1. Developmental editing: Big changes to the plot or character development. Sometimes writers know how to do this on their own, sometimes not, and if not, we editors write a helpful critique to aid in revision.

2. Substantive editing: A heavy line edit that improves clarity and flow, and sometimes cuts or moves passages as needed to ensure a strong scene. (When I perform this service, it also includes a critique with insights on how readers will respond to your story.)

3. Copyediting: A light line edit done after the big edits are complete, and includes final polishing, fixing of minor mistakes, and reading for utter perfection.

4. Proofreading: An essential final step before a manuscript proceeds to print (i.e., if you’re self-publishing, or before your publisher sends the final manuscript to the printing press), best performed by a different person. Proofreading is a different skill, akin to finding a few needles in a haystack, to ensure that there are no remaining typos.

With most clients, I perform either #1 or #2 on a manuscript. Very polished manuscripts get #3. Pre-press manuscripts go to my hawk-eyed proofreader, Babs Griswold.

The most important principle to understand is that editing cannot be performed in one fell swoop, for the simple reason that it is pointless to scrupulously proofread a chapter that may not have a place in the final version of a novel. The direction of editing flows from story structure, to artful writing, to stylistic perfection, to typographical perfection; and to get the most out of working with a freelance editor, it is wise to get an accurate assessment of where your manuscript falls on this spectrum, and plan for each of the editing phases thereafter.

• Harriet Parke’s novel Agenda 21 hit the bestseller lists on its launch day.
• Jen Westby’s beautiful memoir of grief Six Days of Kindness came out, following plenty of great local media attention.
• David Seaburn’s fifth novel, Chimney Bluffs, was released by Savant Books.
• Patricia Vanasse’s YA novel, Resilient, was accepted by Pants on Fire Press.
• Nazli Ghassemi’s hilarious multicultural novel, Desert Mojito, earned almost $12,000 on Kickstarter.
• Steven Maitland-Lewis’s novel, Emeralds Never Fade, won the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award for a self-published novel.
• Ross Goldstein sold the film rights to his self-published novel about cycling, Chain Reaction.
• David Rothstein’s gorgeous self-published novel about the Civil War, Casualties, got a big sales boost when university classes started teaching it.
• Tony Russo made it to the semifinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award with his YA novel, Zak Corbin: Master of Machines.
• Shelley and Jason McClanahan’s Sea of Jasmine rose through the ranks of Authonomy to become nominated as “One to Watch,” and got a personal submission invitation from an editor at HarperCollins.

I also had a few personal successes as a writer. This doesn’t usually matter much in the scheme of my business, but the foundation of my editing is a deep, personal connection to the struggles and aspirations common to every working writer. I also try to practice what I preach. Here’s what I’m proud of:

• Attended the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference in Mexico
• Connected personally with several agents who invited me to submit my novel
• Completed four short stories in a month, and two were accepted for publication
• Had my first-ever article published on Salon.com
• Got included in two anthologies: Laura Stanfill’s Brave on the Page (interview) and the Association of Independent Editors guide, Self-Publishing! (article)
• The Threepenny Editor entered its tenth year of business
• Completed three semesters of Arabic, part of a research effort for my current novel
• Ran a marathon

May 2013 bring health, wealth, and creative successes to each and every writer out there, on a tide that raises all boats. Happy New Year!

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Seems like most of us are on the hunt for some kind of credibility. But we haven’t always got a firm grasp on how fluid credibility really is.

Say you’re an indie author, and you’ve happily finished up your first novel. On some level, of course, we’re all sums of our experiences—and your own innate sense of “normal” will creep into your creation. Yet we can give ourselves a lot of creative leeway, too: These works may’ve come directly from the heart, over years—and are hugely personal.

But that personal and human sense can get clouded as we choose our book’s wardrobe. Again, we crave big-name credibility, and have a fairly rigid sense of what that means. We desperately want the book to look…normal.

And what exactly does that mean? Normal in this sense usually means we’d like it to look a lot like a typical best-seller. Head to the book store, grab a book from the table inside the front door, and boom—that’s what a book is “supposed to” look like.

It’s a little like when we’re children, and we wish we were grownups. Endless pizza money, and zero homework. But then we reach adulthood and it’s another story—suddenly we appreciate the benefits of being small, independent, and manageable.

