Editing by Elizabeth

February 01, 2014

The Perfect Game

“I cannot say enough good things about working with Elizabeth. She is not only an amazing talent with a great eye for detail and tone, but provides a perfect mix of professionalism, passion and care throughout what is often a grueling process. For every four and five star review my book has received, and for every time someone has remarked about its strong writing, I know I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Elizabeth for her impeccable touch.” — Stephen Paul

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Whether your manuscript is in the early stages and you’d like significant developmental input, you’re almost ready to query and are looking for someone to do a final copyedit, or anywhere in-between, I can help. For testimonials from authors with whom I have worked, as well as more detailed information about my editing services, please click here.

January 20, 2014

Country Hardball by Steve Weddle

Writing fiction isn’t easy. Lord knows it’s not. And while it may seem counterintuitive to some, it’s always been my contention that writing short stories is actually more difficult than writing a full-length novel—there’s less wiggle room, less time to hem and haw instead of getting right to the point. For my money, it takes a special kind of skill to really do short stories justice.

That Steve Weddle chose to present his debut full-length work, Country Hardball, as a novel-in-stories was truly ambitious. That he made it work is extremely gratifying, though not a surprise to anyone who’s followed Weddle’s writing over the years at places like the Do Some Damage blog and in collections such as Protectors, First Shift, Both Barrels, Off The Record, and D*cked.

The eighteen stories in Country Hardball all take place in a small town along the Louisiana/Arkansas line. Various characters appear throughout the collection, as bit players in some of the stories, taking center stage in others. The most common denominator is Roy Alison, a man whose life seemed destined to run off the rails almost from the jump.

After spending over ten years in and out of juvie, jail and halfway houses, Roy eventually makes his way back to his small hometown, ready to finally make something of his life. Only, the town was never much to begin with with, and the decade Roy’s been away has left the working-class community hit hard by the downturn in the economy. Still, like the other residents of the town, Roy is determined to make the best of things, and thus sets about putting one foot in front of the other the best he can. →

January 17, 2014

Penance / Greed by Dan O’Shea

I came to read Dan O’Shea’s first two Detective Lynch novels in a roundabout, backward way, as did a lot of people who’ve been longtime fans of Dan’s work. You see, the second book in the series, Greed, was actually “published” first. As Dan explains more fully in his recent guest post, the book, originally called The Gravity of Mammon, was written and shared as a sort of online exercise on Dan’s part.

Then the whole voodoo process that is queries and submissions and publishers and contracts unfolded in its mysterious way and, voilà, the first Detective Lynch thriller was now a book called Penance and Mammon had become Greed. However it all came to pass, they are both kick-ass reads.

Penance is truly a marvel of plotting, in which O’Shea weaves together two parallel stories which take place over 40 years apart in Chicago. Our contemporary guide, Detective John Lynch, is second generation law enforcement, his father having been killed in the line of duty when Lynch was still young.

At the story’s outset, Lynch is drawn into the puzzling case of an elderly woman who was gunned down from long range by a sniper as she left church. Hardly the type of victim one would expect to find on the end of a world-caliber shot, it soon becomes apparent there is something much more complex at work. As it turns out, the sniper is a member of an off-the-books government black ops agency, and he’s gone a bit rogue. →

January 16, 2014

Full Throttle by Sam Hawken

For my money, Sam Hawken is one of the most underrated authors working in crime fiction today. His first novel, The Dead Women of Juárez, is a hard-hitting story which uses the real-life tragedy of female homicides in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez as its backdrop. It made my Top 10 Reads of 2012 and, more notably, was shortlisted by the Crime Writers’ Association for the John Creasy ‘New Blood’ Dagger.

Sam’s second novel, the equally stark Tequila Sunset, also set in Ciudad Juárez and its sister city, El Paso, Texas, was once again recognized by the Crime Writers’ Association, this time nominated for the Gold Dagger—aka best crime novel of the year! Despite the man’s obvious and undeniable skill, however, he remains criminally under the radar for most mainstream readers.

So when I had the opportunity to work with Sam—who has previously dropped by the blog for a guest post and whose self-published Juárez Dance I have reviewed—I jumped at the chance to edit his Camaro Espinoza omnibus, Full Throttle: The Collected Camaro.

Previously released as four separate novellas (Camaro Run, Crossfire, The Drum and Sisters in Arms), Full Throttle collects all the rollicking Camaro adventures to date in one edition. As always, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to actually review something I’ve worked on, so here’s what a few authors and publishers have had to say about the Camaro Espinoza stories: →

January 14, 2014

The Collector Series by Chris Holm

This article I wrote originally appeared in All Due Respect Issue #1: Featuring Chris F. Holm. The issue includes a brand-new short from Holm titled “A Dying Art,” and Holm also sat down with fellow author Steve Weddle (Country Hardball) to talk all things writing. Round it out with more fiction from Todd Robinson, Renee Asher Pickup, Paul D. Brazill, Travis Richardson, Mike Miner, and Walter Conley and this is a publication you need to pick up if you haven’t already.

