Elevating Your Prose: The Craft Shift from Commercial to Literary Fiction

How do you elevate your prose without rewriting your entire story?

In this craft-focused discussion, I’m joined by editors, AJ Volante and Margie Libling from The Wednesday Refinery to talk about sentence-level revision, literary voice, and the difference between commercial and literary fiction. If you’re revising a manuscript, preparing a query package, or trying to refine your prose, this episode breaks down what actually strengthens fiction at the line level.

After a chance class on prose refinement with them, I saw a shift in my own thriller, not in the plot, but in the sentences. In this conversation, we explore how elevated prose comes from precision, restraint, and voice rather than adding more description or complexity.

We dive into: 

• What elevated prose really means
• The difference between correct writing and compelling writing
• Sentence-level habits that weaken fiction
• How to strengthen voice during line editing
• Line edits vs. developmental editing
• How prose quality affects your query package and first pages
• Refining description without listing or over-explaining
• Protecting your voice during the revision process

This episode is for fiction writers working on revision, literary fiction, thrillers, or preparing to query. If you’re trying to move from commercial structure toward a stronger literary voice, this conversation will help you understand how prose refinement shapes a manuscript.

About The Wednesday Refinery

Run by AJ Volante and Margie Libling, The Wednesday Refinery offers manuscript editing and query guidance. 

About AJ: 

AJ first started writing and editing for museum exhibits and gaming companies before realizing she wanted to help writers with their manuscripts.
When she's not working or writing dark speculative fiction, she enjoys restoring her 1924 craftsman home and taking her cats for walks.

About Margie:

Margie is a former social worker who now writes and edits full-time. She is the author of two adult fiction novels and is currently working on a third. When not at her desk, Margie spends time with her husband, two daughters, and rescue dogs.

You can learn more about them here:

• Website: https://www.thewednesdayrefinery.com/
• Instagram: @thewednesdayrefinery

Have a publishing question? Email me at mica@micamerrillrice.com 

Subscribe to The Night Writer Newsletter

Website: micamerrillrice.com 

Instagram: @micamriceauthor

Facebook: @micamriceauthor

TikTok: @micamriceauthor

"Traditionally Self-Published" theme music is written by Landon Bailey and performed and produced by LNDÖ

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

What's up, plot twisters, and a warm welcome to my page turner, the intrigued readers and listeners who are just stepping into the story. Whatever title you fancy today, I am so happy you're here with us. You're listening to Traditionally Self-Published, where we unravel the chaos of self-publishing and help you write your own success story like a pro. I'm your host, Mika Merrill Rice, author with a passion for learning and sharing the love. I'm bringing you real talk with publishing pros and indie authors just like me who flipped the script and built thriving author careers on their own terms and are doing it like a pro. So whether you're a first-time author or you're a seasoned pro, you're right where you need to be. Today's special guests are AJ Valanti and Margie Libbling from the Wednesday Refinery. They're not only authors, but talented editors as well. If you want to make sure that your sentences fly rather than crash and burn, then this episode is for you. Today we're going to talk about using pros that works, distinguishing between beautiful pros and purple pros, pros in your query letters if you're on submission, what they do to help authors see their pros more clearly, and then we're going to conclude with the Ink Starter Lightning Round. Alright, today I am welcoming AJ Valanti and Margie Libbling from the Wednesday Refiner. These are two brilliant individuals, and I can't wait for you guys to hear all about elevating prose and what they do for writers and what they've done for me. So welcome in, AJ and Margie. How are you today?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Good. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah. Good. So happy to have you here. All right, let's get started. So, how do you look we're gonna talk about prose today and how we're gonna elevate that as authors and how we can make our writing a little bit better so that it's not like he says, she says, and you know, I am doing like basic things. We're taking the senses and we're like gonna take it to the next level. So, how do you define prose in a way that's useful to writers? And what do you think separates competent prose from prose that truly works to the reader?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, in a way, sort of big picture, prose is really just the word that we give to writing that isn't verse poetry. So it's everything from a novel to a blog post to a screenplay. If you're following the grammatical format of storytelling, it's probably prose. But kind of when we get down to the author level and we talk about prose and novel or short story writing, we're talking about everything from voice and tone to pacing and flow. What separates competent prose from prose that truly works on the reader? Basically, if you only follow sort of the bare minimum rules of good prose, which is like correct grammar, complete character arcs, hitting every beat of save the cat, if you're a save the cat person, your story is still unfortunately going to fall flat because it's lacking some of the most important elements of prose writing, utilizing literary tools like figurative language, evoking the five senses through imagery descriptions, and imbuing this is possibly the most important, imbuing your personal voice and style into the story. I think finding your author voice is what truly makes the reader interested in your story.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

