Terror Tales

Margaret Atwood Reveals Her Genre Kryptonite Horror/Terror Tales This post is part of our  Margaret Atwood Riot Reading Day, a celebration of one of our  favorite  authors on the occasion of the publication of her new novel, MaddAddam. Check out the full line-up here. We are thrilled to present this guest post by Margaret Atwood.  Atwood,  whose work has been published in thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaids Tale, her novels include Cats Eye, short-listed for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood; and her most recent, MaddAddam. She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Innovators Award, and lives in Toronto with the writer Graeme Gibson. Follow her on  Twitter @margaretatwood. _________________________ I was sitting around with some family members discussing “horror” and “terror” over the blueberry pie, when I   gave it as my opinion that “horror” had to do with the body and “terror” with the mind. A spirited discussion took place in which these views were challenged, and I realized I hadn’t articulated my position clearly enough. Off I went to one of the earliest specialists in horror/terror writing, Ann Radcliffe. She was the author of The Italian, the early Gothic novel that so delighted the young heroine of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Radcliffe felt that “terror” had a degree of “obscurity and indeterminacy” that contributed to its “sublime” potential, but that “horror,” being unambiguous, lacked this quality. Terror is the fear of something dreadful yet to come. Horror, on the other hand, has a bowl-of-eyeballs yuck factor. That must have been what I meant by my mind/body distinction. This is a long preface to the announcement that I’ve just reviewed Stephen King’s forthcoming novel, Doctor Sleep, for the New York Times Book Review. This is a questionable thing to do, in that it will be questioned: I anticipate a chorus of disgruntled harrumphs from both sides of the literary pond. From those who think that “literary” authors should stick to their ivory towers and not frolic in the third-class swimming pool, a curl of the lip: why am I slumming? And from those who feel that “genres” are their own private carnival, annoyance that I am sneaking under the fence: what do “literary” writers know about such specialized “genre” wordfeats, anyway? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Horror/terror tales are rooted in folktales, of which I was an avid reader since the age of seven. (My parents sent away for the collected Grimms’, not realizing that this edition was complete and unexpurgated: no red-hot eyeballs or decomposing corpses were omitted.) To add to that, the complete Edgar Allan Poe was in the primary school library â€" those were the days in which only the presence or absence of Sex determined what was suitable for children â€" so I was no stranger to tell-tale hearts, teeth ripped out of semi-corpses, dead women coming back to life through other dead women, and so forth. Add to this the fact that the Comics Code Authority didn’t impose its rules until 1954 â€" a little too late for me. These rules included the prohibition of the words “horror” and “terror” on the covers, and of “depravity, lust, sadism,” gruesome pictures, the walking dead, torture, vampires, ghouls, cannibalism and werewolves. Indeed, none such appeared in the comparatively wholesome pages of Captain Marvel, Superman, or Batman. But the rules applied only to color comics, and the outlawed motifs flourished unchecked in the black-and-whites that a young person such as myself could purchase at the corner drugstore, read after lights-out, and then deposit under the bed of an older brother because the things were just too horrifying to store in one’s own room. I was therefore well-prepared to run my little sister’s Hallowe’en-themed birthday parties. Having decorated the cake with pumpkins and bats, I painted my face green, shone a flashlight under my chin, gathered the quivering little party-goers under the diningâ€"room table, and fed them a regurgitated mash of the above-mentioned materials. These parties were very popular, but there are a number of traumatized sixty-two year olds still walking the planet. Such experiences equipped me for my later academic study of the eighteenth-century, nineteenth-century, and early twentieth-century Gothic, including the well-known classics, Frankenstein and Dracula, but also more “literary” ghost-and-weirdness tales such as those of Bulwer Lytton, Charles Dickens, Henry James, R.L. Stevenson, and M.R. James. Name your present-day horror trope: each has a long genealogy. It also seems to be a general rule that this year’s despised pop shocker may well furnish the next decade’s serious thesis material. What is Beowulf â€" what is Inanna’s descent to the Underworld â€" what is the dismemberment of Osiris, not to mention Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus â€" but horror/terror shock material of a former age? Yes, some of it was “religious” in intent   It would be, wouldn’t it, as the membrane separating gods and monsters is notoriously thin. So no harrumphing about my interest in the form, please. Horror/terror and “literature” are not mutually exclusive. In fact, tales of this kind may be among the most “literary” that there are, being both very ancient, and â€" unlike, say, social realism, in which a real tour of a real meat-packing factory may be involved â€" derived entirely from other tales. (Hint: there aren’t really any Walking Dead. Sorry. Sad, but true. Therefore all such monsters are metaphors.) But, you may ask, why do we like this stuff? Ah. That’s another question. Come under the dining room table with me, my dears, and I will answer it. Bring your flashlights. _________________________ Sign up for our newsletter to have the best of Book Riot delivered straight to your inbox every two weeks. No spam. We promise. To keep up with Book Riot on a daily basis, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, , and subscribe to the Book Riot podcast in iTunes or via RSS. So much bookish goodnessall day, every day.

