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
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 writers:
Learn from others as you develop your own.
An antique car mechanic just gave me a lesson in powerful writing.
I’d asked him to check the 1930 Model A Ford because something was wrong with the engine. Otherwise, I thought, the car was just fine. After some engine tuning, … Continue reading