'It's like listening to a piece of music for the first time.' The Art of Editing, 1

Seasoned academic and fiction editor, Helen Moffett is heading up the Migrations editorial team this year. She serves as a mentor to Efemia Chela and Bongani Kona and SSDA's intern, Catherine Shepherd. More information about the SSDA/Worldreader Editing Mentorship can be found here. In this series, we go in-depth into editing through a series of tips and discussions about the craft.

The Editor Gets Their Manuscript: Now what?

I know, I know, trees etc, but you must print out and read your manuscript (MS) in hard copy form as well as online. Keep a pen handy as you read. Scribble down thoughts and queries and make corrections as you go along. You don't have to be thorough at this point: you're going to work far more intensively and intensely online, but you'll find that you miss things online that you see on paper and vice versa.

But before you even print out, you're going to have to spend some time doing editing housekeeping.

• Open up the doccie and change the font (and font size) to one you can read with ease, and can imagine working with for the next few weeks. It's your eyes, you get to decide.
• Double line spacing isn't necessary if you pick the right font and size. I always change all my MS to one and a half line spacing..
• Every new chapter/story/poem must start on a new page. Use the new page command -- do not repeatedly hit the enter key.
• Some authors format their works (in Word) to death. If your MS has been heavily formatted, send it back to the author and ask them to remove all but the bare minimum.
• Search for any double spaces in the MS and replace with single spacing. The typesetter and proofreader will thank you much later on down the line. 

OK, now you can hit "print". 
 

 The next bit is one of the nicest things about editing.

Find a coffee shop or curl up on your bed. Switch off your phone. Read the paper version until you're done, making notes, but not to the point where this overtakes the experience of reading.

You don't have to commit to anything yet. You're at the courtship stage of editing, getting to know the MS, its voice(s). Listen carefully. By all means identify problems and start mulling over possible solutions, but right now, you need to absorb the cadence and flow of the voices in the MS.

It's like listening to a piece of music for the first time.

Your ultimate task as an editor is to become an editing chameleon (more about this soon), but for now, the MS never be this fresh again, so read with your internal ears pricked.

We're talking about editing short stories here, so this process -- paying attention to the internal voice of the story and the author's voice (these are not necessarily the same things) -- needs to happen with each story. Each story will need to be edited differently.
 

Worldreader is sponsoring the first SSDA / Worldreader Editing Mentorship Programme which is headed up by Helen Moffett. The fellows, Efemia Chela, Bongani Kona and Catherine Shepherd will also be contributing to the upcoming Art of Editing Series.

#WriteTips: 4 Views - Onoh, Mulgrew, Davids and Otter

Nuzo Onoh

My number one editing tip is - Never do it all by yourself as a writer. The eyes can never see all that the brain can conceive. No matter how well you write, you can never pick out all your errors, as you know the story too well, know exactly what’s going to happen and therefore, see what your mind tells you to see.

As for writing, don’t assume you’re a brilliant writer just because your dearest and nearest or your egotistical self tells you that you can write. Raw talent, no matter how amazing, is still what it is, Raw. It needs thorough cooking to become palatable. So, take a writing course. It doesn’t have to be a degree. It will teach you the basic rudiments of writing and the discipline needed to stick to it and make your natural talent even more incredible. Good luck and may fame and success shine on all us slaves of the ink.

Nick Mulgrew

Write your first draft as you would an exam: quickly; just get it all down. Then, edit at a languid pace. The slower, the better.

When you edit, think deeply about how sentences sound when they’re read out loud, or in the mind’s voice. Consider rhythm. Avoid repetition. Simplify. This goes as much for prose as poetry.

Writing is a kind of fitness: work out every day.

 

 

 

Nadia Davids

Write. Put it Down. Leave it. Come back much later. Cut. Repeat.

 

Charlotte Otter

Leave as long a gap as your deadline allows between writing and editing. That way, your ego does not get in the way when it is time to cut the crap. The more crap you cut, the more the flawless heart of your story will shine through. If you start editing too early, your brain will try to trick you into thinking that the crap is flawless. And it never is.

