It’s not enough to write a page-turning story with characters you can’t help but love. Editors, agents, and readers are eager for writing that does not read like this:
After reading all the words on my contract, I know what my rights are.
They want tight, powerful prose like this:
I read my contract. I know my rights.
And this is where Don McNair’s book, Editor-Proof Your Writing: 21 Steps To The Clear Prose Publishers And Agents Crave, comes in. He lays out the 21 steps that are guaranteed to tighten your prose. Each step explains the specific issue (e.g. double verbs) and provides lots of examples. You then apply your new knowledge to the exercises with each step and the accompanying excerpt from a book (I skipped the excerpts). The final assignment for each step is to apply it to your first chapter (and only your first chapter). Most of the steps are achieved using the FIND function, so they’re easy to do.
After you’ve studied the book, you can apply each step to your novel. Even if you know most of the information, you’ll be surprised how many “issues” you’ve missed in your manuscript. For example, you might have sentences like this:
I sat down and watched TV.
Unless there is something significant about the act of sitting down, you can simply write:
I watched TV.
It is assumed the character is sitting. This sounds pretty obvious, but you might be surprised how many times you make this mistake without realizing it.
Another example is:
Their squeals of laughter fill the air as they chase each other and play tag.
The last I heard, tag involves being chased. The better way to write it would be:
Their squeals of laughter fill the air as they play tag.
I highly recommend the book to everyone, especially if you tend to write like the before examples. It’s a quick and easy read that makes the editing process more efficient. Also, it includes several chapters on hooking the reader and keeping them hooked.
How do you edit your writing to ensure it isn’t flabby?
Last year, I reviewed the free version of SmartEdit and loved it. The creators recently asked me if I would test the new version (which isn’t free). In exchange for an honest review, I was provided a copy of the software.
PROS
One of my favorite parts about SmartEdit is the list it generates from your manuscript. It lets you know which words and phrases you use repeatedly. This helps you identify those annoying crutch words and phrases that you might not realize you’re using. And after you’ve gone through your manuscript to correct for this, you can rerun the program to see if you’ve created a new list of crutch words. This is quicker and easier than figuring out your crutch words and using FIND and REPLACE in Word.
SmartEdit not only lists the repeated words, you can click on the word (or phrase, depending on what you’re analyzing) to see the sentences you used it in. You can then edit those sentences that you wish to change directly in SmartEdit (or go back and make the changes in your word processing software).
The program generates a list of potentially misspelled or misused words so that you can ensure you used the word correctly (e.g. breath and breathe), or didn’t accidentally misspell it.
You can quickly check to see if you overused profanity (or a specific swear word), or if you accidentally used profanity when you didn’t want it in the story.
You can analyze your sentence lengths. The results are shown in a chart. If you have an excessive number of sentences at the high end of the scale (e.g. thirty or more words), you might want to consider rewriting some of these sentences.
You can analyze dialogue tags to ensure you aren’t abusing non-said tags.
Another of my favorite features is the feedback SmartEdit provides on the beginning of your sentences. It’s a great way to see if you abuse certain words (e.g. ‘but’ and ‘and’).
SmartEdit shows you when you’ve used too many spaces between words. A life saver for your eyes.
There is a short video to show you how to use the software. I recommend watching it, but I know where are some people who are more hands on when it comes to learning a new program.
If you use foreign phrases or non-English phrases (fantasy anyone?), the program will list them so you can double check that you’ve used them correctly. In the case of non-English phrases created for fantasy, it helps to ensure you’re consistent in their use (or spelling).
CONS
Unlike other editing programs, Smartedit doesn’t tell you how to fix the issue. This enables you to have full creative control of your writing. Personally, I don’t think this is a disadvantage to the program, but it depends on what you’re looking for.
Sorry Mac users (which now includes me), the program is currently only available for PCs.
The program analyzes dialogue tags, but they are only available in past tense. I tend to writing novels in present tense, which means this feature has limited value for me. If I want to analyze them, I have to list the words under custom settings. This requires me knowing what dialogue tags I tend to use. The other issue is that you can’t save the list of words you compile under custom settings for future use.
