lin

I recent had a professional editor go through one of my novels, send me notes on it, and work it into a final product.

He also flipped out on me out of stupid egotism and blew the deal, but that's not my point here.

What struck me was that other than making some good points and corrections (and some I'm not sure I go along with--like "don't have three sentences in a paragraph start with "I' or "she" or "the"--but accepted because it doesn't matter that much) he was death on abreviations and acronyms.

Okay, you're writing an article for the NY Times, yeah, you spell everything out fhe first time, then use inititals. (Or do you...do you see them doing that with MTV, FBI, CIA, IRA, DVD?)

I feel pretty strongly that such crap has no place in fiction, however. For one thing...much of it is dialogue. Do you really do such nonsense in quotes?

Part of his objections were the use of Mexican political party names, like PRI, PAN, PRD..which since it's a political novel set in Mexico, there were plenty of.

So he had some automatic googler that stuck in the full names. So a guy ends up saying, "That's just like the Partido Revolutionario Instucional"
Well, I don't think so.

In fact, I don't think it makes a shit. I've said many times that you can use things the readers don't understand, or haven't been shown yet without driving them in babbling confusion, throwing your book into the fire and running into the night screaming.

But check this out... I'm think somebody says, "The PRD stole that election and most non-idiots will know that it refers to a political party. Writing it out in Spanish on the other hand, makes them LESS LIKELY to get it, doesn't it?

What I did was use words like priistas and panistas throughout: I think that gets it across without freaking out this asshole with his nose buried in a style manual.

My favorite was, UPI. He changed it, wriing it out. So you'd have a group of journalists and correspondents in their usual watering hole, talking and one of them says, "If he'd just shot her first, I could more it to the United Press International in a hot second."
Well, naturally, he says no such thing.

(He was also freaking out on baseball terminology. I mentioned that I regularly read Brit authors who go on about cricket and not knowing what "carried his bat" or "twisters" are doesn't affect my reading in the slightest. He grumped about it.)

I'm making two points here. One...you can't edit fiction by the same standards you edit journalistic prose, but most of the style manuals are based on it.

Two...the cagy old bearded editor can very, very possibly be totally full of shit. The fact that he might get his say over that of the author himself is disgusting, but there it is.

And I guess a third would be, like the "priista" change, there is often a way to compromise without being made to look like a jackass by some doofus whose name doesn't even go on the book.

In fact, at one point in the book...the first time I used PRD, which I delightedly pointed out to old tweedy-butt, was something like, "He certainly wouldn't belong to a lefter-than-thou party like the PRD, all hammer/sickle and no rudder."

At that point, I'd say, anybody who is going to be confused is beyond help.

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Foxee

Thanks for the laugh. I have to agree with you, speaking mainly as a reader I can easily handle an unexplained abbreviation, at least until the dialogue gives way to a little narration where the abbreviation can be briefly explained. Far as I'm concerned, if he wants to nitpick this stuff in your narrative, fine, but he should leave the dialogue alone. It's kind of scary that he was insistent on changing that.

Of course, this depends on your target market but I think you want to assume that your reader has enough intelligence to understand context and hang in there until you explain.

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If the staff were bent on policing your thoughts there would be nothing but a smoking hole where the debate forum used to be.

lin

One example I use a lot is William Burroughs. In Naked Lunch and other books he will ring in a word like spla or candiru and buzz right by. I don't know about the public, but I just kept reading. Then LATER, he might explain it.
(A candiru is a south american fish that swims up urethras and vaginas and spreads spines so it can't be removed without surgery, in case you're just had to know)

William Gibson, a modern master, does the same thing. He will toss in a word like Chilango and never explain it. What does it matter?

If you're an editor, apparently, it does. This is actually in insult to the intelligence and dedication of readers, you want to look at it that way.

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Mike

Ever read "Earthseed" by Octavia Butler? It has similar unfamiliar words in it. I know a lot of science fiction has the same. Unfamiliar or invented words should be supported by the context. If you achieve that, which I believe you have (especially in the PRD example), then that is all you need. I don't think it's a good idea to keep flinging acronyms and alien words at readers, one sentence after the other, because a reader needs time to make a mental list of the unfamiliar in a story s/he doesn't know and assign meaning through context, but if you do it marginally, with explanation or not, you should be fine. Perhaps this particular editor doesn't read much translated/foreign literature, or is too set into his traditions. Hopefully he didn't charge too much and you might have finances to send it to another editor.

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- Mike

lin

Actually he was a free-lancer working for BeWrite. He killed the deal there, costing me time and BeWrite time and money.

No way would I pay somebody to edit or me.

It would be like paying ducks to peck me to death. When I could do it better myself.

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lin

I posted this on another writing site and somebody there, very seriously said that her editor had told her to avoid staring three sentences in the same paragraph with the same LETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I said that was insane, I was told I have a chip on my shoulder.

The big lesson...these idiot rules diffuse out like mold on a petri dish. There's always somebody who will twist them one twist further...and people who will buy it and pass it on.

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TevenB

That makes me pissed, no way would they change my stories like that. Editors seem like assholes, I dont want to have to deal with them.

lin

The only way around it, really, is self-publishing.

Which has its own set of problems.

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Ungood

Acronyms are fine, as long as you tell me what they mean some place, perhaps the prefix or foreword to the novel, just as long as some place I can look them up or know what you are talking about.

As for the other stuff, sounds like a prude.

Ungood.

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lin

So there should be a little section in front of the book saying like, "In case this is being read by Martians or idiots, the following initials are used here:

FBI
CIA
RADAR
MTV
BVDs


That sound like a clever idea?

There is no reason to spell them out at all. No reason to define neologisms, no requirement to translate foreign words, not reason to explain what Kant or Plato saiid in order that the uneducated won't miss the point in invoking their names...NONE OF THIS CRAP.

The writer is perfectly free to say what the fuck he wants to say. If THE WRITER feels it necessary to use such things in ways that shows the reader what they are all about (like in the examples I gave above) then he's fre to do so.

This has been the way writers, including the real greats, have always worked.

It's been pathetic on both the sites I'm watching this discussion, seeing people step forward, raise their hands, and state that they are to stupid to read a book without somebody sitting there explaining things for them or putting the answers in the back of the book for them.

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Ungood

... ok.

Ungood.

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lin

Sorry, if that seemed harsh, Ungood. This is a sore subject at the moment. And it's not really directed at you...this thing's going on elsewhere, too.

That's where the "don't start three sentences with the same letter" thing came from.

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Candrah

On a lighter note ...BVDs?

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Dragons are my first love: www.candragonart.com

I leave feedback as a reader - feel free to take anything I say with a bucketful of salt.

lin

Actually, I have NO idea what BVD stands for. But it's a pretty common term for male underwear.

Or maybe was? Might be a generational thing, more common among WWII age people than GulfWar2 people. You know, post JFK types? They probably don't call skivvies that on "The OC"


(WWII = World War Two)
(JFK = John F Kennedy)
(OC = Orange County)

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Candrah

Hee... nutter

__________________
Dragons are my first love: www.candragonart.com

I leave feedback as a reader - feel free to take anything I say with a bucketful of salt.