Last Saturday I attended the Michigan Romance Writers monthly meeting (via Zoom). I’m not always home or able to get on-line the third Saturday of the month, but I made it this time, and I’m so glad I did. It was great seeing some of the writers I’ve known for years, the business meeting was short, and the speaker, Pegg Thomas, was excellent. In her past, Pegg was an editor for a traditional publishing company and also worked as a self-employed editor. She’s now retired. (She’s no longer taking on editing projects except for a few authors she’s worked with in the past) Her current focus is on her own writing., and she has an impressive list of published books and awards. Check her out on https://peggthomas.com/

The topic of her talk was WORKING WITH AN EDITOR.

I’ve worked with a lot of editors over the years, so I didn’t really expect to learn a lot. She talked about the different types of editors (content, copy, proofreaders) and how a writer needs to have the right mind-set to really absorb and utilize what an editor says,. In her opinion, all writers, traditionally published or self-published, need an editor. Maybe several editors if the writer is new to writing. I totally agree with the “mind-set” idea. I’ve had new writers tell me they don’t want an editor touching their work. “They’ll just change it,” they say. (Which is probably true because it probably needs to be changed.) I’ve had writers ask me to critique their work. I’ve become very cautious about doing that. Again, the writer must be willing to accept the idea that his or her writing may not be perfect. (Over the years I have learned I need to say positive things before I start listing what doesn’t work.)

Pegg also emphasized that your writing is yours. You, the writer, make the final decision. However, if you’re hoping for a publishing contract, it’s best to be tactful when trying to convince your editor that you are right. My favorite example is my Iditarod book, A WINNING COMBINATION. I have a scene where a moose attacks my main character’s dogs and sled. My editor, a Canadian who loves animals, insisted a moose wouldn’t attack a dog sled. I sent her a couple articles about moose attacks during the race, and we compromised. I kept the moose attack and she added that moose have very poor eyesight.

Saturday, Pegg mentioned semi-colons and colons. She said the semi-colon and colon stop the reader. Stop the flow of the story.  (Evidently, an em dash does not.) The semi-colon and colon can be used in non-fiction because in those books, the writer wants the reader to stop and absorb what is being said. In fiction, even though it may be grammatically correct to use a colon or semi-colon, the writer does not want the reader to stop. We don’t want anything that will slow the forward progression of the story. (I had never thought of that.) She said, in most cases the semi-colon could be replaced with a comma, the colon with the em dash.

I couldn’t wait until her talk was over so I could see how often I used either of those punctuation marks in my current wip. OH MY GOSH. I did a Search and FIND for the semi-colon. The list of places where I used it went on and on. I checked each out, and Pegg was right. In most cases I could use a comma (with maybe the addition of the word “and.”). I didn’t have a lot of sentences with a colon, but there there were a few. The em dash worked fine except in two places. 

Once again I discovered you can always learn something new. I’m glad I made it to that meeting.

If you use semi-colons or colons, check out how often you have used them. Would a comma or em dash work just as well?