Helen Moffett

I recently finished editing Lauren Beukes’s second novel Zoo City (to be published in a few months by Jacana and Angry Robot), and as always, learned and relearned a lot in the process. This, plus the fact that I’ve recently assessed several unpublished first-novel manuscripts, has meant yet more brooding on the business of writing and editing fiction.

It was amazing to be reminded just how intense editing fiction can (and should) be. It involves total absorption in someone else’s world. There is no coming up for air, no pausing for a chat, a glass of wine with friends (something utterly necessary to the academic editing ultra-marathon). It’s not a bad analogy: academic editing is like one of those hundred-mile marathons where you proceed at a steady trot, stopping off each night for a hot bath and a bowl of pasta — and fresh socks. The scenery changes day by day, the terrain differs mightily (especially if you’re editing something with multiple authors — some days you’re striding across gentle meadows, some days you’re stumbling over sharp rocks and picking thorns out your legs).

Editing an 80-000 word novel is more like a race over a shorter distance — ten or twenty kays round a track. You can grab a wet towel or water from someone on the sidelines, but you cannot stop to shoot the breeze or wash the dishes. You’re in the same environment the whole time, and that environment is all you can think of.

During my spell in Zoo City, I got total tunnel vision. I found it incredibly difficult to respond to phone-calls, emails, demands from the outside world. I often didn’t even hear the phone ringing, or found myself hitting “reject incoming call” without even thinking. This may be a personal failing or just the way my concentration works.

The crux is that there is a gap between the real world and the world on the page. It’s a given that the real world is more important, but if the world on the page is to work, it requires total immersion. On the last day of editing ZC, a friend rang for help with a CV. We kept arguing about how long they’d been in a certain job, until I realised I was working from a March 2011 calendar — which is when Lauren’s novel is set. It was quite a shock to remember it was still 2010.

So then, a round-up of some thoughts on editing and writing fiction.

When editing fiction, it is your responsibility to enter the writer’s world and head. You may NOT redecorate to your taste. (Neither Lauren’s Moxyland nor Zoo City are H-rated, the latter most especially not. At times, my eyes were watering from the effort not to squeeze them shut, but it was not my job to PG-rate the text.) You are, however, allowed to point out that the back stairs go nowhere, there is no supporting wall holding up the second storey, the characters curl up in front of the cozy fireplace, but no chimney emerges from the roof. In which case, the author must fix the problem, not you. You can prompt, nudge, encourage or suggest: but you may not wheel in your own bricks and cement and start putting in a load-bearing wall.

Immediate sort-of exception to this rule: if your author is experienced, you’re in tune with each other, and they trust you, you can be quite directive about how to tackle gaps. This consists of literally papering the cracks to which your author needs to take a trowel and plaster: you’ll write something like “This transition is too abrupt. How does Thando go from cracking beers in Ellen’s kitchen to falling down the manhole? Can you have him weaving his way drunkenly down the street, back-chatting the local prostitutes while the long-suffering Ellen watches from her front gate?” If your author is gifted, she’ll take the idea of a transition and run with it, so that a drunken Thando might spin round to blow kisses at a passing beauty and take a tumble in the process. Or start walking backwards, waving at Ellen, ignoring her warning shouts. Or… you get the picture.

This, of course, isn’t line-editing — the business of taking a manuscript and running it through the grammar, spell and consistency check machine. There are lots of different words for this editing approach in the industry — some call it manuscript development, some development editing, some copy-editing. All I know is that it’s what I do.

Some years ago Michael Titlestad took issue with the way some local first-time writers were being edited. I certainly don’t agree with everything he said (his piece was suggestive of the diffused light found in ivory towers), but one thing he wrote is worth tattooing on all publishers and authors’ foreheads:

…before copyediting and proofreading, writers need … to labour over revisions. They need to fashion the best and most compelling narrative they can. The best literary editors guide authors, especially new authors, down this path of frustration and travail.

The point is that the editor or the publisher often needs to return a novel – especially a first novel – to its author for rewriting. Substantive rewriting. With copious instructions and a map of the way. And you hold their hand and chivvy them and cheerlead them while they do this. Then you make them do it again. And again. And sometimes yet again. Only then do you start line-editing. Zoo City travelled the cyberwaves between Lauren and myself umpteen times before we were both satisfied. It was already a gem, but we were determined to polish every single facet.