I agree. Um I think that that what you said regarding like finding your author voice, that authenticity in writing definitely shows as a reader on the other side. And if you're just writing to write, it's definitely not there. So that that's really helpful. Like, because I actually thought like prose is just prose. I didn't realize like there's different, you know, there's prose and then there's, you know, prose that's your voice. So that's good. All right. When writers come to you wanting to elevate their prose, what do they usually think the problem is? And what do you often discover instead?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So one of the things we've been noticing, um, we especially with new authors, and if it's their first novel, is that they really have no idea what they need, what they want. And that's something we talk about with them in a first meeting. So usually when they come to us at that point, they've already had beta readers who are typically family or friends, and that's great. But because these people are, you know, invested, they're not really able to give genuine objective feedback. So that's where we come in. And then just some of the biggest issues that we've noticed are you know the use of filler words like and, like, actually, um, or extensive descriptors or unnecessary details that really slow scenes down. Especially we've noticed a lot of directions, like the chair was to the left of the table. And we don't really need to know that a lot of the time. So that's one big issue we see. And then once we point it out to authors, it's like it like clicks, and then they see exactly what we mean, and they're able to go back and fix this through their manuscript. So I guess we feel that, you know, elevated prose is not really just about adding more information, but about choosing the right words, the right metaphors or symbolism. So you can add layers to your story that make sense within the context of your novel and for your characters, but without spoon feeding this information to your readers.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah, I think that's really helpful. I know with my first book that that was, I didn't even know what elevated prose was, to be honest. So the things that you mentioned, like being it felt more like almost robotic, I guess. You know, it didn't flow as naturally for me anyway. And so I that really helps, you know, in terms of how you how you see it and how you, you know, move forward with your clients. So at the sentence level, what do you feel like the most common habits are that we can an otherwise strong writing?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

At the sentence level, um with what Margie just said, it's directional words, numerical words, um listing things, especially when it comes to introducing a new character and just that um unfortunately bland list of brown hair, blue eyes, red coat, which doesn't quite tell the reader anything interesting. Also, um, too many prepositions I think is problematic sometimes too, at in on. We can cut those out and make a sentence more interesting just by chopping words like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

It's I feel seen, AJ, because I am definitely guilty of she has red hair and her skin is fair and all of these things. So um thinking about it in a different way uh is definitely um one of the things that I think I gained from your class is just you know thinking of how to describe the same thing and you know, make it come alive instead of the obvious and giving a little bit of that vision to the reader. So when it comes to writing though, like I know what I got out of you know, talking to you and Margie, but how do you help writers preserve voice while tightening, clarifying, refining their language?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

As I think we all know, writing is very personal. When we write, a lot of times we feel vulnerable, especially when sharing that. And you do have to be sensitive about it when you're editing, because this is somebody's like book baby most of the time. And you have to encourage writers while trying to help them understand where they can grow. A lot of times it's sitting with them and having them close their eyes and visualizing like be in the character shoes, visualize what you see, embody everything around them, and to help them explain things, how their characters would explain it. And I think, and this ties back to sort of what I said at the beginning, so but I'm gonna drill it in. It's helping authors find their author voice and the story that they want to tell. And when we know that information, we can lean into it and highlight it.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

