Everything but the kitchen sink

Over the weekend, I read a book that reminded me a lot of my early work, except the copy editing was much better. That similarity is symptomatic of many newer authors. To use a euphemism, they throw everything but the kitchen sink at the characters rather than sticking to a more realistic story.

That story is a romance (of course). In the story, every female character, major and minor, is a victim of abuse and/or sexual assault. Every single one. The hero, his brothers, and their friends are a proverbial knights in shining armor whose only faults are caring too much and being too eager to help others: they're billioinaire heroes without the super powers or flowing cape. Captain America has more depth.

The story relies on the familiar "woman in jeopardy" theme to advance the plot. We never know why the villain is so obsessed with the heroine: her winning personality, her outstanding beauty, her—who knows?—she doesn't have any special skills or arcane knowledge or public persona that justify a stranger's deranged fascination with her. Regardless, there's an element of mental instability to the villain who obsesses over a woman who doesn't even know he's alive.

I am aware that such obsessions exist. I am also aware that a stalker needs no "real" justification to haunt the object of his deepest desires and darkest fantasies. However, when combined with the other improbabilities of that story, that aspect further stretches the reader's trust to the breaking point.

When an author fails to integrate verisimilitude into the story, it falls apart. A lack of this realism won't bother children who more readily accept improbabilities and impossibilities; however, adults know better because life experience teaches us that, while a loosely connected group of people may share some superficial attributes, they won't share similar traits and experiences.

Verisimilitude refers to the appearance of truth or reality. Someone reading fantasy or science fiction is prepared to accept those aspects of that fictional world which would not be probable in this life, such as magic or teleporters (e.g., Star Trek). However, that same person may likely know that water doesn't boil without application of sufficient heat, so water that boils without explanation is cause for concern.

I've had to point that out to some clients. Sometimes the errors arise due to lack of research. ("Horses don't eat mushrooms.") Other times, the error arises from failed logic. ("You're not going to win an Olympic competition two years after a heart transplant.") Sometimes, the writer is simply too close to the story to see improbability piled upon improbability until the house of cards crumples under its own instability.

Copy editing doesn't concern itself with such lapses in logic and failures in verisimilitude. This is where developmental and content editing come into play. Editors who focus on such aspects catch the lapses in logic and gaps in realism to help the author craft a more cohesive book that doesn't fail the reader or betray the reader's trust.

The more grounded a story is in our shared familiarity, the more the story must adhere to the reality of that shared experience. Otherwise, the author loses the reader's trust and the story falls apart.

Hen House Publishing offers substantive editing which combines developmental, content, and copy editing for a thorough editing service.

Every word counts.

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