Meet the Editor: Catriona Troth

By JJ Marsh

There are many advantages to being in an author collective, the most valuable being the skills each member contributes. Many years ago, I spotted Catriona Troth on a writers’ critique site. Smart, perceptive, erudite, critical yet tactful, she was one of people I really wanted to read my work. In fact, it was Catriona who first had the idea of an author collective – a team based on mutual support. Unsurprisingly, she has now become a professional editor. We had a chat about how she does what she does so well.

What kind of editing do you do?

The first thing to say is probably that I am not a proofreader, or a copy editor. Nor can I give specific market advice. I am a structural editor, which is quite a different job.

My approach is to take a helicopter view of an MS and provide an overall report. In fiction, I am good at spotting where scenes need to be reorganised, say, and I will home in on inconsistencies and anachronisms. I do a close read of a manuscript, but I will typically make one or two in-line comments on average per thousand words – far fewer than proofreader or copy editor would.

I have also worked on a number of non-fiction proposals, helping authors to work out how to structure their ideas and present information. I spent twenty years writing reports based on technical data for a non-technical audience many of whom did not have English as a first language but who needed to understand the implications of the results. It gave me a good grounding in how to organise information so that it flows logically, and how to express it in a clear, concise and unambiguous way.

How would you describe a successful author/editor relationship?

The point of a critique is not to impose my vision on the manuscript. The story is and remains the author’s. Whatever suggestions I make must respect the author's own voice, style and intention. I always begin my report with the aspects I thought were strongest. And while I will be clear where my concerns lie, I focus on asking questions, offering reminders and suggesting developments, while encouraging the author to fill in the detail and find the solutions that work for them.

As for the author, they need to be able to take any criticism on the chin. But they also need to remember that the editor's view is just that - a view. If after they have listened to what the editor has to say and given themselves time to digest their comments, it still feels wrong, then they should stick to their guns.

Can you give some examples of your work?

Some of the aspects of a manuscript I focus on are:

• Overall plot arc / Pacing 

JD Smith’s powerful series of short novels about the Palmyrian warrior princess, Zenobia, are fast paced and packed with action. But occasionally the early drafts fell into the trap of repeating in dialogue things that the reader already knew, or dwelling too long on passages where not much was happening.

• Use of place

JW Hicks’s dystopian novel, Rats, is clearly set in a future version of Britain, but originally in no specific location. As a fan of the TV series, The Walking Dead, I knew how much that gained from being set recognisably in a devastated Georgia. I encouraged Hicks to ground the story in a landscape she knows well – the cities, mountains and valleys of south and west Wales.

• Character development / sketched characters 

Again in Rats, the main character's love for her pet ferret leapt off the page. But I didn’t feel the same immediacy in her relationship with her lover, Striker. I pointed out a few scenes where taking us in a little deeper would draw out Bit’s feelings and engage the reader.

• Voice, symbolism 

I hugely admired the virtuosity with which Barbara Scott Emmett created the ‘historical’ documents she threaded throughout her novel, Delirium, about a lost poem by Rimbaud. But when she wrote in the voice of Rimbaud’s teenage wife, I felt she let Rimbaud (and her own?) irritation with the young woman creep in, rather than fully inhabiting her mind.

I also encouraged her to bring out the full impact and symbolism of one shocking discovery along the trail of discovery.

• Consistency over a series 

Your detective, Beatrice Stubbs, has now appeared in four novels, set in different European cities. Beatrice is a good detective, but she has certain defined characteristics and eccentricities which readers come to love. I try to spot and point out whenever she veers away from those (such as when, as a noted gourmet, her response to an invitation to dine aboard a large cruise ship was less snobby than I might have expected).

• Fact checking

I am always fairly good at spotting where facts need to be checked, and will either check them myself or suggest that the author checks. But as my mother came from the Welsh speaking family and I know Anglesey well, Gillian Hamer has had a particularly hard time from me - querying everything from geology to how to give a dog commands in Welsh!

• Sources and copyright

I am very conscious of how important it is for authors to acknowledge their sources and to check copyright for quotations etc. Copyright law, and the concept of fair usage, varies between territories, so in this age of global publishing, it is particularly incumbent on authors to ensure that they remain within the law.



One of the manuscripts I worked with in most depth was the third book in Liza Perrat’s The Bone Angel trilogy, Blood Rose Angel, the story of a midwife battling the plague in medieval France. Early drafts of the novel suffered from two problems. First, Perrat’s passion for her subject had allowed her research to get in the way of the story. Secondly, there was a structural problem with the development of the plot lines. Rather than allowing a build-up of people and circumstances ranged against her lead character, Heloise, till she reached her lowest point, Perrat was either starting at too low a point (in one version) or allowing a normal, untroubled state to continue too long (in a second).

