{"id":189,"date":"2013-06-11T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T14:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/06\/11\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_11-2\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:17","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_11-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_11-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nVoice: what
\nis it that distinguishes an author in the vast world of publishing? Many forums
\nare built on this question. Experts offer their opinion, but the truth is,
\nvoice is as elusive a question as why one reader loves a well-written story but
\nanother finds it boring.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWith
\nthat in mind, I\u2019m not here to provide a definitive answer, but I thought I\u2019d
\npoint out the main area and its components that might help an author to stand
\nout in a crowd of their peers. To do so, I am using a very secular novel, but
\none that has weathered the years of change and still continues to be the novel
\nthat gave voice to the author.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nCharacterization:<\/b> A story is nothing without
\ncharacter. What stories do you remember most? Me? I connect to character first.
\nGive me some distinctive characters and an author has begun to reel me in.
\nThink about it. What made Scarlet O\u2019Hara so memorable in Gone with the Wind?<\/i> You either love her or you hate her, but you
\ndon\u2019t forget her. Scarlet on her own is just another woman who ruthlessly goes
\nafter what she wants. Add the next two elements, and you have a novel that not
\nonly received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937, it is a novel that
\ntranscends generations.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nBackground: <\/b>Gone with the Wind <\/i>starts at the very beginning of the Civil War where
\nwe see Scarlet as a spoiled young woman. Several different backgrounds give the
\nnovel a distinctive voice. We start at the very end of the Pre-Civil War South
\nwhere Scarlet is a spoiled young woman who is after one man: Ashley Wilkes. Even
\nwhen she meets Rhett Butler, who recognizes and admires her character, she can\u2019t
\nsee true love through her fantasy of Ashley\u2014a fantasy that continues through
\nthe novel and has Scarlet acting out, marrying different men at first for spite
\nand then for survival, but still she\u2019s in love with Ashley. From the simple
\nlife of a part at Twelve Oaks and Tara, we find Scarlet in Atlanta with Sherman\u2019s
\narmy advancing on the town. Scarlet has become a widow, but her widowhood has
\nconnected her with Melanie Wilkes, the wife of the man Scarlet loves. In the
\nbackdrop of Atlanta, we see Scarlet\u2019s character arc\u2014but not so much that
\nScarlet ever loses the selfish nature. From Atlanta, we see Scarlet on the road
\nback to Tara, facing the dangers, and protecting those she loves, though true
\nto character, Scarlet doesn\u2019t see her care over them as love. That selflessness
\nmixed with Scarlet\u2019s selfishness continues as Scarlet does whatever she must at
\nTara to keep her family from ever going hungry again. Gone with the Wind<\/i> is rich with background, and into those
\nlocations, Mrs. Mitchell adds the one component that makes a novel (and its
\nauthor) stand out from the crowd.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nConflict<\/b>: Scarlet O\u2019Hara meets conflict
\nhead on. Again, not all of the conflict Scarlet battles is heroic. She fights
\nfor the love of Ashley Wilkes up until the moment that Melanie dies. Only then
\ndoes she realize that she loved Melanie, and well, Ashley? She discovers he isn\u2019t
\nRhett, the man Scarlet married. Even Scarlet\u2019s courtship with Rhett isn\u2019t
\ntraditional. She never sees that he\u2019s the man for her until it\u2019s too late. When
\nScarlet is asked to aid the wounded soldiers, she clearly doesn\u2019t want to be
\nthere. Most authors would have to fight the desire to make Scarlet heroically
\npursue the endeavor, to be a Florence Nightingale? Not so our Ms. O\u2019Hara. No,
\nsir. She doesn\u2019t want to be there. She can\u2019t stand to see the suffering. Yet,
\nwhen she has to help Melanie, who at this point stands in the way of Scarlet\u2019s
\nlove for Melanie\u2019s husband, Ashley, she does what needs to be done\u2014but only
\nafter ever avenue has been exhausted. Gone
\nwith the Wind<\/i> is unique in conflict as Mrs. Mitchell doesn\u2019t let her
\nheroine seem heroic. Scarlet handles every situation in a selfish manner. Yes,
\nshe has an ulterior motive, but somehow it always seems to work for the better
\ngood of all.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nEven in
\nChristian fiction, we tend to want to make our heroes like Superman and our
\nheroines like Polly Purebred. I\u2019ll admit, we need to walk a fine line, but no
\none is perfect. Scarlet O\u2019Hara\u2019s story is clearly secular, but I wanted to use
\nher and Gone with the Wind<\/i> as an
\nexample of an author not looking toward the typical heroine or hero. Typical
\nanything does not establish an author\u2019s voice.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nIn
\nChristian fiction, our characters can\u2019t be perfect. If we make them flawless,
\nthe reader will have no connection to them. They also should not behave like Scarlet
\nO\u2019Hara unless their character arc will bring a clear message (overtly or
\ncovertly) to the reader. However, in looking at what distinguished Margaret
\nMitchell\u2019s voice for generations of readers, an author, when self-editing,
\nwould be wise to provide a unique flavor to each character, to provide
\ninteresting backdrops for the story to play out, and to layer the story with engaging
\nconflict within the backgrounds they have chosen.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voice: what is it that distinguishes an author in the vast world of publishing? Many forums are built on this question. Experts offer their opinion, but the truth is, voice is as elusive a question as why one reader loves a well-written story but another finds it boring. With that in mind, I\u2019m not here […]<\/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":[164,67,18,152,70,36],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-authors-voice","tag-editing","tag-editing-tips","tag-heroes","tag-self-editing","tag-writing-voice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","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=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}