Editor's notes: No cheating. Or even swindling, duping, tricking or general chicanery.

This is the last in my Editor's notes series for now, in which I share some of the things I often find myself telling authors when I report back to them on how I've edited their work. It's not about the basics of how to tell a story or that you need to check your spelling, but about the less obvious things that can subtly affect the reader's experience. If you want to catch up on previous posts, and there are six including this one, I've now given them all the tag 'Editor's notes', so if you click on that at the bottom, you'll find all the posts. I hope they've been of some help. It's made me think about why I like editing other people's work. I seem to have a knack for it, for being able to work with other authors' distinctive voices without imposing my own and to help them to strengthen their writing with quite a sharp focus on each word and sentence. And when I read something that's a good story but is just a little bit clunky, it makes me want to do something about it.

Anyway, today I'm pleading with you to avoid cheating, and suggesting you might want to throw your thesaurus on the bonfire. Unless you use an online one or you might end up with some toxic smoke and nothing to write on. 

No cheating

You're writing away and your characters are getting hot and steamy and you suddenly realise they're at it but you never mentioned them taking any clothes off. Or they've finished and got up to make a cup of tea, but you forgot to untie them or they're drinking said cuppa, but one of them's still got a ball gag in. Oops. So you slip in the past action at that point of the story: Lee got up to make a cup of tea. Leanne had untied him shortly after her own climax. Or, Sarah suddenly said "fluffy bunnies". It was her safeword and Martha knew that because they'd discussed it earlier. Or, Terence sucked Tony's cock into his mouth. He'd pulled off Tony's trousers and underwear while they were still in the hall. 

It makes me, as the reader, feel cheated. I think this is particularly relevant to erotica. You might get away with it in general scenes of conversation or everyday life. And it's part of the plot in a 'twist in the tail' story, but there you will have conventions that let you know a surprise is coming even if you can't guess what it is. But when the reader is immersed in the action of an erotic scene, they don't want to realise there are things going on between the characters that they haven't been told at the time. They want to feel right there, either identifying with one of the characters or voyeuristically looking on at every little detail as it occurs. So if you realise you need to add in this kind of information, you really need to go back and weave it in at the point it actually happens. And 'weaving' it in is a skill in itself. It means not simply inserting a sentence, but making sure that sentence fits with the rising heat level, the tone at that point and the patterns of language and metaphor you've been building up. 

Burn your thesaurus

I'm all for varying your language to avoid repetition, but this doesn't mean looking up a series of synonyms and going through the list one by one and it doesn't mean replacing perfectly good, ordinary words with more 'literary' ones. 

Bob walked up to the house, wondering what awaited him inside. It wasn't the sort of house he expected a Domme to live in. It was, in fact, the smallest house on the street, a street full of large, detached Victorian houses. 

To avoid the repetition of 'house(s)', you could get out your thesaurus and do this:

Bob walked up to the house, wondering what awaited him inside. It wasn't the sort of dwelling he expected a Domme to live in. It was, in fact, the smallest building on the street, a street full of large, detached Victorian villas. 

Or you could write this:

Bob walked up to the house, wondering what awaited him inside. It wasn't the sort of place he expected a Domme to live in. It was small, much smaller than the Victorian villas that dominated the street.

I hope you think the second alternative is better. You won't find 'place' as a synonym of 'house' in the thesaurus, but it's an appropriate word in this context. I used villa in the first rewriting simply to replace the word house. But by refettling the whole sentence (and that's a technical term) you can get rid of the need for yet another synonym altogether and let the word 'villa' which has connotations of size and grandeur, stand in for some of the adjectives. It also means I've given that sentence a stronger verb, as well as 'was' it now has 'dominated'.

These are the sorts of details you can't write rules for. And each writer would come up with a different solution to a problem like that repetition. That's why fiction is so bloody marvellous, because no two writers think the same way or have the same voice. My solutions are one way of doing it, and I usually make a suggestion to clients, but I leave it to them whether to accept my suggestion or come up with their own edit. 

And yes, I have already used "fluffy bunnies" as a safeword in one of my stories. So don't even think about stealing it! My editing services site can be found at www.tillyhunter.co.uk.

