This week, I’m joined by Wendy Kendall, cozy mystery writer of Kat Out of the Bag. She shares her self-editing tips, how her critique group works, and the surprises her editor found even after so many rounds of revisions.
Music: Harlequin by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3858-harlequin
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Show Notes:
Find Wendy at:
FB - wendy kendall, mystery author
Twitter - wendywrites1
Instagram - wendyekendall
Kat Out of the Bag
Purse-Stachio Makes a Splash
Must-have writing tool: a mirror!
Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA): https://www.pnwa.org/
Laura Childs, Tea Shop mysteries: http://www.laurachilds.com/teashop.php
Cozy Mystery Quartet of authors, published by Wild Rose Press, check out YouTube channel The Cozy Mystery Quartet: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZvNH50LX_Og5AeRIyKQ4UA/featured
ML Erdahl, Seattle Wilderness mysteries: https://mlerdahl.com/
Susan McCormick, The Fog Ladies series: https://susanmccormickbooks.com/the-fog-ladies/
Linda Hope Lee, Nina Foster mysteries: https://www.lindahopelee.com/books/
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'm Ariel Anderson, and this week I'm talking with Wendy Kendall. Wendy has a passion for purses and stories of the women throughout history who carried them. Her cozy mystery Kat Out of the Bag is the first book of the In Purse-Suit mystery series, introducing her protagonist Katherine Watson as an international purse designer and sleuth. Wendy is a blogger, editor, speaker, project manager, and syndicated columnist. Catch exciting author interviews on her YouTube podcast, A Novel Talk, and look for the debut of her new podcast, Wendy Kendall in Purse-Suit of Fashion. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today, Wendy!
Wendy: Ariel, thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm excited to join you.
Ariel: I want to start with some really basic questions. Let's start with your self-editing. How do you approach your own writing with a critical eye and keep your reader in mind?
Wendy: Well, I definitely want to say about self-editing: it's a start. Just a start! So, first of all, I'm a huge fan of my genre, which is a cozy mystery, and that helps so much. Developmentally, I feel like I understand a lot of what my readers like and what they expect. So I definitely recommend that you read what you're writing. I like to start with an outline and a synopsis of my story. And my editing actually begins there as far as story structure and tone and the characters. And then later in my draft manuscript, I need to be sure that structure and tone are made consistently in the pages, and the characters also stay true to who they are. I struggle to keep myself from extensive editing in my first few writings of a scene, and also in my drafts of the book. But truly, if I let myself focus on editing, it's just going to slow down the whole writing process and the story way too much. And also, I think, then the creative foundation kind of gets lost.
So, I kind of view it almost like a painter on their canvas and how they actually start a painting with the creative essence and foundation of their scene first, and then they go back in a process. Several times they go back and they layer in more and more of their details. And I really find that that is similar to how I write.
When I edit, I read out loud. And sometimes I even act out the scene as different characters to make sure that their actions and everything makes sense, because I'm really kind of visual and I have to see it. And I know a lot of other writers do that too. I have friends who, like, they'll describe a character's expression on their face, but they do that by sort of they make the expression themselves, so if you're sitting in Starbucks, and you see somebody making a weird expression, they might be just trying it out.
Ariel: Yeah. Who would have thought that a mirror would be a necessary writing tool to have in your studio!?
Wendy: Yes, I also watch carefully the rhythm of my sentence structure. The characters’ personalities. Adverbs, I'm an adverb lover, and they're not good. I really try to watch that for myself and I'll even do searches on words that... like words that end in LY to see how many adverbs I have out there, because I have learned through experience—I've learned this through others editing my work—that almost always when you use an adverb, you could say what you're trying to say another way, if you really work harder at it. For some of us we have to work harder than others. And actually, without the adverb, the thought or the emotion comes through much stronger and it's much more memorable. So that's something that I really try to look for for myself. And I edit dialog and I look for whitespace on the page because readers like a page that has a lot of whitespace. So that really helps with the flow of the scene. And then of course with the flow of the scene I'm always looking for within each scene—not just within the book—beginning, middle and end, and hooks, something that keeps the reader, wanting to turn the page, wanting to go to the next paragraph, wanting to go to the next scene.
Ariel: And how do you keep track of all of this? Do you have like notecards or a checklist, or...?
Wendy: Oh, I'm doing it all on my Word document. It's all right there.
Ariel: Color coding...
