One of the sessions of last year’s writers’ summits covered revision planning with Troy Lambert. At Daniel David Wallace’s Revising and Editing Workshop, Lambert presented a solid and concise approach to revising a novel.
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Sooner or later in the process, every author faces editing the ‘crutch’ words. These are the habitual words or phrases used like crutches to prop up one’s prose. In speech, we rarely notice them; in prose, they become a hallmark of poor writing. Top of the list? Like, seemed, look, decide. And adverbs. Mostly.
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Never mind that I’m 65% through editing and still don’t know if the novel is any good: do I have a professional working draft?
A professional working draft comes at the end of one or more rounds of internal edits; no copy editing, line editing or proof reading. We’re still in the early stages. In short, does the manuscript work?
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How many drafts does it take to get out of the edit toward a published book? Book One is still in the edit, and here’s why; it’s only on its’ third draft.
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I appreciate what people mean when they say ‘it’s all in the edit.’ Of the three book series, Book One is in serious need of editing.
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How many times do you edit and revise, and still wonder how to fix a bad scene in your manuscript. Been there, struggled with that. You don’t always know why it doesn’t work, but that feeling won’t go away. …
A dense wall of text with little or no white space sends readers running; so how long is a paragraph?. Online and digital devices mean short paragraphs are the new standard.
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Outlining a book? Why not? Sixty, seventy, eighty thousand words or more. That’s your typical novel. Somehow you have to get to there from a blank page. Unless you’re an accomplished free-writer, that’s where an outline can help.
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There are many ways to start writing a book, both fiction and non-fiction. Without a first draft, you don’t have a book, just an idea. But a completed first draft is just that – a beginning and not an end.
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Everyone teaches ‘Creative Writing’ these days, but where are the editing tips for creative writing? We’re all led to believe that creative writing flows effortlessly from our finger tips in an unbroken stream of consciousness. It doesn’t. Good writing is hard work; good, finished writing is down to good, solid editing.
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