Revising Mundane Content We’re all guilty of it at one time or another. Don’t lie. Even best-selling authors fall victim to mundane content. It sneaks into our writing disguised as description and detail we think will add to our story when, in fact, it bogs it down. “But my descriptions are necessary to make my scenes fuller,” you say. Not all description is necessary and...
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Tag: revision
Divas Recommend: 10 Signs You’re Ignoring Constructive Criticism of Your Writing by Amy Spahn As an editor, it’s my job to give constructive criticism. It’s what I get paid to do. Along the way, I try to offer some praise for the elements of a story that work, but most of my feedback does not involve writing a sonnet extolling the virtues of a manuscript...
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Keep it Consistent: Final Thoughts In this series on keeping things straight in the revision process, I’ve given a lot of focus to those things you should do before you ever put pen to paper, and they are an important part of the process. Yes, it’s a lot of upfront work, but it can save you countless hours in the end. That said, even the...
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Track Changes – The Basics A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I discovered track changes in Microsoft Word. What a wonderful feature! It allows collaborators to make changes to a document while preserving the original until a change is made permanent. The best part is that each collaborator’s revisions and comments are tracked separately and appear in a different color....
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Divas Recommend: Stages of Revision by Natalie Whipple I’ve got revision on my mind this morning. Why? Because more often than not I have to give authors advice about where to start. When staring at a manuscript full of edits of all types and varieties, it’s no easy task to separate the forest for the trees. It’s easy to tell someone to revise their story,...
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What to Do With Your First Draft Congratulations! You’ve done something that most would-be writers have not—completed your novel. I can feel your satisfied grin from here. So now that you’ve finished that first draft, what should you do with it? If “Publish it now!” is your first thought, I want you to take a step away from your manuscript. In fact, you should...
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We have all done it. No, really; it’s okay to admit it. No one here will judge you. It’s a part of the writing process, like it or not. All you have to do is say it out loud and admit it to yourself: My name is *insert name* and I have had revision angst problems for *insert a ungodly amount of time*. There, now...
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