Editorial Notes = clarifying information, additional insight, annotations

Hiya Reader,

Somehow I missed that there was a movie made in 1979 from Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood. Fortunately, my son, who shares my obsession with O'Connor's stories, alerted me.

Was it great cinema? No. Was it dated? Um, yes, including many uses of a particularly ugly and offensive racist term that has rightfully been banished a long time ago. (It physically hurt our ears to hear it, honestly, so for that reason, I'm not recommending the movie.) But was the movie like O'Connor's work? Oh heck yeah. Totally character-driven, totally weird, totally believable.

What's your favorite movie made from a book? (In this week's link below, LitHub reveals the bracket winner.)

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Example of the Week

Sometimes this is a good example—or a great one. Sometimes this is a bad example—or just a funny blooper. Sometimes a combination. You never know.

Good golly! The cardio, circuit training, and abs workout people are incredibly dedicated!

Actionable Tip of the Week

A trick to add to your self-editing toolbox right now!

We usually talk about self-editing as a way to improve some aspect of our draft that isn't working well. But what about the opposite approach?

We treat our finished passages like solved equations. The wording clicked, the rhythm landed, so the work is done. But writing isn't finished just because it works; it's finished because you stopped imagining other ways it could work. A great strategy to complete a draft, to be sure, but a lousy way to understand and improve our writing craft.

Here's a new approach.

Take a passage you're proud of, something that feels finished, and rewrite it. Not "polish it." Not "cut 10%." Rewrite it as if someone else wrote it first and you're their hostile, talented editor who disagrees with every instinct they had.

The mechanics are straightforward. Find a passage where you nailed the tone, the pacing, the voice. Then identify its core stance: what it's doing, emotionally and structurally. Is it close and intimate? Rewrite it cold and panoramic. Is it ironic and detached? Go sincere and a little raw. Is the narrator knowing, in control, hovering above the action? Hand the wheel to someone who has no idea what's coming. Who is speaking now, and what do they want? If your original was trying to earn trust, maybe this version is trying to unsettle. If your original was moving fast, this one lingers.

You're not looking for the "better" version. You're looking for a version that makes the first one argue back. Rewriting from a different stance helps manufacture some genuine critical distance.

Some of your original choices will suddenly look inevitable in a way they didn't before. You'll understand why you made them, not just that you made them. Other choices will look lazy, or timid, or like you defaulted to what you always do when you didn't know what else to do. Both discoveries are useful.

Reader Question of the Week

Tracy wrote: I keep seeing different submission platforms listed in calls for submissions like Submittable and Duosoma and I honestly have no idea what sets them apart. Do I need accounts on all of them?

Tracy! Assuming you'll be submitting creative work for the foreseeable future, then you'll likely need (free!) accounts at some point. But you don't have to set anything up unless the outlet you're submitting to requests submissions that way.

Submittable is the Goliath here, used by hundreds of hundreds of literary magazines, book publishers, and grants/contest administrators. Creating a free account lets you track the status of all your submissions in one dashboard, which is genuinely useful. Duosoma is similar but smaller; it's gained traction among independent and small-press literary magazines and book publishers. Then of course there are other places like Subfolio and Slideroom which all cover their own niches. But again, the accounts are free and you don't need them until you need them.

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Give in to the urge.

Link of the Week

From LitHub, the bracket winner for the Best Literary Film Adaptation of the Last 50 Years. Agree?

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Thanks for reading!

~Helene, your writing sherpa