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This is our 150^th issue. Last year we celebrated Granta’s fortieth anniversary (in its current incarnation) by bringing out a special edition of some of the best fiction and non-fiction we have published over the years. Here, we celebrate language itself, publishing a range of authors who stretch writing to its creative limits. We take our theme from Pwaangulongii Dauod’s remarkable eulogy to the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina. ‘There must be ways to organise the world with language,’ Dauod writes, meditating on the explosive creative energy of Wainaina’s vision for Africa. It’s an apt title, given that all the fiction in this issue is visionary and dramatic, addressing existential themes and taking the space to do it.

Our opening story, by Carmen Maria Machado, plays with ideas of staged violence, visibility and invisibility, origins and renewal, a ghostly mirroring of a fictional pre-war Parisian theatre of pain.

Sidik Fofana’s piece – a chapter from a forthcoming novel set in Harlem and written in American vernacular English – follows a schoolgirl sent South to stay with relatives over the summer. I’ve always been sceptical about writing in the vernacular, trapping characters in perceived idioms, but Fofana’s writing is so inventive, and so persuasive, that you immediately lose yourself in it.

Che Yeun’s story is about a South Korean teenager whose friendship with another girl culminates in violence. Can you survive outside the system? But then again, as a girl, can you survive within it?

Mazen Maarouf’s ‘The Story of Anya’ portrays a teenage boy falling in love with a girl in a nameless setting where some people have special powers and dreams are sold for money. Like Elena Ferrante, whose psychoanalytic insights and thoughts order the world of her characters, Maarouf drops clues into the text. The story is punctuated with symbols from faintly familiar yet surreal settings: bulletproof glass, cancer, nosebleeds, signed bank notes.

After youth, midlife. Tommi Parrish’s graphic story is about a ranting, middle-aged man at a bar who fails to connect with others. At the end of the story he is lying naked in his garden – I won’t describe what he is doing there, but it’s funny and a connection of sorts is finally made. This is a short chapter from a longer work about recovering addicts and other fractured characters – lumbering, gender-fluid people stumble through the pages; the dialogue is laconic, laced with gentle irony.

Perhaps the innocence of animals can be a salvation? Amy Leach’s fictional lecture coaches animals to count, to become more professional (and more human), less hopelessly poetical and inefficient in their doings: ‘Sometimes, when you see the emerald and ruby and sapphire sparkles on the snow, it seems like you are rich; sometimes it seems you can’t get along without someone, seems the winter will never end, seems the moon is abnormally big coming over the mountains. But measurement dispenses with all the seeming: the bank account is low, the moon is normal-sized, etc.’

Other than Dauod’s eulogy, we have three non-fiction pieces in this issue. Jack Kerouac travelled across America with Neal Cassady and others, an epic road trip described in his novel On the Road. Recently, Andrew O’Hagan told me about visiting Cassady’s widow, Carolyn, who was living in a mobile home outside Windsor. I commissioned him to write this piece. ‘They were just boys,’ she says of Jack and Neal and the others. ‘Just boys. But they had seen the sun together and that is everything.’

The second piece is also about old age. Photographer Michael Collins meticulously records the decline of his mother, who suffered from a series of strokes, gradually losing her ability to speak. His own terse language is perfectly in keeping with the subject matter; this is a sad story, and an important one.

Oliver Bullough, finally, describes what happened when a lawyer rewrote British Virgin Island company law, creating new channels for hidden money. Such is the power of language: words become law; laws change the world.

The post Introduction appeared first on Granta.

It happens. You’re sitting in front of a blank page, you dip into your well of inspiration, and you come up with nothing.

Nada. Zilch.

At most the moldy remains of an idea you had in seventh grade.

I’ve been there time and again, until by chance I attended a panel led by Orson Scott Card.

A strategy for developing good story ideas

In that panel, he opened my eyes to what a good story idea looks like, and how to generate story ideas without any effort.

With time, I’ve included my own little twist on his method. The result? A five-element story idea generator that will rarely fail you.

Here’s how to come up with good story ideas.

The First Element: Character

A story cannot take place without creating complex characters. The character might be a chair (I wrote one like that!), but it has to be there.

