Karen Foley
Lynn Raye Harris
Ellen Hartman
Diana Holquist
Samantha Hunter
Shirley Jump
Dee Tenorio
Jeannie Watt
Nearly Perfect
One of the judgments a writer has to make every day is when something is "good enough" to send to an editor/agent or even have a friend look it over. One of the more disconcerting experiences is when you are sure it's "perfect" and then it comes back to you with mammoth edits or crits, or after something has been through gads of revisions and then someone emails you pointing out a gaffe so obvious in the printed version that you want to pull your hair out.
At that point you have to accept that writing is a human process and that flaws are unavoidable.
People often say my quilts are beautiful, or my cookies are delicious, but very rarely are any of them perfect. I've come to think of flaws like a little sign that someone real made this thing. Whenever I sigh over a flaw in a quilt, particularly something I am giving away, I'll remind myself that, "If they want it perfect, they can get that at JC Penney."
Writers will agonize over every word, and one of things you have to deal with is that if you don't just let it go at some point and say "good enough" then you won't ever get the thing out there. I think that's what makes it doubly hard when someone sends an email pointing the flaws out instead of the successes, because man, we worked to find those flaws, but at some point, we had to let it go. We tried to find all the flaws, but some got by. Human.
So, I *try* to be very forgiving in my reading/watching of other people's work. When I see a typo or a research fact that doesn't hit me as right, I let it go and enjoy what does work. Only when the errors are so compounded or obvious that you wonder how the book made it to the shelf, or the show to the screen, do I get really upset about it. Maybe because when you work so hard yourself, it's hard to see sloppy work making it "out there."
Examples. My Own Worst Enemy aired this week, a new show with Christian Slater, who is just one of the sexiest things walking. Admittedly the initial show had problems -- almost a complete lack of plot, for one thing -- but I can forgive that because it focused on some very tricky characterization stuff that I think had to be done to set up the premise. I will always take character over plot, if I have to choose. I like both, and hope they'll balance it out eventually. I found a lot to like, and set aside what didn't work. We'll see.
Buffy, of course, over the long stretch of seven seasons had some whopper contradictions and bad shows, but all in all, it's completely forgivable given the reach of the show, the wonderful development of the characters and the heart that Joss brought to it all.
And there's True Blood, which I was discussing with Megan weeks ago -- I was highly critical of that in the first few epis because it was so unlike the books, but I'm hooked in now. Heroes is another story -- it was fabulous at the start, but I think that show has wandered off the path so severely, has become so in love with itself, that it's not even paying attention to where it's going, which is straight down the drain. Are they even aware of how the Hiro plot is riddled with serious problems?
I've used mostly TV examples because they were most current in my mind, but I feel the same way about books. If a book hooks me into the story or makes me care about the characters, I can forgive almost anything. I don't care about the occasional typo or gaffe, even big ones, as long as all the bigger elements are there. I won't call "off with her head" about the author unless there's a serious downhill slide that shows real carelessness.
I don't need perfection as a reader or viewer (though it's great when it happens), maybe because it haunts me as a writer. We're all just human at the end of the day, not perfect or foolproof, and sixty or one hundred thousand words are a lot of words to deal with and expect every one to be perfect, or trying to fit a whole storyline into a 40 minute screenplay has to be tough.
What about you all? As writers, how do you deal with the pressure to be as perfect as you can, and as readers, what are your priorities? Are you likely to cut authors a break if there's a fall down moment, or do you expect more?
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After going through the production process myself...
And realizing that sometimes *I* get it right, and then *production* falls down on the job and makes a mistake, that I didn't make, I do tend to cut authors more of a break for a few typos here and there. A missed thing here and there. And the ocassional research mistake I know can sometimes be from a standoff between copyeditor/editor/author and sometimes the author, if she's new, will figure maybe the c/e, who has been at this a while, might be right. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that readers don't realize, just as there is in producing any product, like a car or an airplane or anything that has a gazillion parts.
I'm just really glad they give me a deadline or I'd fiddle with the darn thing forever. It forces me to part with the book, and to work my hardest at the end, ensuring it's as good as I can make it--and this is key--AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. A year from then, two years, maybe even six months, my writing might be stronger, my ideas better, my characterization deeper. But at that moment, that was the best job I knew I could do, and I have to cut myself some slack and know that with each book I push myself harder, to be a better writer who does a better job creating richer, deeper books.
