Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Guild “Editing Extravaganza” Offers Consultations with Experts


Sign up now for editing consultations at the St. Louis Writers Guild’s Editing Extravaganza! 

Submit the first five to ten pages of your manuscript to be reviewed by an editor and have a 20+ minute one-on-one consultation at the Sept. 14 event. That day’s workshops feature editing tips by local editor Catherine Rankovic (“Manuscript Preparation”) at 10 a.m. and author Andrew Jobling from Australia (“How to Write A Book Publishers Want”) at 11 a.m. at The Lodge Des Peres, 1050 Des Peres Rd., St. Louis, MO 63131. The workshops are free to Guild members; $5 for nonmembers.


Consultations are $40. To sign up, click the “editing consultation signup” button on the St. Louis Writers Guild website’s home page (www.stlwritersguild.org) or Event page. The form asks for your editor preference. If you sign up before all the editors have been announced, you will be contacted for your first choice. Pages are requested by Sept. 1 to allow editors time to review them. Editing consultations will be held between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Sept. 14, by the following: Catherine Rankovic (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry), Meghan Pinson (fiction and nonfiction), Kortney Price (picture books through middle grade and young adult), and Andrew Jobling (nonfiction). 


CATHERINE RANKOVIC is a deeply experienced professional editor of book-length novels, novellas, and nonfiction, and a mentor to new authors; her BookEval clients have 41 books in print. She doesn’t simply edit, but teaches you how to write like a pro. M.F.A., Washington University; M.A. Syracuse University, B.A., Marquette University; author of five books. Professional editor since 2000; member of St. Louis Writers Guild and St. Louis Publishers Association. www.bookeval.com

ANDREW JOBLING (of Australia) is an unlikely athlete and an accidental author. He somehow played senior-level professional football with the St Kilda FC for seven years, and has 30 years experience in the wellbeing industry, fifteen as a personal trainer. Then, with no time, no training, no experience and no clues, he ‘accidentally’ wrote his first bestselling book, Eat Chocolate, Drink Alcohol and be Lean & Healthy. To date he has written nine books, which have sold in excess of 200,000 copies. His latest book, The Wellness Puzzle, is helping him fulfill his purpose to empower people to take control of their wellbeing and create a wave of wellness all around the world. Andrew is an in-demand speaker and mentor in schools, for companies and for aspiring authors. He works with teams and groups, large and small. He spends his time sharing a perspective that is changing many lives. www.andrewjobling.com.au/



MEGHAN PINSON of My Two Cents Editing provides expert editing, engaging critique, and fearless consulting to authors of novels and nonfiction manuscripts. She specializes in story development and author education. Current favorite genres: historical fiction, crime/mystery/suspense, middle grade adventure stories, and prescriptive nonfiction. Connect with her at www.mytwocentsediting.com.  


KORTNEY PRICE is a Literary Agent with Corvisiero Literary. Having grown up in a small town, Kortney has always valued the stories that allow readers to escape into fantastic worlds and visit far away places. She loves reading about the things she loves so stories featuring an awesome sense of humor, art and artists, antiques and old buildings, and strong and quirky families are always welcome. Because of her 15+ years working in the special needs community, Kortney is always looking for stories featuring characters with special needs. Her preferences are picture books through middle grade, and young adult. She is not the best fit for books about cancer, suicide or school shootings. www.corvisieroagency.com

Learn more about the St. Louis Writers Guild at www.stlwritersguild.org.


Monday, April 1, 2013

A Quick Chat with 'Wreditor' Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth

A Quick Chat with 'Wreditor' Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth
By Brad R. Cook

T.W. Fendley and I recently had the chance to talk with noted author and editor, Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth. We asked her a few questions and she gave us a few answers!

Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth
Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth is multi-published, fiction and nonfiction writer and an editor--in her parlance, a wreditor.  Suzann is a Writers Hall of Fame of America inductee, past faculty member for Washington University's Summer Institute, and a contributing editor for Family Circle magazine for a decade. 

By Suzann's definition, wrediting is an editing perspective evolved from experience on both sides of traditional publishing: as a writer undergoing the editorial process, and as an editor teaming with writers to bring their stories to compelling life.  Teaching is the core of Suzann's private client editing process.  Her unique techniques will hone and polish a current project, and pay dividends applicable to future ones, too.  

Learn about her editing services at www.TheWalkingDeadline.com
All her books are available on Amazon and both websites: 

Look for the ebook A Lady Never Meddles with Murder, the sequel to A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves.  Coming soon.

Suzann will be speaking at St. Louis Writers Guild’s Workshops for Writers on Saturday, April 6th, 2013! T.W. and I wanted to give her a chance to introduce herself, and allow everyone else to learn about this amazing writer and editor!