The problem comes when you return something that needs a lot of work to a gifted but inexperienced author. (This was NOT the case with Lauren, who picked up every useful suggestion and responded with flair and speed. She also knows by now exactly when to ignore me.) For a newbie, instructions like “rewrite” or “promising, but needs work” or “cut substantially” are hopelessly vague. I’ve seen second attempts that are worse than the raw but feisty originals: rewrites are often longer than the original (usually an indicator that you’re going in the wrong direction), dialogue has become more formal, the text has been padded with yet more adverbs, adjectives and metaphors, and the latter have been lovingly polished while the pace languishes.

So for everyone in this position, this is what every (good) fiction editor wants their author to know:

1. Ditch the notion that every word you write is precious. Those lines of type marching across your screen? Raw material only (yes, this is a business where you put in months of labour just to create the raw material). Don’t even think of confusing this with the finished product. What you have at this point is a block of wood or marble from which you are going to sculpt something fine and rare. Now start chiseling.

2. Same goes for even the most brilliant, original and creative metaphors and images. If they distract from the action taking place in the sentence, toss them. Don’t expect your reader to stop in the middle of a car-chase to admire the scenery.

3. Your fictional world has to obey much stricter rules of internal logic and consistency than the real world (aka the Mike Nicol rule, aka the John Lanchester rule). In real life, the unimaginable happens all the time, wildly improbable coincidences occur daily, and characters are much larger than life. This is seldom tolerated in fiction.

4. Corollary to the above: if you are taking real life and turning it into fiction, you will probably have to tone real life right down. However, don’t ever mess with the facts. Readers get very beady-eyed about this. For instance, don’t set your novel in autumn and then have a character listening to the call of a bird that sings only in spring.

5. Numbers 3 and 4 apply especially strictly if you are writing magic realism/sci-fi/fantasy. Your fantastical world has to follow its own internal rules as rigidly as tramlines. If you establish that your heroine is a mind-reader in Chapter 1, do not have her gazing at her lover, wondering what he’s thinking, in Chapter 9. Or if you do, you need to create a water-tight exemption to your rule first. Which can look clumsy.

6. Another way that fiction differs from real life: there should be some measure of closure. Wrap up the loose plot threads — not all of them, especially not if you have a series in mind. But you want to avoid too many questions trailing in the reader’s mind.

7. Beware of purple prose, of dense lyrical passages, no matter how exquisite. Modern readers want to know what happens next — the era of lingering for two pages on the cry of the peacock in the Moghul gardens at dusk has passed. (Personally, I think this is a pity, but only the famous are permitted this luxury these days.) Rather sprinkle aesthetic sugar throughout with a restrained and even hand.

8. Readers enjoy characters with whom they can identify. Your hero or heroine should be sympathetic. Failing that, they should be compelling. A few very good writers can get away with creating a central narrative character who is repulsive or alienating, but it might not be wise to assume you are one of them.

Circling back to the editor/author relationship, it is essential that you actually have such a thing. Some publishers (none that I know of in this country, thank goodness) believe that there should be no contact between author and editor, much less dialogue and debate. You don’t have to like each other, but mutual respect is essential. There has to be a certain chemistry. This is what makes the total greater than the sum of the parts. (Over on his Facebook page, Louis Greenberg says: “Editors are shinks with a lower hourly rate.” Yes indeedy.)

A final insider PS via Elinor Sisulu (who recently chaired the judges’ panel for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize): When there are very, very strong contenders for a literary prize, and the books vying for the prize are truly equally brilliant, guess what one of the deciding factors is? How well the book has been edited. (How can you tell? A good novel that’s also been beautifully edited reads effortlessly, with no “fat” or excess verbiage, no typos or silly and sloppy mistakes, no unevenness, and an overall sense of polish, flow and clarity.)

One of the advantages of recuperating (the stage at which one is bored and idle, but too feeble to do any work) is that I go digging around in the depths of my computer. Where I found the following delightful pics, suitable for a Monday morning giggle. They were taken by David Le Page at the launch of my landscape anthology, Lovely Beyond Any Singing. Rustum (aka Mr Grondwerk, aka Guido Vittorio Rustumio Bin-Hussein, had kindly agreed to read my favourite poem “Kingdom of Rain” from This Carting Life. This was how I repaid him.

*Rustum takes a fortifying swig as Helen twirls like a dervish*

“The One! The Only! Rustum Kozaaaaaain!” *poet narrowly avoids a klap*

Eina. Is it safe to open my eyes now?