And if there's a typo or two, well, I agree. I'm only human, too, and so are the people on the production end. I think ;-)
Shirley
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author
Easy and delicious recipes at: www.shirleyjump.blogspot.com
In Stores Now: CHRISTMAS WEDDINGS
www.shirleyjump.com
Oh, yeah
Yes, production. Blessing most of the time with the occasional curse. It kills me when I KNOW something is right for the book, and I have to argue for it, though I will say I've only really lost on that score twice, and can't remember a case where they changed something I really objected to. I have had a few moments, though...
I made a word usage error in Untouched that no one ever found, or at least they never said so, LOL, but I found it when I re-read the book last Spring.
And yes, hopefully we do change and grow over time, though there are also things about the earlier writing that I always hope/wish I can hold on to you know? Because in many ways, that's where even if it wasn't perfect, it had a different energy.
Sam
As a reader
I can be pretty forgiving of the occasional typo (most of them make me laugh because it's not so much that it's a typo but using the wrong word: mail for male).
I can handle some pretty large holes in plots too. I can even deal with it when the heroine has mahogany hair at the beginning of the book and it suddenly turns jet black.
What bugs the snot out of me is bad editing. When the same words are used over and over and over again. I was reading a book by a popular paranormal author once and the phrase "my body" must have been used 16 times in one paragraph. It was very disconcerting.
To be fair, I know that this author no longer uses an editor (evidently every word she writes is so golden the editor was just getting in the way *eg*).
I choose to no longer read this author.
And that's what it comes down to. I need a good plot, characters I can identify with (even if I'd never do the things they do) and story that will suck me in in spite of the boo-boos.
ani
Repeated words
Certain words repeated will become like nails in the brain (with Sarah Palin, it's "also" -- when I hear her talk, she keeps saying "also" and it drives me insane... if she said it one more time in the debate I thought I would implode...). Some of those things are regional, I know, but the "also" habit drives me nuts.
And in a horoscope that I like to read, and I do like the overall content, the writer is continually using "now" -- I swear every other sentence ended in now. It's grating. Like a person who says "you know" constantly.
So yeah, that can get me, too. And I think the larger issue of lack of originality bothers me -- when authors start writing the same thing over and over, or borrowing too heavily from TV we all know and love(Buffy, most pointedly), it kills me. There's one very famous author that I stopped reading because her love scenes were template, even down to just about the same language in every book -- the characters ALWAYS make love the same way, and once I tested it -- Mike was reading one of the books, and I said "when you hit a love scene, this is how it will go -- down to the words used -- and it did.
To me, that author deserves not one more of my dollars because she's not working for it. Granted, we all have stylistic things we do, and even themes and such that we'll repeat, but when it comes down to being able to just copy big chunks of something from book to book, no.
So... you've hit some of my hot spots, too. ;)
Sam
I've never seen any of those
I've never seen any of those TV shows, but books and movies are another matter!
With movies, I can forgive a little here and there if the overall characters and storyline are worthwhile and enjoyable. Kinda like you you described it, Sam.
Books though...I admit I'm pickier! A typo here or there I may notice, but it isn't a big deal because that's usually not the author! Storylines that contradict...a main character having blonde hair on one page and brunette on the next...those really get to me. Why did neither the author nor the editor catch that? Incorrect facts bug me, too. If they are just a side note, why put it in there if it isn't right, and if it is an integral part of the story, why wouldn't you use correct information? I fully admit, though, that I'm a perfectionist! And I think I sometimes forget that authors are real people who make mistakes, too. My DH tells me that is something I need to work on....I expect the best all the time from everyone else!
Cathy
I don't watch much TV
I am a picky reader but realize that most of the typos are just that. However they do bug me a little and they seem to be increasing or maybe I am just getting pickier as I age. However if there is a major or even minor character change like blue eyes on one discription and green on the next disciption it is certainly a pet peeve. I read a lot of trilogies and most of them have good continuity but some just seem to be written by different authors even if they are written by the same author. In a book I recently read, a man is in an accident and he loses everything as someone robs him while he is unconscious. Later in the story he is going to ride off into the sunset but he has never replaced his driver's license? Sometimes I think too much LOL.
glaring things are bad
Yes, I think we all have pet peeves. Small stuff, even physical details don't bother me, but I get more annoyed by the big mistakes -- like not wrapping up a plot point, or wrapping it up in a lazy way, etc.
