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An Editor's life Is not easy ...

edited November 2010 in - Writing Tales
not mine, anyway -
the kidnappers have two women hanging UPSIDE DOWN in a cellar. The author then says:
Her head throbbed in agony, it made her neck ache intolerably just to hold her head up and it soon became marginally preferable just to hang motionless, her hair cascading around her sweating face.

So tell me, where is his heroine growing this hair ...

Comments

  • LizLiz
    edited November 2010
    Actually, upside down hair does cascade around the face -

    https://skitch.com/lizbrownlee/ry223/skitched-20101117-123851#lightbox
  • Blimey Dorothy - how do you tell the author it's a load of......?
  • edited November 2010
    :D
    I already edited the sentence where the sound of the gun reverberated back and forth around the cellar ... this guy cannot write. Never has been able to, never will. His books sell really well when I've done with them, though ..
  • Hope they appreciate what you do for them
  • I have sent this guy's books back, after I've edited and rewritten and he says he cannot see where I have made changes ... (!) so I don't bother any more, I just get on and rewrite ... the thing is, he has the ideas, I just fill in the rest. He gets the royalties...
  • Hello Betsie.
  • Hello Stan
  • edited November 2010
    Last night I was up late magazine editing. Some writers have a habit of overwriting - reports or reviews that are too long and repetitious.
  • edited November 2010
    Much like people who never stop talking. You have to wait till they take a breath before you can get a word in!
  • Her head throbbed in agony:
    It’s not going to throb with pleasure is it?

    It made her neck ache intolerably just to hold her head up:
    No need for the adverb; I think the reader will understand she’s in some discomfort.

    It soon became marginally preferable just to hang motionless:
    Yet another adverb, and the repetition of ‘just’, in only 34 words.

    Who cares where her hair is cascading; I wouldn’t like to read any more.

    Good luck with this one Dorothy
  • Sounds pervy. I hope he doesn't treat his wife - if he has one - like that!
  • I suspect he does. It's clearly his thing. It may be hers too of course.
  • it's not 'her' thing, this is all in his head. Meek and mild and allowing his fantasies to spill into money making books! (They are sold as downloads on two sites and make money!!!)
  • It's always the quiet ones...
  • Corny porn - not that I've ever written any. ;)
  • corny porn, yes, and I will sell out the print run. Maddening, isn't it? I read the reviews of one of my books on Amazon recently, which spoke of intelligent storyline and believable characters. Very nice and very pleasing. We offered our customers a book which had an intelligent storyline and believable (if fantasy) characters and it didn't sell.
  • From what Dorothy's shown us as the excerpt, this 'hanging upside down in the cellar' isn't necessarily porn at all. If it were two men hanging, or a man and a woman, would the immediate implication be pornographic? I think not, and perhaps Jenny &co are jumping to stereotypical or sexist conclusions.
  • Yes, we might be - but we're also right.
  • I think, above all else, it is a good example of bad writing.
  • If I was editing this I think I would just have to say I don't like the story line much ...
  • I've done 30 pages of the book so far, only 33 to go and unfortunately it is exactly right for our customers ...
  • OK, let me rake another story up from the archive that is my cluttered mind.

    We had a model (one of many but she was one of the very willing ones) who agreed to be part of the 'let's put this pesky pestering customer in her place' schems. Said customer had designs on the director (my partner) and didn't seem to want to take the hint. So we suspended this model, nude, from the ceiling in the photographic studio and awaited the arrival of said woman. Who came, was shocked, left, but whether she got the hint that we only wanted young slender beautiful girls I never did find out.

    The problem was ... BT called whilst she was there and wanted me to answer questions for a survey and I had to go let the poor model down. So I said to this guy, 'sorry, please excuse me, but I happen to have a nude model suspended in the photographic studio and I really should go get her down as she's been there over an hour already.' That probably made his day ...

    It wasn't an hour, we limited all suspension to 20 minutes but he didn't have to know that, did he?
  • KJKJ
    edited November 2010
    That's funny Dorothy, we wouldn't think of using live ornaments in the house...
    Might use one of those instead of tinsel at Christmas it would give the neighbours something to talk about :)
    Actually, thinking about it - the next annoying person who arrives at my door trying to sell me Broadband or Sky TV might just get the job.
  • Dorothy - that reminds me of a sketch I wrote years ago, although it wasn't as saucy as your true story! I'd completely forgotten about it until I read your post.
  • Go write it again! See if there is a story in it now! I've got loads of these silly stories, the making of our first (legal) video is the subject of an article my partner has use. Everything went wrong including one cameraman lying on the ground (for better shots, he said) holding the camera on its side, saying 'you can straighten up the film, can't you?' Mad life ...
  • Ah...er....oooooooooo...........
  • If you spend (now 16) years working with erotica, books, magazines, photo shoots and videos, you get a mass of great stories! I was Staff Photographer for some time and did a complete photoshoot for a magazine, using our models, our cameras, our film, and did I get taken to lunch? No, nor did the models! Charming, we thought, so we went off and had our own riotous lunch instead.
  • Dorothy your nude model story made my crap afternoon that bit brighter
  • *re-reads millymolly's comment and realises she hasn't pooped herself*
  • so pleased! If my anecdotes brighten anyone's day, they are worth me relating!