Overall, I love SmartEdit. It’s the perfect program to help your polish your manuscript. It will definitely be part of my editing process.
Do you use any software programs designed for writers? Are there any you can’t live without? *
Self publishing is negatively viewed by the masses, and rightly so. This is because many authors still believe that investing in professional editing is unnecessary. If the story is good, they reason, that should suffice. Look at Fifty Shades of Gray. The writing is not great, yet the novel is a best seller.
Last week, I downloaded a New Adult (NA) novel (not the one in the picture) after a friend told me the price had dropped to $0.99. The potential for a great read was there, but the author chose to skip on professional editing. It was ridden with typos (e.g. We had a picnic, though she didn’t each much), missing words, confusing sentences. While I enjoyed the story, the lack of line and copy editing* left a bad taste, and I won’t buy anymore of the author’s books.
But it seems I’m alone in this believe that self-published books need to be properly edited. The book (which is $3.99, again) received 111 five-stars, 29 four-stars, 5 three-stars, and only 1 two-star rating on Amazon. When I wrote this post, it was ranked #178 in paid Kindle books (# 6 in Teen Romances). On Goodreads, the average rating was 4.29 stars (4121 readers rated the book). I was shocked. It seems that most people who read the book didn’t care that the level of editing was well below the standard of NYC.
What saddens me is that this might be the new standard for all our books, now that NYC is starting to compete with the self-published e-books on pricing. With the reduction of price, there will be the reduction in the time spent on editing. This level of editing could be the wave of the future.
Do you care if a book is poorly edited, just as long as the story is compelling? If you self publish, do you hire a professional editor to ensure your writing and story is the best it can be? Do you expect to see poorly edited book from NYC, now that they’re trying to complete with the pricing of self-published books?
*Six or seven beta readers were listed in the back of the book. The Secret of Ella and Micha byJessica Sorensen is also $0.99 and the writing is solid. Jessica obviously takes great pride in her books and craft. As soon as her new book (The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden) was released this week, I downloaded it.
The purpose of the first draft is to get our story down. It doesn’t matter if the imagery is lame or non-existent. It doesn’t matter if the setting is weak or forgotten. And it doesn’t matter if you told the mood and emotion in the scene instead of showing it. All that matters is that you see the scene for what it is—a wealth of possibilities.
It’s not until we step back and evaluate the potential in the scene (or photo) that we can transform our load of cr*** into something magical, something that speaks to us. When I took the above photo, I had an image in mind for the theme and mood of the picture. Unfortunately, I only had my point & shoot camera with me, and it didn’t share my vision. Not even close. But that’s okay. I converted the JPEG file to RAW (it’s the format professional photographers prefer to use) in Photoshop Elements*, and tweaked the settings to give me the image I had in mind. And voila!
Obviously, you can’t try the same trick with your writing. What you can do is identify the theme, mood, emotion of the scene, and brainstorm words that evoke the image you have in mind. Go crazy. Write everything down, then highlight those words that belong to your character’s voice. Now, weave the words into your setting description to create the mood and emotion you’re after. But remember, less is more. A dash adds flavor. Too much and you leave a bitter taste in your reader’s mouth.
What are some tricks you use to make a scene stronger? When you end up with a photo like the first one, do you find ways to make it better, or do you delete it and pretend it never existed?
*Just use ‘Open As’ in Photoshop Elements, and open your JPEG photo as a RAW file. You can then easily adjust for exposure, brightness, clarity, color saturation, etc, to get the image you’re looking for.
Typically, I blog about writing craft books I love. Today I want to review SmartEdit, a free editing software program that I recently tried out.
After I copied and pasted my manuscript into the document window, the program generated several lists, including clichés and adverbs used, and words and phrases used more than twice (you can adjust the frequency setting). While I checked out each cliché and adverb indentified, I limited my search of crutch words and phrases to those that were overly used or were unique enough to be noticeable when mentioned more than once or twice. Otherwise, I could have spent a year trying to fix something that wasn’t a wreck, or end up writing out my voice.