How do writers tell the difference between beautiful prose and prose that's actually serving the story?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

It is, it really does come down to voice and using language is consistent with that voice and your vision and thinking about that rather than getting bogged down by how you think you should be writing or the voice you think you should be using, because that's not going to be genuine and it's not gonna serve you or your readers. And they'll tell. I mean, they'll be able to pick that up right away. And also you really need a good critique partner. That's sort of how AJ and I met, and just learning to trust that person and also be open to feedback and not just having everything sugarcoated. Because if you have, you know, a partner whose writing you admire and you do have that relationship, then they're also going to feel comfortable saying to you, like, this really isn't working. And you do really need a friend like that who you can go to with, you know, any parts of your novel or the novel as a whole. And then after they read it, then you hire an editor to take that one step further to really get that truly objective feedback. And somebody who, again, I mean, you're paying them for the service. So you're not paying them to tell you what you want to hear. Obviously, we all want to know our novels are amazing and it's the best thing anybody's ever read, but that doesn't really help us. So you're paying somebody to tell you what needs work. And obviously, we this tries to we try to do this in a constructive way, and we would never rip apart somebody's novel. Um, but that's how we would do it constructively, is just pinpointing things that don't serve the story.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah. And I think that's important, constructive feedback. It's not, I think that was like a misconception I had when I started, but something I have learned since then is that before you sub, you know, publish your book into the world and somebody tells you something is not working, it's not like a personal attack on the work that you've done. It's more like, hey, I'm your friend and I really care about what you're doing. And I know you care about it even more than I do. And I just want you to know as a reader, you know, this is what I'm picking up, and this is what I think you could do, or this is a suggestion that I have. And that is so helpful. So yeah, I I definitely agree with that. I'm glad that AJ, you and Margie found each other so that you could, you know, have that relationship. I definitely wish I would have had that the first go around, but happy to have found everybody since then. So all right, what about restraint? Okay, because it there's not really, I don't think, like a hard, fast role, but what role does restraint play in strong prose? Because you can't keep going on and on and on. I don't know if that's what they call like purple prose, where it just goes and it's not necessarily serving the story. But particularly in like literary or upmarket fiction, what do you think that restraint plays?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

