A good friend of mine, who also loves to write, recently asked me if I’d spend a little time talking about POV. She said she likes to write in first person, but she’s gotten the impression that’s not acceptable. So let’s chat about that storyteller, shall we?
Tag: editing (Page 5 of 8)
I was reading a thread in the Absolute Write forum tonight where the OP (original poster, icydk) asked about others’ editing and revising processes once they finish their first drafts. I love this website and the forum there because there are always great ideas and new ways to do things. I almost always learn something.
I didn’t read all the responses to the question, but I did read probably the first ten to fifteen. They all gave ideas as to how to go about it, and some of them were really good. (My favorite from the responses was to open the first draft in one window and a new doc in a window beside it and just start rewriting. I don’t know if I’d ever go to that extreme—to start over completely—but I liked the idea. My preferred way is to print the whole book and go after it with a pen and highlighters. Then I head back to the laptop.)
What I didn’t see in those responses was “hire a professional editor.” You may ask, “Why was this?” Continue reading
In last week’s post, I began sharing with you the sample edit I did for DF Roberts on the prologue to his novel The Scholars. If you missed it, you can find it here. If you’d like to know what it would be like to have me edit your work, check out my post from April where I offer a free sample edit when time permits.
Since my last post, Mr. Roberts and I have exchanged a couple more emails about the edit, and we talked about whether that prologue should really be chapter 1, which is what I figured it should be. He told me more about the book, and it turns out that my recommendation is to omit the prologue altogether.
As I mentioned last time, prologues are tricky and usually unnecessary. Continue reading
Back in April, I offered to do a free sample edit for anyone who was interested in what it would be like to work with me and/or to see what it would be like to allow their manuscript to go under the knife. This week, DF Roberts contacted me and offered me the prologue to his novel The Scholars. He graciously agreed to let me share the edit here on my blog (which was part of the deal to get it for free), so let’s get started.
First, let’s talk for a minute about prologues in general. If they’re well done, there can be a place for them. Most of the time though, they are basically just “chapter 1” without the proper title, or they’re a backstory dump that the author thinks the reader needs to know right at the beginning of the story. Unfortunately, those backstory dumps can often turn a reader off in the first couple pages as they try to absorb all of this information that could have been more elegantly and smoothly incorporated into the story later on.
What about DF Roberts’ prologue? Because the prologue is all I got to see, I can’t answer definitively, but my gut tells me this is chapter 1.
OK … on to the first bit of actual editing. Continue reading
I have a client I’ve worked with for over a year and we’re in the middle of wrapping up the seventh book in a series of eight. The man is prolific. He’s gotten to the point where he’s churning out 60-80K words every two to three months–and this isn’t the only series he’s writing.
The series I’m working on with him is a military sci-fi, kind of Transformers in space. Tons of action. Lots of bad guys. A few good guys trying to save the world. Did I mention there’s tons of action? And the books are fun to read. (I really, really like my job!)
How does he do it? He credits at least part of his speed to being a plotter. He outlines–big-time. Not only does he outline each book, but he has an overarching outline for the entire series. When I asked him about his method, he said he read Libbie Hawker’s book Take Off Your Pants! and has put her method to use. Continue reading