Editor's notes: I exclaimed that she retorted

Still here? I'm going to do a round-up of lots of little bugbears this time, as this is my penultimate Editor's notes post for now. 

Just say it

Some writing advice will tell you to avoid the word 'said'. And I spend a lot of editing time replacing words such as 'ejaculated', 'confessed', 'admitted', 'retorted', 'exclaimed', 'laughed', 'giggled' and 'interjected' with 'said'. I'm with Alison Tyler, who wrote on the How to Write Erotic Fiction blog, "'said' can go a long way". And she's put together more than 50 erotica anthologies. Also, you don't always need a speech identifier at all if it's obvious who's speaking, or the action immediately before or after their words make it clear: "I'm going to eat you all up." He pressed his teeth to my neck. 

Basically, you’re lying

Characters lie down a lot in erotica. And in erotica written in the past, they lay down a lot too. I once wrote a story in which a fairytale prince is found lying on a rock. He’s lain there for a hundred years or more. It’s not the bed of heather where his lover laid him down. But it’s amazing how often people think the present tense of the verb is ‘to lay’. It’s not; it’s ‘to lie’. Perhaps one day, when enough people have got it wrong for long enough, this will change. But not yet.

That’s enough

Some advisers would have you lose the word ‘that’ altogether. ‘I think that we should take our clothes off’ doesn’t need it. Nor does ‘I could tell that he was getting sleepy’. But ‘I was well aware that I was pushing my luck’ is borderline, in my mind. And ‘I felt that to stay there would be stupid’ almost certainly needs it. My rule? Purely pragmatic. Get rid if it still makes sense and sounds ok without it. And that’s that.

Adding and subtracting

Get rid of all your adverbs. That's what some 'writing rules' advise. The thinking is that (that? I think it’s needed there) if you’ve picked good strong, specific verbs you shouldn’t need to modify them. So instead of writing ‘she walked slowly’, you could put ‘she ambled’. Instead of 'he laughed childishly', you could put 'he sniggered'. My rule? Most of the weaker ones can go – slowly, gradually, softly, gently – along with most instances of the overused ones – suddenly, instantly, shockingly. Use them sparingly. Use them with intent instead of lazily slipping them in. Like that.

Next time is going to be my last Editor's notes post for now, and I'll be talking about cheating and burning thesauruses (thesauri?).

Editor's notes: Splice the mainbrace

Today, I'm talking about two common issues with sentence structure: run-on sentences/comma splices and fragments. Now, there is advice out there about these problems. But often, writers don't realise they're even doing it, so I'm going to explain what they mean, how to avoid them, and, in the case of fragments, why you might sometimes want to stick two fingers up to the rules. Fragments in particular are something I use a lot in my own writing, but have learnt to be aware of and use sparingly.

What's a comma splice? She crawled up the bed and positioned herself over him, her hair brushing his face, she was ready for him. 

The second comma is where the splice occurs. The first is okay, because 'her hair brushing his face' could not stand alone. To stand alone it would have to say: Her hair brushed his face. There'll be some fancy name for it, but, get this, I don't know that fancy name. I went to school in the eighties and although I know what's correct and what isn't, I don't always know the names for these things. I'm hoping I can make this admission now, four posts into my 'Editor's notes' series without entirely undermining my credibility... Maybe it's got something to do with gerunds. Anyway, 'she was ready for him' is a complete sentence with subject, verb and object. So you can't just split it from what has gone before with a comma. You need a semi-colon, if it's very closely related to what has preceded it. Otherwise, you need to finish the first part with a full stop and start a new sentence. 

She crawled up the bed and positioned herself over him, her hair brushing his face; she was ready for him. 
or
She crawled up the bed and positioned herself over him, her hair brushing his face. She was ready for him. 

What's a fragment? He made the proposal over a bottle of whisky. Which may have had something to do with us agreeing to it. Now that I think about it. Soberly.

The second, third and fourth sets of words which start with a capital letter and end with a full stop are all fragments. They are only pretending to be sentences. To be strictly correct, the one beginning 'Which' should be part of the previous sentence: He made the proposal over a bottle of whisky, which may have had something to do with us agreeing to it. The part beginning 'which' is a subordinate clause. Ooh get me and my grammatical terms; I had to Google it. 