Wendy: Yes, anything to make it stand out. But some of these things, just from, you know, just from all the writing that I've done—I mean I've been writing for years and years. It took me five years to write Kat Out of the Bag. So, some of these things now are just I've learned it about myself and it's just second nature.
Ariel: And that five years. Does that include the time that it took to go through the publisher, or just five years before you were ready to pitch it?
Wendy: No, it was five years... I, well, I pitched Kat Out of the Bag before it was done. I thought it was done, but it wasn’t! So I started pitching Kat Out of the Bag probably two or three years into it. And then anybody who was interested, I kept all of those contact names and everything, so that when I really was ready to submit it to somebody. I just went back to all those people that were interested initially.
Ariel: In addition to your own self-editing, you also get help from a critique group, so I want to talk about that a little bit. How did you find those people and was it like a workshop where you were passing around small pieces to work on? Were you passing around full draft? What did that look like?
Wendy: My beloved crit group, I love them! There's so wonderful. And I actually met them all through PNWA, Pacific Northwest Writers Association. I definitely highly highly recommend being part of a crit group, one that you're comfortable with, but not too comfortable with them, because you want them to give you really honest feedback. I mean like we're really good friends. But we're the kind of friends that we will give you good constructive feedback. Believe me, it's better to hear it early on. So, you definitely want to do that. Yes, patient and wonderful people, they always improve your story. That said, there's, while you definitely want to seriously consider all of their suggestions, you're not compelled to do what they suggest.
Ariel: Yeah
Wendy: It's still your work, you know it best, but you should definitely consider it. Whatever they're talking about, there's something there. So, even if you don't take their suggestion for—because they might give you a suggestion for how they think you should fix it—you definitely should look at how you want to fix it because there's something there that that needs attention.
And I take lots and lots of classes and workshops on the craft. I still do, of course, there's so much I still need to learn! And one of the classes I took was a year-long course at PNWA, and that's where I met the people that we ended up creating a crit group together. We write all different genres, so nobody writes the same genre. And I really have found that to be a huge strength in getting different readers perspectives, and they all know the craft so well. So you also get their different perspectives about how to use different tools of the craft.
Ariel: That’s interesting! Because a lot of the wisdom that you hear is to make sure that your readers and your critique partners, your beta readers, your editors work in your genre. So you're pulling from outside of your genre.
Wendy: I am, yes, I've learned so much more because of that. And I get such different creative perspectives too. So sometimes I find ways to do things that, you know, maybe a cozy mystery author wouldn't do that, but when I do it with the cozy in mind, it works, and it's different, you know, it's fresh. So often now authors are crossing genres. So you're blending a cut... you might have like a paranormal romance. So it really helps if you have a romance writer in your crit group, and a paranormal in your crit group, because you're blending those genres. So I think that's also a real strength. And we meet weekly, which is very often. It keeps you writing all the time. So that's good.
Ariel: Yeah, cuz you don't want to show up with nothing.
Wendy. I know! Well, now, of course, we meet virtually on like, Zoom, but we used to meet in person, and we had to meet in the central location. So not only do you not want to, you know, spend all this time and not have your own scene, but we used to also have all this commute time back and forth. So it's like yeah, I’m definitely bringing a scene!
Ariel: Okay, so it's like one scene a week that you're working on, and sort of just an open workshop, anybody can say anything?
Wendy: Yes. What we do is, each in turn reads their scene, and they're usually like maybe five pages, and they read their scene out loud. And everybody's taking notes as they listen to it. And then each person, in turn, first they start with sort of an overview, something very positive. What was it that you really liked about the scene? Maybe the scene is an opening scene, and so you really like that it hooked you right away. And they did that very effectively, something like that and then from there we get into the details. And as we're getting into the detailed critique, we're telling each other what we really like, and also some suggestions of what maybe could be done better. And you really want to tell people what you like, too, because then they know that that's the kind of thing that they should keep doing.
I might bring like a three page scene. And I will come out of there with two pages of notes. But keep in mind some of the notes are that they really like it. I'll write those down, too, so that I don't forget.
Ariel: Yeah, keep those! I put nice notes in a win jar. When you're feeling like an imposter, you can just pull a little win out and remind yourself that, oh yeah, no I really am good at this.
Wendy: What a great idea. I love that! This crit group, we have really become friends, too, and part of the time in our crit group, we talk about different things that we might have learned—maybe somebody's gone to a class or a conference or something. You know, who... maybe who we've submitted a manuscript to or how to do a query letter or something like that. And we really have become so supportive of each other. They are kind of my wind jar.
