Tag: editing

Let’s Write That Book! — ReEdit and Feedback

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

You thought you could get away with one blog on editing. That once you heard my speech you could move on. But here we are.

Never send your piece off to a publication after your first edit. Nothing is ever perfect, even if it seems to be. Let it rest. Come back later. Hours, days. Even a week or two if that’s what your schedule dictates. Make sure what you write is reflecting your best effort.

Maybe you did a second edit. Changed a paragraph or two. For some of you, there won’t be a need past the third one. But for others, it’s not until your third or fifth read that you finally notice awkward dialogue, actions that are not in line with your character, turns in the story that you really didn’t mean to take but you took anyway.

This is where the real editing starts.

Now, we are talking about full length stories. Novels. Not a short story, although you can take missteps with those as well. It’s much easier to miss something that has 200+ single-spaced pages than a 1,500 word contest entry.   

What do you check for this time around?

More grammatical errors. That’s a given. There’s usually one too many semi-colons somewhere.

Tense. Did I move from first person to second person? Did I say, “She couldn’t stand the suspense anymore!” then “Your friend showed up at three.”

Is the story moving forward? You may have thought it was moving forward when you first started, but sometimes you wind up talking about your character’s friendships from childhood and the time he went to the store and stole a candy bar and today there was a candy bar on his co-worker’s desk that looked just like the one he stole. Great prose, great insight, but it has nothing to do with his daughter bringing her fiancé to dinner.

Did you explain motivations, reasonings clear enough? Not everything has to be explained. Sometimes it’s better if the reader is left wondering. But eventually give the reader a hint, a nudge, or a full-blown explanation so they can decide for themselves the reason your story goes the way it does.

Does the dialogue flow between speakers? Are your characters reacting to the other’s conversation? Do they always have to respond in words? Can a gesture, a thought, a groan, be enough of a response? Mix it up. Are your characters listening to each other? Nothing is worse than two people talking about two totally different things.

Make sure every sentence moves the story along. You can linger with a sentence or two when your characters are musing this or that, wondering, looking back, planning for the future. You can even spend a whole chapter looking back or wondering. But don’t let your character babble endlessly about … nothing.

Am I consistent with information? I have written September in Chapter 2 and October in Chapter 11. I have changed the name of my character’s best friend. I have silver riding saucers in one part and made them blue later on. See what I mean? It’s so easy to make a little slip here and there. You think no one will notice. But they will.

Flash back only if it will mean something in the future. Fantasize about the future only if it affects the character. I’m not telling you to skip the backgrounds and side movements – we all love to see how the characters develop through the years. But we don’t want to read about side trips that, in the end, have nothing to do with the main story.

Is the storyline believable? This still holds true in your final readthrough. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about blue trees or Victorian morals that are out of place in today’s society or today’s high school student. It doesn’t matter what you write, except you have to make it believable. If someone levitates let them levitate. If you are confident of the storyline, the levitation will seem a real possibility. Don’t go faster than the speed of light during the Renaissance; keep it in the future where all things are possible. Ride horses to and from town; don’t let a car pass you unless it’s 1916 or later. It makes no difference if your book is historical, science fiction, romance, or mystery. People want to read stories that are consistent with the times.

People’s names. Last check. Making up names is just fine; try to make sure they are easy to read and/or pronounce. Especially for your first book. Having your main character named Denaytrison is impossible to both read and pronounce, which will definitely mess with the flow. When talking to each other, it’s alright to say the other’s name in conversation. But once maybe. Not every other sentence. Write as you speak.

Do I need all these chapters? When you first start writing you add everything you can think of. Your first edit you drop paragraphs and chapters that really don’t move the story forward. Make a final check to see if all your chapters are needed. It will be important towards your final word count.

Maybe you won’t make as many slips as I have. But no matter if you are new to the game or a seasoned pro, you need clean copy.

Let’s Write That Book! — Editing

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Every book, every story, every poem, needs to be edited. Edited, proofread, reread, and edited again. There’s no way around it. When you are writing from the heart, the story pumping through your veins comes out faster than you can type, and you’re bound to make mistakes. You should make mistakes. Everything can be corrected at a later date. Getting the story out is the most important part.

