{"id":146,"date":"2014-01-14T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2014\/01\/14\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_14\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:16","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_14\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nToo much
\ninformation, what does that mean? Can an author have too much information about
\nhis characters, his story world, or too much research about the era or the background
\ncentral to the story\u2019s plot?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nNo. The
\nmore an author knows about his characters, the more realistic they become for
\nthe reader. An author\u2019s imagination filled with a story world only brings about
\nvivid pictures for his audience. A vast knowledge of the era and area in which
\nthe story revolves keeps both editors and readers from pulling out their hair
\nsimply because the information provided is viable.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nproblem with \u201ctoo much information\u201d is not in the knowing of it but in the
\nsharing of it. Beginning
\nauthors tend to want to share everything with the reader. I\u2019d like to say that
\nI\u2019m exaggerating when I mention that some authors want to provide every detail
\nabout a character from the moment said character is born right up until the
\ntime the front story begins.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nreader does not need that information. Leave out the cute little scene where
\nthe heroine walks for the first time. Really, it\u2019s not needed unless that is
\nthe last time the heroine ever walked.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nPart of
\nan author\u2019s job is to wade through the extensive back story a character brings
\nto the table and to pick out what it was in the character\u2019s past that brought
\nher to the reason the story is being told. That\u2014and only that\u2014is what needs to be
\nincluded in the novel, and not in a large block of information dump. The relevant
\nportions of the character\u2019s past need to be woven into the story and brought
\nout only when necessary. Back story is an author\u2019s best friend when it comes to
\nproviding twists and turns in the plot.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhat
\nabout the elaborate maps or house designs or the paintings of a scene so
\nvividly etched into the writer\u2019s mind? Again, description isn\u2019t something that
\nshould be plastered on the page for description\u2019s sake. Yes, the author can and
\nshould have a firm picture in his mind about every location in a scene, even
\nthe small things we call props. If a lamp shade with an old world map depicted
\nupon it in a traveler\u2019s library is actually a map to hidden treasure, that\u2019s
\nsomething the author will want to relay, but it needs to be brought in at an opportune
\nmoment. When the traveler\u2019s niece has arrived because Uncle Horton has gone
\nmissing, have her turn on the light and think of Uncle Horton and everywhere he\u2019s
\ngone. Let her trace a route from Cairo to Istanbul with her finger. Not only is
\nthat description, but if the treasure lies on that route, it\u2019s called
\nforeshadowing.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThen we
\nhave research. The author has explored everything he knows about the space
\nindustry. He knows each fact about every key player in the race to gain the
\nupper hand in technology. He understands every component of unmanned and manned
\ntransportation into outer space. He knows the trajectory that made it possible
\nfor the early astronauts to circle the globe. He even understands the phenomenon
\nknown as solar flares and the danger they pose for space travel. Unless
\nthat author is James A. Michener and the novel is entitled Space<\/i>, all of that information is unnecessary.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nResearch
\nis done in order to convey the truth to the reader. As a horrid example of a
\nwriter\u2019s lack of research, I had the misfortune of reading a work of fictorial <\/i>(yes, a word I made up to
\ndenote a manuscript that is supposed to be historical fiction, but even the
\nhistory is fiction). This work was pre-Civil War. Every Southerner hated
\nslaves, misused slaves, used foul language, scratched in the wrong places, spit
\nevery few seconds, and all of the men wanted to run off to war to fight for the
\nConfederacy. He didn\u2019t simply pick on the white Southerners. The slaves were
\nalso caricatures. If that wasn\u2019t enough, the KKK was introduced pre-Civil War.
\nThey were lynching and cross burning and wearing their hoods long before the
\nsix veterans<\/i> of the Confederate Army
\nfounded the Klan and had their first meeting in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nauthor didn\u2019t need to share the above research (had he done the research), but
\nhe did need to know it. If he had done a little research, he would have
\ndiscovered that this information wasn\u2019t necessary for a Pre-Civil War novel.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHowever,
\nresearch would have proven to the author that not all white Southerners were
\nslaveholders. Not all white Southerners were radical about state\u2019s rights. Slaves
\nwould have been depicted with intelligence and keen observation about what was
\ngoing on around them. He might have even discovered some interesting facts that
\ncould have brought a dimension to each character, both the good and the bad,
\nslave, slaveholder, and Southerners who didn\u2019t own slaves, that would have added
\nlayers to the story.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nbottom line is an author needs to research for facts, and just as it is with
\nback story and description, only that which is imperative to the story needs to
\nbe introduced \u2026 correctly.<\/div>\n
\nWhen
\nself-editing search for areas where the back story, the description, and the
\nresearch introduced are irrelevant to the manuscript. Then delete it.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHappy
\nediting.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Too much information, what does that mean? Can an author have too much information about his characters, his story world, or too much research about the era or the background central to the story\u2019s plot? No. The more an author knows about his characters, the more realistic they become for the reader. An author\u2019s imagination […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[79,121,67,74,70],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-back-story","tag-description","tag-editing","tag-research","tag-self-editing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}