Ariel: Aw, that’s so sweet! So, once you feel like you've got a draft, you sent it to beta readers. So how are your beta readers, different from your critique group? How did you find your beta readers? What was their feedback like?
Wendy: Actually my first source of beta readers is my critique group. And I asked any of them, you know, would they be willing to be a beta reader. And it sounds funny, but actually, although they have already heard seems here and there, they haven't heard all the scenes. And they haven't even heard them in order. Because I write out of order. Yes. So, this time they're going through as a beta reader and they're looking at the whole flow of the whole book, in addition to all of these details. So it really works and usually we have seven people in our crit group and usually about half of them, you know, at any given time, have time to... or will make time to go through it. And then my second source of beta readers is friends of mine who are also huge fans of the cozy mystery genre.
Ariel: So they've read widely in your genre and kind of know what to expect from a cozy.
Wendy: Yes, and although they don't study the craft of writing or anything, they give me invaluable information about, you know, whether like pacing! They don't know to call it pacing, but they'll tell me, you know, this really dragged in the middle, you know, it's like I felt like skipping a couple of chapters. That's so important to hear things like that from essentially your target audience. And also when I send it out to them, I mean I just want to hear all their feedback. But oftentimes too , I'll add maybe two or three questions that I really want to make sure that I get feedback on from them. You know it might be something like a sensitive, mystery, I might ask them, Did you guess who did it? And if you didn't get who did it, when did you figure it out?
Ariel: Yeah, was it satisfying when you figured it out.
Wendy: Great way to word it! I'm gonna write that down, that’s a great way to word it! And even just something like, what did you think about my amateur sleuths? What don't you like about her. Yeah, their feedback is awesome. It's just so helpful, and especially these fans they really hold my feet to the fire as far as what they expect out of a cozy mystery. And they compare you to established authors.
Ariel: Yeah.
Wendy: And that's what you want.
Ariel: So then after your betas, you worked with developmental editors both freelance and in-house. So how did their comments differ from beta readers
and why did you work with both?
Wendy: I know, I mean, when I was going into this, I thought, I don't even know why I'm sending this to an editor because it's been through all this, it looks the best it has, it couldn't possibly have any more problems! That was when I was an amateur and had no idea. It is so amazing that even after all of this, like I said five years, and I've made so many changes and rewrites, professional editors will find more. Here's the real stinger: What they find definitely makes your story better. So it's really there.
I had kind of a funny experience. When I sent it off to a professional editor, an editor that I met at Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s Conference one summer. So I sent it off to her, and she sent it back with all kinds of changes, and so helpful! And these changes were not just detailed grammatical changes, she still was catching things in the story itself, where there were in consistencies. She found a whole segment that was essentially a repeat of earlier chapters. So, I mean huge help. So after I made all of her changes, then I submitted it. And one of the places I submitted it, I got an email back saying I already know that I like your story. And it’s because the editor at the publishing house also did freelance editing and she was the one that I sent my book to! But she uses different names, and I had no idea that they were the same person.
Ariel: Well, at least that means that you were consistent about who you were sending to.
Wendy: Yes, I mean it was just a fluke. But, it did, it made it a lot faster when I...to get to sign the contract, because she knew the work so well already. But, yeah, she corrected grammar, punctuation, so much. Even though you think that you already caught everything, these professional editors, they do find things. They also will point out like weak word choice, like you could come up with something better here. And sometimes you don't get that like from beta readers. Also they, they will find cliches that don't work. I like to try to use a cliche, but twist the cliche. So to make it just a little bit different. But when you do that you have to be careful because it doesn't always work. Memorable phrases, snappy dialogue, editors are excellent at getting right to the core of what should be said.
Everybody has kind of favorite words that they like to use. Editors are really good at recognizing these words like you'll, you'll find them, like maybe every 25 pages, kind of, you use this word that it's just, it's like a habit that you use. And you might not recognize it in yourself, but editors are great and they call it echoes. So you're getting an echo (echo, echo) of the word nice, or something like that you're great at finding those. I don't know how they carry them in their heads. And then once you kind of learn what your favorite words are that you use a lot, then you can do searches on them in your manuscript and see, you know, what you, what you use all the time, and then you can start coming up with better ways to say that, so that you're not always echoing the same.
Also, on your plot points, on your plotting, they're very good at indicating ways to strengthen certain plot points. I mean, they might already be strong and that's why your beta readers, and so forth, are saying that they're fine and they're not giving you feedback, but these editors are skilled at really tightening a plot. It's so important to listen to them on those things.