I didn’t use the program quite as suggested. I identified what word or phrase I wanted to search for in my document. After using the FIND function in Word, I then edited the word or phrase in my document (instead of in SmartEdit). It made more sense doing it that way.
I had trouble loading my document onto SmartEdit. According to the website, you save your manuscript as a text file and load it onto SmartEdit. It didn’t work for me. I had to copy and paste the entire document into the program for it to work. What the website also doesn’t mention is that you have to open your analysis in Word after you close SmartEdit. You can still use the lists in SmartEdit after you generate them, but you have to copy and paste and generate the list again if you close the program without saving the analysis first. Another thing I recommend doing is after you open the text file, save it as a .doc or .docx file. That way you can place a bookmark at the last place you were at when you have to stop working on your edits. You can’t bookmark a text file.
Overall, I loved SmartEdit and recommend it to anyone who writes.
Have you tried SmartEdit or one of the other similar editing software programs available?
(edit: two writers have mentioned that their virus protection software won't allow them to download the program. This is a recent issue. I use the same security software and it didn't have an issue with it at the time I downloaded the program.)
As some of you know, I’m addicted to craft books on writing fiction. Because I’m about to tackle the revisions on the first draft of my YA horror novel, I couldn’t resist buying Revision & Self-Editing: Techniques for transforming your first draft into a finished novel by James Scott Bell.
First off, I already own several great books on editing (see list below). Each book offers writers something the others don’t. Revision & Self-Editing is no exception. The commonality between them is the multitude of exercises and checklists to help you identify your novel’s problem areas. If you’re a left-brainer (analytical thinker) or whole-brainer (like me), you’ll thrive on this aspect of the book. For the right-brainer (the creative thinker), the book will help you make your manuscript stronger. You just need to have an open mind to being analytical.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive book on writing fiction, this book isn’t for you. James covers all the important elements of fiction (characterization, plot & structure, point of view, dialogue, description, etc), but the chapters are more like summaries. For more in-depth information, you need to check out other resources (e.g. Plot & Structure). There is, though, tons of information you might not know or have forgotten. He hits the key points of each element, and he does it well.
What I found great about the book was that it is a quick read. I had a hard time putting it down (crazy, huh?) because the chapters are short. It was easy to read “just one more chapter” and then keep on reading. This made for an even quicker read. It means you’re not wasting time reading the book when what you really want to do is edit your novel. Overall, I highly recommend the book no matter what your skill level.
Do you have a favorite book you use for editing your manuscript?
Other recommended books: Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
Welcome to my porch. Isn’t it a beauty? This is what happens when poor craftsmanship and the wrong materials meet Canadian winters.
The same disaster can happen to your story if you don’t take time to do things properly, and if you don’t bother to learn the skills of the trade. There’s no point querying a story that would be better off lining your hamster cage. You’re only setting yourself up for frustration. If the structure is weak, the characterizations lacking, and the protagonist’s emotions don’t create any stirrings in the reader, it doesn’t matter how pretty your words are, the story will fall apart.
Fortunately, unlike my porch, the cost to make your project beautiful both inside and out is not expensive. Workshops, craft books, and awesome critique partners and beta readers will help you make your story strong. Maybe, like my porch, the story needs to be demolished and rebuilt. Maybe you need to send it on a world cruise and tackle it again in the future, once you’ve gained new skills.
Do you have a story you’ve temporarily shelved that you plan to eventually revisit? If you’ve written several stories, do you find your skills have been improving over time, and you can’t believe you once thought your first project was ready for the world?
You’ve been querying agents and you landed a revision request. Now what?
First, celebrate. A revision request means the agent saw something in your writing (i.e. it doesn’t suck like you had originally feared), and she wants to see if you can make the story stronger. She also wants to see if the two of you will mesh well as a team.
Take the time to make sure you understand what she is looking for, and that you both share the same vision for your story. Once you’ve finished the edits, have beta readers go through it and edit it if need be. Don’t rush to send it out and skip this step in your haste to get it back to the agent. You don’t want to blow this one chance she’s given you.