    BB, behave ...
  • [quote=Baggy Books]*re-reads millymolly's comment and realises she hasn't pooped herself* [/quote]

    To be fair, I misread it as well :D

    I was wondering why said afternoon poop was so much brighter than usual :P
  • OK, BR, behave ...
  • [quote=dorothyd]BB, behave ... [/quote]

    [quote=dorothyd]OK, BR, behave ... [/quote]

    To be even fairer we didn't actually do any of the pooping.
  • nor did Millymolly ...
  • Hope the upside down nude model didn't either!!!!
  • Edit/rewrite is complete - two lengthy emails sent to the author, another to the ebook person he submits the stuff to (before I get hold of it) telling him to pull it immediately, and explaining why. The final version has been sent to the author, he can pass it on, with his apologies. I said in this email, here it is, with pane changed to pain for a start ... and explained HOW he should do things in future. He won't. He has me to rewrite and someone who doesn't read a word of the books, just shoves them on to the site, mistakes and all. I have pointed out that kind of thing is very damaging to an author. His choice.
  • well if he will be a lazy git..... what happens when you're too busy with your own books to rewrite his for him?
  • then his credibility goes down the drain ... one day my company will be sold off and there will be no more rewrites ...

    Been working on and off on a major edit of a book from a new author, removing the dashes, the ands, the buts, the additional two spaces on every indent ... then asking him to cut chunks out which had nothing to do with the story and write in something that was.

    The book I sent back to a new author yesterday requested:
    please remove 99% of your ! which are not intended to be used as full stops.
    Please remove every 'and' and 'but' at the start of sentences (he did it with virtually every single one)
    please add some action, I was bored by chapter 2.

    Usual covering letter,' if this is not publishable, please advise how to make it better.' Well, that was the start...
  • Perhaps I should just send you my nano novel unedited (word has given up trying to spellcheck it!) I think I could be in line for an award - trouble is I think I'd win it - the bad sex award!!
  • It amazes me that those authors get through the slush pile at all. How do they manage it? Why on earth do I bother with spelin and gramer wen peepel like that obviously aint!!!! It seems so unfare!!! Life is unfare!!!!!!!!
  • eye noe wot ewe mien. eye carn't undur stand it a tall.
  • they aren't getting through my slush pile, they keep going back for rewrites! The first one got through only because he has about twelve or more books in our catalogue and they sell. After I have rewritten them.
  • [quote=dorothyd]they aren't getting through my slush pile,[/quote]
    It gladdens my heart to hear that. I get frustrated at being on the receiving end of all the 'tuition for writers' and the huge checklist of things you have to remember...and then some really famous rich person writes a truly horrible nauseating missive and it gets published AND media coverage AND prime display position in all the retailers etc. etc.
  • the bigger the name ... the authors I have will never be big sellers, much as they might like to think they are.
    One author stomped off into the sunset when he sent me a letter outlining the £4000 to £5000 royalties he said were due to him. Right ... so we printed 200 copies. 100 went to trade for which he got 10p per book, the others filtered away over a year, sometimes two, at the rate of £1 per copy ... he had six books in our system ... I could not see where he got his figures from. We never heard from him again.
  • edited November 2010
    Interesting mathematics!

    Off topic: Years ago I knew a mail order catalogue had underpaid my commission by several pounds. It was easy to work out because my only customers were my mother-in-law and myself. I wrote to them, with all the figures neatly set out and they sent me a cheque. For £0.01p. I couldn't be bothered to query it, but I kept the cheque as a symbol of their stupidity because it must have cost them a fair bit more than £0.01p to process and post it.
  • edited November 2010
    :D

    One year the tax man wrote to tell me I had underpaid them by 42p. (I am self employed.) They said I could add it to my next payment. I didn't, I sent them the 42p because I knew well they had overcharged me. They had, I got several hundred pounds back (enough to buy another second hand car!) and there, in the overpayment cheque, was my 42p.
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