This month we continue our line editing series with editor THERESA STEVENS.
Welcome back, Theresa!
This month we continue our line editing series with an entry that gives us a chance to talk about content editing as well as line editing. Let’s start by reading the full excerpt.
Sienna Edwards loved the feel of power and the roar of the engine right beneath her. She easily moved through the thick Chicago traffic on her beloved Suzuki Hayabusa. She didn’t know of any more powerful feeling in the world than the wind rushing through her long curls and the honks from upset drivers.
Thoughts whirled around inside of her head and as usual were spinning out of control on her birthday. A horrible day to her if she had to be honest about it. Normally everyone got older and that hadn’t been what bothered her, it was the past birthdays, or the lack thereof. Life wasn’t always as peachy as people thought, but she was determined to have fun on this particular birthday, finally being able to spend it with friends that truly cared.
Through the thick fog that settled throughout the city, Sienna could finally make out her destination from a distance. The club Diablo announced itself to the world with glowing red lights and the flashlights that seemed to make it all the way to the sky. Since her and her friends knew the owner, they were frequent visitors. The fact that her kind could also feel completely safe there, only added to its appeal.
With a motorcycle, curbside parking did not take long to find. Before she managed to perch the bike and start walking towards the entrance, Sienna pinned her hair back in a messy bun with a handy chopstick that rested between her breasts.
Glares definitely lingered on her small but endowed figure which had been accented by the tight black leather pants, the knee high stiletto boots, and the tight black V-neck t-shirt that showed the top of her breasts. Men were definitely attracted to her, which she enjoyed, though didn’t let on. After one look from her in their direction and the whole group of guys that stood smoking and waiting to get in, averted their eyes.
“Hey my lady,” the bouncer smiled as she walked up. James, one of her own, knew her since before the bar even opened. The fact that he called her his lady always flustered everyone else. James, being a man easily over six feet tall with muscles that gave Schwarzenegger a run for his money, could definitely be mistaken for a common convict. Tough though he may be on the outside, Sienna knew all too well how a gentle of a soul he could be. His mate being one to attest to that fact first and foremost. Cutting through the entire line, to a mass of groans and some appreciating whistles, she stood before him.
“Hey James. Not being too mean I hope,” she motioned towards the line before giving him a slight peck on the cheek.
“Nah, you know me. Just wanna build the suspense up a bit,” he smiled wickedly, “but you go on and have fun. Lauren and Sonya area already waiting for you,” he said lastly and turned his attention to the next guy in line causing trouble. No one could get past James especially with his hunter senses.
My first response to this is that it’s inconsistent. Sienna could very well end up being an interesting character, but in this specific moment in time, she’s not as clear as we want her to be. The line editing in cases like this has to start with something more akin to content editing. We have to examine the way the character is coming across on the page, and we have to do what we can to shape her up – but on a sentence and paragraph level rather than on a scene and story level.
Take another look at the first two paragraphs. Look at them separately, and then look at them together.
Paragraph 1:
Sienna Edwards loved the feel of power and the roar of the engine right beneath her. She easily moved through the thick Chicago traffic on her beloved Suzuki Hayabusa. She didn’t know of any more powerful feeling in the world than the wind rushing through her long curls and the honks from upset drivers.
Okay, so (ignoring for the moment the line editing concerns), this is a paragraph about a woman who feels free and powerful on a motorcycle. There’s something uplifting and bold about her in this moment. Because of the repetition in power and powerful, we might decide she’s an ambitious, power-hungry person. Because of the repetitions in loved and beloved, we might also decide she’s a force for good, maybe even big-hearted.
But then we get to paragraph 2:
Thoughts whirled around inside of her head and as usual were spinning out of control on her birthday. A horrible day to her if she had to be honest about it. Normally everyone got older and that hadn’t been what bothered her, it was the past birthdays, or the lack thereof. Life wasn’t always as peachy as people thought, but she was determined to have fun on this particular birthday, finally being able to spend it with friends that truly cared.
This is not the same character from paragraph one, is it? This character is mopey, overwhelmed, maybe a little self-pitying, though she’s trying to overcome it. She has bleak thoughts, which she might be trying to replace with more positive thoughts, but nevertheless, this paragraph is packed with a kind of gloominess. Spinning out of control, horrible day, feeling gypped on past birthdays, life isn’t peachy – these add up to a negativity that seems hard to reconcile with the power-lover from the first paragraph.