If you don’t have a specific idea for a character, make one up randomly. Choose the following:

• Race (e.g. human, alien, salt shaker)
• Gender (if applicable–and isn’t that a story idea in itself!)
• Age (from toddler to elder and even eternal)
• Marital status (single, married, divorced, three-year marriage contract…)
• Family status (parents, brothers, pets, etc. but also nationality and ethnicity)
• Circumstances (profession, work)
• And, of course, creative character names.

Interesting combinations make for richer stories, so keep that in mind as you fill out your character’s background.

The Second Element: Desire

Your character must have some desires in life. What drives her? What makes her get out of bed in the morning?

It can be an active desire, like running a marathon or getting a promotion. It can be a less active desire, like wanting to be left alone.

But it has to be a specific, attainable desire that will move your character throughout your story.

Can’t think of a good desire? Re-read your character’s background, try to get into that person’s shoes and think of what you would have wanted in her stead.

The Third Element: Resistance

If your character wanted something and got it right off the bat, you wouldn’t have a story, would you?

So the next critical element is the roadblock that stands in your character’s way.

It can be physical, emotional, spiritual or cultural. It can be another person or a group of people.

It can be a question of legality or consensus. It can be the very elements of nature.

Whatever it is, make sure the resistance matches the character. If you have a strong character, you will need a powerful obstacle to stand in her way — otherwise, the reader won’t be convinced that the struggle is real and desperate.

With these three elements, Orson Scott Card claimed at that panel, you have a solid story idea that can be developed into any media and length.

I like to add two more elements to the mix.

The Fourth Element: Change

A story is all about the character’s journey, and that journey is all about change. If the protagonist is the same at the end as she’d been in the beginning, something is missing.

For short stories, the change can be as simple as a single trait:

• A shy man overcomes his shyness in order to pursue true love.
• A skeptic woman must learn to believe before she can attain the career of her dreams.
• A haughty salt shaker must learn humility in order to find peace in its life.

And so on. The longer the story, the more scope you have to mold your character in new ways.

The Fifth Element: Settings

The settings of a story are more than a backdrop. It is often a character in and of itself. It impacts the way your protagonist thinks, feels, and behaves.

Choose an interesting backdrop that will really challenge your protagonist or highlight her journey.

For example, if your protagonist is on a journey of inner and outer peace, why not paint her story against a background of war, strife, or unrest?

Character, desire, resistance, change and settings. Pick them deliberately or randomize them completely; either way, you’re sure to get some interesting story ideas.

How’s that for your very own story idea generator? Now go make up some good story ideas and write!

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

The post Need Story Ideas? This 5-Step Process Works Every Time appeared first on The Write Life.

Although it isn’t openly stated, it is implied that Ophelia is Hamlet’s ‘girlfriend’: his betrothed, the woman he will marry. Like Hamlet, she is part of the royal court, and her father, Polonius, is a lord – so although she isn’t royalty like Hamlet, she would be a suitable match […]

The post An Interesting Character Study: Ophelia appeared first on Interesting Literature.

Once you’ve finished a draft of your book, the natural next step is to look for a book editor.

And of course, if you’re in need of book editing, you’ll wonder how much it will cost.

I wish I could give you a firm rule: that proofreading will always cost one cent per word, copyediting two cents per word, and developmental editing three cents per word.

But the truth is much hazier than that. How much a book editor costs depends on several factors.

So my goal here is to flesh out those factors and give you a sense of how much book editing might cost. Freelance editing rates vary widely from one editor to the next, so I’ll also help you think through how to compare different editors and decide which one to hire.

How much it costs to hire a quality book editor

When you’re ready to move to the editing stage, think through these questions. They’ll help you figure out how much you’ll need to pay an editor to review your book.

1. What kind of editing do you need?

What does a book editor do? Not all editing is created equal. Here are a few different kinds of editing:

• Developmental editing: big picture, content editing, macro editing
• Copyediting: micro editing, grammar editing, flow and structure editing
• Proofreading: consistency check, format and layout

Developmental editing costs more than copyediting, and copyediting costs more than proofreading.

2. What’s your total word count?

Book editors for hire typically charge by word count or page count. Some charge by the hour, but that’s rare, especially for editing long books.

Knowing your total word count is essential to an editor’s cost estimations for taking on your project.

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3. How complex is your book?

Editing academic work to a niche style guide will cost more than editing a novel per the Chicago Manual of Style.

Editing a book with hundreds of footnotes or endnotes should cost more than editing a book without citations.