Editing is the most tedious part. The most stressful part.

And every book needs a hard edit.

Spelling. Did you spell everything right? Spellcheck does a great job of finding “theer” instead of “their.” But it could care less if you used “their,” “there,” or “they’re.” Pay attention to your sentences.  Double check people’s names, cities, restaurants. It’s so easy to type a street name in Chapter 2 and be typing so fast that you spell it differently in Chapter 8.

Sentence Structure. Are they full sentences? Some writers try to do the fragment treatment to their sentences. I tried that style in some of my writings. But you have to be sure of what you’re doing. If in doubt, always write in full sentences. Every sentence.

Punctuation. You’ve read my blog rants. Too many semi-colons, hyphens, and ellipses. Too many commas in one sentence.  I make myself crazy. Use the “find” button on your computer and type in  ;  or “as if” or a name and see how many times you’ve actually used the same word/symbol. You’ll be amazed.

Writing/speaking habits. Remember that words in books are different than words in conversation. In writing we tend to slip and start (or end) a paragraph with the same phrases. As if, if only, and then, she said, it seemed, it seemed as if. There are undoubtedly more. Those were my mistakes.  Pay attention to how you start and end your sentences.

Run on sentences. If your sentence has a half dozen commas and lots of ands and ifs, it’s too long. Readers need to read as they speak. They need to take a breath. So do you.

Paragraphs. This can be a tricky one. I just finished reading Lost Horizons by James Hilton. Most of his paragraphs are very long. They are usually descriptions of the same thought or location. Nothing wrong with that. But readers these days get mentally tired if they don’t hit a break in reading sooner than later. You can describe a place in three paragraphs as just as well as keeping everything in one.

Same is true for dialogue. Unless someone is giving a speech, break up their oration with paragraphs. Try and make your breaks every time you change thoughts or make a new point. You do know how to make new paragraphs in dialogue, don’t you? (no quote marks at end of paragraph; quotes at the beginning of the next.)

To Chapter or Not to Chapter.  I find this more of a personal preference based on how you write. Many people read in spurts; at lunch time, before bed, or on the subway to work. Readers enjoy chapters that can be finished in three to thirteen minutes. Some books  have dozens of short chapters, some have a few huge chapters (usually referred to as sections), and some have no chapters at all.

No-chapter books usually just flow from beginning to end. There are ups and downs, highs and lows, but the scenes blend into each other. Chapters are usually written as different segments of the same story; one “relates” to the next, but they are single stories unto themselves. One chapter is boy meets girl. Next chapter is girl at home thinking about boy. Next chapter is boy getting in trouble with parents. Next chapter are memories of a bad relationship cropping up. Next chapter is the boy and girl meeting and having coffee. You know what I mean. The most important thing is that the reader crave reading the next chapter, and if they don’t/can’t, they can pick up the story later.

Non-fiction needs chapters. Each point you want to make, each stage of instruction, needs its own chapter. Even biographies need a break between “happenings” so that the reader can see the progression.

Spelling. I know I sound like a broken record. But how many times are you reading an article or book or newspaper clipping and right there in the middle of everything is a SPELLING ERROR? It makes you shiver. So make sure your streets and towns and people and exotic foods are spelled correctly. It sounds so mundane, but finding a spelling error in the middle of the book sounds more like a scream than a whisper. Trust me.

Once you do your first edit, let your book sit.

I know that’s hard. Very hard. You want to reread Chapter 5 and Chapter 23, tweak and delete and add and ebb and flow. But you will be surprised what you will find if you let it sit a day or two. Week or two. I know I was.

Grammar and punctuation can make or break a great story. Make sure you have caught your faux pas. You also will be able to catch sections that don’t quite fit, find characters that didn’t quite act the way you wanted them to, even be able to drop in an additional chapter to connect A to B better.

Remember. You want this presentation to be the best of you. Editors, publishers, proofreaders don’t want to read a piece that really needs work. You know it, they know it, and they won’t give you the time of day if you don’t polish your story with as much enthusiasm as you put into writing it.