If you land a revision request, consider pulling your material from agents who have requested it, and explain why. Let them know you would love to resent it to them once you’ve finished the revisions. I did that for two agents, and received emails saying they would love to see it when it’s ready. My friend did the same and got a similar response. The agents appreciated that we didn’t waste their time with a manuscript we felt could be stronger, thanks to the professional feedback we had received. Of course, having another agent interested enough to offer a revision request no doubt helped, too.
In my case, I knew it would take a while to do the edits, which is why I contacted the agents. If you don’t contact them first, you can try sending the revised manuscript to them when it’s ready, assuming they haven’t gotten back to you in the meantime. (For more info on that, check out this post.)
And remember, just because an agent sent you a revision request, it doesn’t mean she’ll end up loving your book. More often than not, writers put in all the extra work only to land a rejection. But on the bright side, you now have a stronger manuscript for when you start querying again.
Have you had a revision request before? Do you have any suggestions?
(I know the cartoon had nothing to do with the post, but I couldn’t resist it. *grins*)
We’ve all done it (even J.K. Rowling, I bet). We’ve all written those sentences that sound great in our head, but they don’t necessarily say what we think they do.
The best way to avoid dangling modifies is to read over your sentence and ask yourself: what noun is the clause modifying (describing), and does the sentence makes sense when I modify it? The noun is the one closest to the clause. By asking yourself these questions you might realize that you placed the clause (or modifying word) next to the wrong noun. The result is a confusing or hilarious sentence.
In the above example, yawning is referring to my foot. Well, I don’t know about your feet, but mine don’t possess the ability to yawn. The correct subject of the sentence is missing. It should read:
Yawning, I kick the covers off the bed.
And what about the sign in the photo? When I first read it, I thought it was telling me that mentally delayed children or children who aren’t very fast are playing in the street. (Okay, I’m not really that dumb, but the sign did make me laugh).
Do you take the time to make sure your sentences say what you think they mean?
What other grammatical errors have made you laugh?
(Note: In Canada they don't have the 'slow' part. The yellow sign indicates a warning. It's warns you that children play here. Here, we assume the driver is smart enough to know that you need to slow down when you see the sign. Okay, not everyone is smart enough to know that. )
Yeah, yeah, I know. There are more than twelve days till Christmas. But The Twelve Blogging Days of Christmas for Writers (According to Stina’s Schedule) was way too long a title.
Anyhow, I’m going to be blogging about awesome gifts ideas you might want to start hinting heavily for from your significant others, friends, family. Or if they don’t get the hint, then you reward yourself with them.
<<<3
Back in September, members of one chapter of the Romance Writers of America started singing the praises for the online courses by Margie Lawson. Always on the lookout for anything that will take my writing to the next level, I couldn’t wait to check them out.
And I’m so glad I did.
But the best part was I didn’t have to wait until the next course to learn from her brilliance. Her course notes are available, and for much less than the online courses.
The following three I highly recommend to help you write fresh instead of stale or clichéd (the descriptions are from her website):
1. Empowering Characters’ Emotions
Want to add a psychological punch to your writing and editing?
Want to learn how to capture the full range of body language on the page?
Want to turn your work into a page-turner by powering up emotion and hooking the reader viscerally?
(Trust me, you do!!!!)
2. Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist
3. Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More
DEEP EDITING is for the writer who wants to psychologically impact the unconscious of the reader. For the writer who wants to learn fresh editing techniques. For the writer who wants to edit for power. (I blogged about rhetorical devices not long ago on the QueryTracker.net blog. That was nothing compared to what Margie will teach you.)
Her course notes are FILLED with examples from New York Times bestsellers. By the time you’ve finished studying them, you won’t be able to look at your writing the same way again. You’ll cringe every time you write (or read) the same old tired phrases that everyone leans on—except for the bestsellers. If you’re looking for a way to strengthen your voice, these courses will help you as well.