It's a great question because in upmarket and literary fiction, we have more room to play with this indulgence of sentences and making things beautiful. Literary and upmarket look at like a character study more than they do a fast-paced plot. But because of that, literary and upmarket sort of expects your prose to be very sharp, very elevated, and you have to be careful and show restraint so that you still have a story at the end. You can't have five beautiful sentences in the row that the reader is like, wow, those are gorgeous. But what am I reading? Like, what's what is even the plot here? Where is this character going? I you still need the reader to be interested. And that comes down a lot of times to building momentum regardless of the genre. Even upmarket and literary still needs momentum because momentum is not necessarily like this propulsive plot. It's giving information that's relevant to the character and to the story that you're telling. Beautiful sentences are great. I would swim in them if I could, but you do have to stop and think is this moving the story forward? Is it adding depth? Yeah, and don't assume that your reader knows anything around them, but you also don't want to give them every single detail so that they're overwhelmed and they can't see past the room you just described.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Yeah, that's very helpful. And I wondered, you know, especially for people maybe that don't see the reading, you know how they say like some readers can visualize, some don't. And I think as a writer, like many of us, at least I do, I actually visualize everything. Um, but that doesn't mean that that translates on the other side. So keeping it tight and making sure that you're still moving forward is um very helpful for sure. All right, so we talked about prose, but you also help with, you know, query packages and reviewing all of that. And on my show, you know, obviously a lot of people are self-published. However, I also will say that we have authors that maybe are exploring everything. And so I thought that this was like super important because you might self-publish one book and go traditional the next, or maybe you're coming back, or whatever the case may be. So I wanted to include this because I think it's important as well. So, from your perspective, how much does prose quality matter in the first pages of a query package? Do you think?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Oh, if it was a scale one from 10, it's like 11. It's it's like it is what matters most because those pages need to be eye-catching. You want to hook the agent and you want them to want to read more, right? That's the whole point of the package. So, like, there's no point in having a great query letter or a fantastic synopsis if your writing falls flat when they get to those sample pages. And then you also want to make sure that it's not just your sample pages, which are typically 10 to 20 pages, although some agents now are asking for 50 or 10,000 words, you know, it just depends. But there's no point in having those pages super polished and then they request your full and then they get past those pages and it just is downhill. So, yes, those pages should be amazing, but the rest of your books should live up to it too. So you just can't expect to get signed if it's just a really beautiful package and then everything else is so you really have to polish everything. But it I mean, it makes a huge difference. Like that's how you're gonna stand out.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Yeah, I mean, makes sense. I've heard that they have like mountains of queries that sit on their desk. And so, you know, being able to pick out the diamond in the rough is probably very difficult for them. So being mindful of all of that is definitely important. Do you see any prose level issues that you think consistently weaken a query or synopsis?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah, definitely. Um being too wordy, giving unnecessary details, using a lot of cliches, cliches, or generic metaphors, generic similes. And then your synopsis should not meander. It's really just the key plot points of your book. And that's really what makes it so hard to write. I mean, I personally struggle more with the synopsis than I do with the actual novel writing because it's so hard to pare it down to it's the bare bones, right? It's the key points. And, you know, maybe you want to include some of these subplots or these subcharacters, but you really can't in the synopsis because you have 700, 800 words to talk about an 80,000 plus word novel. So it's really difficult. And so you really want to be concise. And also you have to make sure that even in your letter and your synopsis, that that voice rings true and that you're showing your personality and your character's personalities, because that's how you are gonna stand out. I mean, because like you said, there are so many writers querying and it's so hard to get an agent's attention. But if you do show yourself and you have that unique voice that you're able to portray in your letter, in your synopsis, that's something that, you know, might click with them and get you that full request. And then hopefully, you know, later on a signing. So you never know.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

I have a question. Um, and it's something that I have kind of learned around the way, um, and but not really sure of. And this is just a bonus question here, if you will. So I see writers refer to, hey, here's my synopsis, and they might put that like, um, you know, this is a synopsis of my book, but they're actually posting it on social media, and then there's the synopsis synopsis. And so I think there's like a little bit of a misunderstanding there because, like, in the beginning, I thought it was a synopsis, but then what I later learned is it's really just marketing copy on socials and on the back of the book, whereas a synopsis is something different. Can you kind of explain like what a synopsis actually is? And are there like different ones? I know there's a full synopsis, but there's there not a full synopsis.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

So in your query letter, you have a brief synopsis, which is uh kind of you would think the back of the book. So the little blurb that somebody would pick up at a bookstore, read the back, and you know, buy the book, hopefully. That's what goes in your query letter. The full synopsis that you're talking about that agents ask for is the beginning, the middle, the end, the huge, the story arc, including any twists, any endings. And you have to focus on the main storyline. So that's going back to what I was saying before. It's usually I think like 700 or 800 words is typically a max, and you're talking one to two pages. So you have to really look at your novel, pick out these key elements and have show that whole character and story arc. Like I said, including any twists, the ending, all of those things. Which you would never put everything. Everything and you wouldn't, which you would never put on the back of a book or in a marketing material, obviously. Um, so that's the difference.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yeah, I um I learned that a little late. I'm gonna be honest. And so like when I was very first like reaching out for my first editor um when I wrote my first book, they asked for a synopsis, and I assumed that was just like, you know, you know, just the little copy on the back of the book, and I left off with a question. It was so bad. And then I realized, like, you know, a couple years later, okay, that that's not at all what they wanted. But it is hard. I I mean, I can barely write, I can write an 80,000-word novel, but to try to get that down into like something that's like seven, eight hundred words, it is hard. It is really hard. It is.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And like it's important. We think everything is important in the book. So how do you really pick and choose, honestly? So hard.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