 

 

It Has To Be Right

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

I want everything to be right. Perfect.

I’m not a perfectionist by any stretch of the imagination. Sagittarians are pretty scattered to begin with, and I take the swirly path a lot further than most.

But I want my blogs on Writing Your First Book to work for both the reader and the writer. For us both to get something out of it. Especially because these days my FB account is flooded with people who have the “free” answer to your writing dreams. And I know I can do better.

Sometimes I wish I had grown up more confident. More self-assured. You know what I mean. I’ve had enough moxy to make it through 66 years of ups and downs, including writing. Yet  I don’t always have the push to “go for it”, because my worksheet is incomplete.

But I’m going to do it this time.

I’ll be retired by January, and that is when my career with change. No more writing (or more like not writing) things I’m not interested in, and lots more of what I do like. I can get a job as a freelance writer or freelance proofreader.

And finish a product to boot.

My consulting friends say there is such a thing as 10,000 hours of experience that counts just as much as a college degree.

I have that.

If they need 10,000 hours of heart, I have that, too.

So it is with blushing regret that I have put my tutoring skills on the back burner until the New Year. By then I will have a whole curriculum of tips and advice that I can share. I will have advice to give away for free and books and information to sell.

A win/win for everyone, I hope.

In the meantime, let’s learn more about unique artists, about getting older, writing mistakes to avoid, and writing successes to boast about.

Boast to me. I can take it.

For I want everything to be right. Perfect.

Proofreed Everything!

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

I got soooo ticked off the other day.

I want to finish proofing/editing my first book so I can:

  • make it into an e-book
  • try a publisher
  • sell it through my website
  • throw it in the garbage

So I’m going through it ONE LAST TIME, and I keep coming across all these  ; ‘s  and — and … and overusing first names in conversation.

And THIS is one reason why you shouldn’t be the only editor of your publication.

I will cover this in my series “How To Write That Book”, but being as ticked off as I am I need to share this life lesson NOW.

You can be as meticulous as you can be; you can read and reread and spell check and go through each sentence 10,000 times and you will still miss something that an outsider would see.

This has happened to me throughout my writing career. That’s why I don’t hit “send” or “publish” right away.

You never know what will pop up.

Most of us cannot afford an editor to look over our book/magazine article/term paper. If you CAN spend a few bucks on any part of your writing, this is where to spend it.

If you just can’t, and still want/need/should look professional, have someone else read your paper for grammar, punctuation, and repetitiveness. They don’t have to get into the “flow” of the story (although that helps, too).

But an outside eye can catch things your mind cannot.

To prove my point, this came through on my Facebook feed yesterday:

Now. What did you just read?

Maybe you read it right the first time. Most likely you did not.

Neither will your readers.

If you edit your own pages, no matter what they are, either read them out loud, take note of punctuation, sentence structure, think of how people speak. We write faster than we think — we also read faster than we think.

Hope you got a chuckle out of my post.

Thank goodness it was proofread first.

Oops — There’s that “;” Again….

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

th (5)As I get older (there’s that cliche again), I find myself developing more and more ticks. You know — odd behaviors that can often drive one mad. I try and be cognizant of these oddities, for many can be eliminated by just paying attention.

I have restless leg syndrome, so I drive myself crazy by constantly swishing one leg back and forth once I get in bed. I also have some A.D.D., so I often call myself the fidget queen.

Oddities aside, I also find myself victim to writing glitches too — ticks that can only be caught by conscientiously rereading what I’ve written.  These errors shine a glaring light when I read others’ pieces, but I often don’t catch my own fingers in the grammatical pie until too late.