Harnessing The Flow: The 2016 Goethe-Institut/ Migrations Flow Workshop Series

Writing is building worlds out of thin air. Maybe that's why when writers congregate to do it, it tends to be called a workshop. Sounds difficult doesn't it? Words from air. Well sometimes it is. This wrangling of invisible elements is usually a solitary craft but it helps to have a writing community made up of mentors and colleagues to give you a nudge in the right direction and help talk your characters or plot down from a cliff. 

When Short Story Day Africa with the support of the Goethe-Institut set out to hold day-long workshops across the continent this year, we had only a small idea of the demand there would be. The previous year's workshops in partnership with Pro Helvetia had been a success in Botswana, Malawi, and Zimbabwe but we weren't sure what would happen when we widened "The Flow".

In June 2016 we held Flow Workshops in Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Lagos, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Yaoundé and Windhoek  - African cities that reflect the feeling that the centre is moving from the traditional book capitals of London, Paris and New York to the equally vibrant and cultured hubs of the global South. 

The response was both overwhelming and heartening. Many writers applied to be both attendees and facilitators and in the end each workshop had a healthy mix of different kinds of writers. Some workshop participants were filled with raw talent but needed guidance on how to sculpt a piece of writing. Others although more experienced as writers, even formally published, needed help getting out of a creative slump or surmounting writer's block. Through spirited discussion, free writing exercises and haiku composition we encouraged the writers to dig deeper and push the limits of their creativity further. Everyone learnt something new - from themselves, each other and our wonderful facilitators. 

 "...the best writing, the best stories come from those places. ...Sometimes you can tell that a writer was not fully committed to their story, sometimes the page is dry; there is no blood on it, and you, the reader, can tell when you read. 'Bleed onto the page', she [Muthoni Garland] says." - Wanjiku Mungai, Nairobi workshop participant

This year when sorting through entries for Migrations, we were especially glad to see that several attendees had submitted stories that they'd either started working on during the Flow Workshops or created after being inspired by the experience. Eventually, through the blind reading process some were even shortlisted for the final collection!

Apart from what was laid on the page, amazing personal stories came out of every workshop; in Johannesburg, one writer hitchhiked to get there. In Nairobi, a Kiswahili writer gained more confidence in writing in English, and in Dar Es Salaam, a social anthropologist included some of the emerging African women writers present in her thesis. 

"I don't know what it means to be an African writer but I do now know what it means and how to put it on paper. This workshop has calmed down my mind, created images and had me do some introspection that inspired me to write. - Mimi Mwiya, Namibian participant

Many thanks to our programme facilitators, sponsors and all the writers who contributed their time, effort and ideas to the workshop events. Short Story Day Africa is committed to continuing to strengthen writing networks, and igniting writing communities that give rise to new and innovative forms of African literature. Next year we want to nurture more writers and their talents, possibly in a city near you. We hope to share more laughter, swap more writing tips and have new debates in the next series of Flow Workshops.

#WriteTips: Three Writers, Three Perspectives.

Earlier in the year we were lucky enough to interview Yewande Omotoso, Mahtem Shiferraw and Edyth Bulbring - three writers who are equally talented but have quite different styles. They gave some insight into the writing process and self-editing and hopefully some of these gems inspire and challenge you.  

Yewande Omotoso

On Writing

- Give yourself permission.

- For people who “don’t have time to write” carry a notebook everywhere. Sure you might not have chunks of hours available but everyone has a few seconds to take down a sentence or two – this is writing. 

On Editing

- Edit with the question, “Does this belong? If it wasn’t there would they miss it?”

Mahtem Shiferraw 

- Things that really helped me: read your work out loud. A lot. Always. Distance too; learning to distance yourself from the work & give it enough room to breathe.

- Always inquire. What does the work want to be? Measure the work within the parameters of itself, not of others' work. Don’t be afraid to take it apart, and by that I mean: do take it apart. Don’t kill your darlings, but extract them, & place them somewhere else; you never know what they will blossom into.

- Share your work with peers, family, friends, co-workers; it’s always good to hear how your work is reflected in the world.

- Sometimes it’s good to begin things in the middle and work your way around a poem/story.

- And the golden rule: read. Read everything & anything. Reading will not only make you a great writer & editor, but a wonderful human being too.

Edyth Bulbring

1. Cut, cut, cut (Less is more)

2. Don’t be scared of a good adjective or adverb

3. Be very scared of an exclamation mark!

4. Use simple words

5. Avoid long sentences