To make the rest into 'proper' sentences, you'd have to do something like this: I realise this, now that I think about it soberly. 

But this is where I'd stick two fingers up to the rules and keep it all just as I first wrote it. I feel like a rebel, somewhat get me Johnny Rotten's phone number. Incidentally, although the phrase 'splice the mainbrace' may have originally referred to an emergency rope repair on a ship, it is now an order of extra drink for a crew. 

I'll be having a wee break for my next post, because I'm due to review Alison Tyler's Dark Secret Love on October 27th, but I'll be back after that to ask if you're ejaculating in my general direction. All my editing and proofreading info is at www.tillyhunter.co.uk.

Editor's notes: Literally melting

It's your friendly neighbourhood independent editor here again, sharing some of the common issues I see in my work for authors. I don't mean the basics of grammar and characterisation and plot; advice on those is easy to find. I'm talking instead about some specific but subtle things affecting writers of erotica. And this time, it's metaphors that can be unintentionally hilarious. 

His whip had set my ass on fire and now he told me to bend over ready for him; his voice was gravel. I folded myself in half, ass raised to the ceiling, waiting. His cock found my tunnel and pierced me to the core. Once he'd filled me to the brim, he pushed me onto the bed and made me come. My bones melted into the mattress.

As erotica writers, we can go a bit overboard at times. I'm the same. In the heat of the moment, you lose the little words that signal that you're talking metaphorically - His voice *sounded like* gravel. My bones *felt like* they were melting into the bed. Or your metaphors simply run away with themselves or get all mixed up.

You can get away with it. A bit. But do it too much and it gets ridiculous. Your reader might be jerked out of their immersion in the heat of the moment and imagine it happening literally. If your ass was actually ablaze, you'd have a problem. And bones melting into the bed? Crikey, call an ambulance. No, call an exorcist. Cocks do not actually split or pierce people, even though likening them, metaphorically, to weapons or tools has a long (and often misogynistic) history. And no one has a tunnel as part of their anatomy, unless you're writing a medical text about carpal tunnel syndrome. And just try to imagine how much come it would take to fill a hollowed-out human-sized figure. 

If you've been paying attention, you'll have spotted that I added the word 'felt' to the second description of bones melting. And I've already suggested you stop using the verb 'to feel' all the time. But as I also said, it's about moderation, about using a word because you've chosen to, not because it just slips in and takes over. The same with these metaphors; you're building up the heat but you have to stop before your pan boils over (metaphorically speaking) or your reader is going to be thinking 'what the bloody fuck?'

Next time, splices and fragments. And if you happen to need a helpful, down-to-earth kind of editor, check me out at www.tillyhunter.co.uk.

Editor's notes: I know what you're thinking

I'm back to share some more of the common issues I find when I'm editing the work of other erotica authors. Today, it's all about unintentional head hopping. And as I said before, the somewhat dodgy examples are my own; I work with clients in complete confidence.

People have a lot to say about head hopping. I Googled the term and there's pages and pages of discussion about whether you should do it or not. Personally, I'm with Remittance Girl, who gives a comprehensive explanation on why it doesn't work in erotica at her blog, here. Others disagree, and will say it's acceptable as long as you adequately signal the shift between points of view, such as giving each one a separate chapter or, at the very least, a new paragraph. 

Which camp an author falls into is their business - and their readers' - but as an editor I'm interested in the instances in which an author unintentionally head hops. Like this:

He was downing his glass of wine too fast, looking for some kind of courage in the dregs. He realised his left leg had started up that nervous little bounce and consciously stilled it. He wanted her to grab him and pull him to her, push him down on his knees, grasp a handful of hair and drag his face into her pussy. He looked her in the eyes as if he could somehow convey that need telepathically. She gazed back, mulling over her next move.

That last sentence has shifted into another point of view. When I first wrote that, I put it in first-person. But I switched to third (the close-zoom type, known as 'limited third-person', you tend to get in erotica) to make it clear that, even when the narrative point of view is looking on from the outside, we're actually in his experience. And he can't know what she's thinking. If you want to speculate on what's going on in the other person's head, it has to be an assumption or imagining: She gazed back; was she mulling over her next move? or She gazed back; I imagined her mulling over possibilities. And now that I've written the words 'mulling over' so many times, I'd like to advise that you never, ever use that phrase in erotica unless you're mulling wine. Yum.

