Hello friends,
Happy September! Who else is glad for back-to-school? My kids march back to class this week and I can’t wait. The return of the school routine usually feels bittersweet — I tend to grieve the end of summer and of our time together relaxing, playing, and traveling. But this year feels different. My autumn is packed with projects and I’m antsy to go forth into this professional busy-ness, with the quiet and cleared mental space afforded by three children out of the house, keeping their beautiful brains busy at school. Thank you, teachers!
How was your summer? How are you weathering the upcoming change of seasons? What literary projects are you working on this fall? Hit reply and let me know.
Here are a few updates from my end:
My anthology Broken Free: Writers on Cutting Ties is progressing, with a bunch of fantastic contributors now on board, a solid proposal I’m fine-tuning, and so much enthusiasm for this project all around. This collection of essays and a few essential poems will explore the topic of familial estrangement, a common experience that is often shamed or stigmatized and that I hope to illuminate via diverse literary voices. We will go out on submission to agents and publishers this fall.
My autumn will also include the publication of half a dozen book reviews and author interviews, a residency in California, the writing of another proposal for my memoir manuscript, and the planning of a workshop about self-editing coming up in November. It’s a lot and I’m sharing all this here as a bit of an accountability record. I’m excited but also bracing myself a bit. Gulp.
And this of course does not include my clients! I’ve had a lot of fun taking on smaller projects lately, like the editing of short stories and query letters and coaching, alongside my regular developmental editing and manuscript evaluations. If you’re looking for an editor for your book manuscript or other projects, I still have some availability in October and November, and I’m starting to book into 2024. I’d love to help you. Please visit my website or reach out at jennybartoy AT gmail DOT com.
An Editor’s Tip
Here’s a quick tip for those of you writing fiction or creative nonfiction: skip the small talk.
This topic has come up repeatedly in my recent work with clients — typically a sign that this may be useful advice for others. Generally speaking, small talk including courtesies or greetings is not necessary to the narrative and just bloats your word count. “How are you?” “Nice to meet you.” “How about that weather?” “Would you like a cookie?” Unless this kind of generic exchange is essential to your narrative (perhaps it exemplifies a dynamic that is unusual for the characters or provides a clue for your protagonist), cut it.
Let’s say you’re writing a scene where your narrator or main character meets a new person — a business prospect, their friend’s parent, the plumber. If that new person is included in the scene, they should be relevant to the narrative, someone who’ll advance the plot either directly or indirectly (if they’re not, if they’re just an extra, there for scenery, it’s likely fine to cut their dialogue altogether). Before writing the scene, determine what the characters’ purpose is in it, then jump right into description and dialogue that will work toward this purpose.
Dialogue is tricky to write, and a good rule of thumb is: less is more. Focus on the essential. No need to spend time and word count on the small talk that would normally happen in real life. Of course, including a line or two of pleasantries may be useful for context setting, but as soon as possible, get down to business. Your reader will assume that your characters are regular, polite humans, and you can skip right over these details and get to the dialogue that moves the story forward.
News
Join me for Lunch Edits this Wednesday, September 6 (tomorrow!) at 12pm PST. You can find the Zoom link here.
The Boston Globe ran my profile of Emi Nietfeld, author of Acceptance, for their Story Behind the Book column in early August. You can read that here.
For Chicago Review of Books, I interviewed Michelle Wildgen about her new novel, Wine People, a great read with strong female protagonists working in the wine business. You can read our conversation here.
Voices of Tacoma: A Gathering of Poets is coordinating a series of autumn poetry workshops, funded by the Tacoma Artists Initiative Program. Featured instructors include Kristy Gledhill, Celeste Schueler, Christina Vega, and me! My workshop about self-editing prose and poetry will take place on Wednesday, November 15 at the Moore Library in Tacoma, and likely on Zoom too. Mark your calendar.
A Question for You
I’ve been thinking about the difference between vulnerability and fragility lately. Some people think of them as synonyms, two sides of the same coin. I see them as opposite. I think vulnerability is strength, the willingness to put yourself out there even if you are terrified, even if it might break your heart. Writing often is vulnerability set to ink, our innermost self typed or scribbled on the page.
What does vulnerability mean to you? When was the last time you were vulnerable, and did the results surprise you?
Literary Links
Here are articles I liked or bookmarked this past month:
What Character Arc Isn’t — Susan Freitas, JaneFriedman.com
What Are Dreams For? — Amanda Gefter, The New Yorker
On the Joys of Food-Centered Fiction — Michelle Wildgen, Literary Hub
The Booker Prize 2023 Longlist
The Two Most Important Tricks for How to Build Suspense — KM Weiland, Helping Writers Become Authors
Ten Tips for Building a Realistic and Vibrant Fictional World — Nalini Singh, Writer’s Digest
The “Trauma” of Publishing a Novel — Megan Nolan, The New Statesman
Character Matters: The Importance of Developing Characters As Much As (Or More Than) Plot — Lynn Slaughter, Writer’s Digest
What Is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood Phenomenon — Diana Kwon, Scientific American
Why It’s Okay to Hire a Developmental Editor and Not Keep It a Secret — Caroline Leavitt, Writer’s Digest
Recent Reads
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett — During the pandemic lockdown, three sisters convene at their parents’ Michigan cherry farm. As they assist with the harvest, their mother recounts her youth in the theater and fractious romance with a future movie star. It’s hard to summarize this novel: it’s about friendship and family, about motherhood and authenticity and the secrets we keep from those closest to us, about the complicated truth of love and what makes a home. I recommend the audiobook over the print version: Patchett is brilliant but Meryl Streep’s narration brings the story to life with a breadth of nuance and subversion that makes it hilarious, devastating, and powerful all at once.
Educated by Tara Westover — This bestselling memoir was published in 2018 and I have put off reading it because I expected it would perturb me and bring to the surface the difficulties of my own family estrangement. But I’m diving into the topic full steam these days! Westover grew up in the mountains of Idaho, the youngest of a large Mormon family helmed by a charismatic and conservative survivalist father. Westover’s dual decisions to pursue an education outside the home and to confront her brother’s violence fractured her relationships with family. This is a riveting, harrowing ride of a memoir.
Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse — Part memoir, part literary true crime, this book stunned me. It recounts a landmark investigation into college rape culture that led to a historic Title IX civil rights case. An inexperienced female private investigator, Krouse is determined to crack the case while reeling from her own history of sexual violence in childhood. Tell Me Everything is gorgeously written, a feat of vulnerability and fortitude as Krouse faces the fall-out of voicing abuse and moves forward. I highly recommend this one.
Thank you for reading! I hope you have a lovely September.
Jenny