However, you'd be amazed how hard it is to keep track of things like eye color and such, especially if you happen to be writing two or four books at once! Remember, we're often writing several books at once, and finishing them under tight deadlines (add to that, that many writers also work full-time jobs, etc). In Untouched, I caught, in the galleys, which is the last stage of editing except for copyediting, that in one of the later chapters I had mistakenly used the name of a hero from another book I was writing at the same time, not Daniel, who was the Untouched hero -- OMG -- I couldn't believe it. I caught it, thank God, but it had been through two or three edits at that point, and no one caught it. But then again, reading a book in editing is a lot of work, and like Shirley mentioned, production people are human, too.
But huge, illogical problems in a story or mammoth plot gaps will bother me. I can forgive one or two, but if it keeps going I get ticked (which is what's happening with Heroes right now...).
Hey Cathy
Now, what's interesting there is how you describe perfectionism as a flaw. LOL And I think it is, for a lot of people -- some writers will never publish because they can't submit their work until they think it's perfect, which it will never be. Kind of interesting.
On facts, there was an interesting discussion on one of the eHarlequin boards once, where an author (not me) had received a scathing letter from a reader pointing out all of her factual mistakes about legalities regarding estate law, I think it was. The author was very upset, because she had done her research. However, what someone on the list, who was an expert in that legal area pointed out, was that the laws changed by state -- what was true in one state, according to one person's experience, was not true in another case. So even "facts" can be difficult.
I'm picky, too, in a lot of ways. My area of pickiness is where things are too convenient, and especially in paranormal, but in any book. When stories progress in a way that defeats logic or the author hasn't explained WHY something can happen or is true, or ignores logical consequences, etc it drives me crazy. So in a book where a heroine time travels in her mind, in dreams, but she can carry material objects back and forth, I couldn't read past chapter two, because that simply CANNOT happen. I mean, sure, most things in paranormal don't happen, but when you are creating a fictional world, you have to do it in such a way as things makes sense according to the rules of that world. And when people just blip over that to make it easy, I go nuts (ask Dee). LOL
So, we all have our "thangs" but I think in general I try to be as flexible as possible, because I do think people try to do their best, but even our best won't often be perfect...
Sam
It's hard to accept that
It's hard to accept that you'll never produce a perfect book. And even if you did, the final product wouldn't be perfect, because as Shirley pointed out, there are other people involved in the production process and they're human, too. Nobody is infallible. Perfection is one of those things that sounds like a good goal, but it's actually the best way to procrastinate. Since it'll never be perfect, it'll never be done...and then you never have to risk anything. *g*
I love the JC Penney analogy! And right there with you on My Own Worst Enemy. I'm very curious to see where it goes.
it's true
And I wonder what we miss if we're too focused on perfection, you know? Like enjoying the work. Ironically, I think if you are having more fun and enjoying the work, it probably comes out better than not. :)
Sam
I do tend to be a
I do tend to be a perfectionist when I make stuff, and it took me a long time to realize that the mistake that jumps out at me isn't noticeable to other people.
I am sooo much more tolerant of research errors now that I'm published ;)
Jeannie
this is so true
We are always our own worst enemies sometimes. I don't know if I'm a perfectionist, I tend to think not, but I do work hard to do my best. I think I kind of assume at this point that there will be a mistake somewhere! Sometimes it just takes a while to see it, but I don't look too hard after it's done! LOL
Sometimes things do come out just right though -- as close to perfect as we can imagine, and that's a rush when it happens. :)
Sam
I don't know, Sam, I've
I don't know, Sam, I've enjoyed everything you've written and if those books weren't perfect, I never knew it! I used to do a lot of needlework, and was especially fond of cross-stitch samplers. When I was first learning how to do this, I read a book about Puritan samplers, and the author pointed out that the person stitching the sampler would always leave a mistake in the stitching, as a representation of thier own imperfections, because only God is perfect. I always liked that, especially when I spent six months stitching a very complex New England sampler, and after it was matted and framed, I realized I'd neglected several stitches in one corner. Although nobody else would probably ever notice, I knew the mistake was there, but even today I like that small imperfection. So yes...I'm absolutely willing to overlook author mistakes if the story is compelling in other ways.
aw, thanks Karen
I always hope the story will make any errors forgiveable. :)
I had heard that about needle crafts as well, and I think it's a nice thing to remember. Mistakes really are human, and even endearing.