In the case of the indie author, the most salient benefit of that smallness is in your ability to really connect with your readership as a fellow human being. This is not something easily achieved as entities grow—but as an emerging talent, it is in your nature to be individual! And that sense of YOU can be represented on the outside of your book as well as within it.

We are allowed to take risks. Visual risks that you don’t always find on that front table in the book store. But that serve as a reflection of our work, first and foremost.

“But what about marketing? If I don’t look like Grisham or something, I will sell zero books.”

Is this so? We’ve got to ask ourselves—who is buying books from new authors? Are these readers who will literally be choosing between your novel and the one on that front table? Or are these people who love your emerging-ness?

I believe the latter pulls a lot harder. And this audience deserves to enjoy the thrill of discovery! Which radiates from the inside out—from you to your work, and from your pages to the jacket. Every element working in concert to create one unified experience of you, shared through your work.

Which is not uncomfortably fitted into a rented suit, but is right there, raw and clear. This, too is credible—and authentic.

Author Tony Russo

Tomorrow, Amazon will name the winners of the Breakthrough Novel Award, its annual career-maker contest. This year over five thousand novelists submitted their manuscripts to a grueling elimination process that winnows entries down to a handful, to be chosen among by popular vote. The grand prize winner receives a $15,000 advance and a contract from Penguin; the others receive $3,000.

The contest is so valuable that writers start preparing a year in advance–and that is why I asked Tony Russo, one of this year’s semifinalists, to share his advice on what makes a strong submission. His YA manuscript was one of fifty to receive comments from Publisher’s Weekly, and some valuable advice for making his novel the most compelling story that it can be.

If you would like more information on how to enter next year’s contest, look no further than this link.

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SC: First, tell us about your book! What’s it about, how long have you been working on it, and how long have you been writing?

TR: ZAK CORBIN: MASTER OF MACHINES takes place in an alternative past, the 1950s, where certain advances in science and technology have already come about (or in some cases, didn’t exist at all) such as space flight, flying cars, megacities and, of course, robots. It’s a throwback to the earlier days of science fiction, like the old Tom Swift stories and The Adventures of Tin-Tin, with a little young romance thrown in.

The story’s about a young teen, Zak, who has a famous uncle who once pioneered and designed robots. His uncle has been sentenced to this island prison and Zak doesn’t understand why everyone says he’s a madman and a traitor. Just the mere mention of the Corbin name sends people screaming in panic—everyone thinks his uncle is some crazed mad scientist! So Zak tries to build a robot of his own, mostly to impress a girl, and promptly gets into trouble. When he finds the plans for one of his uncle’s amazing robots, Zak decides building the machine will prove his uncle is not a madman. But when Zak wishes he could set his uncle free, the robot takes his request a little too literally and breaks his uncle out of prison.

The story’s idea hit me in a single Saturday morning. I wake up too early for my spouse’s liking, so I putter around my office and get on the computer. I have a lot of art books and publications from the 1930s and 1940s: I love the New York World’s Fair and the iconography of that period. It may have been an image from an old Superman cartoon that got me thinking about robots and the mad scientist bent on destroying some city. Then I thought, what about his poor family? Can you imagine going to school with everyone knowing your uncle is that guy? As soon as I decided the main character was around fifteen years old and in high school, I knew the story was going to end up in the YA genre. It took me three months to write the first draft and then another month for revising. And yes, I’m considering another revision.

ZAK CORBIN is my first attempt at YA fiction. I read a few books in the YA category, first the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfield and then The Hunger Games trilogy, when I decided to try my own hand at it. I’ve been writing mostly science fiction for over fifteen years but it’s only been in the last year when I suddenly became more prolific. Besides short stories for a few magazines, I was a contributor for a company that held the license for Star Wars The Roleplaying Game (D&D meets Star Wars, just how geeky is that?) and I tried self-publishing a novel way before the e-book market surged. It feels as though I’m always either ahead or behind the trends.

SC: Your manuscript made it pretty far in Amazon’s yearly Breakthrough Novel contest—ahead of some crazy number of other entries … five thousand? What can you tell us about the process? Did you get advice or feedback as the manuscript advanced?

