|
Still another book doctor (who, incidentally, was forced upon me by an
agent, who described her accomplice as an editor) kept questioning my
knowledge: “You should check to see if a magazine works like that,” she
wrote on my manuscript (a character in my book is the editor of an art
magazine) even though she knew I’d worked for both art and financial
magazines. She also advised me to show characters examining a work of art
at an auction, which, of course, isn’t permitted. (Auction houses provide
opportunities several days before the auction for prospective buyers to
examine art, but not at the auction.) Obviously, she’d never been to an art
auction, and since she hadn’t, she shouldn’t have given advice about how a
character should behave at one.
The “writing teacher” combined some of the worst elements of the
others with a major memory problem. (I think the two essential qualities
for a book doctor should be the ability to read carefully, and a good
memory.)
One of the more bizarre
manifestations of her memory lapses was the inability to keep in mind any
character in my book for even a few pages. Example: In my first novel I
introduced on page one a character named Bethany (fairly unusual name,
right?). At that introduction, the reader learns that Bethany has a job in
the art world, may be looking for another job, has insomnia, and is reading
a book she hopes will put her to sleep. On page 14, she appears for the
second time; she’s still named Bethany; she’s working in an art gallery; she
tells her boss she has to look for another job; and that she has insomnia,
and hardly slept the night before. The writing teacher’s comment: “I had
forgotten the name ‘Bethany’ from the start of the book. You could make it
more obvious that this is the same character; perhaps show her yawning; or
with a copy of the same book she had been reading…”
Another comment: “I started to become aware (by page 18) that I
had no idea what anyone looked like…” But by page 18, the reader has been
given partial or total descriptions of seven characters.
Most tiresome were her recommendations that I add information,
characters, etc., that were already there, like “consider a thread from
inside the police department that makes sense of the investigation.” There
are two people in the book close to the police investigation who keep
the protagonists informed on its progress. Apparently she didn’t notice.
Not one of the four book doctors I consulted added to my knowledge,
or helped improve the quality of the writing, or contributed to the
intricacies of the plot. Book doctors are not required to have any training
or qualifications; they can simply announce that they can help improve your
manuscript, whether they can or not. The four who worked for me could not.
Still, hope springs eternal; perhaps a book doctor who knows what he or she
is doing is out there somewhere. I doubt if I’ll ever employ one again, but
then, two of the four times I hired book doctors, I thought they were
something else. I’d urge anyone considering hiring a book doctor to ask for
credentials—education, experience, references. (Yes, I had references of a
sort, but I didn’t check them as thoroughly as I should have.)
And beware of false experts! An “expert” on one of the most
prominent websites devoted to the topics of editing, book doctors, and the
like, wrote: “You should find out whether you can get a verbal
response to the manuscript, not just a written response…the editor will not
want to write down some comments…it is easier to soothe the writer
verbally.” In both cases, when the writer uses “verbal,” she means
“oral.” (Oral means “uttered by the mouth in words;” verbal means “relating
to, or consisting of words.”) This is a common error, but not an error
anyone who sets herself up as an expert on writing should make.
|
|