So what is the character’s dominant mood in this moment? The reader won’t know because the text hasn’t told her. The character could be exhilirated from the ride, or she could be the determined-to-be-cheerful sad girl from the second paragraph. Because it’s unclear, the reader will have a harder time bonding with the character. So the first step here is to figure out what she’s really thinking and feeling in this moment, and stick with it. The character might be complex enough to feel everything currently on the page, but that kind of complexity is best developed over the whole text.
Next up, paragraphs 3 and 4 – which I won’t repeat here – focuses mainly on the fact of travel to a destination. It’s my standard practice, when an author presents a first scene with travel details, to cut most of this run-up material and start at the moment of arrival. Some editors might let this kind of short leading material to stand, but I usually won’t. The moment of arrival is almost always going to be more interesting than the moments of travel, and the descriptive details can be blended into the actual arrival. So I would cut most of what’s in these two paragraphs, though some of the details might be seeded into the rest of the scene.
One option might be to start with the moment she parks the motorcycle – that way, you still get the motorcyle into the text – and go from there. Establish her dominant mood in the first paragraph, and don’t dilute it with material that doesn’t support that mood. For the purposes of demonstration, I’m going to choose “determined to have fun” as her dominant mood in the revised excerpt below.
You can use the conversation with James to bring out the fact of her birthday, and some of the other details can be salted in along the way, too. But you don’t need to explain a lot at this point. Your goal is to hook the reader and build a quick bond, and a little bit of mystery will help with that.
Just for an example, I’m going to take a swing at this. But this is for demonstration only. I’ll use your words as much as possible, but I’m going to trim and tighten quite a bit so that the focus is on the action and interaction.
Sienna Edwards perched her beloved bike, a Suzuki Hayabusa, next to the curb and walked toward the club entrance. The club Diablo announced itself to the world with glowing red lights and the flashlights that seemed to make it all the way to the Chicago sky. Sure, she came here all the time, but tonight was different. It had to be. With a determined little sigh, Sienna pinned her hair back in a messy bun with a handy chopstick that rested between her breasts.
The group of guys that smoked and waited in line lingered on her small but endowed figure which had been accented by the tight black leather pants, the knee high stiletto boots, and the tight black V-neck t-shirt that showed the top of her breasts. Men were definitely attracted to her, which she enjoyed, though didn’t let on. Not even tonight, not even when her one and only goal was pleasure. She cut through the entire line to a mass of groans and some appreciating whistles, until she stood before the heavily muscled bouncer.
“Hey, my lady.” James, one of her own shapeshifting kind, had known her since before the bar even opened.
“Hey James. Not being too mean, I hope.” She motioned towards the line before giving him a slight peck on the cheek.
“Nah, you know me. Just wanna build the suspense up a bit.” He smiled wickedly. “But you go on and have fun. Lauren and Sonya area already waiting for you. They tell me it’s your birthday.”
“Yes, and for a change, I thought I’d have a fun birthday. You could say I’m determined.”
“Uh-oh. And we all know, what my lady wants, my lady shall have.”
See, now the premise has been established. It’s her birthday. She is approaching it as a task to be accomplished: Have fun on my birthday, for a change. We don’t know why she has this attitude, but at this point, any explanation would slow down the pacing of the narrative. So skip the explanation. Establish the facts, and get the scene moving. Use James to throw in some details, and get to the interior of the bar more quickly. You can keep the sexual interest from the men in line because that accomplishes two purposes: it gives us a little bit of character description, and it establishes the fact of her sexual power. We lost a small sense of her love of power when we cut the paragraph about riding the motorcycle, so this reinserts it in a different way.
The revised opening has a clearer emotional content and a faster pace. I think it works better, don’t you?
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RU Crew, do you have any questions for Theresa regarding her suggestions?
On Monday, Jessica Scott tells us how an Army company commander became a romance writer.
Bio: Theresa Stevens is the Publisher of STAR Guides Publishing, a nonfiction publishing company with the mission to help writers write better books. After earning degrees in creative writing and law, she worked as a literary attorney agent for a boutique firm in Indianapolis where she represented a range of fiction and nonfiction authors. After a nine-year hiatus from the publishing industry to practice law, Theresa worked as chief executive editor for a highly acclaimed small romance press, and her articles on writing and editing have appeared in numerous publications for writers. Visit her blog at http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/ where she and her co-blogger share their knowledge and hardly ever argue about punctuation.