Tuesday Tip: Always Read the Galleys

Often before publication, your editor will send you a copy of your story that's been edited and formatted for you to review. This is called a galley or galley proof, although most of the time my editors just call them "edits." This is usually your last chance to have feedback before publication.

Always read the galley.

You would think this should go without saying, but when you're busy, or you've already worked extensively with the editor, you think that, this once, you can skip the final read-through.

Don't.

I had one story where the editor and I had worked long and hard over the manuscript. Among other things, she had removed every one of my explicit speech tags. I had left most of them out, but had put a few back in. Later, she emailed the group saying that the anthology was in layout and the editing was done, and did anyone want their finalized story sent to them for one last review? I declined since she had said she had made few changes to the edits as they came back to her. As it turned out, one of those few changes was to re-remove one of my explicit speech tags, replacing it with an implicit one…and spelling the main character's name wrong!

Another time I had a story go through editing, and a few days before release we got our electronic author copies. Reading through it, I discovered that I had forgotten a word in one sentence, and both the editor, the proofreader, and I had all missed it. Since it was an electronic anthology, it was able to be corrected before release.

No matter how many times you've read the piece, once more won't kill you. If you have the opportunity, read the galley and make sure it's as clean as it possibly can be.

100 Words About: Mini Vacation!

I'm on vacation! I got to sleep in, and I just got back from a morning walk with the doggie. The husband is still sleeping, but I plan to wake him in about 15 minutes so we can get some breakfast before heading to Milwaukee for the day. Tea and hot tubs! And probably gyros and bath stuff!

Road trips are probably our favorite mini vacations. Milwaukee or Chicago if we have a whole day (overnights are out of the question at the moment, due to the fact we don't have anyone who can let the dog out without her eating them), otherwise we tend to hit cheesesteak and soft serve in Fort Atkinson, or troll the surrounding small towns for diners we haven't yet tried.

What do you all like to do on mini vacations?

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Release of Taste Test: Rainy Days and Mondays

I'm pleased to announce the release of Taste Test: Rainy Days and Mondays from Torquere Press! This mini-anthology includes my short story, "Encore." In this story, all Derrick wants is a nice subby roadie girl, but when bandmate Nate is willing to give BDSM a try, the guys discover a new favorite rainy-day activity.

Read an excerpt below!

Derrick tried to rein in his frustration, but an edge crept into his voice. "You can be a moody bastard, but this is bad even for you." He got up and went to stand next to Nate, arms crossed over his chest, wearing his best not-putting-up-with-your-shit face. "What. The fuck. Is wrong?"

Nate spun around and kissed him.

Nate never did anything by half measures. He grabbed Derrick's face with both hands and all but attacked him, forcing Derrick to back up a step or fall over.

Derrick caught his balance, hands out to the sides halfway between a placating gesture and the first phase of an open-handed defense. His brain seemed frozen, spinning its wheels on a sheet of ice and getting nowhere. His lips parted out of sheer shock, but Nate took it as an invitation, kissing him deeper.

For one long, shocked moment Derrick couldn't think at all. Then he wondered what the hell his tongue was doing in Nate's mouth.

Tuesday Tip: Speech Tags, Part Two

Example one: too many explicit speech tags.

"I want to go to the park," said Billy.
"Me too!" said Tommy.
"You can't go to the park until you finish your vegetables," said Mom.
"Awww!" said the boys.
"Don't make me say it again," said Mom.

As you can see, nothing but "said said said" gets very old. Swapping out "said" for other words like "asked" or "chorused" only helps a little. This exchange simply has too many explicit speech tags.

Example two: speech tags that are not explicit.

"But Jeffy and Mikey will be at the park at six!"
"They'll be alone at the park all week if this whining keeps up," Mom warned.
"Guess we'd better eat up," the sullen boy grumbled to his brother.

In this example, we don’t know which boy says the first sentence or the last sentence, even though the last sentence has a speech tag. These problems could be fixed by implicit or explicit speech tags; preferably, a combination of both, but the last speech tag needs to make clear which boy is speaking.

In a two person conversation, you can skip speech attributions with more confidence.

Example three: skipping speech tags.

As Mom left the room, Billy leaned over and whispered to Tommy, "Quick! Slip your veggies to Fido!"
"D'you think we should?"
His brother was already dropping carrots on the floor. "Why not?"
"Won't she know?"
Billy gave him a hard stare. "She won't if you don't tell her."

The middle three pieces of dialogue are technically unattributed, but since we know that there are only two people in the conversation, Billy and Tommy, it is easy to follow who says what. However, people usually start losing track of who said what after about three unattributed dialogue changes. Attributions can also be made within the dialogue, such as "I dunno, Billy, d'you think we should?" or "Why not, Tommy?" You may have noticed that written dialogue has a lot more of these included attributions that normal speech does. When you are talking to someone face-to-face, your eye contact and body posture indicate to whom you are speaking even if there are more than two people present. Writers have to make up for the lack of visual cues.

New Release from Cleis Press!

Please Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission is now available from Cleis Press! The anthology includes my short story "The Sub Fairy," in which married bliss gets a kinky twist when one woman finds the courage to ask her husband to be her dom. Can dominance and submission find a place in their life?

The anthology has its very own blog, which you can find here, and make sure to check out editor Rachel Kramer Bussel's interview with yours truly!

Read a steamy excerpt of "The Sub Fairy" over at my website.