In this case, I offered a report covering:

• Development of particular characters
• Trajectories of particular plotlines (such as the progress of the disease, the impact of the disease on village life, the attitude of the villagers to Heloise, and Heloise’s relationship with her husband)
• Use of language to suggest a historical period
• Themes and symbolism
• Structure, pace and ending

In addition, I provided a marked up copy of the manuscript with specific questions that had occurred to me as I read, ranging from consistency re use of names to historical details such as when playing cards were first introduced to Europe.


How do you approach working with a new client?

If it's a writer whose work I don't know, I like to have an initial meeting (which these days can be via Skype) so I can understand exactly what the author is trying to achieve. After that, I am happy to offer an initial assessment of a chapter or two, just to be sure that we both feel we can work together.

For fiction, I would then read the whole MS and return a report that gives both an overview of its strengths and weaknesses and in-line comments pointing to specific issues.

The process for non-fiction can be more iterative, but my initial feedback is likely to include:

• an initial map of how might be presented
• suggestions for changes to the structure
• an assessment of any gaps
• some ‘friendly challenges’ about the ideas presented

What the clients say:

Liza Perrat: Catriona did a fabulous job of restructuring the entire plot for Blood Rose Angel. From an ill-defined, wayward storyline, she established a clear and solid plot arc, defining themes and symbolism. She also pointed out inconsistencies and anachronisms and told me to “cut the historical facts and concentrate on the story."

Gillian Hamer: Catriona's input into my novels has been invaluable from the first (The Charter). She has a natural editorial eye and sees things no one else would. She is encouraging and tactful, but also matter of fact when changes are needed. Consistency, story arc, accuracy and character development are only some things I rely on her for. Even if I don't always agree with every one of her suggestions, she always makes me think.

JJ Marsh: Every one of my books has benefitted from Catriona's gentle touch. Editing can be a particular kind of hell, as if you and your Precious are being beaten, slashed and made to do sit-ups. Somehow, Catriona makes the experience painless, almost like a therapeutic massage, from which you emerge clear-eyed and relaxed in the knowledge you have a far, far better book.

JD Smith: Catriona is more than a line-editor, she really gets to the heart of your book and the crux of the emotions between characters. She spots things no one else would, and really provides and indepth evaluation of the inconsistencies and narrative issues  my books face, not to mention making me check all my historical facts!

JW Hicks: Once Rats was, to my eyes, finished done and dusted I was reluctant to change a word. But Catriona’s illuminating editing removed the scales from my eyes and made me realise that my fictional future world needed grounding, needed deepening, needed to be made  ‘realer’.
That I achieved this, is all thanks to Catriona.   

To contact Catriona about editing, send an inital email to catriona[dot]troth[at]gmail[dot]com, with the subject line Editing Enquiry and some details about your MS.
For more information, see Library Cat Editing Services. 

Writers' Services: assembling the right team

You know all those house building programmes that have become so popular in recent years? From Grand Designs to The House That £100k Built – they celebrate DIY builders, designing and constructing their own homes.

One thing you will notice, though, is that however hands-on the home owners are, they will recognise the limits of their own skills and bring in professionals to do aspects of the work – like plastering, plumbing and electrics – that just have to be done right. Even when they DO have those skills, they bring in the professionals to check they are doing things right.

Publishing your own book is like building your own house. Some of those observing the self-publishing phenomenon from the outside – and some of those nervously contemplating attempting it themselves for the first time – imagine that it means the author doing everything alone, from the moment they write The End at the bottom of the very first draft until the book starts flying off the (real or virtual) shelves.

In truth an indie author, like the DIY builder, is more like the manager of a micro-business, taking responsibility for each stage of construction, but knowing when and how to bring in the professionals to help. So what are those professional services you are going to need?

 EDITING

 To carry on with the house building metaphor a bit longer – that first draft isn’t even the blueprint for the published novel. It’s more like the rough sketches for that Grand Design you’ve been dreaming of. You’re going to have to do quite a bit more work on it yourself, bash it into shape, make your vision clearer for your readers. So you go through as many rewrites as it needs until it’s as good as you can possibly make it. And then you need to call in the editors!

First off – a word or warning. Close friends and family do NOT make good editors. Even if they are the best-read people you know. Even if they are writers themselves. They love you. They believe in you. They want you to succeed. And with the best will in the world, they are going to read your work through rose-tinted spectacles.

