Editorial Notes = clarifying information, additional insight, annotations

Hiya Reader,

Have you noticed an explosion of independent bookstores lately? I certainly have just in my own area of the country.

We're not just imagining it!

​This piece from AP News busts the myth that "the decline actually ended years ago...the latest numbers from the American Booksellers Association show independent stores expanding at a pace not seen this century."

Does more bookstores = more readers, or at least = more people buying books? Gosh I sure hope that's true as it would be good for all writers!

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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.

How many errors can you spot in this sign here?

Actionable Tip of the Week

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

You've heard it before and I've said it before, in more than one Editorial Notes issue: the best way to be a better self-editor is to get distance. Walk away. Come back fresh. For a short piece, a day or two. For a chapter, a week. For a full manuscript, a month, minimum.

I stand by every word of that advice. Distance is the gold standard. It's the thing that turns you from the anxious parent of your own sentences into someone else's reader, the shift that lets you finally see the transition wearing a blazer and calling itself a segue.

But what if you really, really, REALLY don't have the luxury of time? You have a deadline and it's tomorrow. There is no month. There is barely a lunch break. What to do?

Fair question. And "acquire more time" is not an answer, however much I wish it were. So let's talk about manufactured distance.

Every major word processor and most browsers have a built-in text-to-speech feature (in Word: Review > Read Aloud; on a Mac: Edit > Speech > Start Speaking; Google Docs has extensions that do the same). Turn it on. Sit back. Do not follow along with your eyes glued to the screen, mouthing the words. Just listen, the way a listener would.

A machine voice has no loyalty to you as author. It reads exactly what's there, in the same flat cadence whether the sentence is a triumph or a train wreck. That flatness is the whole point. It strips away your performance of your own writing and leaves you with the thing itself.

I saw this in action when my companion and I won tickets to sit in on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show monologue rehearsal. Fallon read the jokes from a handwritten page in his hand using the flattest, most obnoxiously boring tone possible. He never looked at the audience. He never emphasized a single word or point. He merely stood, pen and paper in hand, waiting for a reaction to his reading. Whether a joke got a lot of laughter, no laughter, or something in between, Fallon's only response was to makes notes on his paper. Then he launched into the next joke.

Like Fallon, just listening to your computer voice reading to you without emotion or emphasis, you will hear what you need to fix.

This costs you minutes, not weeks. And while it won't replace real distance, you will get a sliver of the same effect: which is hearing your writing as any audience other than yourself.

Reader Question of the Week

Jayce wrote: Is there a better way to edit a manuscript rather than just reading straight through from page one over and over?

Jayce! I actually love editing out of order (i.e. backwards) when I’m proofreading. Jumping between non-sequential pages can mean mistakes don't get a free pass just because of where they happen to sit. Another idea, not original to me, is to read all pages ending in 0 first, then every page ending in 1, then 2, and so on, until you've worked through all ten groups and covered the whole document. This way, your focus resets over and over. But of course, this strategy is only for a late-stage editing pass, i.e. the line level.

Want to Submit a Reader Question to Helene?

Give in to the urge.

Link of the Week

​Doodle any goofy shape and then whack it like a drum, using real math (finite elements, not samples) to figure out exactly how that blob would actually vibrate. ​

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Thanks for reading!

~Helene, your writing sherpa