If I were to give them a rating out of five stars, they would definitely be worth six stars.
Is there anything writing related that you would like Santa to bring you this year?
Some people love collecting clutter *nudges basement door shut with foot*, but for photographers and writers, this is usually a big no-no.
When taking a photo, check the view finder or LCD screen to make sure everything in the picture is there for a reason. If it distracts from the subject, then remove the unwanted object, or move to a different location or angle so the object is no longer visible. You can also adjust the depth of field (aperture) so everything behind the subject is blurry.
During WriteOnCon in August, an editor* shared two questions to ask yourself to ensure your writing is clutter free. You ask these questions for each sentence, paragraph, scene, and chapter:
1. Why are you telling me this? (relevance)
2. Why are you telling me this now? (placement)
Also, go through your manuscript word by word, and ask yourself if the word is necessary, if it can be cut, or if it should be changed to a stronger word that will establish voice. For example, by changing ‘ran fast’ to ‘sprinted’, you’ve replaced two weaker words with a strong one. By changing the words to dashed or bolted, you’ve tweaked the voice.
How are you when it comes to clutter? Do you have any other suggestions for keeping your photos or writing clutter free?
*sorry, I went back to find the session, but couldn’t find the one I wanted. The one I think it was, isn’t linked to the schedule anymore.
<<<3
Since I have tons to do before my upcoming trip (like finish beta reading a project I’m in love with), today is my last post until my return to the blogosphere on November 21st. I miss you all already.
(I didn't take this photo.) Are you ready to get your butt ready for bikini season manuscript in peak shape for querying?
Are you ready to sweat and feel the burn?
Then I have the workout for you. It’s guaranteed* to whip your butt manuscript into shape and leave agents drooling. And a drooling agent = The Call.
First, you’re going to need some equipment:
• Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. You don’t have a copy, you say? Then stay tune. It will be one of the prizes in my upcoming contest to celebrate reaching 500 + followers. (note: if you don’t want to bother with the workbook (though I highly recommend it), you can still do some of the workout. Adjust accordingly).
Workout
Warm up:
1. Characterizations
2. Outline
Some people (also known as pansters) prefer to skip the warm up. I’m not going to make you do twenty push-ups if you do. Just remember, you may need to do more work to get your manuscript into shape compared to the outliners.
Donald Maass’s workbook has some great exercises to do for the warm up (found under Character Development and Plot Development). However, I did them after I finished the first draft of my current WIP. With my next project, I’ll do them during my preplanning, to make sure my characterizations and outline are properly warmed up before I start my first draft.
Light Aerobic Exercise:
1. Write your first draft. I don’t care if you speed through it or if your internal editor is peeking over your shoulder (like mine). Just do it!
2. Read through your manuscript and write notes about things you want to fix (like inconsistencies) or things you’re questioning. Go back and deal with them now if necessary.
Intense Aerobic Exercise:
1. Go through your WIP using the exercises in Donald’s workbook under the section Character Development. With my WIP, I went through the entire manuscript doing this step.
2. Go through the remainder of the workbook (Plot Development and General Story Techniques), completing as many of the exercise as you can. Some will have to wait until you analyze the WIP at the scene level (next step).
3. Now we’re going to do interval training. Divide your WIP into chunks, each containing about three chapters (depending on the length of the chapters). Why? Because after each chunk has gone through the interval training, it’s send off to your CPs. Of course, you don’t have to do it this way. But this is how I did it.
a. Go through each scene doing the exercises in the workbook (under Plot Development and General Story Techniques). Not all exercises will be necessary for each scene. Only you can decide which ones apply to a given scene.
b. After editing the scene according to the above step, do a dialogue pass. I talked about this last week on my Query Tracker Blog post (Strengthening Dialogue).
c. The final step is to Toss The Pages. Okay, I don’t actually toss anything. I randomly select the pages. But the main point is I don’t edit these pages sequentially. This enables me to focus on the writing and not on the story. I also use the RWA handouts list under ‘equipment’ during this part. Doing it this way helps me deepen the layers of the story (setting, emotion, etc). Check out the handout, From First Draft to Final Manuscript, and you’ll see what I mean. Really push yourself on this step. Don’t gloss over it, thinking the page is fine. I bet you can make it better.
d. Continue the above three steps then read through the chunk of chapters you were working on and edit if necessary.
e. Send to CPs (optional but recommended). Edit based on their suggestions.
f. Repeat steps a-e for next chunk of the WIP.