 What you need to do is find someone you can trust to be ruthlessly honest. Who understands the genre you are writing in and the standards you need to meet. Who can pull apart the work you have just spent the last few months bleeding over without making you feel as if you’re a complete waste of space. And who can help you build it up again so that it is still YOUR book, not theirs, but even better than you ever thought possible.

 It may sounds as if we’re asking for the impossible – but they do exist, these people. We know. We’ve found a few of them – and we’re recommending some of them here. (Another excellent source of recommended service providers is the Alliance of Independent Authors Partner Members.)

 Broadly speaking, there are three types of editing. The lines between them are a bit blurry, and I find it’s easier to think of them as three separate processes.

 First is STRUCTURAL EDITING. This is taking a macro view of the book. If you have sub-plots going nowhere, scenes that advance nothing or characters that fail to come alive; if parts of your story are told in the wrong sequence, you’ve begun it too early or dragged on the ending too long: this is where it should be picked up. At this stage, you want someone who can judge the ms as a whole, and who knows the rules and standards of your genre (and I’m including lit fic as a genre here). Good beta-readers can be excellent at this (but bear in mind what I said about not using friends and family).

CATRIONA TROTH is a structural editor with experience of working with both fiction and non-fiction MSS. 

The next stage is COPY EDITING. When all those big, macro issues have been fixed, it’s time to take a finer-grained look at your ms. A good copy editor will still look at issues of pace. But they will focus at the level of individual sentences and paragraphs. Are you using unnecessary verbiage? Or is this scene underwritten? They’ll spot if a character’s eyes change colour part way through the book. They will also check (or at least question) factual detail. (Was the model of car you describe available when your story was set? Is it really possible to shoot someone at that distance with the gun you’ve given your villain?)  

And finally there is PROOFREADING. This is editing as a lay person understands it: checking spelling, grammar, punctuation. In a manuscript being prepared for publication, it also includes checking that you are using things like em-dashes, en-dashes and hyphens in the correct professional way.

Is all this really necessary? Well, the reading public seems to think so. As reviews on Amazon clearly show, readers can be savagely critical of self-published books that are full of slip-shod amateur errors.

PERRY ILES has been the proofreader for almost all of Triskele' books.

Two other terms you may hear are ‘manuscript critique service’ and ‘beta reader.’ 

 A professional manuscript critique service (such as Cornerstones in the UK) is likely to offer a range of services from which you can choose a package suited to you. They may look at your whole MS, or only an extract. In addition to the editing services above, they will often bring to bear their experience of the market to give you an idea of the commercial viability of your book. Critiquing service may also look at an MS at an earlier stage of development than final editing.

LORRAINE MACE and JOHN HUDSPITH both offer a critiquing service that covers elements of both structural and copy editing.

Polly Courtney worked with editor JOY TIBBS on her novels Feral Youth, Golden Handcuffs and Poles Apart.

 A beta reader, on the other hand, is likely to be a trusted volunteer. Like beta testers in the software industry, who evaluate pre-release software, a beta reader will read your MS when it is close to release and let you know if any part of the book is not working for them. They are likely to focus on the same sorts of areas as structural editor – pace, engagement with characters, any major plot holes. But as they are readers, not generally writers or editors, they may point out problems but not necessarily suggest how to fix them.

 DESIGN ELEMENTS

 So now you have a wonderful story, thoroughly edited to a professional standard. What next? 

COVER DESIGN. 

Self-publishing packages like Kindle Direct Publishing make it very easy for authors to select a few elements from a pool of images and fonts, put them together through a semi-automated process and come up with their own cover design. So why do you need to bother paying a professional designer? 

 Well, for one thing, there is a high risk that your cover is going to end up looking suspiciously like at least half a dozen others, as authors pick from the same limited stock of options. Secondly, it’s amazing how tiny things about the way a cover is put together can change how professional it looks. Most of us do it at an entirely unconscious level, but put two covers together and we will instinctively prefer the one that obeys all those hidden ‘rules’ about visual impact. Designers understand that. 

 So find a good designer, one who can realise your unique vision for your book. And shop around. Designers can be expensive – but they don’t have to be. There are some outstanding ones out there who are also very affordable.  

INTERIOR FORMATTING

The last stage before uploading your ms to a publishing service is INTERIOR FORMATTING. Now, this is something a lot of indie authors do for themselves. It’s not intrinsically difficult and there are plenty of programs and packages out there which can help you with the process. But you need to be aware of the rules about laying out the book as a whole (what goes in the ‘front matter’ before the main text, and in what order, and what goes in the back matter), and about laying out individual pages (first pages of chapters vs. the rest, how page numbering works). You need to understand about balancing the fonts used in the text with those used in headings. And finally you need to understand the differences between formatting print books and eBooks, and the subtle differences between different eBook formats.

