also, felt is a weak verb, which is a surprise because most of the other verbs in these two pages are robust and strong. And the sentence feels a bit rushed. We don’t get a sense that Serena believes this act to be momentous because she rushes to follow the instructions without hesitation. And we don’t know the goal of the magic — which is fine at this point, and actually raises the tension level, except that the lack of emotional context from Serena in this instant further undermines that first sentence’s impact.

The solution is to slow down that moment and reel out the details. Ordinarily, I would notate this to ask the author to expand the moment. Just for an example, here is something that might work.

Hesitation would be dangerous. Still, her trembling hands stretched toward the hourglass, more slowly than the witch would like but certainly more quickly than Serena preferred. Her heart fluttered as she lifted the hourglass, heavier than it looked and as cold as the witch’s heart. She turned its icy weight. Beneath its surface, the rushing sands of time slowed to a trickle and were still.

Serena reached into her cloak pocket, reassuring herself that the second hourglass was tucked inside. It was her last hope, but there was no guarantee she could deliver it into the right hands without walking into a trap. Serena swallowed dryly, fighting a wave of nausea at the thought. Such a mistake would cost thousands of lives and rob her of her children… again.

She replaced the hourglass on the sacrificial rock.

I think the actions in these last two paragraphs are out of order. I think she has to replace the hourglass on the altar before she checks the one in her pocket. So I would reverse these two pieces, and I think that single-sentence paragraph makes a nice offset conclusion to the tense actions in the stretched-out paragraph that precedes it.

As to the second paragraph, I’m again troubled by the structure of the first sentence with its present participial phrase. Good writers shun this structure, and with good reason. These phrases are adjectives. This means that they must be used to modify nouns. Adjectives go next to the nouns they modify, which means that this sentence’s structure literally means that the pocket is reassuring. Obviously, this isn’t what the writer intends. Instead, she intends to indicate that the first action (reached) serves the purpose of reassurance. For that reason, I would revise that sentence like this,

Serena reached into her cloak pocket to reassure herself that the second hourglass was tucked inside.

It’s a small change with a big impact, and I would put it in the category of a mandatory grammar change rather than an optional style change. The next sentence in the paragraph flows neatly from this first sentence, though I do wonder if we ought to have some indication about whether the second hourglass is secret. This might not be necessary. In sentence three, I would cut the phrase at the thought, which is redundant. The point of view is deep enough and the action is clear enough that we know Serena is the one thinking, and we can see the causation because nothing interrupts the action of the second sentence and the reaction of the third sentence.

This leads us to the fourth sentence in this paragraph.

Such a mistake would cost thousands of lives and rob her of her children… again.

There are two issues here. The first, and more minor, is that the ellipsis is being used to provide cadence. This is not a good use for ellipses, which ordinarily should signal either missing information or a trailing off of dialogue or interior monologue. This kind of emphasis ellipsis, much like scare quotes, multiple exclamation points, and emphasis capitalizations, is acceptable in modern, casual communication such as social media posts or emails between friends. In a book set in the 1500s, though, it sounds a too-modern note. And even in a contemporary-set book, you’re better off using diction to create cadence. So I would cut the ellipsis. Even a period would be better.

The second issue with this sentence is that we now know Serena is an adult, old enough to have children of her own. As it stands now, we understand her to be the main character because we started in her pov. We understand that her main problem is that she has been separated from her children, and this ritual is meant to get them back. This is reinforced by the next two paragraphs.

“Alasdair,” the witch continued, “you, too, must control the passing of time.”

Serena glanced at her husband; his eyes, like hers, were wet. He turned the glass and set it down again. Then his hand found hers, and their fingers intertwined as they embraced this final, physical memory together. In marrying him, she had bound him to this fate. She wore her guilt like an open wound.

She’s married. Her husband is going through this ritual with her. She feels guilt about whatever she did to land them in this situation. And that semicolon in the first sentence should be edited out, but I’m no longer focused on the line edits now because I’m facing a bigger concern. This might not be a suitable story for this genre. YA books ordinarily don’t take adults as protagonists. It’s possible that this scene is a prologue of sorts, and that the action will shift away from Serena and to a more suitable protagonist. But if that’s not the case, then my advice to this writer would focus more on the substantive concerns than the line editing concerns.

Nevertheless, I would describe this piece as competently written. If I were reading this as a submission, at this point, I would pause reading to check the synopsis. I would be looking for specific evidence that the book becomes more genre-appropriate after this first scene. If I found that evidence, I would be inclined to keep reading because the line editing concerns are fixable. The story has a good sense of tension. The scene is set well. The pace is generally good. It’s not a bad piece at all, and the changes we’ve made are minor.

Putting it all together, we get,

Chapter One – A Mother’s Sacrifice

Midnight, 30th September, 1509

Serena wanted to run far from the coven in their dark robes.

The hourglass stood on the altar stone in the centre of the forest clearing. A cruel wind stung Serena’s hands and drew tears from her eyes, but that was a welcome sensation. At least, for now, she could feel.

“Take the glass,” the witch instructed her. “Turn it once and see that you have controlled time.”

Hesitation would be dangerous. Still, her trembling hands stretched toward the hourglass, more slowly than the witch would like but certainly more quickly than Serena preferred. Her heart fluttered as she lifted the hourglass, heavier than it looked and as cold as the witch’s heart. She turned its icy weight. Beneath its surface, the rushing sands of time slowed to a trickle and were still.

She replaced the hourglass on the sacrificial rock.

Serena reached into her cloak pocket to reassure herself that the second hourglass was tucked inside. It was her last hope, but there was no guarantee she could deliver it into the right hands without walking into a trap. Serena swallowed dryly, fighting a wave of nausea. Such a mistake would cost thousands of lives and rob her of her children. Again.

“Alasdair,” the witch said to Serena’s husband, “you, too, must control the passing of time.”

His eyes, like Serena’s, were wet. He turned the glass and set it down again. Then his hand found hers, and their fingers intertwined as they embraced this final, physical memory together. In marrying him, she had bound him to this fate. She wore her guilt like an open wound.