Challenge yourself to create more vivid writing.
I appreciate the advice from children’s writer Christian Harder Tangvald: “Circle every is and was on your manuscript; you don’t want writing that’s “isy” and “wasy.”
So I checked each use of was while I edited the 60,000-word YA novel. It started with 942. I cut that to 786.
The word isn’t evil; but it’s often slothful. These before-and-after examples … Continue reading
Don’t miss this tool for finding your mistakes.
Want to submit an error-free manuscript? Remember one keyboard shortcut.
Seriously. A few days ago, this simple command enabled me to catch multiple problems I’d missed in my first two editing passes through a book-length manuscript.
The novel told a great story. But the author struggled, as many of us do, with a few fine points of English.
He … Continue reading
Treat it as it is: a first draft.
Are you scrambling to meet your deadlines for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)? Consider again the experience of my friend Chandler Birch, who in 2013 decided to try to write a novel in a month.
The challenge gave Birch his start. “Prior to that,” he says, “I had next to no experience developing a plot bigger than … Continue reading