That is the million-dollar question, but that's why we have you and agents. Yes, yes. All right, let's talk about process and revision. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about how I came to find the two of you. So I'm in the Quill and Cup. We usually have educational prickles, the stars aligned. I was able to come to elevate your prose on a Monday night. That, you know, I I just kind of fit it in with my schedule, but it it worked out, and I feel like it was definitely meant to be. So I told you at the beginning, I am like 30 chapters into what I am thinking. This is the final revision. I'm finally getting this. And you come on with a prompt, and the prompt was, you know, let's do the senses, you know, smell, touch, taste. And you had like some, you know, prompts that was, I think it was like, I don't know, cotton candy affair at the beach, something like that. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna try this and I'm gonna see um what actually happens. And when I did it, I was blown away. So then after I finished the prompt, I took it to one of the scenes in my book. Particularly, I took a very tense scene and I applied those same rules. Instead of me telling the reader this is what's happening, it was more like, let's make this atmospheric. We're gonna make this body emotional, you know, just those feelings inside the body, what is going on around, how can I describe this in a different way? It completely changed the entire story. And so I don't know what you guys did. Uh okay, that was like magic, or I have no idea. But is that like the one revision practice that you use, or you know, do you just kind of sit with a client and think like, all right, let's try this to kind of see where you're at and where you need to go?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Every writer is different, and so every client that comes to us is different, and we have to approach it differently. Um, some people are naturally very good line editors, and they already have tight sentences that are Are pretty, but their plot might not be tight. And then you have people who know their story and their characters like the back of their hand, but they come to us and their word choice is very basic. It's because you are trying to get the story out on the page. And doing that second pass, um, or third pass or fourth pass, depending on who you are. And like if you just word vomit the first draft of it, those passes are crucial. And I would encourage honestly every writer to do a line edit, but specifically one that looks at word choice. And do I have three words here that could be replaced by one more interesting, more impactful, more visceral of a word instead of three words? And do I have two sentences that can be condensed into one sentence that gives the full mood of my novel instead of explaining that the beach has sand and sky and it's hot because um and we say this in in the webinar because your reader already knows these things, and that goes back to the directional. I'm going on a tangent, but I feel strongly about this. Girl, girl.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Let it loose. This goes back to the directional thing, and it's it's one of the biggest issues that we see, which is writers are putting down on the page the things that that readers already know that the chandelier is above the character. And we already know that as humans, if you say there's a chandelier, I absolutely assume that it is above them on the ceiling. Like you don't assume it's on the floor. And so it's replacing those words with something that says something about the character, about the world that they're in, about the mood, anything like that. Yeah, so I just I think that taking a pass for word choice is very, very important.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I would add to that the red like redundancies, which is similar to what AJ was saying about the chandelier being above our head. You don't need to say the backpack is on their back, the hat's on their head. They're obvious things. So just to keep that in mind as well.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Well, just to give you an example, and I don't have the original, but I'm gonna, I'm going to give you an idea of where I was at just to show how different this made it after your class. So I had a little scene where my uh protag is walking back somewhere, it's dusk, and she's looking out to the woods to use something that's a little bit scary. And so I was like, I am saying, hello, is somebody in the woods? And the sun is setting in the background and the trees are moving, and it was just flat. And so then I changed it. So she asked the same similar questions, but instead of saying the sun is setting, I'm saying duck dusk bleeds into darkness, the kind that devours details piece by piece. And so, and by the way, that is the scene that I was like, oh, this works. I don't know what's going on, but that just works. But that's the kind of stuff that I think you guys are trying to get at is like, it's not just describing, it's making it alive. That's kind of how I took it when I came out of that class is how can I make this alive? Things that normally aren't alive, like trees or anything like that. You can. I I think maybe that's maybe a misconception. Uh, readers aren't gonna get it, but if you describe it, they're gonna understand. Yes, a tree doesn't breathe, but if I say that in my story, they're gonna know that something's going on. So you want to go deeper, yes, for sure. Yeah, for sure. All right, friends, we are going into the lightning round. I am gonna give you a series of questions, and you're gonna give me the fastest answer you've got. Ready?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yes, yes, all right.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

