Writing Process: Help with Editing

A writer may self-edit their own work but in my experience I have found another person editing your work has a distinct advantage. As co-authors, Debby and I helped each other perfect our work, which allowed us to combine our strengths in our writing. Still, I found that because of our close collaboration, we sometimes missed subtle details in our writing. During edits of our manuscript, we read those details into the writing when they weren’t actually on “paper”…..Well on our hard drives.

As a writer you bring detailed knowledge of the work with you. Therefore, it’s very easy to omit essential details like transitions, which help a reader to follow the story.

A fresh mind can smooth out your writing. With my editing, I had enormous help from both my sisters. Arshdeep came up with important details that helped move the plot. She suggested how many people when they are depressed will often fantasize about their own death. So that became the basis for the final passage in Chapter One where Logan imagines his funeral, which brings that chapter to climactic close.

My youngest sister, Amardeep, who is participating with Canada World Youth in a program in North Bay until she leaves for Tanzania in a few months, offered helpful criticism. She read middle chapters where I was getting stuck and offered an original way to look at the plot. She dissected those chapters and gave valuable feedback. At first, I resisted the changes she suggested but I found a way to work them into the plot and my writing style. Her suggestions helped me to get past the dreaded writer’s block because I gained a new perspective.

I believe getting family or friends who can have some objective distance from your writing can be insightful because they can offer you a new way to look at your writing. They can also pinpoint any areas that aren’t clear to them. Since they’re close to you, they will understand your work isn’t a final draft and offer suggestions tempered with encouragement.

The final edit by our publisher, Michael B. Davie, put the finishing touches on our novel. He helped to smooth out some rough areas. So take editing help when its offered to you because it will often help your writing. Of course, try to have the final say because any change needs to be consistent with your voice.

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The Evolution of a Book Cover Part 1

A book cover is the appearance of a book to the world. The saying goes not to judge a book by its cover. Still this is often one of the first aspects of a book that a reader first notices. The concept of our book cover started through discussion between Debby, her daughter, Leah Morrison, and I.

Leah is the proud mother of Logan and Logan is also the main character in “NEXUS.” I thought of certain concepts like arrangement of items on a side table inspired by a CD cover of Howard Tate album “Rediscovered,” where you have a simple black table surface with a cup (pictured below):

I wanted a similar table concept. We decided to elaborate and to include other items connected to our story. Our spread became more complex as you can see below:

Leah took a number of these photos so that we could find the best one in terms of light and shade. An interesting effect occurred when we dimmed the lights and had the yellow shade of the candle as the primary light source:

We liked the warm glow of the candle but with either picture we felt the composition was too busy. We understood how the articles in the photo connected to our book but most readers would be overwhelmed.

Leah and I discussed other ideas and then we settled on cupped hands with petals falling down from them. The design would have wonderful symbolism, particularly since the cupped hands looked a lot like a human heart, which worked with one of the primary themes in NEXUS, Compassion. So here is that idea expressed in a photo:

We had photographed both Debby’s hands and my hands. In the end, we selected the image above, though we had a debate about whose hands went into the final cover art. Soon we realized this photo was the basis of the cover art and it was definitely of my hands, as evident by the masculine body hair.

So now we have selected a photo and in my next post, I will explore how this photo became the final cover art and how we selected from different versions of it.

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