This week, I’m joined by veteran writer and editor Joni Sensel. Joni shares the questions she tackles in editing her work and how it's the same (or different) for corporate writing and tech editing. We also talk about how different genres have changed her approach, her writer-illustrator relationships, and how long the runway can be for publishing. Plus her furry editorial assistant chimes in!
Music: Harlequin by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3858-harlequin
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Show Notes:
Twitter: @JoniSensel
Instagram: @InspiritedJoni
JoniSensel.com
Facebook: joni.sensel
Feeling Fate: A Memoir of love, Intuition, and Spirit, April 2022
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators: https://www.scbwi.org/
Brenda Winter Hansen: https://www.winterhansen.com/
The Garbage Monster: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827536.The_Garbage_Monster
Transcript:
Ariel: Hi there and welcome to Edit Your Darlings, a podcast that tries to take the sting out of editing by talking with darling authors about their experiences. I really want to know what the story is behind that story.
I’m Ariel Anderson, and today I'm joined by Joni Sensel. Joni is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction titles for adults and five novels for young readers, including a Junior Library Guild selection and a Center for Children's Books Best Book. She's been a freelance writer and editor in her day job for nearly 30 years, and she served for four years as a coregional advisor for the Western Washington chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, SCBWI. Joni has taught dozens of writing and revision workshops in locations from Alaska to Amsterdam, as well as online, and her latest book, Feeling Fate: A Memoir of love, Intuition, and Spirit will be published in April 2022. Thank you so much for making time to talk with me, Joni.
Joni: Thank you, Ariel, I'm pleased to be here, and one of my books, the main character's name is Ariel so I feel like I'm talking a little bit to someone I know.
Ariel: Oh my gosh, there are dozens of us.
Joni: Yes.
Ariel: And you reached out to me through one of our mutual friends Brenda Winter Hansen, right?
Joni: Yes, that's correct.
Ariel: Fabulous editor! She's a member of the Northwest Editors Guild, and every time that she's in a meeting I know she's gonna say something super smart.
Joni: Yep, she's a smart cookie. I have exchanged critique with her. I have not ever worked with her in sort of a paid editor relationship, but I'm sure she's really good at it and I know she takes the work really seriously and really puts her heart into it.
Ariel: And then, you're an editor yourself, so what kind of editing do you do, and how do you think that's influenced your writing?
Joni: I've done a lot of different kinds of editing. My day job is, business, marketing and technical communications and consulting and I've done a lot of editing in that role, mostly of business materials of one sort or another. A lot of tech editing. And I've learned quite a bit from that, as well as from editing projects I've had on some nonfiction business books. It's very much a different approach or a different mindset than the kind of editing that I've done on fiction, whether that fiction was mine or somebody else's.
And I was thinking about this the other day and thinking that in a lot of ways, no matter what kind of editing it is a good editor is kind of like a mirror of being held up to the work, and a clear mirror can help the author or anyone else who's involved in the production of the work with really seeing what they're presenting to the world as opposed to maybe what the author thought was in the document. It's like, you know, most of us probably wouldn't go on a date without checking how we look in the mirror or making sure our hair didn’t look silly or there wasn't something in our teeth or our makeup was right. And I think a good editor can be like a really clean clear mirror to show you is this really what you want to present the world and is what you thought was coming out on paper actually what's being presented, so that the writer and everyone else involved in production can make corrections as need be so that the work presents the way they really want it to.
Ariel: I'm really scared of this metaphor because my husband accuses me of leaving streaks on the mirror when I clean it.
Joni: It t took me a lot longer in my career than it probably should have to realize that the way I would do something wasn't the only way for it to be good. And I think that an inexperienced editor, an editor like I probably was in my early career, might be a little bit more like a funhouse mirror in cases, might be, as you say, streaky or dirty or making it more difficult for the author to see what they really want to present, and that kind of maybe not great feedback can affect the final result. A clean mirror is important.
Ariel: Have you ever gotten a funhouse mirror edit on your work?
