Books, AI, and editing

Some editing tips and a few other things...

Hello and welcome to the second newsletter! Last week this thing was a long narrative that contained a ghost story. This week it’ll be different. I don’t like doing the same thing all the time. Here we go:

The newsletter

I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m slowly learning. I love that people are signing up. That means a lot. This place reminds me of TikTok: I know it’s useful and I’m here, but I’m pretty much just winging it and hoping for the best.

AI

You probably saw the clusterfuck that ensued after a submission call came out this week that asked for writer/AI “collaborations.” First, I want you to know this isn’t a personal attack on anyone involved with that, but I think AI in writing is the kind of shit that demands you make your thoughts known strongly and unequivocally. Ready for mine? Fuck AI. You want to write? Write. Read a lot and write some more. Edit and keep writing. Done. Writers write. Period. I give zero fucks about the “explanations” people offer and feel it’s insulting when AI defenders tell folks who stand against it that they “don’t get it” or “are just afraid” or “haven’t done their research.” Nah, we’ve done our research, and we know how AI is trained and where its “ideas” come from. We don’t need it, don’t want it, and don’t respect it. Let me say it again: Fuck AI. Oh, and that’s obviously me as a writer, so let me say something as an International Latino Book Award, Anthony Award, and Australian Shadows Awards nominated editor: Fuck AI. I don’t want it, so don’t ever send it my way. If you do, we’re not working together on that anthology or any anthologies I edit after. I want your writing, your feelings, your blood, your dreams, your fears, the stuff that makes you laugh, your memories, the things that make you unique and help you write things that no one else can. AI diminishes the value of writers do, and writing is at the center of my life and soul.

Two books I’m enjoying

I obviously want to talk about books as much as possible here, but with all the reviews I do, it’d feel like overkill if I talked about everything I’m reading (I always read at least a dozen books simultaneously). Anyway, the point is I decided to talk about tow this week. I’m loving Cassandra Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy. Khaw is amazing. Everything they write is pure fucking poetry. This one is short, fast, dark, and wonderfully weird. It’s like you’re stepping into someone else’s fever dream. I’m also enjoying Andrea Hannah’s Where Darkness Blooms. I love that YA is getting progressively darker, more diverse, and closer to the kind of horror I enjoy, and this one contains all those elements.

Some editing tips

I’m finishing the first round of edits for my next novel. I love editing and I hate editing. Editing is how we make things better, but it’s also something that makes us feel like hacks because why the hell didn’t we write it like this in the first place?! Anyway, here are some things I recommend. I wrote a whole piece about editing for LitReactor a couple years ago. This is a shortened version of that.

1. Read your work out loud

This is a classic trick that I’ve found works wonders. Dialogue never sounds the same in your head as it does in the real world. Characters should have different voices, and that means their rhythm and phrasing should be unique within your narrative. Also, reading stuff out loud throws awkward phrasing at your face and whispers “That’s pretty awful/unnecessarily convoluted/too damn long” in your ear. Watching readers stumble over their own words and frown always tells me the same thing: they are reading them out loud for the first time. Don’t be that reader.

2. Try to identify the things you always do wrong

You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. No one is perfect. Just like musicians develop bad practices, writers often do things they shouldn’t because they come naturally to them. Being honest about these things can mean the difference between turning in a superb manuscript and something that needs an inordinate amount of work. For example, I know that three things will probably sneak into everything I write: the words “just” and sometimes “very,” obsessive descriptions of movement, and people looking at things and each other (seriously, people look at stuff and at each other a LOT in my first drafts). I know these things are wrong, so I tend to either keep them in mind as I edit, or do one editing pass looking for them (I almost wrote “just looking for those things.” Hah).

3. Channel all your insecurities and turn them into an editing tool

If you go in thinking something is the best thing you’ve ever written, you will probably fail to fix whatever is wrong with it. Instead of doing that, gather all your insecurities, sharpen them, and then use them to analyze your work. If you think something sucks, rewrite it so it’s better. If you think a line could be shorter, cut it. If you think a scene could use more detail, add it because you’re probably right. You should learn to walk the fine line between “This sucks!” and “There are a few things here that certainly suck, but I have what it takes to fix them.”

4. Be merciless

Editing is about getting the story in the best shape possible. Fuck your feelings. Edit mercilessly. Edit ruthlessly. Take a knife and slaughter as many of your babies as you need to in order to make the narrative as lean, fast, powerful, and engaging as you can. You can cry later.

5. Have a clear understanding of your style and ignore rules that don’t apply to you

Here are some things you will hear:

“Cut long sentences in two.” Well, sometimes a long sentence does the trick. Sometimes a long sentence is a beautiful thing. Thirty long sentences in a row might be too much and will destroy your rhythm, but one or two from time to time might work.

“Always stick to one voice.” This one is solid. You know, except when it’s not. Sometimes one voice isn’t enough. Don’t be afraid to use as many voices as you need to tell your story the best way you can.

“Get rid of all redundancies.” Okay, hear me out on this one. First, sometimes you need redundancies in dialogue because people are often redundant. I hate it when everyone sounds like an MIT professor. Second, sometimes a redundancy will drive the point home and improve your rhythm. Are redundancies good? No, but never say never, you know?

6. Remember the things you know

When you’re writing, you’re slicing your soul open and pouring it onto the page. When you’re done, you have to pull back and look at what you created. Writing is about getting the story out. Editing is about making that story better. This means you need to remind yourself of the importance of elements like pacing, worldbuilding, character development, and economy of language. Keep those things in mind and use them as filters. Look at what you did right and the things you could’ve done better, and then do them better. Remember all you know about your work. Remember what folks liked about your last story. Remember what you wanted to say when you started.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. Stay awesome and have a wonderful week.

P.S. - I’m still missing NYC, so here’s a photo I took while taking a stroll in NYC in the rain.