Terror Tales

Margaret Atwood Reveals Her Genre Kryptonite Horror/Terror Tales This post is part of our  Margaret Atwood Riot Reading Day, a celebration of one of our  favorite  authors on the occasion of the publication of her new novel, MaddAddam. Check out the full line-up here. We are thrilled to present this guest post by Margaret Atwood.  Atwood,  whose work has been published in thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaids Tale, her novels include Cats Eye, short-listed for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood; and her most recent, MaddAddam. She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Innovators Award, and lives in Toronto with the writer Graeme Gibson. Follow her on  Twitter @margaretatwood. _________________________ I was sitting around with some family members discussing “horror” and “terror” over the blueberry pie, when I   gave it as my opinion that “horror” had to do with the body and “terror” with the mind. A spirited discussion took place in which these views were challenged, and I realized I hadn’t articulated my position clearly enough. Off I went to one of the earliest specialists in horror/terror writing, Ann Radcliffe. She was the author of The Italian, the early Gothic novel that so delighted the young heroine of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Radcliffe felt that “terror” had a degree of “obscurity and indeterminacy” that contributed to its “sublime” potential, but that “horror,” being unambiguous, lacked this quality. Terror is the fear of something dreadful yet to come. Horror, on the other hand, has a bowl-of-eyeballs yuck factor. That must have been what I meant by my mind/body distinction. This is a long preface to the announcement that I’ve just reviewed Stephen King’s forthcoming novel, Doctor Sleep, for the New York Times Book Review. This is a questionable thing to do, in that it will be questioned: I anticipate a chorus of disgruntled harrumphs from both sides of the literary pond. From those who think that “literary” authors should stick to their ivory towers and not frolic in the third-class swimming pool, a curl of the lip: why am I slumming? And from those who feel that “genres” are their own private carnival, annoyance that I am sneaking under the fence: what do “literary” writers know about such specialized “genre” wordfeats, anyway? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Horror/terror tales are rooted in folktales, of which I was an avid reader since the age of seven. (My parents sent away for the collected Grimms’, not realizing that this edition was complete and unexpurgated: no red-hot eyeballs or decomposing corpses were omitted.) To add to that, the complete Edgar Allan Poe was in the primary school library â€" those were the days in which only the presence or absence of Sex determined what was suitable for children â€" so I was no stranger to tell-tale hearts, teeth ripped out of semi-corpses, dead women coming back to life through other dead women, and so forth. Add to this the fact that the Comics Code Authority didn’t impose its rules until 1954 â€" a little too late for me. These rules included the prohibition of the words “horror” and “terror” on the covers, and of “depravity, lust, sadism,” gruesome pictures, the walking dead, torture, vampires, ghouls, cannibalism and werewolves. Indeed, none such appeared in the comparatively wholesome pages of Captain Marvel, Superman, or Batman. But the rules applied only to color comics, and the outlawed motifs flourished unchecked in the black-and-whites that a young person such as myself could purchase at the corner drugstore, read after lights-out, and then deposit under the bed of an older brother because the things were just too horrifying to store in one’s own room. I was therefore well-prepared to run my little sister’s Hallowe’en-themed birthday parties. Having decorated the cake with pumpkins and bats, I painted my face green, shone a flashlight under my chin, gathered the quivering little party-goers under the diningâ€"room table, and fed them a regurgitated mash of the above-mentioned materials. These parties were very popular, but there are a number of traumatized sixty-two year olds still walking the planet. Such experiences equipped me for my later academic study of the eighteenth-century, nineteenth-century, and early twentieth-century Gothic, including the well-known classics, Frankenstein and Dracula, but also more “literary” ghost-and-weirdness tales such as those of Bulwer Lytton, Charles Dickens, Henry James, R.L. Stevenson, and M.R. James. Name your present-day horror trope: each has a long genealogy. It also seems to be a general rule that this year’s despised pop