Cool Down
1. Once finished—and after you’ve given it some distance—read through your manuscript and deal with any areas you feel could be further improved on (like pacing).
2. Send to beta readers. Edit as needed.
Celebration
(I didn't take this either)
Yay! You are now ready to query. Just make sure you’ve put your query and synopsis through their own intensive workout.
Good luck!
Any other suggestions? How do you usually edit?
* Fine Print: 1. I’m using this workout with my current WIP, so I don’t actually know if it will work when it comes to querying it. But it has made MAJOR improvements in my manuscript, hence why I’m sold on it. Of course, both the writing and a unique concept are important too. This workout won’t help you there. Sorry. 2. I lied about it being a twenty-minute workout. But it got you to look, didn’t it? ;)
If I were to pick one book that’s made an epic change in my writing in the past few months, I’d have to go with Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass.
Like everyone else, I’d heard how awesome his workshops are, and how great his Writing the Breakout Novel book is, so I borrow the book (not the workbook) from the library—and was disappointed. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. What I wanted was something to help me translate the stuff in the book into my novel. Was that too much to ask for?
Apparently not. The workbook is now part of an intensive workout my WIP is currently undergoing. And so far, it’s definitely been worth it.
But as the word “workout” implies, it’s not easy. There are times when you’re going to be sweating. Times when you’re tempted to skip portions of it. But as Donald says in his workbook, “The investment of time to complete this work is huge . . . but then your ambition is huge, too, isn’t it? I thought so.”
The workbook is divided into three general topics (character development, plot development, and general story techniques). These are further divided into 34 chapters (total). Although I’ve been using the workbook during revisions, a number of chapters are perfect for planning your novel. The section on plot development ties in nicely with the plotting book, Save the Cat.
Each chapter has a brief explanation with examples taken from novels, followed by a series of steps to help you improve this aspect of your book (see example below). While I didn’t find the examples very helpful, the exercises are definitely priceless. Now I see why his workshops are so popular.
Are you ready to try one of them out?
In chapter six (Character Turnabouts and Surprises), Donald asks you to:
1. Pick a scene from your novel with your protagonist. Actually you can do this with any scene, even if the protagonist isn’t the POV character. And in my opinion, you should. Okay, now write down what her main action is in the scene. What is she trying to accomplish, obtain, or avoid?
2. Write a list of the reasons why your protagonist is doing what she is doing. Write down as many of her motive as you can. You’re not supposed to look at the next step until you are finished—according to Donald. But I know that’s not going to happen right now (you’ve got other blogs to check out), so let’s continue.
3. Circle the last reason on your list.
4. Rewrite your opening of the scene, only this time, send you protagonist into action (or avoidance) for the reason you circled.
Now, if you’re like most writers, the first reason you wrote down will be the same one used in your novel. According to Donald, this is often the easiest choice. The first one that popped to mind when you were planning or writing the scene. And the one that made sense and felt the safest. “But safe choices make a scene predictable. Reversing motives shakes up a scene. It makes its course less expected, yet no less logical since the action still comes from your character’s true, deep motives.”
I tried this out and was instantly I was sold on the exercise. As Donald points out, the beginning of your scene might be perfect the way it is. But there will be scenes that are stronger with the new beginning. Try it out. See for yourself.
So do I think the workbook is worth it? Hell yes. If my copy went missing, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a replacement. It’s that good.
Question: Is there a writerly book you couldn’t live without?
When revising, do you find yourself too immersed in your story? Well, I’ve got the perfect game for you that will help you spot the problems on the page you might not otherwise notice.