Ariel: Let’s dig into that a little bit. Are you talking about strengthening a plot point by adding character agency or reducing the number of characters that that plot point has to go through so it's less confusing? Give me a couple of examples.
Wendy: They will bring it to a better clarity. All of the things that you said. You might have too many characters that you have this going through. And it's just not necessary.
Ariel: Like a game of hot potato.
Wendy: Yes, exactly! Like you don't need to eliminate a character, but you don't need to have them in that particular point.
Especially with Kat Out of the Bag, I definitely have subplots, and the subplots need to run kind of parallel to the main plot. So my editor was very good at making sure that the... that the rhythm of how you're writing the parallel plot works with the main plot because, as you're telling the story of the subplot, you've now diverted the reader from what's happening in the main plot. And you don't want the reader to be upset, like, Hey, I wanted to find out what was going to happen next, and now you're taking me off into this other... So those transitions are so important, and editors are very good at helping you smooth transition places.
Ariel: I want to get into some really specific details about Kat Out of the Bag. I started reading it I haven't had a chance to finish, and we don't want to give away any spoilers because it's a mystery and that would be no fun. I noticed that you paired cozy details because this is a cozy with tight plotting like that. So you've got details that your readers will expect and enjoy like the number of times that Purrada the cat appears, and the amount of show not tell on the purses and fashion items like dresses. Did your editors give you feedback to help strike the balance of cozy detail versus plotting?
Wendy: Probably the best advice I got is that the characters are what moves the plot. It's their actions, their emotions, their thoughts, and their reactions that move the plot. As an author that's really where my focus needs to be, rather than just this sort of outline of what's going to happen on, you know, this first week and then what's going to happen the second week; no, it's really the characters that make those things happen. So my editor really refocused that for me, and it's such a good thing to learn. Although the original outline that I had has like the plot and the mystery and the clues—which, you need to have all that—but then, it's the characters that make those things happen.
But as far as what you're talking about with sort of her passion for the purses, because my amateur sleuth is, just for the listeners know, is a purse designer, and she's decided to create a purse Museum. So getting the balance of her work and her mystery, I sort of really modeled that after my own favorite cozy mystery author. She is Laura Childs, and especially—she has several series. She's such a prolific writer. I mean, all of hers are my favorite—but she does the tea shop mysteries.
Ariel: I’ve definitely heard of those.
Wendy: Have you? I highly recommend. She's so...Laura Childs is amazing and, and actually we've become sort of friends through all of my, my journey here as a writer. And so that's been really special. You know, your journey as a writer, it is really true that destination is fantastic, to get published, the journey is also fantastic, and Laura Childs with her tea shop mysteries, she has to blend in all of this stuff about different teas, different types of teas and how they've evolved and all that. And so the way she paces that, I've tried to emulate that. I don't know if I've quite made it, she's a she's a true artist, but I’ve tried.
Ariel: How many passes of editing do you think you did with it.
Wendy: Well into the double digit. And after I signed my contract with the Wild Rose Press, I thought—and especially since I had gone through the professional editor who is also with the Wild Rose Press—I thought, well, not much more editing left now, this will be great! I was completely wrong! What happens I think is once the bigger editing problems are fixed, they get cleared out, and then other underlying problems that you didn't realize were there, they emerge. And you really truly do want a really clean copy, as close as you can get, because it's these editing problems that can bump your reader right out of your story, and that's what you don't want.
But the in-house editor is fantastic. They work as a team with you. We went through three full edits on Kat Out of the Bag. After the contract was signed. This is, this is after years of editing this thing and thinking it was done, the edits are done on what they call galleys. I didn't even know what that was. And it does include now at this point too, you're looking, especially also for like typos and grammatical. You know, commas out of place, or you don't need a comma here, all of that. Just the biggest thing I can say is, you're never done. I never thought that there could possibly be this much, but there is. But it's routine, and it is really important to keep these skills, these editing skills up, and at the Wild Rose Press we actually do weekly chats and they talk about different aspects of publishing and editing and so forth with all the authors that that join in. And it's invaluable. And so keep taking craft classes and courses and everything you can.
Ariel: So let's move on to the questions that I asked every author I talk. First, what do you hate about the editing process?
