The last post was discussing chapters and letting them sit for some time before the final editing process. In my final chapter I came across this line:
The walls are bathed in orange and the sea is dotted with boats scurrying home.
Nothing special here, but perhaps I could change one word, giving me,
The walls are bathed in orange and the sea is scattered with boats scurrying home.
Ah, that sound better. “scattered” implies disorder and chaos – like boats scattered by a strong wind. But “scurrying” might be awkward? I may have to revisit this sentence again?
There is much debate and mystery to the idea of having to turn wine bottles to improve their flavour and consistency.
“Incremental improvement means taking small steps consistently. This can lead to massive growth and change.” I share this to explain what I am doing, as a writer, to improve my book each day until it gets published. My recent editing has been taking time to make small changes to improve each paragraph, page and chapter. But, and it’s a big but, I have to do this consistently in order to see the results. I just hope my readers do too :-).
When writing, the plot and characters are uppermost in my mind. It’s a subconscious thing and I find myself thinking about events in my novel while drifting off to sleep, only to have them punctuated by fresh thoughts. These make me force myself awake and make the necessary changes while they are fresh – “I’ll forget them in the morning,” I tell myself. There a catch though. In the morning, have to check that the new thought fits the storyline and doesn’t detract from it or overwhelm it; it has to enhance it to be effective. Ah the joys of ruminating – just going over and over my novel, like cows chewing grass:
What value do I place on a professional editor? HEAPS!
Hello again. I was discussing some of the presentations at a recent writers conference with a good friend who attended. He brought up the notion of perfection in writing vs excellence. The aim was to have writers concentrate on excellence and not try to be perfectionists. Writers should feel safe to make mistakes and be innovative. Which then begs the question, what is excellence in writing? I’m not a 100% sure myself. Some say it’s the point where you cannot improve on the story, plot, characters, etc. I agree, but I’m going to stick my writer’s neck out and also suggest that the manuscript being submitted needs to be free of obvious errors, grammatical mistakes, etc. If it isn’t it will be a turn-off for any literary agent or, in the case of self-published work, a negative experience for the reader.
I value my Beta Readers. Like gold, they shine bright and their feedback is invaluable. A keen reader of thrillers – who has devoured over 30 books this year so far – has just finished my book. He was tasked with general feedback, rather than detailed analysis. The golden nugget for me was his comment that he felt the story only got flowing with the submarine action. This got me thinking about the sequence of chapters and made me realise that I could bring the underwater action forward. After some heavy cut-and-paste, this action now begins at Chapter 3 and the story is better paced and more engaging. My reader made a few other passing comments which has led to further tweaks and a better novel. This one made me smile;