TR: The contest was mentioned in a major website, either Publishers Weekly or Writers Digest. Prior to that, I had submitted queries for ZAK CORBIN to a number of literary agents and the responses were either boilerplate no or polite “not what I’m looking for.” The contest appealed to me because it was like submitting the manuscript to an agent: You need to craft a 300-word pitch, submit the first 5,000-6,000 words of the manuscript, and then the whole thing. So I thought, well at least this is a chance for the story to be read by a wide swath of people in the industry: Amazon Vine reviewers, readers from Publishers Weekly and then a panel of judges.

Most of the information handed out during the contest came from the discussion boards. Amazon posted reviews of the pitches and then the excerpts. Those who made it to the semifinals got their manuscripts reviewed by Publishers Weekly and those reviews were posted to each entrant. As each contest milestone approached, those who had entries would compare their reviews and talk about the positive and negative reactions they got. Each step of the contest was judged based on each entrant’s work, except for the three finalists in each category (there are YA and General Fiction categories). The finalists’ excerpts are downloaded and voted on by the public. So the winner is by popular vote.

 SC:  When we first spoke about your manuscript last November, you had already done a lot of preparation. Most writers enter contests on a whim (the odds seem so unforgiving!). How did you go about preparing for Amazon’s contest, and what advice would you give other writers?

TR: The first thing I did was read the Amazon discussion boards for the contest. They have a “pitch review” discussion thread, which lets you send in your 300-word pitch and allow others to critique it. They were very positive about the whole process. I got some great feedback and changed my wording and sentence structure to make it concise, exciting and appealing.

The most important thing I wanted to send in was a really polished manuscript. My wife went through the entire story for a grammatical and spelling edit (she’s always first in line to read my work). She also made some story suggestions and comments. I then decided to turn to a professional editor to review what I would be submitting for the contest. I actually came across your Threepenny Editor website several months before because I’m a web designer by profession (writer by choice) and your site was featured on a list of excellent web designs. So I found your site again and made the inquiry.

SC: What have you learned about this year’s YA category?

TR: Had I done my research, it may have stopped me from submitting to the Amazon contest. I had no clear idea of what was currently popular in the YA category. I wrote my story because there were parts of it that greatly interested me. I don’t follow trends because I don’t want my work to end up in the same crowd, looking and sounding like everyone else’s. I follow my own path and write what I like. So yes, dark dystopian futures (a.k.a., The Hunger Games, Divergent, City of Bones) paranormal romance (the Trylle books), and slice-of-life, coming-of-age stories (The Fault Lies in the Stars) are current bestsellers.

The finalists for this year’s contest for YA fell into those categories: Two were coming-of-age stories and the third was a dark dystopian future. I’ve read plenty of articles that suggest following trends is pointless. This year it was The Hunger Games. Before that, it was Harry Potter. As writers, we only provide the words. It’s the readers who decide whether it’s worth their time.

SC: How would you like to see YA literature evolve or expand? (Or isn’t it up to writers?)

TR: I’ve read a number of the best sellers. I’ve also gone out of the YA category and picked up some other really popular books. I really love steampunk and historical science fiction and would love to write more in that genre.

I’ve become a little tired of the tropes that hallmark YA fiction: the mopey, unpopular girl with unruly hair who doesn’t think she’s pretty but has inner strength; the mysterious, handsome, but pouty boy who never answers direct questions; unreliable or dangerous adults; dressing up in black and wearing a lot of dark eye makeup makes a character “bad”; organizations that use murder, experimentation, and subterfuge to keep young people in line; references to makeup, styling, and appearance as notable character traits (really?); teens with superpowers; angst-ridden teens with superpowers; teens who are popular or are celebrities with the shallowest of talents; teens who romance, fight, or otherwise interact with demons, supernatural creatures, and godlike figures (hey, what’s the rest of the world doing while all of this is happening?) The list goes on. I’m always hoping for some genre-busting in YA. My next entry in the contest just might do that.

SC: What was your favorite book when you were fifteen?

TR: I had a score of really favorite books when I was that age. My English teachers latched on to my love of science fiction and encouraged me to read I, Robot, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, and Logan’s Run. My all-time favorite was Another Fine Myth (#1 of the Myth series) by Robert Aspirin. It combined my two favorite topics of the time: fantasy and terrible puns! I also read James Clavell’s Shogun, my first real big fat historical novel.