Those who’ve read author Chris Holm’s accomplished work in the short story format are well-aware of how talented a writer the man is. He’s been an Anthony Award nominee, a Derringer Award finalist, and his short story collections, 8 Pounds and Dead Letters: Stories of Murder and Mayhem, were met with universal praise from readers. Yet, despite all that, I was still completely blown away by the tour de force that is The Collector Series, in which Holm takes a pinch of fantasy, a little supernatural, a dash of hardboiled crime fiction, and blends them into a pitch-perfect adventure in a way that is nothing short of authorial alchemy.

Things haven’t shaken out Sam Thornton’s way for quite some time. Driven by desperation and good intentions, Sam made a very bad decision many decades ago. And you know what they say about good intentions…yeah, the road to Hell. Thing is, Sam didn’t make it all the way down that road, but got detoured into Purgatory and shanghaied into eternal employment as a soul collector—if your time has come and the powers that be have marked you for damnation, it’s Sam’s job to remove your soul and send it on its way to hell.

In Dead Harvest, the first book in the series, Sam is assigned to collect Kate MacNeil’s soul. At first blush it seems like a no-brainer since the young woman was caught red-handed, literally, having just butchered her family. However, upon attempting to collect Kate’s soul Sam is met with an outpouring of purity so overwhelming he’s convinced she didn’t commit the crime, that she’s been improperly marked for damnation. However, one does not simply refuse to collect the assigned soul. It’s never happened in the history of, well, ever. Failure to collect Kate’s soul is sure to seriously piss off the denizens of Hell who’ve claimed it. On the other hand, improperly sending a pure soul to Hell for damnation could touch off a war with Heaven. →

January 01, 2014

Camaro Run

Over the years I’ve both read and reviewed Sam’s novels, as well as worked with him on his Camaro Espinoza novellas. Camaro made her full-length novel debut in The Night Charter (Mulholland Books), and I was honored to work with Sam on an early draft of its sequel, Walk Away (Coming January 31, 2017, from Mulholland).

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December 31, 2013

Is GREED good? Gee, I hope so… by Dan O’Shea

Very pleased to wrap-up 2013 on the blog by welcoming Dan O’Shea to celebrate the publication of his second novel, Greed, which is out today from Exhibit A Books (ISBN: 978-1909223158).

Dan O'Shea How do you feel about re-runs?

See, Ms. White reviewed this book before – quite a while ago. At the time, the title was The Gravity of Mammon and it was an experiment. I wrote it live, on my blog, posting the chapters as I finished them – two or three a week at the start, then, as I got rolling, a chapter a day until it was done. Took a couple months all in. Just a draft at that point, but I was pretty happy with it.

Ms. White liked it enough to review it then, almost three years ago. Now, it’s out in print form, though with a new title – Greed. Well, a second new title. For a while it was the title was shortened to just Mammon, then it was changed to Greed. The path to publication has been a long, strange trip.

See, back when I did the blog experiment, my first novel, Penance (which was published in April, 2013) was still making the rounds. One of the big New York houses had almost bitten on Penance just before I started the blog novel experiment – but they had this one tiny problem. Silly me, I thought I’d just redraft Penance to address their concern, they’d buy it and I’d be on my way to fame and fortune. Of course, once I got started, I couldn’t stop and I overhauled the book probably more than I should have. The publisher passed on it, of course, but now I had two pretty different versions of the same book making the rounds. And, while Greed isn’t a sequel to Penance exactly, it is the second book in the series, so they do have to match up. →

December 01, 2013

The Forest God

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November 25, 2013

The Editor’s Touch by Steven Axelrod

Very pleased today to welcome Steven Axelrod to the blog to talk about the first book in his Nantucket detective series, Nantucket Sawbuck. Specifically, Steven has been kind enough to share an exchange that occurred between him and his editor regarding a scene they were at odds over, and how they came to an agreement. He’s also included the scene in question, so you can see for yourself how things turned out.

Steven Axelrod We normally think of editors as people who trim and cut our work, fix our mistakes and help us “kill our darlings” as William Faulkner memorably put it. What you don’t realize until you’re involved with a gifted editor at a real publishing house, is how they can inspire you to write more and better. It doesn’t always happen in a direct linear way, with the editor saying “You should put more detail here” “Flesh this out.”, though of course that sort of editorial direction does happen.

More often, a vital change comes out of a conversation, that can even start out as an argument. You always feel at the same disadvantage with an editor, when a real published book and the possible start of a meaningful career is at stake. They have the power. They’re agreeing to put your book out into the world under their imprint. It’s their money and influence and reputation on offer. If they want you to change things, you’d be foolish to refuse. Sometimes it seems the only real option you have is the nuclear one: just packing up your scribbled pages and walking away. Of course you could bluff it. But that’s a dangerous game to play. You had better be prepared to follow through if you make a threat like that.

There are other alternatives, and I found one recently. →

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