6 Things I Learned Editing My Second Novel

1. Apostrophes

It was with the help of a friend of mine who served as my first editor that I learned the trick to apostrophes--another thing they don’t teach you in school.  

So here’s the trick; apostrophes can mean three things in modern English.  Most commonly known, they denote contractions--"He is" becomes "he’s," "they are" becomes "they’re," etc.  

Most commonly written (I assume), and least commonly understood (as I understand it), they’re used to show possession.  In the sentence, “That is Tommy’s house,” the ‘s on the word Tommy shows us that the house is his belonging.

Thirdly, apostrophes c’n be used to show th’t l’tters’re missin’, e’en when a word ain’t contracted!  It’s useful fer writin’ dialect, y’see.  

But never, NEVER, NEVER, is an apostrophe used on a plural s.  It may be used beside a plural s, as in, “the Joneses’ house,” but if there are two cats, you’d never write “the two cat’s.”  That is apostrophe abuse & the grammar police WILL find you, and they’ll take those two cats away from you FOREVER, so watch y’r back m’friend!

2. Fit the theme

I fucking love science, especially biology and quantum physics, but pretty much all science, science is amazing, shut up.  So when I was writing my second finished novel, The Koci, I dribbled in some science stuff because I was learning about fibrin and wound healing in bio and I was all like, “This is metal as FUUUUUUUUUUUCkkkkkkk.”  

And by “dribbled in” I mean I put in like one thing.  One paragraph, describing how, unbeknownst to the main character, his fibrin was at work healing his wounds while he slept.  To illustrate how ridiculous this was in hindsight, this was a story about people who shapeshifted into big cats living in closed-species societies that were pretty much constantly at war.  A species that hadn’t even reached a point where they could perform rudimentary autopsies.

Jeez, little Coates, get it together!

The point is, when you create a world, you need to keep things consistent with the time and theme; a teenager in the fourteen hundreds isn’t going to think about the atomic structure of the universe unless they’re a time traveler, and likewise, a modern doctor isn’t going to think about healing in holistic terms.  

You can pull off juxtaposed viewpoints and worldviews, especially if your theme has something to do with the differences or similarities between past and present, or societies which progress in different ways or at different rates--but in that case, you need to be consistent with your juxtapositions.  Don’t just throw shit in because it’s sick af; it has to fit the mood of your piece.

3. Conservation of detail

The law of conservation of detail essentially states that if it isn’t important, you don’t describe it, and that, relatedly, if it is described, it must carry some modicum of importance.  People don’t want to stick around for description of things they don’t care about if it serves no purpose.

This applies to events or even entire scenes or mini-arcs as well as descriptions, objects, or characters.  That sequence where those cat-people straight-up murder a pregnant catlady and rip her open to steal the babies inside her might be sick and twisted and very telling as to how that band of criminals operates and all, but if it has effect on the main character, it’s gotta go.  Same with that forbidden romance literally nobody but the two side characters involved in it know about, and the sequence where the main character goes for a long walk and describes the scenery in great detail for no good goddamn reason.

Detail is like a gas, and the right amount of any gas is required for the Earth to continue to function the way it does.  But when you get too much of any one gas, it throws off the natural balance and starts eating away at your story’s ozone.  Give a hoot gurl, don’t pollute ur fictional world.

4. No long character lists for no reason

WHEEEEEN i wrote The Koci, I knew every single catperson that was in The Army; I knew what their job was, I knew who they were related to, I knew what their secret activities were, I knew EVERYTHING about them all, and I. Had. A. LIST.

So for whatever reason (don’t lie Maggie, you know the reason, you thought you were being all cool ‘n’ shit) I decided it would be a great reason to have one of my characters fUCKIN LIST ALL HUNDRED AND FUCKIN TWELVE CATPEOPLE IN THE ARMY, replete with jobs and descriptions and relationships oh my god.

Yeah, in hindsight it’s pretty embarrassing.  This is another “conservation of detail” thing; it was an unnecessary infodump, and I’m glad my editor talked me out of it before I had the chance to embarrass myself.  

If you ever do feel the need to include a list of all your characters, make sure it’s necessary, and not just a huge pile of useless information.

5. Random events must immediately relevent

So for The Koci I had a plan for a future sequel that I planned to call The Strangers, which would be all about a few human survivors of a nuclear apocalypse floating to shore on the island that the Koci occupied.  As a foreshadowing type thing, I had a blast of light white out the sky and melt all the snow toward the end of the book, but because nothing else in the story plays into that event, it comes across as random and weird.