shocker may well furnish the next decade’s serious thesis material. What is Beowulf â€" what is Inanna’s descent to the Underworld â€" what is the dismemberment of Osiris, not to mention Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus â€" but horror/terror shock material of a former age? Yes, some of it was “religious” in intent   It would be, wouldn’t it, as the membrane separating gods and monsters is notoriously thin. So no harrumphing about my interest in the form, please. Horror/terror and “literature” are not mutually exclusive. In fact, tales of this kind may be among the most “literary” that there are, being both very ancient, and â€" unlike, say, social realism, in which a real tour of a real meat-packing factory may be involved â€" derived entirely from other tales. (Hint: there aren’t really any Walking Dead. Sorry. Sad, but true. Therefore all such monsters are metaphors.) But, you may ask, why do we like this stuff? Ah. That’s another question. Come under the dining room table with me, my dears, and I will answer it. Bring your flashlights. _________________________ Sign up for our newsletter to have the best of Book Riot delivered straight to your inbox every two weeks. No spam. We promise. To keep up with Book Riot on a daily basis, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, , and subscribe to the Book Riot podcast in iTunes or via RSS. So much bookish goodnessall day, every day.

FAFSA Documents Youll Need to Fill Out the Form

For students entering college in the fall of 2016 or later, you can fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as early as October 1st. Applying early can improve your chances of getting scholarships and grant aid, for many schools use up their financial aid resources later in the admissions cycle. Filling out the FAFSA can be a frustrating process if you havent gathered together the information youll need. The department of education claims that the FAFSA forms can be completed in less than an hour. This is true only if you have all of the necessary documents at hand. To make this process as straightforward and efficient as possible, parents and students can do a little advanced planning. Heres what youll need: The first thing youll need before you can even begin filling out the FAFSA is a Federal Student Aid ID (you can get that here, and you can do it before the FAFSA is available). This username and password will give you access to your federal financial aid information throughout college and beyond.Your most recent federal income tax return. Note that as of 2016, you can use prior prior year tax forms. In other words, if youre applying for admission for the fall of 2017, you dont need to wait until you file your 2016 taxes, and you no longer need to estimate your current taxes. Instead, you can use your tax return from 2015.Your parents most recent income tax return if you are a dependent.  Most traditional aged college applicants are still dependents (learn more about dependent vs independent status). For both students and parents, you can greatly speed up the transfer of your tax return information using FAFSAs IRS Data Retrieval Tool. You can learn more about the tool here.Your cur rent bank statements including both checking and savings account balances. Youll also need to report any significant cash holdings.Your current investment records (if any) including real estate you own other than the house in which you live. Any stocks and bonds you own would go in this category.Records of any untaxed income you may have received. According to the FAFSA website, this can include child support received, interest income, non-education benefits for veterans.Your Drivers License (if you have one)Your Social Security NumberIf you are not a U.S. citizen: your alien registration or permanent resident cardFinally, its useful but not necessary to have a list of all the colleges to which you are likely to apply. FAFSA will automatically send financial aid information to up to 10 schools (and you can add more schools later). If you end up not applying to a school you list on the FAFSA, no harm done. You are not committing yourself to applying to the schools you list. FinAid.or g has a useful tool for finding the institutional codes youll need to use on the FAFSA: Title IV Institutional Codes. If you have all of the above information gathered before you sit down to fill out the FAFSA, youll find the process isnt that painful. Its also a remarkably important process--nearly all financial aid awards begin with the FAFSA. Even if you arent sure that youll qualify for any need-based financial aid, its worth submitting the FAFSA for some merit awards will also require the information. Third-party scholarships are one of the few exceptions to the importance of the FAFSA. Since these are awarded by private foundations, companies, and organizations, they rarely have any connection to your federal eligibility requirements. Here at About.com, we maintain lists of some of these scholarship opportunities that weve organized by the month of the application deadline:   College Scholarships by Deadline Month:  January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