How much fact is in your fiction?
From 60-90%, the difference generally between contemporary novels (60%) and historical novels, (90%) all of which were based on real people and/or real events. It's mandatory fiction tell the truth, which lends to a factual infrastructure. Characters and situations must be relatable and identifiable to a real-time reader. It doesn't matter whether the lead character is a rabbit, a Roman slave or a Rhode Island nuclear physicist. Authenticity on all levels is key, which means portraying a relatable, complicated, human being commensurate with the back-drop era, setting, avocation/vocation, societal and cultural mores, et al.

Nothing kills faster a story for a reader than a writer's arrogant and dumb excuse fiction is lies, all lies, so to heck with a knowing his/her stuff to best, conscientious ability. To believe otherwise cheats the writer's creative bounds, and to my mind, disrespects the intelligence of a reader willing to devote time, and likely, money, to a story. That isn't to say a writer's scrupulous efforts won't net an error or six. Writers are human, too. But make the majority authentic, right, and relatable, and the weensy, accidental boo-boos will be forgiven.


What makes your book/characters unique?
Honest, I'm not being a smarty-pants, but what makes my books and characters unique is I wrote them. I could hand over the synopsis to any one of them to another writer, and beyond the blueprint aspect, the other writer's novel wouldn't resemble mine at all. If I qualify for a unique label at all, it's because writing herded me from magazine articles to book-length humor to biography to fiction. Except on closer examination, the three primary facets--humor, history and biography--pretty much interweave in my novels, too. What may seem like a stray from nonfiction to fiction is nearer a skip, than a leap. At root is an ongoing fascination with what makes people tick. If history is circular, the human emotional trajectory is pretty much linear. If it weren't, contemporary readers couldn't possibly relate to Eyre's or Poe's or Homer's. The more the surrounds change, the more the people populating them remain the same.


If you could borrow one person’s zest for writing and/or life, whose and why?

Hands down, Stephen King. He's a writer's writer. Nothing has stopped or much gotten in the way of being a writer. It isn't what he does for a living, a writer is who he is, whether an individual reader likes, loves, or detests his storytelling. Mr. King hasn't written for the money--hasn't needed the financial proceeds from his work--for decades. Yet a life-threatening hit-and-run accident didn't silence him for long, and pneumonia didn't stop him from accepting long-deserved National Book Award honors. No one I can think of more respects the storytelling gift serendipitously bestowed on him--and by extension, fears more what life would be, or could be, if it just as serendipitously winked out one morning.


Not every idea is a winner. Written or not, what’s the most ill-conceived story idea you’ve ever had?

I chose this question, because ill-conceived story ideas never get much beyond my "Hmm . . ." stage. The reason they don't, is I'm a rabid disciple of the power of synopsis. If a hot, shiny idea can't go the synopsis distance, it's brain flatulence, not inspiration. Why any writer would begrudge the time and effort to whip up a synopsis-style test-drive is beyond me. Seat-of-the-pants dive-ins may sound all artsy and creative and free, but in actuality, are self-laid traps. Freestyling is all but guaranteed to turn an already fraught job into a self-imposed obstacle course laced with plot-exploding devices. At the least, seat-of-the-pants imposes far more start-overs, back-ups and (assuming one doesn't quit when obviously behind) post-draft revisions, than laying the synopsis groundwork in the first place.

Ideas aren't a dime a dozen. A dime a gross, maybe, at most. They're imagination's guppies: the more you have, the more you will have. A jillion too many to ever write to completion.


The Writers’ Lens is about “Bringing fiction into focus.” What brings your writing into focus – the characters, the stories, the love of words?

The characters. Always, always the characters. Characters are plot. Characters are story. Characters are the sole reason for stories. Take any novel's alleged plot – of which there are either seven basic ones or twelve, depending on whether you extrapolate the original seven deadly sins to squeeze out five more. Now change original characters to a different cast of characters. By no means will the resulting story resemble the original. West Side Story's plot is Romeo & Juliet's plot. Except it isn't, and not simply because the settings/eras differ.

Plot is a 20 x 40-foot concrete slab. What rises from it, be it a 3b/2ba rancher, a Tudor, an A-frame, a Cape Cod, Victorian, a burger joint, or a multi-car garage is characterization.

Many thanks to Suzann for agreeing to chat with T.W. and I

Want to learn more from Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth?
She’ll be presenting at St. Louis Writers Guild Workshops for Writers…

The 12 Step Program: How to SHOW, How to NOT Tell
Presented by
Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth
Writers of America Hall of Fame Inductee and Editor

Saturday, April 6, 2013
10 am to Noon
Kirkwood Community Center
111 S Geyer Rd. Kirkwood, MO
Free for SLWG Members, $5 for non-members

For more information visit www.stlwritersguild.net

Brad R. Cook is a historical fantasy author and President of St. Louis Writers Guild. Please visit www.bradrcook.com or follow me on Twitter @bradrcook  https://twitter.com/bradrcook