INSIDE DISH: BOOK EDITOR LORIN OBERWEGER

One of the secrets to the success of my new novel, NAKED AMBITION, is my book editor, Lorin Oberweger. Lorin did both the developmental edit and a year later the final line edit. I took her outstanding advice in both cases, but the line edit was more intense. It’s one thing to flip some chapters around or cut story lines that add nothing to the entire book,  but it’s quite something else to go line by line through the novel and make recommendations and ask questions. Why is this paragraph here? What is she thinking here? Why not take this out completely? She explained several things I had done wrong and yes, on occasion, things I had actually gotten right.

Since I’ve been a journalist all of my life and not a fiction writer (although sometimes accused of writing fiction when I upset a public official or two), it was a huge transition for me to attempt fiction. I read some 40 books on fiction writing and listened closely to Lorin. It was an intense few years, which I equate with getting an MFA in fiction writing (and cost only about half what an MFA degree would cost).

Thanks to Lorin and others who read my manuscript and offered constructive criticism, the next book shouldn’t take so long. I finally get it! My goal is to have the manuscript for NAKED TRUTH in her hands by winter.