Joni: I don't know that I've gotten a funhouse mirror edit. I will say that I've had projects that I tried to sell, fiction that I tried to sell, and in getting rejection letters editors may have said, “Oh, we really think that this should go this direction and if you wanted to do that and resubmit it we’d take another look.” And there have been a couple of those that are like, that is so not what I want for this book that would not be the direction that I would want to go, but that's probably the, the analogy to the funhouse mirror, which is they saw a completely different picture than I did. And not that their feedback that maybe what I wanted to accomplish wasn't working, wasn't correct, but how I would go about fixing it wasn't the way I would do it.
Ariel: Yeah, and I think that that's where authors have the power, right, to realize that their vision may be different, and that's okay. They can take it in a different direction.
Joni: Very much. Right. It's about knowing what you want to accomplish and having the sort of feedback that can help you understand if you are in fact accomplishing that or not, and if not, what needs to change so that you are.
Ariel: Yeah. So let's talk about some of those editors that you've gotten to work with, how have you found the people that you really trust to provide feedback on your work?
Joni: I think the key is to try different people so that you find someone who has maybe sensibilities or a vision that is aligned with yours, so that you know that they're seeing the potential of the work in the same way that you can. But I also think that, you know, different editors have different styles.
And one of the revelations to me was when I had a New York editor on two of my fiction books, who, rather than providing the sort of feedback of “here's what I think about this or this doesn't work, or this is a problem here, or do this,” instead of being diagnostic or prescriptive, she mostly asked really insightful questions to me, and they were questions like, “How can this character or this scene carry the theme of the book more?” or “how can this scene have a more pivotal role in the plot?”
Ariel: Ooh, those are hard questions!
Joni: They're very hard questions, but, you know, personally I'm more of an intuitive writer than an outliner. And so I put a lot of things in drafts that I don't really consciously know why I feel like they need to be there, and that kind of question really forced me to sort of interrogate myself and the work, and kind of go, “well is this scene important and if so, why, and if it has a particular objective, how can I make that objective come out more? How can I make it focused and refined and honed it more?” And it's, it's an approach that really respects the author's ability, and the fact that it's the author's vision, but it really also pushes them to make the work the best it can be because they know both in their heart and consciously why something is there and have done what they could to polish it.
Ariel: Yeah. So what sort of questions do you ask when you're editing?
Joni: When I'm editing I'm often asking questions, in the day job especially, about what does the audience already know about this. And are we presenting information in the right order given that, or this is a reading to me like X, is that the tone you want to present, or are there other possibilities there that we should consider in terms of what the tone ought to be and how to make it more that way? And I like to ask questions of the author, it's like, what's your first impression to the audience intended to be? And can we look at that together again and see if we think that that is in fact what's being accomplished by the first page or the first chapter or whatever it is?
Ariel: Those are good questions.
Joni: I don't use questions as much as I wish I could. I mean I think Margaret was just a master at it, but I try to keep in mind that questions can be more powerful than simply providing my reaction or telling someone else what I think they ought to do which is almost never, which is almost never the right approach.
Ariel: And then when you get that editorial letter with all of those questions, how do you decide which ones to address first?
Joni: Hmm. I don't know about a lot of writers, but it's always kind of a challenge to get the editorial letter, because there's always something that you don't want to hear. And there's often things that illustrate that you haven't really accomplished what you wanted to accomplish, so it can be sort of difficult emotionally and I usually try to wait to read it until I'm in the right mind frame for like I'm ready to hear what needs to change and what can be better. And I will read it a couple of times, and what I'll usually do is start working first on the things in the letter that make me go, “oh yeah I figured that was gonna be an issue and it is,” or the things that either the editor has made suggestions or something in the way the editor has presented the critique has given me ideas for, “oh I think I might know what to do with this.” And then I just start with the things that I feel most confident about that I think could be the easiest, so I can get some... kind of get back into the flow of working on it and improving it and seeing the improvements, and then that gives me the motivation for tackling the ones that are maybe going to be more difficult, or that I might even after wrestling with for a while, decide are a place that I should push back, or ask for more information or seek a third opinion for support.
