Give Me Something to Work With: Character

At least once a week, I hear from referrals for my editing services (which I don't advertise, so it's all word of mouth). Out of, say, 20 people, maybe I will work with 1 of them. Sometimes, it's because I say, "You're not ready for me yet"--i.e., there is so much wrong that all I could possibly do is bring it to a sub-par but technically correct level--maybe. And I don't feel right taking someone's money if that's going to be the case. Imagine . . . they send said sub-par book to agent after agent, and they get rejection after rejection, and they say, "But I had this professionally edited!" They feel ripped off, let down . . . better they learn craft and even write another novel and maybe another one, and THEN come to an editor who can then take it to the next level. Sometimes people are unaware of what a ghostwriter or editor costs. Sometimes, I presume, they find an editor they seem to "fit" with better.

Yesterday, I responded to one such email and explained how I work, what to expect, etc. I generally will edit a chapter in-depth in exchange for a retainer. I will do both macro-level editing and micro-level (copy editing) as well as write a summary of what I see going on in the book so far in terms of issues, pacing, etc. I also compare it to the synopsis (if it's fiction) and mention what I see as potential problems.

What can a single chapter tell me? For one thing, do you have a character I am willing to spend 300 pages with as a reader? Down on his luck, alcoholic former cop turned P.I., with a friend on the force, who just makes ends meet, and in walks a beautiful woman with a suitcase of cash and . . . my God, it might work for Mike Hammer, but you need to give me a lot more to work with.

Since I am a character-driven writer to begin with, I'm looking for compelling dialogue with your main character. I'm looking for a set-up that sounds different. And I am looking for SPECIALNESS. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just give me enough to make this particular character in this particular genre feel fresh. Stephen Parrish (pity him in the Scrabble war) gives his readers an Amish-born cartographer. First of all, I don't know if I've read a book about a cartographer before, but if I did, I am sure as hell certain he was not Amish-born. In my work-in-progress, Aleks survived Chernobyl as a boy, lived through thyroid cancer because of it, was taken in by an influential uncle in Moscow, left the USSR during the so-called "brain drain" and is now a brilliant virologist with a melancholy bent.

Unfortunately, writers are so close to their characters and their books that they sometimes don't see that there's not enough there to work with. That in the many hurdles to publication, they are saddling themselves with a character who is just not unique enough.

All THAT said . . . when you look at the career of, say, Jodi Picault, or other women's fiction authors, they have created worlds around the ordinary. Worlds in which you take an ordinary woman and create a problem that nearly destroys her world, say, and she must piece it back together. So wouldn't that fly in the face of what I've just said? Sort of. Except that then the specialness comes from the details, from creating a world completely familiar yet unique, a character and a family so wrenchingly familiar but described so perfectly in unique, painted moments of their lives, that you grieve or cheer along with them.

I'm going to give a shout-out here to Amy Nathan. She has an unpublished novel and asked me to read a little of it quite some time ago--women's fiction. She painted a scene and described Hallmark ornaments in such a precise way that I literally caught my breath because it was a brilliant observation, about something I saw every Christmas, something I was familiar with, but was described in just the freshest way. I hope she spots this and retrieves the line and is willing to share that section. It was that good.

Thoughts?