One prose rule you love breaking.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Only using active voice.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Uh I love starting sentences with but it sounded so weird out of context, but I but I do.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Well, then you're gonna love my manuscript, Margie, okay? There's plenty of that. I love it. All right. If you were a punctuation mark, which one would you be?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

A comma. Uh I would say question mark. I would honestly, I would have said m-dash, but I feel like AI ruined that. So I can't say that anymore.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

So oh no, we can we we've we've already squashed that because Mary Shelley didn't use AI and she used plenty of M-dashes in Frankenstein. I went back and I looked. I was like, come on, people, let's go. Right, all right. All right, plot driven or character-driven. Character. Character. Excellent. I agree. All right, and what's the most unusual thing you've ever found in a manuscript? I am dying for this.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Okay. Wait. I know we have to be careful because we don't want to, you know, if anyone's listening.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Unusual. From editor point of view, like a a story that had no conflict at all. Like the whole the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

I would say uh reading a whole manuscript and at the end still having no idea where it was set or when. Like just no idea time or space here.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Oh my gosh, that's so funny. And I say it's funny because those are like the little details that sometimes when we're just word vomiting all over the page, we forget, like, hey, what time period are we in? Where what town is going on here? You're just getting the story out. So I get that totally. All right. And what do you hope writers will feel more confident about after committing to prose as the craft, not just the finishing touches?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Talking about this elevated prose with these intricate details. To me, when an author takes time to make their prose beautiful and unique to their writing style, to their character's world, they start to create something that sticks with me and hopefully sticks with the reader long after we read it. So we want them to feel when a writer goes back and elevates their prose, we want them to feel confident that they have gorgeous sentences and also a working, interesting story.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

I think being able to look at your work objectively makes a huge difference. And that, like for me, anyway, that has come the more that I've written and the more experience that I've had. But that makes a really big difference as a writer and being able to put aside your manuscript for a few weeks or a few months and then come back and read it with fresh eyes, and being able to pinpoint, you know, where you struggle and where you can improve, and then put it away and then read it again and read it out loud. Read it out loud always.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, read it out loud.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Um I have also used the um accessibility feature on my computer um so that I don't necessarily have to listen to my voice for hours and hours on end because yeah, that's that's hard. Okay. Um, but you can actually do that. Like you can play, you know, every word, uh all of it has like an accessibility feature that will read the text for you, and it is like a game changer. So for that, for the people out there that don't want to like read out loud because it's super important, they can use the accessibility feature, which is just as good. All right, friends, where can readers and writers find you, AJ and Margie, if they wanted to reach out for services, for questions, anything?

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Well, we are on Instagram. We're the Wednesday Refinery, and our website is the Wednesdayrefinery.com, and our email is the Wednesdayrefinery at gmail.com. And all our info is on Instagram too, and it's linked to our personal pages as well, if you wanted to know more about each of us.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Awesome. All right, AJ and Margie, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate everything today, everything that you've done in the Quill and Cup too and the class and just talking to us about this today, I think is going to be extremely valuable for writers everywhere. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Thank you for listening to this episode of Traditionally Self-Published. If this episode helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share with your author and reader friends alike. And be sure to check the first episode where I share a bit about how this all came to be and why building a helpful community is so important. Until next time, be bold, write smart.