Reviews are for readers. Writers should be readers.
Of course, not all readers are writers, but a sojourn into the swamp that is author-published genre fiction quickly makes one believe that many writers are not readers.
I often ask myself what attraction does writing have for a person who doesn't read? Is it the prospect of easy wealth? Fame? The easy wealth thing is easily (pun intended) dispelled: Writing a book isn't easy and too few writers achieve great wealth. Fame? How many really famous writers are there?
Maybe some of these non-reading writers have read a book or two, enjoyed it, and thought they could do the same. If they don't understand the basic structure of fiction, the rules of writing, the elements of style (without capitals), it's not likely that they will enjoy much success in the way of wealth and/or fame. Those skills have to be learned, and they have to be learned through reading until they become a part of who and what the writer is. It's not enough to lean on your middle school classroom writing exercises. They may have taught you the rudiments of grammar and punctuation, but the writing of successful popular fiction requires much more than knowing when to use a comma and when to use a semi-colon.
Nor is it enough to rely on an editor. If you don't have the requisite skills yourself, you won't be able to recognize their lack when you hand your book over to someone who claims to be an editor.
It doesn't matter what the editor's credentials are. They may be a retired English teacher or a multi-published author. What matters is your ability to determine if their editing will make your novel better or worse.
Let's look at the opening paragraph to one book as an example. Even though we don't have the original text and can't see what the editor has changed, if anything, we can at least look at the final (?) result.
The book in question is Not in the Cards by Amy Cissell, published by the author in October 2018.
And we know this book has been edited because the author made sure to thank the editor!
Special thanks to my editor, Colleen Vanderlinden and my cover artist Daqri Combs for helping put together such a polished book. No woman is an island, and a writer is nothing without a great editor and fantastic cover artist.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 66-67). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Disclosure: I obtained my copy of Not in the Cards when it was offered as a free Kindle book on Amazon on 21 June 2021. I do not know the author nor have I ever communicated with her in any way about this book or any other matter. I am an author of historical romance, contemporary romantic suspense, and assorted non-fiction.
Now, about that opening paragraph:
Sandy unlocked the front door to the little shop she’d just rented and pulled the string on the sign that hung in the window, the sign that had brought her here— to this shop, to this business, and to Oracle Bay. The buzz of the neon broke the near silence. She walked outside to look in at her shop. From the outside, the windows appeared to have been cleaned with shortening. A large triangle of yellow neon framed the words “Alexandra’s Tarot Readings.” A red Eye of Horus and the outline of three cards took turns blinking on and off at the top of the triangle.As a reader, I came to the first line and saw Sandy walking up to the door from the outside. I don't yet have any mental image of her or of Oracle Bay, but I do see her approaching the door from the outside. She unlocks the door, walks in, and turns on the sign.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 76-80). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
The "walks in" isn't stated, but I inferred it because that's the scenario my years of reading have prepared me for. So when Sandy instead walks outside in the third sentence, I have to adjust my mental images. It takes a tiny bit of effort to do that and settle into the new scene of Sandy standing outside, perhaps on a sidewalk, looking into her new shop.
I could understand the sign having brought her to the shop, but did the sign in the shop in Oracle Bay bring her to Oracle Bay? I'm already figuratively scratching my head.
She pulled a string, so now I'm envisioning a swinging sign, perhaps wooden, perhaps cardboard, that hangs in the window. I have to alter that image when the author informs me it's a neon sign. Now I think maybe "cord" would have been a better word than string, to indicate she's turned on a switch of some kind for this electric sign.
Then comes that third sentence where I realize she's been inside and walks outside. Instead of additional information being revealed with each subsequent sentence to clarify an established mental image, the narrative keeps changing what the previous text has implied.
If the windows looked like they'd been "cleaned with shortening," are they cleaned at all? Wouldn't "smeared" be a better term? Are they just dull or do they look greasy and dirty? Shop windows that are made of acrylic sheets -- Plexiglas (r) and other trade names -- can easily be scratched when cleaned with anything abrasive and over time become dull and lose some of their transparency. But that wouldn't make them look "cleaned with shortening." Would it?
That description interrupts further description of the neon sign, again disrupting the flow of the text.
After just one paragraph, I'm having doubts about the qualifications of the editor.
Now, before you jump all over me for being picky, let me clearly state that yes, I am very picky. And yes, it's possible for a writer to become very successful without my suggestions! If you as that writer, however, aren't as successful as you'd like to be, maybe stop and step back from the emotional reaction to my criticism and look at the work -- it's not yours, after all -- objectively.
Did the editor make Not in the Cards so much better that there weren't obvious weaknesses? Even if we don't know what the original version was, is this the best it can be?
The next two paragraphs are backstory, narrative explanations of how Sandy came to be here outside the shop. I had some issues with the phrases "it'd belonged to" and "Sandy'd made" because I thought "it had belonged to" and "Sandy had made" would have flowed more smoothly, but they weren't big issues.
Then came
She turned the sign back off, opened a bottle of wine, and grabbed the cheese and cracker plate she’d picked up at the local supermarket. She made herself a floor picnic, complete with a couple candles to help add light to the dim room, and toasted herself and her newfound freedom.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 87-89). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Wait, what? When did Sandy go back inside the shop? We left her standing on the sidewalk, but there isn't a single word about her going back inside. Did she have to open the door again? Why did she go out in the first place?
Was the action of going outside just a device for the author to introduce the sign?