Wendy: I hate everything about the editing process. I hate everything, except for the result, which is always so, so much improved. I need an editor to follow me around when I bring a scene to crit group, I think it's so good. And then I ended up like I said with notes pages of notes that need to be revised. And when I send back galley edits to the editor, I can't believe that I get another set of edits that come back to me. But I'll tell you the one thing that keeps me going is, there are fewer edits each time.
Editing, don't hurry through it. It really does take time and thought, and hard work, and more creativity to improve the writing, and to maybe just see it in a different way too. I recommend sit down, like with a, what's your favorite beverage a cup of tea a cup of coffee, relax, and just take the time, because it's really worth it. When you're done, you will love it.
Ariel: What's the most common bit of feedback you receive on your writing?
Wendy: That I’ve gone a sentence too far.
Ariel: Hmm. What do you mean by that?
Wendy: So, when I want to do a hook at the end of chapter, I ruin it because I get so excited about it, I put one more sentence out there, and it's like Wendy, you've got a sentence too far You should have left it back here I was hooked back here. Sometimes I go, a paragraph too far. That's why I need an editor with me at all times.
Ariel: I've always felt that it's easier to take out than to try to write more in. I think it's easier to just hit that delete button than to be like, Oh, I have to write three more paragraphs here.
Wendy: I'd rather be wordier Yes, you're right.
Ariel: And there's nothing saying that just because you took it out, it has to be buried forever. It can go into another Word document, and you can look back at it later and maybe it'll be the spark of a new idea.
Wendy: Yes. Absolutely yes, don't get rid of anything.
Ariel: Writerly packrats. Any last words of advice?
Wendy: Editing is not a necessary evil, it is actually the frosting on the cake. Gonna make it all sweeter.
Ariel: Do you have a favorite type of frosting?
Wendy: Chocolate! How bout you?
Ariel: I'm a fan of meringue. Not that I know how to make it, but I can eat it with the best of them.
Wendy: I was gonna say, you have to have skills for that one.
Ariel: I was thinking about what you said, you read aloud from your own work. Do you ever use the speak function in Microsoft Word to have it read aloud for you?
Wendy: No I don't. I do know other writers and authors that do. And they like that a lot. For me, I really need to say it myself and hear it. I'm looking to hear like the rhythm of the sentences, because I like to have the varied rhythm. And just word choice. Sometimes then you can pick up if you're missing a word by accident, or... I can't even hear it from somebody else reading it, let alone the computer.
Ariel: There is definitely a lack of personality in the robo voice. The benefit of it is that it's not going to lie to you about what is and isn't there.
Wendy: That's a good point. I've also heard... there's some people in my crit group that read their book backwards, like chapter to chapter backwards, because otherwise you might get kind of caught up in the story and you don't really see or hear what's really on the page.
Ariel: So the last portion of this 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?
Wendy: Yes, thank you for that opportunity! I am a member of the self-proclaimed the Cozy Mystery Quartet of authors. We’re all published by the Wild Rose Press, and the other trio of people in the Cozy Mystery Quartet are... they have amazing series and books. You can listen to us on our podcast on YouTube, we have a channel The Cozy Mystery Quartet. And we talk all about all aspects of writing. But in particular our cozy mysteries. So, each of them also write entertaining and contemporary cozy mysteries.
So one is M. L. Erdahl, Michael Erdahl. And he writes a Seattle Wilderness Mystery series. The second in his series is just about to come out in January, early January, but I'm just so good, about a wilderness tour guide who gets caught up in all these murders.
And then Susan McCormick writes the Fog Ladies series, and this is so great, it's set in San Francisco, and it's a bunch of older women who are living in this building in San Francisco, and medical trainee who they get involved in all these murders. The personalities are fabulous of these fog ladies.
And then Linda Hope Lee, she has the Nina Foster mysteries. They're also set in Seattle, and just wonderful characters and very intriguing mysteries that she gets involved with.
So, yes, a big cheer for all three of them!
Ariel: If you want to find Wendy or read her work, Kat Out of the Bag is available now, as well as her novella Purse-Stachio Makes a Splash, which you can find in which you can find in the anthology A Taste of Danger, available to order from the Wild Rose Press. Her website, WendyWrites.org, has links to follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, plus information about all of her podcasting forays, and other writings. It's chock full of useful information for writers, so definitely go check it out.
Wendy: Thank you so much, Ariel, yes and Purse-Stachio is also available on Amazon and Goodreads and all those just on its own as well.
Ariel: Well, thank you again for talking with me, Wendy!
Wendy: Thanks for the invitation.
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!