What Is the Toulmin Model of Argument

The Toulmin model (or system) is a  six-part model of argument (with similarities to the syllogism) introduced by British philosopher Stephen Toulmin in his book The Uses of Argument (1958).   The Toulmin model (or system) can be used as a tool for developing, analyzing, and categorizing arguments. Observations What is it that makes arguments work? What makes arguments effective? The British logician Stephen Toulmin made important contributions to argument theory that are useful for this line of inquiry. Toulmin found six components of arguments:[T]he Toulmin model provides us with useful tools for analyzing the components of arguments.(J. Meany and K. Shuster, Art, Argument, and Advocacy. IDEA, 2002) Claim: A statement that something is so.Data: The backing for the claim.Warrant: The link between the claim and the grounds.Backing: Support for the warrant.Modality: The degree of certainty employed in offering the argument.Rebuttal: Exceptions to the initial claim.[Toulmins] general model of data leading to a claim, mediated by a warrant with any necessary backing, has been very influential as a new standard of logical thinking, particularly among scholars of rhetoric and speech communication.(C. W. Tindale, Rhetorical Argumentation. Sage, 2004) Using the Toulmin System Use the seven-part Toulmin system to begin to develop an argument . . .. Here is the Toulmin system: Make your claim.Restate or qualify your claim.Present good reasons to support your claim.Explain the underlying assumptions that connect your claim and your reasons. If an underlying assumption is controversial, provide backing for it.Provide additional grounds to support your claim.Acknowledge and respond to possible counterarguments.Draw a conclusion, stated as strongly as possible. (Lex Runciman, Carolyn Lengel, and Kate Silverstein,  Exercises to Accompany The Everyday Writer, 4th ed. Macmillan, 2009) The Toulmin Model and the Syllogism Toulmins model actually boils down to a rhetorical expansion of the syllogism . . .. Although the reactions of others are anticipated, the model is primarily directed at representing the argumentation for the standpoint of the speaker or writer who advances the argumentation. The other party remains in fact passive: The acceptability of the claim is not made dependent on a systematic weighing up of arguments for and against the claim.(F. H. van Eemeren and R. Grootendorst, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. Cambridge University Press, 2004) Toulmin on the Toulmin Model When I wrote [The Uses of Argument], my aim was strictly philosophical: to criticize the assumption, made by most Anglo-American academic philosophers, that any significant argument can be put in formal terms . . ..In no way had I set out to expound a theory of rhetoric or argumentation: my concern was with twentieth-century epistemology, not informal logic. Still less had I in mind an analytical model like that which, among scholars of Communication, came to be called the Toulmin model.(Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument, rev. ed. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003)

Othello, By William Shakespeare - 1515 Words

Shakespeare’s Othello is seemingly about the blooming affection between a man and a woman. However, it is a love story gone wrong—or is portrayed as so by the author. In the historical context of Othello, which is set during the Turkish-Venetian war in the 16th century, it is essential to emphasize that Othello is the love story between Othello, the Moorish general, and Desdemona, the Venetian lady. This racial difference is most problematic to the eyes of the white Venetian society, allowing characters like Brabantio, Roderigo, and Iago to use this weakness against Othello. The hatred and jealousy, especially by Iago, is clearly illustrated through the language they use in referring to Othello. While Shakespeare uses characters like Iago†¦show more content†¦To Roderigo, a â€Å"lavicious Moor† should not deserve the â€Å"fair daughter† of Brabantio (1.1.127,136). In this statement, Roderigo first draws the invisible line of physical boundary th at Othello, being a black man, cannot surpass; Othello’s character is successfully