 SC: Do you have any wisdom for dealing with encouraging rejections? As a fellow writer and friend of writers, I know we all sometimes get sick of the advice to accept constructive criticism and move on. Any variations on this theme will be welcome!

TR: It’s a truly wonderful profession that encourages people to put themselves out there, sharing their hard work and thoughts, only to receive a slap to the face and be told their words don’t fit broad categories of marketability, trendiness, or whatever factors put a book on a shelf these days. The gatekeepers (literary agents, editors, publishers, etc.) have specific goals or targets in mind: a certain number of literary titles, non-fiction, genre fiction, etc. If your work doesn’t fit their needs, they move on. It’s usually not personal. I don’t bother trying to “pierce the veil” of rejection notices. Unless the notice has something very specific to say, that rejection letter is sent to everyone who submits. You have to develop an appreciation that what you are doing is very personal and special to you. It’s to keep your mind and soul happy.

There are other ways to getting people’s attention. Learn to socialize (ah yes, even writers must master public communication), engage with other people who share your interests, distribute your work, make real friends instead of pushing the Like button on Facebook. (Even I’m guilty of this; I haven’t been to a convention, sci-fi or otherwise, in years. I would love to get back to real face-to-face chat time.)

And sometimes, yes, rejections can be very helpful. Some years back, I got a detailed, typewritten letter from a literary agent who explained why he loved my work, but the timing was all wrong. There was a movie that had come out which had the same retro-futuristic theme as my story, but it had flopped at the box office. He told me to wait for the dust to settle and try again later. I did that with ZAK CORBIN.

 SC: Finally, what kind of writer are you: the kind who loves writing the first draft and dreads revision, or vice versa?

TR: I actually love both parts. I love composing a scene and getting very excited about how well it comes together – the images in my head, the dialogue and the description just merge together. Then I’ll come back around to revising and remember that scene, how it came together, and smooth out the rough patches. Sometimes I revise to the point that I end up writing new scenes or rewrite old ones just because I enjoy the story and the characters too much. Maybe that’s why writers end up creating trilogies. We just can’t stop!

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Interested in submitting next year? Learn more by reading about Amazon’s award process here.

• Layout takes four to five weeks to do well. I’ve worked with designers for ten years, and the ones who say they can do it faster always miss things, and the time it takes to fix them is greater than the time it would have taken to do the job right in the first place.
• Edit first. All big revisions must be made before the book is laid out. InDesign is not like Word, where things wrap around to the next line automatically. Book layout in InDesign is more like hanging the book letter-by-letter, page-by-page, on boards of a fixed size.
• Make design decisions early and don’t change your mind. The number of pages depends on the font, spacing, size, and design of the book—all of which will be decided up front, using templates. Once you choose a template, any changes later on will be time-consuming and costly. (See aforementioned note about big changes.)
• Hire the same designer for cover design and interior layout. The final cover design depends on the layout–specifically, the number of pages. The more pages in the book, the wider the spine design must be. Also, the type of paper you choose for the pages will affect the spine width.
• Choose a printing company early, along with your book size and paper quality. Ensure that the designer has access to all these specs at the project’s outset. It will prevent costly changes later on.
• Hire a proofreader after the first draft of the layout is finished, and have him or her proof the book as a print-ready PDF file. I can recommend a very good proofreader. She will catch embarrassing mistakes as well as problems with the layout, and you’ll be grateful.
• Inspect the product carefully. When you get your printed galley from the printer, look at it from all angles. Is the text aligned? Do the cover colors look right? Do the cover colors and design align with the edges of the book? When you open the book in the middle, is the text closest to the spine easy to read (i.e., you don’t have the wrench the book open, do you)? Is it missing a copyright page? Are the headers and table of contents accurate? Are there blank pages in the book?

I will guarantee that by the time you are finished with the self-publishing process, if you do it right, you will be tired of looking at your book. You will have done the work of an entire publishing team, mostly by yourself. Resist the urge to hurry. It’s one of life’s ironies that the final steps of a detailed process can sink the whole project, leaving a trail of embarrassing errors and cut corners.

Take your time, and you’ll have a book that you’ll be proud to share with the world.

