Tips for Editing Fiction. On June 7th, 2011 by Fiction Editor Beth Hill and last modified on June 23, 2011 Whether you’re a professional editor or a writer going through your own work, you probably either have a system you use to evaluate each manuscript or wish that you did.
There are so many, many areas to a piece of long fiction, how can you be sure you’ve checked each, weighed the value of each, polished each? And if you change one area, how do you remind yourself to re-check those other areas that you already looked at? And. . . where do you even start this checking and polishing, this editing? It’s likely that you easily catch problems and errors in the areas where you’re strongest as a writer or editor—if you nail character goals and motivation, you might want to start your edit there. You probably look at big-picture issues first and work toward the fine details. Changes in any area, but especially in large-picture or story-wide issues, will necessitate change throughout the manuscript.
Be flexible. Plot Pace. More Tips for Cleaning up a Manuscript. On May 21st, 2014 by Fiction Editor Beth Hill and last modified on May 21, 2014 A single article can’t list everything necessary to help you edit a novel manuscript.
Big Revision. In Big Sur this past weekend, we had a collective “lightbulb moment” in one of my workshops.
A writer had come to the Friday session, gone back to the drawing board, or so she thought, and returned with a revision on Saturday. We noticed some new turns of phrase and a few things cut but, overall, the issues we’d isolated for her on Friday were still on the page. Let me be quick to say that it’s highly unusual to expect that much change in one day of revision, let alone one month, but such dramatic manuscript evolution is the name of the game at Big Sur. It’s not unheard of to have writers pull amazing all-night feats and return to workshop with a completely fresh 10 pages, the ink still wet from the morning printer queue, for example. So while we didn’t expect a profound change in her work, per se, we were a little underwhelmed by what actually showed up. “Help me. A second member of the group was an author as well as an illustrator.
Deborah Halverson's 10 Tests a Novel Must Pass to Prove It's Ready for Submission. Ara Burklund has been kind enough to provide us with a great synopsis of the intensive given by the talented author and editor Deborah Halverson.
The recap is information-packed, but Deborah is an engaging speaker, and her session was so good you'll want to hear her for yourself if you have the opportunity. The Ultimate Checklist for Submitting to Publishers: 10 Tests a Novel Must Pass to Prove It's REALLY Ready for Submission to Publishers At the SCBWI's 39th Annual Summer Conference in Los Angeles, Deborah Halverson, award-winning author of HONK IF YOU HATE ME, BIG MOUTH, and the upcoming WRITING YOUNG ADULT FICTION FOR DUMMIES (available in stores June 2011), gave an incredible presentation packed full of information writers would do well to heed before submitting their work to agents and publishers. A former editor at Harcourt, Halverson already had a wealth of editorial experience when she began writing her first novel while pregnant with her triplet sons. 1.
A dead man fell from the sky...: Advanced searching in Microsoft Word. Writers are not always the most technical of people, and fair enough, but there's one techie thing worth learning about because it makes global editing easier, and that's regular expressions.
Let's say - to pick a random example, not that this would ever happen to me - that your dear agent thinks you have too many verbs of the form was ---ing. Was walking, was looking, was defenestrating, and so on. How to find them? You can read through the whole ms. Forty Questions for a Stronger Manuscript. I'm plotting a new WIP, teetering in that sweet spot where what I'm embarking on is absolutely, positively, definitely going to be the best thing EVER.
That usually lasts about thirty seconds. Because the next thing I have to do is sit myself down for the talk. You know: the TALK. Blog Highlights: How I Conduct an Editing and Polishing Round. For the grand opening of this blog, I’m spotlighting some of my favorite blog posts and moments from over the years throughout the month of June.
Week One: Writing Tips and Advice First posted on September 5, 2011. AliciaBlade.com. AliciaBlade.com. Revising Your Novel: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, aka the Book Doctors, spend their days working with authors to hone their manuscripts.
On Tuesday, May 14, they’ll be hosting a webinar to benefit NaNoWriMo, called The Art of the Edit, where they’ll guide participants through their steps for revision. They shared a taste of what they’ll discuss with us. One of the things that separates amateurs from professionals is their ability to rewrite their novels, to transform them from beautiful but unshaped pieces of clay into glorious works of art that take the breath away.
We look at multiple aspects of the novel as we edit—often doing individual edits for each aspect. Here are the big ones: Character arc. Building suspense. Opening chapters. Redundancy. 25 Steps To Edit The Unmerciful Suck Out Of Your Story. A dead man fell from the sky...: Advanced searching in Microsoft Word. Forty Questions for a Stronger Manuscript. Misplaced Modifiers. Today's topic is misplaced modifiers.
Of all the writing errors you can make, misplaced modifiers are among the most likely to confuse your readers, but they're also kind of fun because misplaced modifiers can give your sentences silly meanings that you never intended. If you're not careful, you can end up writing that your boss is a corn muffin instead of that your boss invested in corn muffins. I once worked with an editor who e-mailed everyone in the office the especially hilarious sentences created by misplaced modifiers. YA Highway: Revising Your Novel. Resources for after NaNoWriMo (or any first draft!) Writing Advice Database. Nathan Bransford said...
Hi all, in a continuing effort to make the blog more navigable, I put together a FAQ-style compendium of all the writing advice on the blog, including the You Tell Mes and their fantastic comments. June 11, 2009 at 1:57 PM abc said... Wow! And thank you. June 11, 2009 at 2:00 PM.