 If you are prepared to take the time to learn the rules, then by all means tackle this step yourself. But a slip-up at this stage can make your book scream ‘amateur.’ So if you are not completely confident, it is worth employing someone experienced so do your interior formatting for you. 

JD SMITH has created both cover design and the interior formatting for all of Triskele's books. 

 Once the book is formatted, you have an MS ready to upload to your publishing service. And that really has been made very easy. So long as you are reasonably comfortable around computers, there is no reason why you shouldn’t do that for yourself. (See our Leaving Prints chapter in The Triskele Trail for a post-formatting checklist.) 

 And there you have it. You’ve launched your book. You have made all the decisions about how the book should be presented to the world. And you’ve assembled the team around you who can help you realise that vision. Congratulations, you are an independent professional!

Writers' Services: Joy Tibbs

Joy Tibbs: Joy of Editing

Providing structural and copy editing services as well as basic proofreading.

Website: www.joyofediting.co.uk

Email: joyediting@gmail.com

Triskele Meets Joy Tibbs:

What kind of editing do you do? 
This depends on the client. I can help with structural and copy editing, and with proofreading. I advise on plot consistency, flow, character development, repetition and a range of other issues as well as dealing with basic spelling and grammar.


How do you approach working with a client on a manuscript?
I normally read the first few chapters of a manuscript before advising on the type of editing service the client requires. Once this has been agreed, I read the full manuscript through once. I then perform the first round of edits in Word using tracked changes and adding comments in the margins. Once the client has responded to the comments and implemented the changes, I perform a final read-through to pick up any last-minute typos.

How would you describe a successful author/editor relationship?

A successful author/editor relationship must be extremely honest. While an author may wish to hear how wonderful his or her manuscript is, it is more helpful for the editor to provide constructive criticism in a sensitive way. The editor should never try to change the author’s voice, unless specifically requested to do so. The author/editor relationship is about working together to make the finished product as good as it can possibly be.

Recommendation:

Joy is quite literally a joy to work with. She has worked on three of my novels and she'll certainly be my first choice for the next one. It's rare to find someone with an eye for detail as well as a clear view of the bigger picture, but Joy has both. She's also extremely efficient and reliable. Thank you, Joy!

 Polly Courtney, author of Feral Youth, Golden Handcuffs and Poles Apart.

Writers' Services: Catriona Troth

Catriona Troth

Website: www.catrionatroth.com
email: catriona.troth@gmail.com

After more than twenty years writing and editing technical material for a largely non-technical audience, I have made the shift into freelance writing and am now writing about the subjects dearest to my heart. As a STRUCTURAL EDITOR, I help people find the strongest way to present their ideas and the clearest language in which to present them. I have helped people formulate the best structure for their non-fiction books, and also provided crits for fiction MS with an eye to structure and consistency.

Meet Catriona Troth:

What kind of editing do you do?
I like to take an eagle-eye view of an MS. In another life, I spent twenty years writing reports based on technical data  for a non-technical audience many of whom did not have English as a first language but who needed to understand the implications of the results.  It gave me a good grounding in how to organise information so that it flows logically, and how to express it in a way that is clear, concise and unambiguous.

When it comes to fiction, I am good at spotting where scenes need to be reorganised, and I will home in on inconsistencies and anachronisms.  Just don't ask me to do detailed, line by line proofreading!

How do you approach working with a client on a manuscript? If it's a writer whose work I don't know, I like to have an initial meeting (which these days can be via Skype) so I can understand exactly what the author is trying to achieve.  After that, I am happy to offer an initial assessment of a chapter or two, just to be sure that we both feel we can work together.

For fiction, I would then read the whole MS and return a report that gives both an overview of its strengths and weaknesses and in-line comments pointing to specific issues.

The process for non-fiction can be more iterative, but my initial feedback is likely to include: 

·         an initial map of how might be presented ·         suggestions for changes to the structure ·         an assessment of any gaps ·         some ‘friendly challenges’ about the ideas presented

How would you describe a successful author/editor relationship?

It is vital that the editor remembers that this is not their book. Whatever suggestions they make must respect the author's own voice, style and intention. As for the author, they need to be able to take any criticism on the chin. But they also need to remember that the editor's view is just that - a view. If after they have listened to what the editor has to say and given themselves time to digest it, it still feels wrong, then they should stick to their guns.

Recommendation:

Catriona is a careful and sensitive editor, with an eye for the big picture. She asks the right questions at the right time and works from initiative when appropriate. Her writing and editing skills are excellent and she would be an asset to any writing project. I look forward to working with her again: Orna Ross: Founder, Alliance of Independent Authors