RULES:
1. Print off the pages you want to do a more in-depth edit to. It could be a chapter, a few chapters, or the entire book.
2. Toss the pages in the air (or spread them randomly on the floor if bent pages freak you out). Make sure they’re all facing down.
3. Grab a page.
4. Read through it, and mark each line that contains tension (I use a T in the margin). Ideally you want at least one line (but more is better) per page with tension. If you don’t, go through it and increase the tension through dialogue, unanswered questions, action, exposition. That is what’s going to keep your readers turning the pages.
5. Find paragraphs that are begging for more description or emotion (or both). Can the action be improved on? You might not have noticed it before, but now the weaknesses are easy to spot.
6. Is there enough white space? Not enough and your reader’s eyes will glaze over. This can be easily fixed by adding dialogue and breaking up your paragraphs (and trimming them if necessary).
7. Is your dialogue suffering from the talking head syndrome? Add some physical beats to ground your readers and characters in the scene.
8. Did you spot those typos and awkward sentences often missed when you read the pages in order?
9. How’s the pacing?
10. Read the page out aloud and see what else you can find that irritates the hell out of you.
11. Either edit the page now on the computer or save it until you’ve finished marking up all the pages.
13. Pick the next page off the floor. If it’s too close to the one you just edited (I’m referring to page number here), then put it back and randomly select another one.
14. Repeat steps #4 to 13 until you’ve finished all the pages.
THE WINNER:
You, of course. Now you’re one step closer to having an awesome manuscript.
Any other suggests as to what else to look out for when using this technique?
A couple of months ago, I was lucky (extremely lucky) to win a full manuscript evaluation from Angela Ackerman, the genius behind The Bookshelf Muse. Among a number of errors I was making, she pointed out something that weakened my writing, which she referred to as “echoes.”
What is an echo? Basically, it’s exactly what the name implies. A repetition. It can be as simple as a word that you overuse. For me, it was “race” (among others). My protagonist used to be a competitive swimmer. She had to give it up even though she didn’t want to. So when I wanted to imply that she went from point A to point B quickly, I tended to use “race.” I thought I was being *cough* clever. I did use run, sprint, bolt, and rush, too, but not as much as race.
Before Angela read the novel, a beta reader pointed out my abuse of the phrase, “Are you okay?” Having people ask my protagonist if she was okay was fine, but I needed to add a little variation to the question. With my rewrites, though, most of these were deleted since they were no longer necessary. There were other phrases, too, that I tended to overuse without realizing it (until Angela pointed them out).
The third type of echo I used was explaining why my main character gave up swimming and how she felt about it. I keep mentioning it again and again in her inner thoughts. I didn’t need to do that. The reader already got it the first time. I did vary what was said. I just didn’t clued in that it was all saying the same thing. Sad, huh?
To avoid the dreaded echoes, try to read through your manuscript in one sitting (or over a short time frame) and preferably out loud. You’ll notice them if you do that. If something seems like you’ve already repeated it a few times (especially a word or a phrase), jot it down and do a search later on with the FIND function. Your beta readers and crit partners will hopefully point them out, too. Do this, and your writing will be much stronger.
Not long ago, I started sending out queries for Lost in a Heartbeat. I didn’t expect a lot of agents to jump on it since it deals with a tough issue. It really isn’t for everyone. Fortunately, among the form rejections were two personalized ones. The agents liked the concept (yay!), but my voice was an issue. Groan.
I also entered last month's Miss Snark’s First Victim Secret Agent Contest (see her blog for more info on future ones). The Secret Agent was intrigued with my first 250 words, but thought the voice was bland. Talk about a left hook to the ego. Luckily, one of my brilliant crit partners had also read the entries. She told me the ones that grabbed her attention were the ones written in a chick lit voice. She was envious because that wasn’t her natural voice—it was mine.
Now the thing is, I'm jealous of her voice. I also love the voices of Sarah Dessen, Alyson Noel, Lisa McMann, and Richelle Mead. The trouble is I love their voices so much I lost sight of my own. It wasn’t like I was trying to emulate them. Now that would have been a huge disaster. But my Voice Envy had seriously hurt me.