Check yourself to see if you have any of these unconscious writing ticks:

  •  Semi-colon king or queen.  Every time someone speaks, and adds something to their sentence, I find the need to semi-colon it. The forever pause, it seems. I reread a story the other day and deleted or changed more than half of my dramatic pauses.
  • Added words.  Like that (She remembered that she once went to school there…) or and then (She washed her face, and then walked to the kitchen, and then took a cup out of the cabinet). Almost like a stutter.
  • Fragmented sentences. I am the queen of these. It IS my writing style, and I know professional writers caution against it, so I try and make more of my fragments into full sentences. Which is hard. Because that is the way I write. Like this.
  • Keep your dialogue consistent.  My murder mystery was a test for me: I wanted to see if I could write a story from 4 different points of view, along with a narrator. As the story went on, I found the 4 different dialogues blending a bit into each other. Keep your characters separate. Make a list of their quirks and writing styles right off the bat, and uphold those standards throughout the book. Wear a hat or draw a moustache on yourself if it helps keep you in character.
  • Pay attention to words. Like my funny, good friend Carrie Rubin (http://carrierubin.com/) said on Twitter: “Oops. Found a “pooped” instead of “popped” in my manuscript. Big, big difference there.” I replied that I once wrote “breasts” instead of “beasts”. You can imagine. Read outloud if you must. But double check.

I know you all know all of this. I know all of this. But yet my fingers and brain always move faster than my abilities. When you’re excited about what you’re writing, it will happen to you, too.

Just think of what would happen if you didn’t spell p.u.t.t. or p.u.c.k. quite right…

the beginning is the most important part of the work…

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 19 Comments

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…Plato

I don’t often get many responses to my blogs, as most of my readers are very busy and read on the run. For those of you who do like to drop a word or six (for which I am eternally grateful), I have a question for you.

Would the following prologue make you want to read more?

 

       “You cannot live in both worlds.”

      The words echoed in the back of Anna’s mind like waves hitting the breakwater. Soft, rhythmic. They made no sense, at least not in their current context. She tried to hold onto the silver threads, but they slowly faded into meaningless whispers. All her mind could focus on was the slow, continuous beeping that radiated from some distant point.

      Beeping. Then silence. More beeping. More silence.

      God, she wished her mind would clear. That her eyes would open. That the throbbing in her head would stop. A lot of demands for a brain floating in a pool of thick, cold porridge. Anna thought about sitting up, getting up, but her body wouldn’t respond. More pain, more porridge. More voices, more beeping. Red flags were popping up throughout her consciousness — something was wrong. Too many mumblings, too many voices at the edge of her hearing. Voices that had no business being in her bedroom.

      “Anna, can you hear me?”

      Hear you? You are right here in bed next to me, Adam. Of course I can hear you.

      But her husband’s voice had a disquieting tenor she’d never quite heard before. His muffled words echoed in her ears, softly insulating her against the harsh beeping that tried to distort her every thought.

      A different voice followed. A deep, dark, musical voice — a voice rich with temptation.

      Do not close this door we have opened.

      Suddenly a swell of emotions overwhelmed her senses. It was as if the dam had burst; the dam that held back her energy, her very soul, releasing a flood of wordless images that pulsed to the beat of her heart. Anna felt a smile spread across her lips, even though the rest of her body refused to respond. How she wanted to linger in the warmth the memories promised. But the voice, the melody, disappeared as the scent of antiseptics whiffed across her nose. Bleach, perhaps. Or ammonia. What happened to the cinnamon potpourri in the crystal bowl on her nightstand?

      Anna’s head hurt just putting sentences together, and she still couldn’t open her eyes. So willful her thoughts, so unwilling her body. She could feel her pulse rise, her heart beating faster, her automatic fright/flight instinct taking over.

      “She is coming around, Mr. Powers.”

      Whose voice is that? In my bedroom? Who in the world would be calling Adam “Mr. Powers” anyway?

      More voices now. Closer. Louder. A squeaky high-pitched one and another with a sweet southern drawl. A shadow blurred the indirect light that fell upon her unopened eyes as she heard Adam’s voice echo from a tunnel off to her left somewhere.

      Damn, Adam. Speak up! Quit mumbling. And what are all these people doing in our bedroom?

      A moment of silence, an eternal moment, until suddenly a soothing sensation danced across her mind, melting her thoughts into puddles of warm milk. Anna thought she heard Adam say something about dying, but perhaps the word was “crying”.

      Either way, she decided she would try and open her eyes later. Yes, later. She was so sleepy, so content, that she’d rather follow the whispers that called her name.