In other words, the complexity and niche of your work will affect the book editing rate.

4. What’s your deadline?

How quickly do you need the work done? The more flexible you are with your deadline, the less you might pay.

If you ask for your 100,000-word novel to be copyedited within two weeks, you might have to pay a premium for such a fast turnaround, especially if your editor is already booked.

5. What’s your writing experience?

Do you consider yourself a beginner, mid-level or expert writer?

By default, beginning writers will need more help, which means more time, which can mean more money.

An experienced editor can often take a look at an excerpt from a manuscript, get a feel for your experience level, and deduce the amount of time they need to edit the full manuscript.

For the beginning writers: always look at hiring an editor as an investment in both your book and yourself. With the right editor, you should grow as a writer because of the feedback.

6. What’s your editor’s experience level and/or demand?

A novice editor will cost less than an editor with decades of experience and multiple best-sellers in their portfolio.

Of course, you get what you pay for, and an experienced editor might bring more value.

Likewise, if you want to work with an editor who’s in high demand and booked six months out, you’ll likely have to pay more than if you choose to work with an editor who has lots of room in her schedule.

7. What’s your flexibility?

If an editor is booked solid, can you afford to wait six months to get the editor you want?

Or, will you pay a premium to jump their queue if they offer such an option? Or, will you choose a lesser-known or less experienced editor at a lower price so that you can have your editing accomplished faster?

How to compare editing costs (free spreadsheet download)

If you’d like to get truly organized about your search, use this editor comparison spreadsheet template to help in your search for an editor who meets most of your desired criteria and offers freelance editing rates you’re willing to pay.

I say “most of your desired criteria” because it’s rare to find an editor who will meet all your criteria. For instance, you may have to pay a few hundred to a few thousand dollars more for your top pick. Or, you may find someone at your precise price point, but their experience isn’t quite what you’d like it to be. You must be the one to assess what trade-offs you’re willing to make.

By using that spreadsheet, you should be able to quickly and easily compare the editors you’re vetting.

Note: On the spreadsheet, the editor’s total cost will be automatically calculated once you insert your total word count and the editor’s per-word rate. If you’re given a per-page rate, you can calculate a per-word rate by assuming the industry standard of 250 words per page, e.g., $3 per page equals $3 per 250 words. Dividing 3 by 250 equals $.012.

If you’re given an hourly rate for freelance editing, ask the editor how many pages per hour they can edit, then extrapolate their per-word rate.

The rightmost part of the spreadsheet also includes pre-calculated per-word rates based on per-page rates.

Compiling this information is a headache (especially for math-averse writers like myself), but seeing every editor’s rate as a per-word rate will help you better compare editors.

Freelance editing rates: The hard numbers of editing

Now, let’s talk actual rates.

Many writers point to the Editorial Freelancers Association rates page as a guide toward setting editorial rates. (Disclaimer: I’m a member of the EFA.)

The EFA rates page lists various editing and writing tasks and their attendant hourly rates as self-reported by EFA members who took the rates survey. They break down editing into five subcategories and list proofreading as a separate category. (Tip: they also list per-hour and per-word rates for writing work.)

For comparison purposes, let’s look at the editing rates and use an average page-per-hour and an average hourly rate. For instance, the EFA lists basic copyediting of 5–10 pages per hour at a cost of $30–$40 per hour, so I’ve assumed 7.5 pages per hour at a cost of $35 per hour. The other total calculations also use their respective average rates.

For a 70,000-word book, your editing costs could be:

• Developmental editing: $.08 per word, or $5,600 total
• Basic copyediting: $.018 per word, or $1,260 total
• Proofreading: $.0113, or $791 total

It’s easy to extrapolate from this what your total expected editing cost could be. Fantasy, sci-fi, and epic novel writers should be forewarned.

For a 120,000-word book, your editing costs could be:

• Developmental editing: $.08 per word, or $9,600 total
• Basic copyediting: $.018 per word, or $2,160 total
• Proofreading: $.0113, or $1,356 total

While these are simply one website’s average estimates for editorial costs, they serve as a reliable benchmark.

If you end up paying more for an editor, you might be glad you did. As in life, so too in books: you often get what you pay for.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

The post Looking for a Book Editor? Here’s How Much You Should Expect to Pay appeared first on The Write Life.