established in the â€Å"Other† category because he is a visible minority. Then Roderigo, representative of the English at the time, viewed Othello as â€Å"contaminating and threatening† (6), instilling a need to save Desdemona from the black hands, and put her where she naturally belongs, with a white man, preferably himself. This fear of the exotic and lesser-known being is what drives the racism in this play. Then, throughout the play, Othello is alluded to as the â€Å"Moor† more often as opposed to his name, Othello, reminding the audience that he is physically and emotionally an outsider and a foreigner. Even Desdemona, who loves Othello for his mind says, â€Å"That I did love the Moor†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (1.3.248). Though she means no negativity in calling him a Moor, it still separates him in a certain boundary. Iago, on the other hand, is quite vulgar in language when expressing his feelings towards Othello. â€Å"I have told thee often, and I tell thee again, and again, I hate the Moor,† Iago says (1.3.364-5). Even Emilia, a servant in the Venetian society, refers to Othello as â€Å"dull Moor† (5.2.225) and â€Å"cruel Moor† (5.2.250), inserting a negative connotation to the word. Othello is a visible minority because he

English Stories of Raymond Carver

Question: Discuss about theEnglishfor Stories of Raymond Carver. Answer: Introduction The Bath is one of the most popular stories written by Raymond Carver, that narrates the story of a couple, who are on the verge of losing their child to death owing to an accident, te boy confronted with, on the eighth year of his birthday. The author with the help of this story tries to explain the uncertainty of life, which is the major, pre-dominant theme running throughout the story. Scott shows the uncertainty of life, as he portrays the life of a couple getting shattered by a single mishap-the accident of their child. While the mother was excited to celebrate the birthday of the only child, by the time the reader arrives the middle of the story, he finds her left to ponder over the chance of survival of her only child. Further, to highlight a sense of uncertainty, the author also shows how the child, after being hit by the car was alright, and it is only after he came back to home, that he lost is sence and got hospitalized. The theme of uncertainty of life is clear throughout the story. In order to highlight the motif, the author keeps on offering jolts to the readers, by bringing in unexpected things. The story starts with a joyous note of the celebration of the boy, and even after Scott got hit by the accident, the reader does expect that nothing has changed as the boy returns home in perfect health. However, all of a sudden the boys shown to be hospitalized, and the reader along with the mother are left apprehending that the child is in coma. Further, the theme of uncertainty is again reinforced when the mother is shown passing through the waiting room at the hospital, where someone clad in housedress or another one in khaki shirt, is being shown to be awaiting healthcare provision. It shows how uncertain human life is, as one may get hospitalized even when it is least expected. The evidence is valid as the story illustrates a sense of uncertainty as the mother as well as the reader keeps on worrying if the child will get alright or not. The lack of understanding of what is happening around is also illustrated by the fact that the mother went to the extent of being superstitious, and left the hospital with the conviction that the child might get up if she was not watching him. The author shows life is uncertain and difficult to understand. The evidence is relevant as by the end of the story also, the readers are left to wonder if the child gets well or not. I have seen an uncle going out of his home in perfect health, and all of a sudden his family got a call from the hospital that he had a stroke and that his health was not stable at all. I partially agree with the authors view. Even though I am not fatalistic by nature, yet I have seen how people go through difficult times, where they do not get to control anything. A person who is smiling now, may not have a single reason to smile in the next moment. Reference List: Carver, R. (2015).Beginners. Vintage. Carver, R. (2015).Call if you need me: the uncollected fiction and other prose. Vintage. Halfon, S., Weinstein, L. (2016). Literary and analytic transformations of trauma: Repetition, revision and rebirth in two stories of Raymond Carver.Psychoanalytic Psychology,33(S1), S120. Hodge, M. (2014). Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes, and ESL: Raymond Carver in the Classroom.Teaching American Literature,7.

