Ideas for Tightening up Your Manuscript - Tips for Authors

Self-editing is probably my least favorite of all the writing tasks, but it, along with the other proofreading and revising steps, are the most important to your manuscript. Here are some ideas of ways to tighten your work and make it more polished before you send out queries. You often only get one shot with an agent or publisher, so your manuscript needs to be the best it possibly can.

• Read the dialogue out loud. If you don’t want to be the reader, use the “Read Aloud” function on Microsoft Word’s Review tab. You will often hear things that need to be adjusted.

• Look at your dialog. Make sure it moves your story forward. Remove the chitchat if it doesn’t add to the story. Fluffy filler needs to go.

• Review your dialog tags (he said/she said). Use the Goldilocks method. You need what’s just right (not too many and not too few). The reader needs to know who the speaker is, but every line doesn’t need a tag.

• Look for places where the action is mundane. If you are bored, your readers will be too.

• Print out a copy of your manuscript and read it chapter by chapter. You will see more mistakes on paper than you will on the screen.

• Use your spell checker to catch extra spaces and typos.

• Search for “be” verbs (is/was/were…). Try to substitute a stronger verb. These are usually parts where you’re doing a lot of telling and not showing.

• Look for examples of passive voice and make those sentences active.

• Review long paragraphs and make sure all the detail adds to your story. Backstory (your character’s history) is important, but it needs to be sprinkled in. Long chucks of history read like a police report or a data dump. They take the reader out of the story’s action.

• Look at the action in your story. You do not need to describe every single step and thing that your characters encounter. If your story is about your character flying to Europe, you really don’t need to tell us about all the things she does to get to the airport unless it is key to the work.

• Make a list of your overused words We all have our favorites. Mine are “just” and “that.” During my editing, I search for these and replace or delete as many as I can.

• Pay attention to the details. If you rename or change something, make sure you’ve removed or updated all references. I beta-read a few chapters for someone the other day, and this person had two different names for the main character and two different spellings of one of the names.

To me, editing is harder than writing, but it is so important to the overall project. What else would you add to my list?

#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with Kimberly Hunt

I’d like to welcome Kimberly Hunt to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

Things you need for your editing sessions: hours, your manuscript, my computer, and sometimes a red pen

Things that hamper your editing: the requirements of being human (sleep, social obligations, etc.)

Things you love about editing: Reading, providing positive feedback so the author knows specifically what is working well, and suggesting solutions where needed to enhance the successful delivery of their vision.

Things you hate about editing: The frantic worry that I've missed something and the self-restraint needed to NOT point out every flaw. There's a fine balance between helping to improve and overwhelming an author with too many revision suggestions.

Hardest thing about being an editor: As a freelancer, the varied pace is hard. Sometimes my schedule is packed and I work too many hours; when it's slow I focus on training and marketing.

Easiest thing about being an editor: I get to read for a living!!!

Things you never want to run out of: Appreciation for the craft and the patience of my family and friends who indulge my obsession.

Things you wish you’d never bought: Almost everything after I buy it. I like LESS. Clutter is my Achilles heel.

Favorite music or song: REO Speedwagon's Time for Me to Fly because of my dad

Music that drives you crazy: My kid's recorder. That is a new level of parenting hell.

Favorite beverage: Spa water (water infused with cucumber or fruit)

Something that gives you a sour face: I don't like mean people and I don't like Jägermeister.

Something you wish you could do: Take more volunteer vacations like I did last summer. Travel + Volunteering = Bliss.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Cook. I do not enjoy it. I'd rather starve.

Things to say to an editor: Thank you. I value your skills and appreciate that you used them to make my book better. Here's your prompt payment for all of the hours you poured into making my book the best it can be.

Things to say to an editor if you want a lecture: Editing costs too much, I'll just ask my neighbor to edit it for free. Quality costs. It's like asking a teenager to build a house versus hiring professionals who have the training, experience, and tools to deliver a quality product.

Favorite books (or genre): Romance! And mystery, suspense and psychological thrillers. OK, I also like memoirs and pretty much anything else if it's well-written.

Books you wouldn’t buy: Zero limitations. As a kid from a large family, my parents had to put me on a budget for the monthly scholastic book club flyers. Picture a scrawny girl with an armful of library books - that was me.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Skydiving, sleeping in the Outback, snorkeling with sharks, walked past black bears raiding garbage cans, starting my freelance editing business

Something you chickened out from doing: I've chickened out of ever chickening out. Seriously, I can't think of anything and it's not that I think I'm brave. I'm probably just easily persuaded into doing adventurous things. I don't like to disappoint people.

About Kimberly:

Kimberly Hunt is a freelance editor with Revision Division. She has twenty years of experience managing projects and developmental editing fiction with a certification in copyediting as well. She's happy to answer questions about writing and editing but beware as she can go on at length about her passions: reading, running, and volunteering.