One of the most frustrating things imaginable for an author, especially in a global village, is when would-be readers can’t find our books. I hear over and over, “Where/how can I buy your books? I can’t find them in my nearest branch of Exclusives or Wordsworth.” Getting them to potential readers abroad often presents major logistical challenges. In theory, you should be able to get them all online by clicking below the covers arranged down the side of this page, but I often get a broken link when I try this — or once I click through, I find the site says “unknown”.

So here’s a guide, designed to make it as painless (and hopefully inexpensive) as possible.

Getting hold of my debut poetry collection, Strange Fruit, can involve a few hoops. There ARE branches of both Exclusives and Wordsworth that stock it (in Cape Town, both the Waterfront and Cavendish branches of EB have it). You’ll need to be very firm with those that don’t: order it, and refuse to take “No” for an answer. Supply all the details: title, my name (spelled correctly — I have lost count of the times bored sales-clerks, bullied by me into searching their databases, have announced triumphantly: “We have nothing by Moffat/Moffit/Mrrfitz on the system”) and ISBN/EAN if possible. (more…)

Twenty years ago – is it that long? – the entire political landscape shifted. The political system of apartheid – for so long apparently graven in stone – suddenly looked rather sandy.

I’ve been meaning for two decades to write down the parallel events that took place in my life on that day. A Joburg friend had put me on a Greyhound bus the evening before, calling anxiously, “Phone when you get there so I know you haven’t crashed.” I was an innocent in those days: “Whoever heard of a Greyhound bus crashing?” I said (a stupidly portentous thing to say if this was a work of fiction, which it isn’t).

Round about 4am on 2 February, I woke to a loud bang and a lurch. One muffled scream, then I was hurtling through the air along with flying bits of overhead luggage. Then I hit my seat again, and for a long moment of disbelief, assumed we had a puncture. Then the sobbing began, and I realised the bus was leaning at a peculiar angle.

I got up in the dark, peering round for the cabin attendants. Next I called out, asking if there was a doctor on board. No response. A nurse? No response. Okay, surely there was a first-aid kit on board? I began to inch my way down the tilted aisle in the dark. Broken glass crunched underfoot. I got to the doors, twisted closed, and began to realise the enormity of our predicament – we’d need an axe to get off the bus. Plus I was starting to worry about fire. (more…)

Cape Town bloggers, the Great Coma is officially over, schools are about to start, the uitlanders are winging their way back to Germany, Jozi and other points north.

And to get the year off to a fine and sparkling start, we are gathering at Caffe Neo (remember? opposite the Mouille Point lighthouse) to honour the achievements of Book SA’s very own Sophy “Imago” Kohler. Who now holds the degree of BA with distinction, and also gained a distinction for English. Yay Sophy!

It has been pointed out that failure to mark this milestone with cake and bubbles would be remiss in the extreme. We also need to drink to Sophy’s meteoric rise as a Young Whippersnapper.

So — yes, we are springing this on you — leap down to Neo’s THIS THURSDAY at 4pm. Bring vuvuzelas (well, maybe not) and other items suitable for singing Sophy’s praises. The wearing of academic gowns is optional, and there may be speeches. It depends on how much champagne is consumed.

RSVP via this thread, please!

“We’ll meet again, we know where, we know whe-en…”

This piece was first commissioned by Phakama Mbonambi, and published in WORDSetc No. 5. It incorporates a lot of spleen accumulated in nearly fourteen years of freelancing, and I want to thank Phakama for giving me such a free rein. You’ve heard most of it before, but it’s hopefully still a handy reference for editors and those who employ them. A piece as polemic as this deserves a decent rebuttal, and I’m grateful to Megan Hall of OUPSA (and author of Fourth Child) for the letter she wrote in response, which gives my piece some necessary balance. She’s said she’ll put her response up on her microblog, and I’ll link it as soon as hers is available.