#FreelancerFriday #1 - Rebecca Faith, Editor

#FreelancerFriday #1 - Rebecca Faith, Editor #FreelancerFriday #1 - Rebecca Faith, Editor â€Å"In my experience successful authors are open to revision. It’s not easy to hear the eighty or ninety thousand words you’ve just poured your soul into are not up to par. But if you can leave a little bit of your ego behind and dive into the art, and find someone you trust to be there with you, I don’t think good authorship is beyond many people. It’s a form that invites participation for those who are willing to do the work.†Rebecca Faith is one of the members of Reedsy's advisory board, and also an outstanding editor.A quick anecdote that probably says more about Rebecca than any interview possibly could. The interview below is the first half-hour of our conversation. As I was thanking her, I mentioned that I didn’t want to take up any more of her time with questions about editing that would just be thinly-veiled attempts to find guidance with my own (pretty blocked) novel I’m working on. She pushed through my chronic shyness whe n it comes to talking about creative projects, and spent another half-hour, right there, listening patiently and dispensing insightful advice. Advice, by the way, that went way beyond any of the feedback I’d had from beta readers, best friends, anonymous message boards, and so on. It was neat to see someone almost spontaneously giving off editorial assistance. But you can meet her for yourself below.–REEDSYHow would you describe what an editor does for an author? It seem like the simple answer is â€Å"They edit,† but I wonder what you see that as consisting in. Some would see editing as just being fixing spelling mistakes.REBECCA FAITHSometimes it is. It really depends on the kind of editing we’re talking about. There’s a very nuts and bolts straightforwardness about proofreading and line editing. Those editors bring a level of professionalism and polish to written work, and you really can’t put a price tag on that. It’s very importa nt.But developmental editing or content editing has surged in prominence since self-publishing has become more popular. A good editor helps drawn an amateur into more professional ranks by offering a lot of insight about craft, character development, style, plot production, and so on. There’s a nice collaboration between good editors and authors that really teases out the creative process. The most succinct way that I could say this is a good editor helps an author inhabit their work more fully and helps them stretch beyond their perceived limits of skill.REEDSYI like that. You’ve identified the two very different parts of the editing process.REBECCA FAITHThere’s the technical side which is grammar, conventions, â€Å"How the hell do you use a semicolon?†; and there’s the subjective side: â€Å"Yes, you might have conceived your ideas and your characters in a particular way but I’m here to help you reach beyond the limits that you’ve imposed on your own imagination.† I don’t know that you can ever quantify that or articulate it without experiencing it first-hand, but that’s my best effort.REEDSYCould you talk about how talking to an author can be part of that process? It seems tricky to do a developmental edit working with the manuscript alone.REBECCA FAITHI think the face-to-face or phone-to-phone interaction is important. It’s more important for content editing or developmental editing because there’s a certain kind of idea exchange; where the characters or the content come alive. A good editor feels the reality of a book as strongly as the author does. If a particular passage feels awkward, or it’s not reading well, or there’s a continuity issue - meaning it’s not lining up with the rest of the book - a live chat gives us the opportunity to troubleshoot it. That’s very hard to do with just the page. I might say â€Å"This line of dialogue feels h ollow to me and I don’t now if you mean x, y, or z, but what’s being communicated to me is this.†The developmental work requires a live component, although I was resistant to that when I first started editing. It’s always quite nerve wracking to work with people and their art. It’s important to take the right tone and tack when you’re talking out things. Who am I say to say to an author â€Å"I don’t think your character would do this.† Thats a lot of ownership on my part. Face-to face work needs good editors who have a very cogent understanding of how to bring out an author’s best work while also pressing those limits that we talked about.REEDSYAre there limits on what an editor can do for an author?REBECCA FAITHAt some points I’ve had to say â€Å"Look the work is not good, the book is not good, and you should stop working on it. Let’s go back to some craft lessons, let’s talk about short stories, creative non-fiction, let’s learn how to write.† An editor can’t take an author who has no skills and no desire to revise, and make that person a better writer. So I suppose the limit of an editor is a closed mind. There’s not much you can do with someone whose work is atrocious but who doesn’t believe it, and who doesn’t trust in the curated opinion of an editor.An editor is like a chef. Good chefs have developed their palates: they’ve tasted everything, single ingredients, complex foods, they’ve honed their tongue like a fine-edged sword, and that sword can taste the difference between ‘tangy’ and 'sour.’ A good editor has honed their literary palate by reading everything: genres they love, genres they don’t; they’ve read craft books, they’ve read the Chicago manual, they read blogs about punctuation and they’ve developed a keen taste for what good writing is. Then, like a chef, they can transform that into any dish. A good chef can’t just cook one thing well, and a good editor can’t just edit one genre. Generally an editor is going to take that sophisticated palate and apply it across anything.The resistance is the diner who salts his food before he eats, who is not willing to taste and be led on a culinary journey. Authors who don’t want to open their eyes and their minds to their editor will never get better. The only limit of a truly excellent editor is an author who won’t release their mind to that help.REEDSYWhat’s the appeal of editing? I feel like most people told to sit in a room with unedited work would balk at that; do you like what you do?REBECCA FAITHI love what I do. I wanted to be an editor since other girls were dreaming of being ballerinas. I don’t think I had language for what I wanted to do; I just started hoarding red pens and hoping for the best. I love losing myself in line editing the same way others love losing themselves in doing the laundry. There are correct answers. There’s a certain comfort in that, it’s almost mathematical. Grammarians, people who truly love our language, can at once respect the rules of that language and acknowledge that language is a communicative tool; and so there’s also play within grammar. It’s not all cut and dry; there are moments where we break the rules.But my real pleasure as an editor is the developmental editing. Helping someone discover the work that lives in their soul is a privilege. Being in that space with an author who’s trying to give life to something that does not exist outside of their own mind is an incredible thing to witness, and I’m in awe every time.I’m working with a client now who came to me with a full completed draft. After the first three chapters I went to her and said â€Å"You know, this is really terrible. I think it’s not the story you want to tell; I th ink it’s just the story that occurred to you first.† We’ve been working together on a draft where you don’t even recognise where it came from. She’s working so hard and so well and so productively; she’s writing a book she won’t just be proud of but that people will love. Watching that happen, watching someone’s mind give life to things that are not there, that’s magic.So I suppose it takes a certain amount of creativity for someone to go into editing. You have to have a mind that sees potential where it’s hiding, but also a mind that makes space for someone else to roam around freely, and create. There’s a balance for good editors between offering structure, lending out my palate, and also sitting back and saying â€Å"What do you taste? What are you baking?† I’m a sous chef in the kitchen. It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy that behind the scenes work.REEDSYWhat makes a good developme ntal editor? It seems difficult to look at two people and tell who’s better. I’ve heard experience thrown around as a way of doing this.REBECCA FAITHI think experience is important. But there’s a balance between being the scaffolding, and then also the architect. A good developmental editor gives authors the structure they need to be free. If you’ve ever had to write an essay for a class, you’ll know writing for a prompt is much more directed than writing on 'a topic of your choice.’ That’s the death knell for a lot of people because it’s too much open space. A good developmental editor creates a structured place for an author to live in, creatively. They have no ego about their author’s work. As much as I invest in my authors work- and I feel the heartbeat of their characters and I care deeply about what happens to them - I have no desire to make that work my own. There’s a lack of covetousness with a good editor wherein you truly are working in service of another person’s artwork, and I think that’s a quality even experience can’t necessarily teach.REEDSYOnce you’ve engaged with a client and want to start an edit, what happens?REBECCA FAITHA lot of my clients have just an idea for a book. For those people we start with a one page synopsis, which is much much harder than you might imagine. For people who have a completed first draft I start reading and after 25 or 30 pages I edit and make margin notes. I send that work back to the author and then we talk. We talk about the work, we talk about the edits, about subjective and objective things; we do grammar lessons and we also talk about character motivation and how things are shaping up. Generally we’ll proceed along in that fashion until the end of the book. First drafts are generally extremely malleable and change very quickly. A lot of rewriting happens after a first draft so I’ll also guide write rs through rewriting, what’s interesting to me as a reader, questions they should be asking themselves about their characters, and we go through the work using it as a practicum for being a better writer and expanding the usefulness, utility and beauty of a manuscript.REEDSYSo what about when someone has just an idea?REBECCA FAITHThe line that I draw is that a substantive editing is based off a completed first draft, while in developmental editing we’re developing from an idea.In developmental editing, you come to me with an idea. We start by talking about it and I require a one-page synopsis. People spend months on a one-page synopsis. It makes plain where there’s not enough plot, which is often a problem - authors tend to have a pretty good handle on the beginning and end of a book, and the middle is a wasteland where forward momentum goes to die. The one page synopsis helps us hone in on conflict, character development, protagonists, antagonists; a lot can be accomplished within the confines of an 8.5" x 11" page. That usually requires a few hours of Skype conversation, a few drafts, a lot of brainstorming.From there we move into what I call chapter-snapshots. You get a short paragraph, maybe five or seven sentences, to articulate what happens in each chapter. Again, we’re trying to avoid the problem of authors getting off to a sprint when the race begins, then having an asthma attack laying down at the side of the road by chapter 12. That foundation-laying helps engage authors engage with and confront