 Links to website and social media sites

https://revisiondivision.com

https://facebook.com/RevisionDivision/

https://Twitter.com/RevisionDiv

https://instagram.com/revisiondivkimberly

Receiving Feedback on Your Work

Last week, I blogged about giving feedback to other writers. Today’s post is about receiving feedback and the myriad of emotions that pop up. It’s tough. You’ve worked really hard on your manuscript, and now someone is telling you there are problems or that they don’t like something.

1. You have to develop thick skin if you’re going to be an author. You will always have critiques, criticisms, reviews, and comments. It’s hard, but you need to be realistic (and not emotional) if you want to improve your writing. The GOALS are to get published and to sell books. To do that, you need to hone your craft.

2. When I come back from critique group or get editorial feedback on my work, I try to wait a day before making changes. That usually gives me time to get over whatever emotions spun up from my first reaction to the comments. Scream, holler, run a mile, eat chocolate, dance in the kitchen, practice boxing, or do whatever helps you get centered. Allow yourself a little bit of time for your pity party. Then, pull up your big-girl pants and get on with your writing career. You can be sad or angry for a bit, but don’t wallow in it. If you want to be published, you have work to do.

3. After I’ve given myself some time, I look at the comments and changes. Sometimes, they’re not as bad as first perceived. A lot of boo boos are easily fixed. I go through the document and decide what changes I need to make.

4. When reading feedback from critique group members or beta readers, I look at each comment. If one person didn’t like or get something, it may be an outlier. If the majority of the group had the same comment, I need to look at it.

5. You don’t have to accept every change that’s suggested. At the end of the day, you’re the writer, and it’s your story. You can often negotiate with editors and agents if you feel strongly about something that they’ve asked you to change, but be professional and leave emotions out of it when you approach them. And here’s the BUT — and it’s a big one… If the editor doesn’t budge, you may have to make a decision. Is the change worth fighting for?

   I have been in several anthology projects where a new writer decided that he/she did not want the story edited AT ALL. The coordinator talked to them and explained the editing process that the group decided on was for a quality book (in this case, it was a three-level editing process). The publisher insisted that all stories would be edited. Two of the authors stood firm, and their stories were removed from the book. Decide what you can live with. Professional feedback is to make your work stronger and more marketable.

6. Everyone has ideas and opinions. And everyone will tell you about what they like and don’t like to your face and on social media. Don’t get in a confrontation or a social media war. Even if you delete posts and comments, they’re still out there somewhere in Internetland. It looks defensive and unprofessional when you start a shouting match. It is so easy to bang out a heated response to something, but don’t. It never helps, and it could damage your brand.

   Getting feedback, especially early in your career is tough. If you want to be published, you have to be tenacious and always looking for ways to improve. Criticisms and critiques are a big part of this.

How to Do a Quality Review for Your Writing

I am an IT Quality Assurance and Governance Manager by day, and that means I read, review, and write a lot of policies and procedures. My team is also responsible for reporting on progress and enforcing policy. I spent most of last week conducting quality reviews on a variety of IT documents. There are certain standards that need to be followed before the work is accepted. Self-editing is a lot like a quality review. Here are some items that you need to check as you review your work and prepare it for publication.

1. Start off with your basic spell check to catch obvious typos. Just be careful, some of the grammar suggestions are not correct.
2. Check the spelling of any brand names you use. Make sure they are spelled and capitalized correctly. (e.g. Post-it Notes, BAND-AID, etc.) Also make sure that you're not using a brand name to refer to a generic item.
3. Make sure that your word use is consistent with capitalization and hyphenation (e.g. database or data base; tshirt, Tshirt, or T-shirt).
4. Check your headers and footers. Is all of your contact information correct?
5. If you manually typed the chapter numbers, go through each and make sure you didn't skip or duplicate any.
6. Check all of your names and place names - especially if you made changes during editing. My friend renamed a character, but when it went through critique group, she found that she hadn't changed all of the instances. We were all wondering who this new character was who just appeared out of nowhere.
7. Be consistent with your use of numbers. Do you write them out or use digits? If you're using digits, you shouldn't start a sentence with it; write out the word.
8. Look for overused words. I have a bunch that I tend to repeat (and repeat). I have a list, and I add to it when I find more culprits. Use your search/replace to locate and eradicate them. My big offenders are "just" and "that."
9. Change the view on your word processer to a small percentage (e.g. 25%) so that you can see a lot of pages at once. Look at the lengths of your chapters. Are they balanced? Sometimes, I find I have a bunch of short chapters and then a series of really long ones. If possible, try to even these out.
10. If you don't have a writing partner, critique group, or beta readers, you should invest the time and find one that works for you. Real peer reviews are invaluable. I am part of a mystery critique group, and the advice and support are wonderful.