Another thing to watch out for is describing something your main character can't actually know about - something visual that happens behind them or while they're blindfolded, or a sound that is out of their earshot: Leanne pushed me to the bed, face down, and pushed her fingers into her own mouth, lubricating them. Yeah, yeah, we know what's coming (fnarr fnarr) but actually whoever 'me' is can't see Leanne do that while s/he is face down on the bed. If you want to make it clear she's made some attempt at lubrication because you're considerate like that, you have to do it another way: Leanne pushed me to the bed, face down, and I sincerely hoped that the cold wetness I felt trickle down my crack was lube...

Next time, unwittingly amusing metaphors. And if you find yourself in need of a proofreader or copy editor, my info is at www.tillyhunter.co.uk.

Editor's notes: I feel all funny

I've been editing the work of other authors for a while now, and often the same things crop up in the reports I send back to them about changes or suggestions I've made. So, I thought I'd share some of those common issues. I'm not talking about the basics of grammar or storytelling because there are many places you can find out more about those on the web. I'm talking about the real nitty gritty things that, as an author, you may not spot in your own work. All the examples are ones I've made up myself (hurriedly); I work with clients in complete confidence.

I'm kicking off with a bit about the verb 'to feel' and related sensory matters.

Here’s a little story: Naomi was walking down the street when her lover sneaked (snuck? No! I refuse to believe snuck is a real word) up behind her, shoved her into a side alley and fucked her senseless against the rough wall. She could feel the bricks grate against her skin through her thin t-shirt. She could feel the damp soaking into her bones. It made her feel dirty. It made her feel alive.

Or you could put: Naomi was walking down the street when her lover sneaked up behind her, shoved her into a side alley and fucked her senseless against the rough wall. The bricks grated her skin through her thin t-shirt. The damp soaked into her bones. It made her feel dirty. Alive.

When you’re writing from one person’s point of view – whether you’re doing it in the first or third-person – you don’t always have to tell me that they’re the one ‘feeling’ all the sensations. It’s a given. (I’ll get onto head hopping another time.) So you can edit out most uses of the verb ‘to feel’ and keep it for when you are perhaps giving some deeper insight into a character's psycho-emotional state or describing an unusual sensation.

Related to that are the other more commonly described senses. Take the verb ‘to hear’: She was lying on the bed, naked, her eyes closed, waiting for him to get in from work. She heard a car pull up outside. She heard its door slam. She heard, or maybe she only thought she did, footsteps coming up the path. She heard a key in the lock. She chickened out, leapt up and got dressed.

Or: She was lying on the bed, naked, her eyes closed, waiting for him to get in from work. A car pulled up outside. Its door slammed. She heard, or maybe she only thought she did, footsteps coming up the path. A key scraped in the lock. She chickened out, leapt up and got dressed.

‘To see/look/watch’: I looked up and watched him hook his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs and saw him slide them down his thighs, down his calves, and off. I saw him take a step towards me, saw a hand reach forwards for my waist. I watched as his lips approached mine. (I think I went cross-eyed.)

Or: He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs and slid them down his thighs, down his calves, and off. His hand reached for my waist as he stepped towards me. His lips approached mine.

As you can see, I'm not saying that these verbs should be banned entirely; I'm not that kind of editor (and if you believe 'snuck' is a real word and are going to use it, I'll respect your choice!). Language is not a fixed, immutable thing and rules are there to be broken. For every writing tip you read, you can probably find someone else saying the opposite. But moderation is key; I believe that each word you write should be deliberate. I've kept in the word 'felt' only when I'm talking about feeling dirty as a key part of the sexual experience. I've kept the word 'heard' only when we're straying into what she might be imagining rather than actually hearing in reality. 

I hope my examples have helped to explain what I mean. Next time, I'm going to say a little about the problem of unintentional head hopping. And if you need an editor, my info is at www.tillyhunter.co.uk.