Sam
As a reader
As a reader, as long as a story is engaging I am very forgiving of occasional typos or misinformation that may occur. Usually, in these cases I’m reading so quickly that my eyes glance over mistakes even if I take note of them. An error would have to be very bad for me to pause from my reading to wonder whether this happened during editing and production or was a mistake the author made. However, if I’m having a difficult time getting into a book for whatever reason, any mistake is going to stand out and give me a reason to end-read and set the book aside.
In terms of a quilt or homemade gift, a small missed stitch or mistake would be endearing in a way and a reminder that the item was made with TLC.
IMO, perfection is overrated. Life is too short to be consumed by the quest to achieve it.
Bravo Betty!
I agree wholeheartedly. I think we always try to do our best, and knowing that, have to look on those mistakes that remain with kindness. :)
I am also a person who just sets a book aside if it's not grabbing me -- doesn't even have to do with mistakes, necessarily, it's more if it's just not grabbing me, I never force it.
I think sometimes we get so carried away in writing, trying to get the ideas out as fast as we can before we lose them, or we're so into the story, that mistakes can happen, too.
(Speaking of printing errors, as well, did you know that commas are inside quotes, typically, now because in the old days when they had to hand place printing blocks, the small comma blocks would always slip, and the commas would fall inside, so to accomodate that, they just changed the rule. :) Weird bit of grammmar trivia I learned in a class somewhere.
For me, it's often just stiff fingers! A lot of writers just have arthritis. ;)
Sam
LOL!
Sam, I do tend to notice little grammatical things and typos (comes with that copy editing background), and it depends... as some others have said, if the story's good enough, I can just sort of nudge that part of my brain off, but if the story or the characters or something else is already bugging me, then errors (grammatical or factual) are just going to help pull me out of the story and possibly push me over the edge into seriously disliking the book.
Like Ani mentioned, I've noticed a few authors with the tendency to reuse prose for certain kinds of scenes, and that just takes the fun out of reading their books. I imagine it might be laziness or not having a good editor.
As for imperfections in handcrafted stuff, I've made my share of them. If it's horribly obvious or it's relatively easy to fix, I do that, but otherwise, I tell myself that it adds to the specialness of the piece ;)
And hee on the commas inside the quotes fact--not sure if I already learned that before or not! There are a lot of weird little reasons why we do things a certain way!
We were talking about
We were talking about something similar to this yesterday at work, about the movie The Duchess. My friend asked me if I hated the movie because of the inaccuracies (I was a history major). I said that of course I didn't. I thought it was actually a very good movie, but that's all it is--a movie. It doesn't purport to be completely historically accurate, and it's not a documentary or a biography. It's for entertainment purposes and so I view it as such--the same with books, at least fiction books. You can do your research and try to colour within the lines, but in the end you're writing to entertain, and I think if you've done that, you have a successful book.
Now I just realized I didn't addres what you were ACTUALLY talking about--the little typos and errors in books, sorry.
J.K. Coi
Immortals To Die For
www.jkcoi.com
YES!
No, this is great. I was talking about all of it. :)
I have been lucky enough to have really only gotten positive email from readers, but I did have two letters early on, one that dinged one of my books for not realistically portraying birth control (Blaze writers get that one a lot) and another that dinged Fascination for an FBI agent getting involved with the woman he was guarding/protecting, and my response is exactly yours: it's fiction. I try to keep to facts where it's relevant, but it's my job to invent, not report.
So, on the birth control thing, I personally think it's VERY realistic that people in the heat of passion often "go for it" even in this day and age, though I do try to preface unprotected sex with more acknowledgment of the issue *if it fits into the story,* but personally, I don't think you have to make a public service announcement about safe sex out of romance novel.
Then, on the FBI thing... seriously, where would romance be without cops and FBI agents who don't cross the line? LOL If they always played by the rules and never crossed the line for love, I think we'd lose half of the books, movies, and TV shows out there. So I argue there is such a thing as "fictional precedent" -- there are storylines built over time that make it acceptable to have your characters act in ways that in real life, most people in a certain profession, area of life (uh, should we talk about Sheikhs here? LOL) would not act.
So yes -- it's fantasy and fun and supposed to carry you away. I do do a lot of research for my books, and much of what you read is factual -- setting details etc -- but then I invent what I need to or want to, without apology.
Sam