Finding your voice is tricky, especially when you’re a new writer. It’s so easy to want to write like someone else. But even when you’ve established your voice, it so easy to let Voice Envy sway you. Sometimes it works. And sometimes the results are disastrous—as I’ve proven.
For more information on finding your voice, check out the blogs of Mary Kole (agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency), Elana Johnson (contributor of the Query Tracker Blog), and Christine Fonseca for their brilliant insight.
Has anyone else struggled to find and keep their voice? Or is there an author whose voice you envy? Just beware of that nasty old Voice Envy. You never know when it might strike.
So I’ve learned my lesson. I’m now storing my voice in a safe place so I don’t lose it next time. Somewhere safe from Voice Envy.
I was recently editing Lost in a Heartbeat for voice when I came to the following flashback:
“So where’s your boyfriend?” he asked. “How do you know I have one?” I did, of course, but Liam wasn’t there. There were only a few weeks left of summer vacation then he’d be leaving for college, so I didn’t think there was anything wrong flirting with this guy. Neither relationship was going to go anywhere, either way.
But I realized the main character, Calleigh, wasn’t the kind of girl to flirt with another guy when she had a boyfriend. Even if the boyfriend was going away to college and she'd no intention of having a long distance relationship. So I tweaked it:
“So where’s your boyfriend?” he asked. “What makes you think I have one?” Liam and I had broken up only a few days before that. Or rather, I had dumped a Blue Raspberry Slurpee on his lap after Alejandra told me the latest gossip. He’d been caught getting all hot and steamy with a junior varsity cheerleader at a party just the week before. We hadn’t officially broken up, but I figured the Slurpee incident pretty much said it all.
Great except for one problem. Yep, you guessed it. It caused a snowball effect. Other sections then had to be rewritten because of this one little change.
Yes, it was a lot of work, but it was worth it. The result was a domino effect that started with Liam cheating on Calleigh, and which resulted in the story problem. Now you see why I love editing. *grins*
Has this happened to you? Has one little change in your novel led to a snowball effect that you were excited about? One you never expected when you wrote your first draft—or edited your fifth?
Last week, I talked about the mysterious voice. This week I’m referring to a different voice. The one linked to your computer. H.L Dyer from the Query Tracker blog posted two weeks ago a suggestion on how to use your computer's voice when editing your novel (or term paper). It was a brilliant suggestion that I couldn’t wait to share with you.
According to the comments that were generated by the post, there’re several ways of doing this, including downloading programs. If you want to learn more about those, or if you use an Apple instead of a PC, then check out the post. Otherwise, here are the step-by-step instructions for giving your manuscript or term paper a computer-generated voice. I’ll warn you now, it’s not perfect. Sometimes the pronunciation is off, but it’s good enough for our purpose.
Copy the pages you want to use from Word.
Go to ACCESSORIES in the start-up menu.
Click on NOTEPAD and paste your Word document there.
Under ACCESSORIES, open the EASE OF ACCESS folder then click on NARRATOR. This will open the ‘text to voice’ function on your computer.
To listen to your document, press the INSERT key and F7 at the same time. Anna will start reading your assignment.
To edit, I prefer to read from a hard copy of my document and follow along with Anna. When I notice an awkward sentence, typo, missing or extra word, etc., I highlight it and continue through the document until it’s finished. I then go back and edit those highlighted parts.
Now why go to all this effort when you could easily read it out loud? Well, because your eyes and brain love to play tricks on you and it’s easy to miss those errors. I find I tend to read what isn’t necessarily on my page, but what I think should be there. This is especially true if I’ve read my manuscript out loud several times. My brain becomes programmed to read it a certain way regardless if I’ve made changes to it.
You can also save your document as a PDF file then used the read along feature associated with the program. I tried it and hated it. It made a mess of my manuscript, especially since it had problems pronouncing words with contractions (e.g. don’t).
Give the above method a try. It’s definitely worth the effort.
