My friend Emily Rattray Wenstrom recently wrote about her editing process. She described the first draft as the bones of her story, and later versions as being fleshed out and plumped up. I loved her description of discovering her characters and her setting anew as she began her first edit. That perfectly describes how I […]
Transformational Editing
Punctuation Rules! Separating the Corn from the Salsa
I was at the local bistro the other day with a friend. As we perused the menu, I mentioned that the salmon salad sounded delicious, but I didn’t want the corn included in the dish. She suggested I ask the waiter to have the chef leave that item off my plate. This sounded like an […]
You May Know [Be] These Writers
There’s no way I could make these points and entertain you any better than the SCBWI-OK players/authors do in this skit created by author Susan York Meyers and videoed by author Darleen Bailey Beard. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlMtkZX7Keo 1. Leave perfection until you have something to rewrite. 2. Choose one project/manuscript and finish it. 3. Ask someone […]
Editing: What’s the Magic Number?
You’ve been writing for hours. Is it time to edit? Maybe. It depends on what type of editing you’re thinking of implementing. Do you find it helps you refocus the direction of your story to stop at the end of the day and spend some time doing a light edit of the pages you’ve just […]