Ariel: Yeah. So your advice is to look at the things that get your fingers moving across the keyboard, and then once your fingers are moving, don't let them stop.
Joni: Yeah, give yourself a success. Get back into the sort of joy of feeling like you're making it better, and use that energy to tackle the harder stuff.
Ariel: “Use the joy to propel you,” I love that. So your writing has so much range: you work with adult nonfiction corporate books to novels and young readers and now you've got a memoir coming out. How do you think those different genres flavor your approach as a writer being edited, and which of those genres has presented the most challenges in editing for you?
Joni: Well, I think that in a lot of ways, the different types of writing and editing that I've done have different objectives. And, honestly, the corporate and tech writing that I do is the easiest for a couple of reasons. One is just because clarity is really the most important thing. Style doesn't make that much difference, and organizations or, you know, managers that I'm speaking for do have their own voice or style, but that's still less important than what is the message you're trying to get across, and is it clear that it's getting across.
And also, a lot of times with the corporate writing, there's just not time or interest in “how can we make this fantastic,” it's just “this has to be better than it is before five o'clock, so what can you do it in that amount of time.”
But with fiction especially, it feels like the challenges are bigger, and also that the editor’s role is a little bit broader or more flexible, but I also think that the editor is more likely to just plain be wrong in reviewing and critiquing and providing suggestions for fiction work too, because we're getting sort of into the territory of art, then, and voice, and a personal style, and all those things can be quite a bit more challenging, I think, to navigate that just is the grammar correct and is the style clear and do I get the message.
That's one of the things that I've learned is that, in working with fiction: there are good reasons for the grammar to not be correct sometime. There are good reasons for the voice to be maybe a little prickly. And that's not something that you'd want to smooth out. So I think fiction is pretty challenging.
But personally for me I think the hardest was my memoir, and I'm sure that's just because I'm the closest to it emotionally, and I had to find the right balance between, you know, in a memoir, this is my truth that I'm trying to express. But I also have to be completely cognizant that for someone to want to read it, there has to be something there for them to. I have to be providing value to them in the same way fiction has to provide entertainment. So working out the balance between that and understanding editorial feedback in that vein was a little bit of a new experience for me and that's why that was a challenge.
Ariel: Yeah, I can't even imagine, because you're trying to tell your truth but you also have to be selling that truth.
Joni: Exactly.
Ariel: Oof, ooh, that's so hard.
Joni: It's probably parallel to having a fictional story that you want to tell, and sort of having an idea in your heart, what happens to this character and how they grow. But it also has to be believable, and it has to be a story that a reader wants to read. So it really it probably isn't that different than writing fiction, but it felt different, because I think there are just more emotional strings attached.
Ariel: And you also have two picture books, and I wondered how editing shaped those stories, and whether there was any back and forth with the illustrators, because that's a really interesting relationship to me.
Joni: Yeah, I have to laugh a little bit. The picture books were really my first forays into publishing. I was a screenwriter for many years, and my picture books were self-published because I was married to the illustrator and we won a grant, actually, to publish the books. And so we did. And there, there definitely was a back and forth with the illustrator in terms of what text I had written that maybe no longer needed to be there because it would be clear from the illustration what was there and therefore that, you know, stanza could be removed.
But I have to just complained that it was also pretty early in my fiction writing career. And while I did get critique feedback on these works, neither of them had the amount of critique and feedback and editing and revision that they probably should have had, and the way I can tell is that I've done lots of school visits with those books. And when I read them aloud—at this point I have them memorized—but when I read them aloud, I find myself wanting to either embellish in a couple of places, and I do because reading a book aloud to kids is kind of a performance, or there are a couple of lines that I sort of cringe at find and myself wanting to change when I read them aloud, and that is nothing if not an advertisement for reading all of your work aloud, and preferably to an audience even if it's just the dog, because doing so really reveals places where the pace lags or sentences are too long or the syntax is awkward, or all those things that we should be self-editing but are sometimes more difficult to see on the page than they are when they're in your mouth.
Ariel: And now that you've mentioned the dog, we've heard a couple of little inputs from your “editorial assistant.”
