My Breakfast with Editor Deni Dietz

On Tuesday, August 14^th, I attended the RMFW event at the Tattered Cover bookstore that featured a panel of the Writers of the Year nominees. They gave out raffle tickets, and I was the lucky one to win a breakfast with an editor at this year’s Colorado Gold conference. I spent an hour with Denise “Deni” Dietz talking about writing, editing, and publishing, coming to the interview as an unpublished author having completed my first novel. Here is what I learned from talking to Deni.

John: I see on your Facebook page you are a Broncos fan. I believe you were once a member of RMFW?

Deni: I was one of the original 30 members of the Denver chapter of the Romance Writers of America, living in Colorado Springs. Some of us wanted to write more than romance, so we broke off and formed the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.

John: As an editor, what would be a successful Colorado Gold conference for you?

Deni: For Five Star Publications, I now read and edit submissions to their line of Frontier Fiction, which includes romance, science fiction, young adult—anything to do with the West. I’d love to find someone here who writes that type of fiction. Also, I’m here to promote my new book, Cirque, a historical novel co-starring P.T. Barnum written under my Mary Ellen Dennis pseudonym.

John: I understand you are one of the few editors who read query letters.

Deni: I used to read queries when I was a senior editor, but now my boss gets the queries and asks for the manuscripts. I evaluate the manuscript, and if it shows promise I’ll recommend it to Five Star. Then I do the editing and work with the author to polish it.

John: What do you do as a developmental editor?

Deni: I look for a novel with a good voice, with good characters, plot, and pacing. I want to experience what the character feels—show me instead of telling me. The quickest way to have your novel turned down is having the editor feel nothing for your character.

John: Do you recommend a developmental edit for a first-time author?

Deni: Yes, I do. But you can do a lot on your own to rid your manuscript of amateurish writing. Many amateurs have too many instances of “that” or “just.” More recently, the word “actually” crops up too much. I also see too many actions substituting for dialog tags, words like “shrugged,” “nodded,” and “laughed.” You can’t shrug, nod, or laugh the words you speak. Also, I hate it when a person’s eyes come out of their head to “sweep the room” or “drop to the floor.”

John: You seem to be very busy, editing at Five Star as your day job but also doing freelance editing and writing your own novels. You must enjoy doing it all, or something would drop by the wayside. What do you enjoy about each?

Deni: So many people helped me when I was starting to write that now I want to pay it forward. At Five Star, I feel like a mother hen when one of my authors earns a starred review. My husband and I have a competition over who has the most authors with starred reviews.

For me, writing is the ultimate high—better than drugs. I often have to walk my dog to come down from the emotional high. I have a feeling of both accomplishment and wonder from writing. I’m usually working on two books at a time, a mystery and a historical fiction.

As a freelance developmental editor, I take auditions before agreeing to work with an author, usually the first two chapters plus chapter thirteen. People usually polish their opening chapters, so I need to see if they have sustained it. I want to see if they take their craft seriously.

John: So, as an author yourself, when do you know when your book is good enough to publish?

Deni: It took me seven years to sell my first book. But I read the rejections, and I realized I needed to deepen the mystery and add more clues. After twelve drafts, I sold it to a publisher. I always say, “If you drop a dream, it breaks.” So stay inspired, but be realistic. Now, I’m usually finished after three drafts. The first draft I just get the story down on “paper” (the computer). The second draft I make my revisions until I think it’s the best I can do. Then I send it to a freelance editor (not my husband). No matter who you are, you have blind spots that prevent you from seeing your manuscript clearly. I had one mystery where my sleuth was learning about a murder victim from other characters. My editor asked, “Shouldn’t your hero find the body?” I rewrote, and it was so much better.

And just because a publisher turns down your book doesn’t mean you’re dead to them. I’ve had three books published by companies that had turned down earlier books from me. Harlequin bought my husband Gordon’s fourth book, written as Victoria Gordon, and when it sold, they eventually went back and bought the first three. He’d kept on writing romances because he had so much fun writing them.

John: Do you recommend, or even require, your authors to have a website?

Deni: Yes, but it doesn’t need to be terribly elaborate.

John: How about before publishing a novel? Is a website worthwhile to get yourself noticed? I’m thinking of Andy Weir having people read his novel The Martian, which eventually created enough of a fan base to attract a publisher.

Deni: I wouldn’t make my whole novel available on my website, but maybe a chapter or a short story. You need to have something to get people to visit your site.

John: On your Facebook page you write, “My crime fiction novels have no socially redeeming values whatsoever; they are meant to entertain.” I resonate with that remark. I just want to write stories that entertain.

Deni: That’s the way I feel about my mysteries, which feature an amateur sleuth.

John: I’m coming to realize that part of entertainment is having characters wrestle with issues, whether it’s personal conflict, some issue in our society, or seeing the pickle the character finds herself in and asking ourselves how we would react. So maybe we can’t really avoid tackling some issues in our writing.

Deni: Absolutely.

John: I come from a scientific background, educated as an engineer, so I bring that to my stories, but I’ve always loved to read. As a writer, I’m having to learn where to put the commas in a sentence and how to avoid passive sentence structure. You have an MFA degree from Wisconsin (Go Big Ten! I went to Purdue). How helpful has that degree been in your writing and editing endeavors?

Deni: I got a job in advertising on a newspaper where I sketched the ads. It was a small newspaper, so I also wrote weekly columns under various names, but I really wanted to write fiction. I wrote during the day when my kids were at school. One of the writers in my RMFW critique group, Emily Carmichael, sold a historical romance and asked me to edit it. I agreed, and the book was contracted without a single edit or revision. From there, I started my freelance editing service, which eventually led to my being an Associate Editor for Tekno-Books, then Senior Editor for Five Star Mysteries.

John: So, do you still have art projects, as well as everything else?

Deni: Unfortunately, I have no time for art. That’s one thing that takes a back seat. But one day, when I’m not writing, editing, giving writing workshops, singing with a show choir, or performing in community theater musicals, I’ll return to it.

 

John M. Campbell has been a member of RMFW for two years. This year he entered his first Colorado Gold novel contest and attended his first Colorado Gold conference. His first novel, STEALTH OPERATIONS, did not make the finals of the Mystery and Thriller category, but he took the judges’ comments to heart. He hopes to have his novel ready for a developmental edit by the end of the year.