Don’t expect perfection on the first pass.
Two weeks ago, I completed my first editorial pass through a 103,000-word novel. Working part time, the task took nearly a month. By the end, I’d cut some 7,750 words.
I took care of the POV and made sure each new chapter immediately identified the main character, setting, and time. I fixed telling dialogue attributions and made sure the … Continue reading
A word’s placement makes a difference.
I have a beef with Safeway. They may know groceries, but they struggle with word order. I cringe every time I hear this line in their radio ad: “Safeway only sells U.S.D.A. choice beef.”
What’s wrong with that? The placement of the word only.
In English, modifiers belong as close as possible to the word they … Continue reading
Don’t waste a sentence’s key part.
As I edited a manuscript for busy moms, I thought of birds and binoculars.
Specifically, I thought of an illustration that taught me how the words a writer places at the end of a sentence stick in a reader’s mind.
Here’s the illustration, by Robert Elmer in the former Christian Writers Guild’s course for pre-teen … Continue reading