Joni: I’m sorry.
Ariel: Oh no, I'm just wildly curious and I'm sure my listeners are too: What kind of dog is this? Is this a very, very good dog?
Joni: She is a very, very good dog. She is a border collie. She is a year old.
Ariel: Oh, that’s a lot of energy!
Joni: Oh yeah, she is a bouncer off the walls for sure, and I take her out for exercise a couple of times a day, but there's no such thing as wearing this dog out, but she's, she's sort of a lover too so she's really sweet. She makes me smile and that's important.
Ariel: Okay and now we'll get back to the book is called Garbage Monster, The Garbage Monster.
Joni: One of them, yes.
Ariel: Yeah. And so, your husband was the illustrator. And if there were disagreements between the writer and the illustrator, who won?
Joni: Well, I should say, we're not married now and haven't been for many years, but hopefully the books were not part of that. I would say he won, actually. I had a lot of respect for his illustration skills, and I don't... it's been long enough now I don't remember any specific conflicts between us in terms of how something was going to appear or what words were going to be included or not. But if there had been one, I would have deferred to him, because the illustrations are definitely stronger than the text. And I can acknowledge that at this point. That was one of my early lessons in not moving forward too quickly and being willing to get more editorial feedback maybe than you think you need, because it's almost certainly going to be a better work as a result.
Ariel: Yeah, it is hard to make that choice, though, because editorial feedback costs money, and, you know, with a picture book, with a memoir, you may never get that investment back.
Joni: Absolutely, yeah, that is a challenge, and I guess it's maybe an argument for trying different editors to find one who really kind of gets your work and is really good at pinpointing the things that will make the most difference in improving the work, and you know I've, I've exchanged critiques with lots of other editor friends that I know, and I've paid several for feedback. Particularly on the memoir I've paid a couple of outside editors for feedback because number one, I wanted to be sure it was as unbiased as possible.
Ariel: Ooh, that’s hard.
Joni: For something that was as personal as a memoir, that's like, I don't want you to just tell me this is fine because you know me and you feel sorry for me or whatever. But I definitely have worked with some. I have a shortlist of people where it's like, wow, that was fantastic feedback you were so right, I did not see that and you did but now that you've pointed out, I really do. So I definitely encourage writers to shop around a little bit until they until they find someone who they feel like is really sharp and kind of on the same wavelength. And then that person is worth whatever it takes.
And so your memoir comes out in 2022, and here we are, as we're recording this, it's May of 2021. And that seems like a really long runway and I don't think that people... I don't think that everyone realizes how long it can take for a book to make it all the way through the publishing process. So, what stage are you in with it now?
Joni: It is a long process, particularly if it is traditionally published, or my memoir is in a hybrid publishing model. And so when you're self-publishing things can go a lot faster and that is one of the advantages of self-publishing, which is something I've done as well.
But in this case, I wanted some support and I wanted a professional cover and I wanted distribution, so I went with the hybrid model. And at this point, I have seen the final cover, which I really love and am excited about, and I have had the preliminary copy edits, and right now I'm waiting for page design and final proofing and expect that sometime in the next couple of months, so I'll have ARCs, advanced reader copies I hope by October or so, and then there's, there's an intense period of trying to get reviews and promoting and stuff like that before it comes out next April. So it's definitely a long runway, but the, the one shining cloud surface of that I guess is that there's more time to prepare promotional plans and stuff like that so.
Ariel: Yeah, give it its best chance at life.
Joni: Exactly.
Ariel: Well, let's move on to the questions I ask every author I talk to you. First, what do you hate about the editing process?
Joni: From the writers viewpoint or from the editors viewpoint?
Ariel: Both!
Joni: From the writers viewpoint... I think I'll just be selfish and say, I hate having to confront things that I thought I did a good job at and feedback tells me that I didn't. I know it's good for me, I know it's good for the work, but that doesn't mean I like it. I don't have to like it to know that you're right about my book and I'm wrong.
Ariel: It sucks being told that you're a human.
