December 4th, 2006
Use Hyphens Sparingly.
It’s a hurly burly world we live in, it really is, and nobody can be totally sure what to do with ourselves. Here we are, a world full of people with dreams of writing a novel/the great American novel/their life in a novel, and we are always inspired by people who get out there and do it, who make it happen. But we still need tutoring. I did a Masters course in Creative Writing (which taught me little bar self-restraint and respect), and we all did it because there are people in the world who know more than us, who we can learn from. One such person is Karen at Author Network, who wrote a whole page about how to write for the internet! Karen gives us a variety of helpful and handy hints for the fiction writer who desires to spread their wares on this fine web of ours, with advice such as “Try writing in the same way as you speak, this will make the work more concise and engaging”, and “Give information in bite sized pieces, people on the Internet do not read in detail – they scan the page for clues, which may be textual or visual or aural”. She does warn, however, that they “are unable to give any real assurance they will work as Web writing is an art form that is still in its infancy”, which is a shame, as I won’t write without assurances of success.
I jest, of course, as this article is a few years old, and written with the best intentions. However, it does point out a few general issues with this lark, the most obvious being the poor grammar and syntax of the advisory piece. Since my last post, when somebody replied to my would-be-wise words, I’ve been thinking more and more about the issues with the internet as a publishing tool, particularly with self-publishing, and that’s editing. When you have written something, and you own a domain name, and you have the technical knowhow to at least run a blog, you have no reason to edit yourself. One of the biggest flaws I have seen in writing students, friends, even respected and published authors is the lack of editing prowess, as more and more editors seem to lack the skills needed to write properly, and this rubs off on their editees, and you end up with writing that needed snipping a ways back (like this sentence). To return to an old friend, constant reader, in Stephen King, I truly believe that his lack of an editor who is BRUTAL with him has led to his letting his literary paunch show, but he’s Stephen King. When you are a budding up and comer, you need an editor who will rip holes in your if they need to be ripped, and help you rebuild them. Websites don’t really have this. Even the more controlled environs of the internets, where people such as Salon.com print the stories of writers, where McSweeneys feature daily short works of prose, editors work far more on the basis of whether something reads fine, or whether it reads brilliantly. As a representation of your work, why would any author/writer want to settle for anything other than their best?
I could rant on and on about authorial deadlines, and how they are inevitably going to hamper the creative process and all that bumf, or how I have put myself under a very strict time-management routine to juggle work, life and the Phd/Novel (and, if you know me, you’ll know that I rarely, if ever, stick to said routine), and how that routine, maybe, will have an adverse effect on the quality of the finished – that is, pre-editor – product. The internet is a brilliant tool for instant feedback, but as “Jeff” said in my interview earlier this year, who wants a thousand editors? But with the internet, at the moment, it’s seems like it’s a thousand or none, and I know which I would rather choose.
[Incidentally, this is in no way written because I am also contemplating the thought of agents and editors with regards to my own novels. No way.]