An editor or even a good critique partner could/should have caught that. It's not a major thing in and of itself, but an author should be able to make sure the characters' actions are fully and clearly understood. I stopped reading when I came to that fourth paragraph and went back to carefully reread the preceding three to see if there was any mention of Sandy returning to the interior of the shop.
There wasn't.
Interestingly enough, a few pages later, Sandy does the outside-and-back-in-again routine, but it's spelled out.
She walked outside and watched [the sign] cycle through its neon advertisement a couple times before shrugging. [Did the sign shrug?] It was what it was, and there was no going back now.
Sandy went back inside, pulled a book out of her expansive beaded hemp purse, and sat down to wait for her first customer.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 114-116). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
In due course, Sandy's first customer arrives.
Her breath caught in her throat as the woman paused
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 121). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
The woman paused and squinted
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 122). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.the woman took a tentative step
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 125). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
the woman jumped
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 127). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
the woman instinctively grabbed
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 128). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
The woman blinked
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 129). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
The woman hesitated
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 133-134). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.note of the woman’s name.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 135-136). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.The woman did as requested,
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 139). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.the woman sitting
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 139-140). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.This woman was
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 142). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.the woman as she drew
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 143). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
the woman asked.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 149). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Did you keep track? If not, it's thirteen times in less than four pages that the client is referred to as "the woman." Only once is she called a customer and one more time a client, as well as a few times by her name, which Sandy has learned is Ann. The rest of the time she is "the woman."
Is this wrong? No, not really. But it isn't good. It isn't polished and professional and evocative. As a reader or as a writer, can you think of other words that might have been used? Customer and client are valid possibilities, and each was used once. What about "stranger"? "Visitor"? "Guest"? Any others?
But the multiple repetitions of one word are only one thing that's awkward -- I'm trying to avoid saying "wrong" -- about this scene of Sandy welcoming her first paying customer.
Ann isn't her first customer.
Remember how the previous scene ended? Sandy goes outside, comes back in, and waits for her first customer. It's normal to assume, then that the woman who walks in the door in the very next paragraph is in fact that first customer.
Sandy prepares to do the tarot card reading for Ann, but in the midst of those preparations, we get this:
The clients who’d come in earlier that day had all been vacationers looking for some happy news.Wait, what?
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 142). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
The mental sequence of Sandy settling down to wait for her first customer, reading a romance novel while waiting, and then greeting the woman who walked through the door as her first customer probably should have been revised. The story action isn't flowing smoothly. It's been interrupted by the reader questioning what she's already read.
Could the editor have suggested that Sandy reflect on her first couple of clients as being vacationers and that this tarot-reading gig was going to be a lucrative cinch before Ann comes in? Well, if I were the editor, I certainly would have. As a reader I noticed the bumpy sequence right away.
Do most readers notice things like this? To be perfectly honest, probably not. If you look at the reviews and ratings author-published genre fiction gets on Amazon and Goodreads, the numbers skew very high. Few of these novels average less than 4.0 stars, and the one- and two-star ratings are few and far between. Is that because the books are so good? Or is it because over the past few years negative reviews and their writers have been so often attacked? Is it because positive reviews are encouraged? Do readers who have negative reading experiences resist writing reviews because there are so many pressures not to?
One of the most common and most vociferously argued is "Don't write a negative review unless you've read the whole book." And if the book is so bad you can't finish it, writing a review saying so is therefore strongly discouraged. Result: badly written books don't get negative reviews. Subsequent result: authors of badly written books don't improve because they don't know their books are badly written. Or, in some cases, badly edited.
(As an experiment, look at some of the reviewers on Goodreads who don't leave reviews but post five-star ratings. How many of them have very high average ratings, 4.5 and above?)
To continue. The first chapter of Not in the Cards contains two detailed tarot readings, one that Sandy does for her paying customer Ann and another she does for herself. Tarot cards aren't all the same; today there are dozens, maybe hundreds of different decks featuring themes such as dragons and witches, angels and fairies, dogs and kittens, and in styles such as Native American, feminist, pagan, and so on. To someone even slightly familiar with the Tarot, the lack of description of the deck used and especially of the individual cards that turned up in Sandy's readings was noticeable.
Sandy is apparently using "her old college tarot cards" (Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 83-84). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.) Nothing between that statement and her ushering Ann in for a reading suggests Sandy has obtained any other tarot deck. So the reader doesn't know if the deck Sandy obtained in college is the familiar Rider-Waite deck or some other.
The reader is also assumed to be familiar with the cards and with the whole method of tarot divination. None of that is given the slightest explanation in the text.
For instance: What does it mean when a card is reversed? What is the Celtic cross layout? What does The World card look like? What does The Fool card signify? What are pentacles and cups, wands and swords and rods? (I assume she meant rods and wands to be interchangeable, but I don't know for sure.) A novel doesn't have to give all the details, but it should give . . . some.
I managed to get through the first full chapter but wasn't enticed to read further. There were other minor issues that bothered me in addition to those cited above. The one that stood out most was Ann described as
her skin was the rich shade of brown.
Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 123-124). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.
"The" rich shade of brown? Is there only one?
Not in the Cards was published in 2018 but only has 26 reviews on Amazon, and 64 ratings on Goodreads. When it was offered free on 21 June 2021, it shot up to #20 in the Kindle Free listings, so it will be interesting to see how many reviews it picks up on both Amazon and Goodreads as a result.
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