Joni: Yes, it kind of, it kind of does. From the editing side... what do I hate about it, hmm? I actually enjoy editing a lot. So I'd say from the editing side what I sometimes struggle with is seeing, I think, in my opinion, how the work can be better and not being able to convince the author to try it. It feels like a missed opportunity to me. But I have to also acknowledge that, you know, we're all different and that's my opinion and that might not be the author's intent. So, obviously, they have the final decision.
Ariel: Yeah, yeah. I'm a copy editor and so, in the chances that I get to look at the author's review and go through the cleanup process, it's really hard for me to see “stet,” “leave it the way it is,” “I'm ignoring this question on purpose,” like, I am here giving you my best suggestion, please take it. But you also have the right to not. Oh, yeah, I feel that. So what's the most common bit of feedback you receive on your writing?
Joni: That it's overwritten, or various ways of saying the same thing, that the prose is too purple, that the words are too complicated, that the story is too complicated. I know that's my worst fault and one that I have tried and tried to remedy, and I think I'm making progress, but it's probably also gonna always be with me and something I always need to be conscious of.
Ariel: You know, I've heard that phrase “purple prose” a few times, and people have tried to explain it to me. Maybe your explanation will actually get through my skull. What is purple prose?
Joni: Well, I would say it's not communicating as simply as possible. You know, in the technical world that's using jargon that you don't need to use. In the business world it could be jargon, you don't need to use. In fiction, it's often a little bit melodramatic, or using big words when simple ones would do.
Ariel: Over embellishing?
Joni: Over embellishing, too many adjectives, or too flowery of writing, trying to be too literary. It's writing that's the author's being sort of self-conscious: “Isn't this my lovely thing?” And your podcast name sort of gets at it with the darlings, I think. It's having darlings.
Ariel: Do you have any last words of advice?
Joni: Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time, and the writing and editing world can be challenging in there's negative feedback and rejection and things don't always go as we hope. One of the things I'm still working on learning but definitely consider advice as well, is to focus on your creative life and on the process and what you enjoy in the process, whether it's writing or editing or both, and trying to worry less about the final product. And the reception of the final product.
Ariel: Mm, that’s the one!
Joni: Enjoy the editing and try not to care much if people write “stet,” I guess. Because in the end what we have is the process and that's how we spend our days, and we need to get as much joy out of it as we can because we don't control what happens after that.
Ariel: So you're saying live in the now.
Joni: Yeah, yeah.
Ariel: Write in the now.
Joni: Write in the now, enjoy the process, enjoy that creative feeling and being in the flow when you're really into the work. Yeah, love that.
Ariel: So the last portion of our program is a Hot and Wholesome Gossip Corner. Are there any other writers or creators doing something you're excited about? Any shoutouts you want to give or people you want to lift up?
Joni: I don't have a specific person, but I want to lift up editors and critique partners in general. I have a lot of friends who are paid editors for authors who are either working towards having a manuscript that's ready to submit or who are planning to self-publish, and I know how much of their hearts they bring to that work and how much they're invested in making the work as good as it can possibly be. And most of them don't get paid enough. And I know that sometimes their clients, you know, it's hard to be edited, so I know that sometimes our clients don't appreciate what's going on there or are wounded by the work of these editors, but I just want to say, you know there are lots of manuscript, dev editors, and beta readers out there, and they really care about their work and, by extension, they care about you so, so yay for them. And they all deserve our respects in appreciation and gratitude.
Ariel: Thank you. Well, if you want to check out Joni’s work, you can follow her on Twitter as @JoniSensel or on Instagram as @InspiritedJoni. She's also on Facebook and a contributor at Medium, or you can head over to her website, JoniSensel.com, to learn more about the classes she offers, and we'll all be looking forward to your next book, Feeling Fate: A Memoir of Love, Intuition, and Spirit, out April 2022. Thank you again for talking with me, Joni.
Joni: Thank you, Ariel, it's been a lot of fun.
Ariel: If you loved this episode of Edit Your Darlings, why not share it with a friend? Remember to rate and review on Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast fix. For show notes go to edityourdarlings. com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @editpodcast, or I'm @arielcopyedits. Until next week, cheers!