PRESENTER: Chris Jackson, Ph.D. is a Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Nova Southeastern University. She’s author of The Tell-Tale Art: Poe in Modern Popular Culture.
Chris gave a workshop after the MWA Florida monthly luncheon. These workshops are in addition to our speaker at our luncheon. Last week I told you Patrick Kendrick was our speaker and surprised us all by showing up in full fire gear.
This Saturday workshop gave us hands on experience on polishing our manuscript. Chris started the workshop by telling us we are the best editor of our work. We are the only ones who know what we want to say. She gave us a list of ten ways to do just that.
- Be specific; show don’t tell. This is a common problem I had when started writing seriously. Instead of saying “Mac parked his little car in the office parking garage” I changed it to “Mac parked his wife’s red Kia in his marked spot next to the elevator in the underground garage.” This tells you more about what happened.
- Give more examples or are there too many? I often would describe what Mac’s family was eating for dinner and drove my critique group crazy with too much information. So instead of “Mac, Beverly, and the girls had roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, apple pie and ice cream for dessert, and a tall glass of iced tea,” I cut dinner down to only three main items. I felt this still explained the home cooking, but not every detail.
- Try to move the action forward with our sentences. I had a hard time with this because I was writing for NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in 30 days), and would write whatever came to my head. However, that is what self-editing is all about. I have time to return to my first draft and make sure I wasn’t just driving around town, but getting somewhere specific.
- Show the character’s thoughts by getting into his head. I do this by internal dialog that I put in italics. It shows exactly what my character is thinking. Another way I use this is by expressions on their faces, tics or nervous movements. My character runs his hands through his salt and pepper curls whenever he is perplexed.
- Use active voice verbs. I have a list of “no no’s” I search for and replace in my manuscript. My word processer often comes up with the passive voice and I can easily identify them.
- Avoid compound verbs like “to be.” This one is self-explanatory. You can search through your document and find them.
- Don’t use “there is/there are.” Same as #6.
- Condense long sentences and combine very short ones. I like to vary my sentence length, especially to show tone as “Mary, come here!” instead of “Mary will you please come here when you have a minute.”
- Word economy is important. This is another one I have problems with in my critique group. Don’t us two sentences to describe when one will express the same thing.
- Proofread your work backwards. I tried this week to read the last chapter of my novel first as she suggested. I found holes I didn’t see before. Guess I need a good editor!
I hope this helps you in your writing.
This was a fun week with a reading of my book, “A Dolphin’s Tale” to kindergarten children at Quiet Waters Elementary School in Deerfield Beach, Florida. I will be posting pictures soon on my Facebook page. I also tried out a new theme for fall. I can’t believe it is October already!
Happy writing!
Kathy
From Junior Journalist to Mystery Writer 