Several years ago, the poet Ingrid de Kok, who polishes her own work with something akin to wave action, told me she believed that eighty per cent of South African fiction, both by newcomers and established writers, was under-edited. As an experienced freelance editor who trains other editors, I agree. I seethe with frustration when clearly talented, even brilliant writers produce work unnecessarily marred by flaws as a result. And by flaws, I don’t just mean the typos and grammar mistakes that more and more reviewers grumble about. I mean confused arguments and rambling descriptions and irrelevant characters and thin research and plot holes and repetition and dénouements that rely on amazing coincidence. I’m fed up with reading local fiction and non-fiction books that look like drafts, and thinking: “This shows such promise – what a pity it wasn’t properly edited.” (more…)

I’ve been trying for two weeks to write something about my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Surprisingly hard: everything either comes out trite and sentimental, or like I’m taking the mickey out of my folks. They are what a friend once called “individual’s individuals”, and it’s easy to tease (an Olympic sport in our family), when in fact I am in awe of their quiet insistence on marching to a different drum. I am also just so bloody grateful they are around, that they made it this far, that they’re pretty healthy for a couple well into their 70s. Everything I know about swimming upstream I learnt from them.

They are the oddest couple. My father is a devout Christian; my mother a proselytising atheist. My sisters and I grew up to cries of “When we die, we rot!” (Bertrand Russell) as my father packed us into the car to take us to Sunday school. My mother manages to say something simultaneously wicked and wickedly funny every five minutes; my father says something mildly derogatory about once a year, and then we all faint with shock. (more…)

Thanks to Ingrid Andersen, for permission to post here: these originally appeared in Incwadi, an online journal of poems and images — to find out more, click here; to read the latest (very lovely) issue, adorned with a handsome gecko, click here. Well worth a visit, and you’ll meet old and new friends.

I submitted a clutch of poems — all written in the last five years, and subsequently stringently edited (I hacked out all the undergrowth) — and it interests me that Ingrid chose three that are all memorials in some way. At the moment, I’m trying to write an essay on the experiences I had working with Bob Woolmer and Tim Noakes, and what they taught me about sport as drama, narrative, art and even tragedy; and only as I was editing the last poem for Ingrid, originally written after my trip-cum-pilgrimage to the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean, that I realised it was for and about Bob — if it ever gets included in another collection,* I’ll dedicate it to him.

*Another poetry collection? Curses curses wot am I saying… (more…)

How exactly does the Helenometer operate? What constitutes H-rated reading, and what doesn’t? I feel the need to try and clarify this in my sometimes bumpy quest to read local writing, the krimi brigrade in particular. I must confess I myself find the criteria very confusing. The only clear, absolute rule: in non-fiction, the suffering of animals may not be described; in fiction, no animals may suffer. I’ll close the book (or any other medium) the minute an author expects me to engage with a narrator who deliberately hurts an animal, even if it’s “just” kicking the dog. (I remember the flashpoint of rage that made me chuck that awful Tuscan Sun woman’s book across the room: sitting in a piazza, she revels in the authentic sights and sounds of Italian life going on around her — including a pack of picturesque children “tormenting a kitten”.) The reasons for this go back to childhood traumas, which I am not going to get into at this point, although I strongly recommend that you do not allow your six-year-old to read Steinbeck’s The Red Pony.

I can also pretty much guarantee that I’ll loathe any “hero” who pants to get into the pants of children or teenage girls half his age (Lolita, which I couldn’t finish, made my skin crawl). And I can’t see the point of novels about heroes/anti-heroes who sexually harass their students/colleagues/servants/slaves, commit statutory or any other kind of rape, or resort to prostitutes.

For the rest, it gets very blurry. (more…)

… but my excuse is that the second birthday of my beautiful furkids also marks the first anniversary of my debut into the world of the blogosphere and BookSA in particular: remember? I was such a cyberklutz (still am) that I uploaded the most ginormous picture file, which still takes forever to download (but it’s worth it, folks), soaking up a third of my permissible space in this here microverse. Have been meaning to fix this for a year…

It’s a strange thing, being besotted with two little sentient beings with non-opposable thumbs and hunting instincts. Even stranger that I continually want to parade them in all their gorgeousness for the rest of the world to see. It was their first birthday that prompted me to post my first blog piece. And it was the thought of being able to put up an entire album of their first two years that tipped the balance in favour of Facebook. (Yes, I succumbed. But when you see this album, you’ll agree it was worth it to launch this much beauty into cyberspace.)

Without my cats, I would be a much lonelier and far more isolated person. And I’m not just referring to the glad welcome I get when I come home, the hours they spend curled up at my feet when I’m meeting deadlines, their purring presence in the night, their uncanny radar when I’m distressed. Because of my desire to share the objects of my affection with others, I have gone out onto the interwebs. Where I have found people — real, live, flesh-and-blood ones. Heroes and friends and even catsitters.

(more…)