Click to download your copy from Smashwords

I’ve just compiled all the questions clients have ever asked me about how to create e-books–and turned the answers into a step-by-step checklist. Short of having me sit next to you at the computer and tell you what to do, this $0.99 guide is the best way to navigate the process.

From what services to use, to pricing, to assigning ISBNs, to “Wait, how do I get paid?” E-Publishing: Your Complete Checklist is a very brief, very just-the-facts list of what to click next, where to find answers, and what document to upload.

This is your quick-start guide to e-publishing. Written by an editor with over a decade of experience in helping writers publish e-books, this straightforward checklist will give you step-by-step instructions and tips on how to format, upload, price, and distribute your book on the Internet. There’s no need to hunt for tips all over the Web: You will find all your answers right here.

Click here to download your copy! You’ll be taken to Smashwords, where you can get the book for any e-reader program or a simple PDF. 

Here’s a quick rule of thumb. You don’t need embellished language (or “rendered” language, as it’s often called) unless you’re capturing the description of something important, or capturing an emotional reaction.

The theory behind this is that in a novel, all human experience is processed through language. Familiar, unimportant, or straightforward actions, events, or details don’t require much of the POV character’s attention or thought, so the language used to capture them will be clear, specific, and unassuming.

On the other hand, complicated moments, often emotional moments in particular, require a lot of the POV character’s mental attention, and so are filtered through language to best capture the nature of the emotion or thing being described–and it’s there that language is used in a more poetic way, using metaphor, connotation, and interesting word choice to catch the important glimmers of an alien experience.

Over-writing is a normal phase every writer goes through, attempting to follow the “rule” to say everything in an interesting way; it exercises your writing muscle, but in the long run, you only need that muscle for certain kinds of moments.

As Amy Hempl once said, “Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don’t get all writerly: ‘He opened the door.’ There, it’s open.”

When I read the manuscript in 2010, I expected him to find an agent right away. The agents he queried told him that nobody in publishing wanted sports stories. (Funny thing is, I keep seeing The Art of Fielding, a baseball novel, on this year’s bestseller lists. Baseball is a sport, right?) Furthermore, they were sure as heck nobody wanted to publish a cycling story, what with the seemingly endless cloud that hangs over the sport.

His novel is about proving people wrong. And in a wonderfully meta tale of publishing and self-belief, Ross is living out the same kind of story as his protagonist.

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Click to see book on Amazon

Tell us about Chain Reaction. What’s the hook, even for readers who may not be cyclists?

Chain Reaction started as a cycling story. As I wrote it evolved to encompass themes and issues that extended beyond the world of cycling. The hook, I believe, is the story of one young man’s efforts to come to grips with his dreams, his history, his decisions, and his acceptance of himself.

Chain Reaction is your first novel. You have an innate sense of story–the novel is full of heart and heroism. What helped you develop your sense of what makes a good story (or a good hero, for that matter)?

The two elements for me are character and narrative. I started by creating real and textured characters. Authenticity was important to me. I wanted them to be icons, but not clichés. Once the characters were developed, there were a few set pieces for the narrative that I had in my mind…the general flow of the story. But the truth is that at some point, fairly early after I came to know the characters, the characters themselves actually guided a lot of the story. I once heard Calum McCann speak about the willingness to “lose oneself” in the process of writing a story. I definitely experienced this. There were times when the characters did or said things that came as a surprise to me. The characters took control of the narrative.

When I read the novel, I was interested in Cal’s two sources of motivation: He loves Daniella and wants to impress her; and he wants to put Rocco in his place. One is positive, and one is negative. Which kind of motivation do you believe makes a competitor (either in cycling or writing) dig the deepest to succeed?

There is a sweet satisfaction to crushing a rival, no doubt. But, the satisfaction of beating someone is insignificant to the satisfaction of achieving a personal goal or aspiration. The former may taste delicious at the time, but the latter is much more nutritious. Anger and revenge cause you to burn too hot…the passion to defeat someone else can be intense but destructive. After all, even if you beat someone but don’t perform to your best level, what have you really accomplished?

You were a competitive cyclist, and still love the sport. Do you think a writer has to experience something firsthand in order to write well about it?

To write about it, no. To write well about it, yes. When my cycling friends, old racing buddies, told me that I had captured the essence, the feel, the authenticity of the race…the camaraderie of the peloton for example, that was some of the best feedback I got. Now, Chain Reaction isn’t only about cycling. When non-cyclists told me that they appreciated the love story or the father-son conflict, that was also gratifying.