the problems of their work.After that we start writing. The snapshots are very productive, and usually make people feel pretty excited. The author has now done the work of creating some of that structure on their own, and it becomes much easier to then say â€Å"OK, I’m going to write chapter one† because you know where chapter one begins and ends/ Working within those structures I often find that people become much m ore creative. They might say â€Å"I started to write chapter one but it’s much more difficult than I expected because I had so many ideas while I was writing,† and then we revisit how those ideas integrate into the chapter snapshots and the synopsis.It’s very difficult to build on nothing, so once an author does the hard work of laying the foundation, the house goes up quicker than you might imagine.REEDSYSo there isn’t some place an author needs to be in before you can come in and help. You can be there at any stage of the project.REBECCA FAITHAnyone with even just the flame of desire to write a book can work with me. If someone comes to me and says â€Å"I want to write, but I don’t know what to write,† that’s OK. I start by asking that person what they like to read. I help them curate their own literary palate. I ask them what movies they like, what music they like; like, â€Å"What is your artistic profile?† Based on that I’ll make some recommendations about authors that are doing great work, and we’ll talk about books. We’ll talk about reading. I might give a couple of small writing assignments: free-write for me about someone in your office from the time they wake up to when they sit down at their desk.Writing is a thankless and difficult process. To anyone with the heart to do it I say bring it on. So many of us are limited in our ability to produce art. Not everybody has the skill or patience for an instrument, or we don’t have the balance and the grace for dance, and when we dip a paintbrush in paint we just end up with splatters on a canvas. But writing uses something that’s inborn. We all have this language. Because of the structure of writing, because of the structure of grammar and good story production, pages are just waiting to be filled. It does take some discipline, I’m not saying it’s easy - it’s the hardest work you can do in some ways, artistically. But it’s there if you have language. It’s a true laying bare of the soul, and anyone who’s willing to do that work is welcome to call me.REEDSYIf writing is a thankless and difficult process, is there a parallel for what you’d call the editing life?REBECCA FAITHEditing is not thankless! Editing is wonderful, in fact. I feel very close to my clients; by the end of our work many of them are friends. Editing is intimate process because, and this goes back to you asking about the qualities of a good editor, an editor mustn’t create shame; an editor has to actively quell embarrassment. The safe space that we create for our authors is a place where they can take risks and fall flat on their faces and not feel stupid about it. How many people have adult-to-adult conversations about sex, religion, ideology? These issues all come up in the course of creating three-dimensional characters. Authors and editors have to bring their whole his tories to the table and be comfortable with that. I’m very humbled by the collection of books I have at home where I’m mentioned in acknowledgements. I think editing is the long straw; I wouldn’t have it any other way. I find my work deeply gratifying.In my experience successful authors are open to revision. It’s not easy to hear the eighty or ninety thousand words you’ve just poured your soul into are not up to par. But if you can leave a little bit of your ego behind and dive into the art, and find someone you trust to be there with you, I don’t think good authorship is beyond many people. It’s a form that invites participation for those who are willing to do the work.REEDSYRevision is interesting, because it’s such an important part of writing, but it doesn’t apply to other uses of language; it would be insane to revise everything you say before you say it.REBECCA FAITHIt would, but think about the times you wish you could have taken it back! The thoughtfulness we can bring to writing is a double-edged sword; if you’ve ever read something overworked you know what I’m talking about. But putting work on a page is an opportunity for people to really lay bare a certain amount of soulfulness, look at it objectively and say â€Å"Who am I? What is this?† There’s so much value in that clarity. I think authorship is a process of self-discovery as much as it’s a process of discovering worlds that don’t exist yet.You invite an editor to accompany you and be a spirit guide. Editors who don’t take that privilege incredibly seriously should not be editors. It’s humbling to be entrusted with that privilege. I think people who want to write should write, and editors are out there who want to help.REEDSYWhen do you think the writing process ends? In traditional publishing it seems like it passes into the hands of the publisher. How would you talk about whe n a manuscript ends, for authors and for editors?REBECCA FAITHSome people say that work is never finished. I think that’s incorrect, and also very depressing.REEDSYLike, the idea that you don’t finish a novel, you put it away.REBECCA FAITHI think that’s just†¦ what an awful thing to say. I think work reaches a place where it’s take the form that we’ve imagined it to. We feel like the journey we’re talking about has ended. Our characters have completed their journey. The work has reached a level of polish that’s industry-standard and acceptable. There’s an objective level to that - is it free of errors, as error free as a work can be? We also have to look at our characters. Have they changed? Have they grown? Have they gotten from point A to point B? I think that’s our best view of what’s happening.REEDSYThanks Rebecca.