In fact, it makes no sense.  You might be able to pull something like this off in a second book of a series, since if people are invested enough to read the second they’ll probably stick around to find out what’s up in the third, but for a first novel, especially one where it’s all pretty self-contained, you’re going to want to skip that bit.  Save it for the next book, kemosabe.  

6. Fireflies are dead by the time winter comes you moron

My last scene had fireflies circling the main characters and then flying away.  But, as I said before, there was supposed to be snow on the ground; those fireflies would be deeeaaadddd.

Past me should have known better.  

4 More Basic Formatting Tips

     I spoke before about some formatting pet peeves of mine.  These aren't pet peeves so much as they are just tips that are important that I see a lot of people (especially newbies) overlooking.  It's eleven o'clock at night after a very full day, irritating stuff is on my twitter, my classmates, God love them, don't understand standardized writing structures, and I have a headache, so prepare for callous, good-natured aggression.  Enjoy.

1.  Indentations

     When you start a new paragraph, indent that bitch.
   
     Yeah, yeah, common sense, right?  Only it's not.  I see a lot of people overlooking this crucial step, or doing it wrong--my mother once told me that an indentation is five spaces on the space bar.  It's not; a proper indentation is one slap on the TAB button.

     But if you're on a website *coughcoughBlogspotcoughcough* that doesn't allow for tabing, five spaces will work fine.  In fact, online, indentation may not be necessary at all!  But it can help set each paragraph apart from the last.  However, if you're working on any MS you plan to submit to anyone, slap the tab button.  It'll save you a lot of reformatting later on.


2.  Apostrophes

     Apostrophes are used to denote possession (Mindy's cat) and missing characters ('ey kid!/you can't do this to me), and that's about it.  Often they're used to make a number or a shortening plural (ABC's/That 70's Show), which is a peeve of mine that I try not to let in the house--it's technically correct, at least in the sense that it's been used that way for decades if not centuries, and as a descriptivist it's my duty to bend with the tide of linguistic change.  Still, I try to show that such things are plural just by make the letters big and the "S" small (80s. ABCs).  I'll never change the world's mind, though, so if you do it the other way just keep doing what you're doing.

     Anyway, other than in these rare cases, an apostrophe is never, never to be used on a plural.

     If you're ever wondering whether an apostrophe fits or not, ask yourself if the sentence can be restructured to exclude the "S".  For example, "This house's the best!" can be restructured to, "This house is the best!" so the apostrophe fits.  "The house's door," can be restructured to "The door belonging to the house," so it fits.  But "The houses stood in a row" can't be restructured in any simple way that eliminates the "s" without eliminating the plural.  You'd have to change it to something silly, like, "The house and its compatriots stood in a row."  (and then you haven't eliminated the S, you've just moved it to the word "compatriots," though if there were only two you COULD say "the house and its compatriot stood in a row," but a row is usually more than two and now I'm just overthinking it oops)

     And speaking of "its," a pronoun--she, he, it, they--is the one exception to the "possession=apostrophe" rule.  The only time that a pronoun has an apostrophe is when it's part of a compound word--see the previous example, "it's," which can be broken into "it" and "is."

4.  Double space your shit

     Double-spacing is important, okay.  If you don't select "double" on your line spacing (or 1.5 at the BAREST minimum), it's going to be too cramped, your understanding of how long your work actually is will be thrown off, and your editor won't be happy.
   
     If you want to write it all in single-space and double-space after the fact, that's fine!  That's your prerogative!  But double-spacing needs to be done before you send it off for work--double-spacing helps you avoid massive text walls, makes people less likely to just skim your work, and allows anyone trying to edit or analyze the piece to make notes and corrections between lines, which is super important.

     Just ... double space, okay?  It's the standard submission convention, and single-spacing makes it difficult for others to take your work seriously, because it's one of the first things they teach (or should teach) in a high school English class.

5.  Twelve point TNR font

     Again, if you're looking to submit your work, you need to adhere to standard convention, and standard convention is twelve point Times New Roman font.  Create it in any font you want, but know that before you submit, 99% of the places you things off to are going to ask for 12pt TNR.

     Of course, some companies might prefer Arial or Verdana, or Courier New, or something else that's a little off-the-wall, so make sure you check the preferences of every agent/publishing company you submit to BEFORE you submit, and make any necessary revisions to format.