What advice would you offer other writers who know they have a good manuscript in their hands, but can’t seem to attract the right people’s attention in the publishing industry?

I wish I had an easy answer to that one. Don’t give up is the first thing that comes to mind. I queried over a hundred agents before I got a bite. And that only came because a friend of a friend gave it to her. She liked it. Up to that point, getting a reading was virtually impossible. Agents are overwhelmed and use shorthand logic to expedite things. Chain Reaction? All of the agents told me that they weren’t interested in a “cycling story.” That was hard to take because I knew there was so much more to it.

A second piece of advice is to gird yourself for the rejection that is going to come. You can’t take it personally, as absurd as that sounds. After all, your work is a representation of who you are. That said, understand that the process has a rhyme and reason of its own. It is designed to cut things out, not include things. There are times when you will question yourself. That comes with the territory. Maybe that is a good thing. If you don’t test yourself, then you haven’t really earned the right to ask others to read what you write.

What are you working on next?

Funny question. That’s what my agent keeps asking. She makes the point that the people she is selling me to are “more interested in the ‘jockey’ than the ‘horse.’” That is, they want to connect with an author, not just buy a property.

Following the blueprint of Chain Reaction, I am doing a lot of thinking right now that will go into the construction of a character that is interesting enough for me to spend the next year, at least, with. Maybe I’ll write something about a sixty-something guy who writes a novel and manages to sell it to the movie industry.

Is there any question you hoped I would ask? 

Just this one, what was the contribution or role of the editor in the process? My answer is that the editor helped me with everything from concept to execution, but the most important thing that she demanded of me was character development. It wasn’t just the mechanics of writing, or even the process of story telling, it was the insistence and guidance in providing a gritty reality to my characters and the encouragement to give even the second level characters a story of their own.

Thanks, Ross! Be sure to check out Ross’s website at http://chainreactionnovel.com/ for more about the book and news of its progress toward the big screen.

In honor of this year’s holiday season, I’d like to say thank you for what you add to my life and business, The Threepenny Editor. I count myself lucky beyond reason for the chance to work every day with people who are as committed to books, writing, learning, and ideas as you all are.

As a gesture of my appreciation, I am giving away one set of my favorite six books on writing:

• The Art of Dramatic Writing, by Lajos Egri
• The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner
• Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
• The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E. B. White
• Manuscript Makeover, by Elizabeth Lyon
• The Editor’s Lexicon, by Sarah Cypher

What do you need to do? Just share in the comments section your answer:

What are the writing accomplishments you’re thankful for this year, and your goals for next year?

The contest is open until midnight on December 15. I’ll use a random number selection to pick the winner and ship to you or your recipient of choice. Add them to your library, or pass them along to a writer in your life.

Yet, I am reminded of Occam’s Razor, which says that the simplest explanation for anything is usually the truest one. The problem with my earlier definition is that it doesn’t always work; there are lots of books about dragons, fairies, and/or outer space that use speculative elements just for the fun of it. Some readers like to read about dragons, for instance, so a market exists for writers who enjoy telling dragon stories. Simple as that. There is no rule that says all dragon stories must be important social commentary.

So let me try a simpler definition. Where all fiction involves five basic elements–premise, theme, voice, character, plot, and style–speculative fiction also involves a sort of sidecar to premise: the concept.

So, if premise is what the story is about in a few simple sentences, the concept is the invented-but-believable element that separates the story world from reality. The concept could be anything: vampires and why they exist (Interview with a Vampire), a medieval world inhabited by dragons (The Dragonbone Chair), a future America in which fertile women are required to reproduce (The Handmaid’s Tale), or a alter-reality in which Irish immigrant spirits are at war with Native American spirits (Forests of the Heart). If your novel uses a concept, then it has a speculative element. Simple as that.

So, here’s my question. What is the difference between realist fiction and speculative fiction?

And a bonus question: Where is the line that separates books shelved in a store’s “general fiction” section and its “sci-fi and fantasy” section?

Click for a link to a high-res version of Ward Shelley's brilliant "The History of Science Fiction." I love this image so much that I hung it over my desk.