I’ve always enjoyed the process of editing, working with someone else to take their writing to the next level. I’ll admit it’s a lot easier to look at someone else’s work critically than my own!
My process has been greatly influenced by a tutor I had as a kid, who helped me to revise one of my stories. She came at things from a strict academic perspective (no colloquialisms, no contractions), and it’s unlikely the story (about pirates!) will ever see the light of day, but the process she used and what she taught me has stuck. Especially self-publishing, I’ve found it’s important to be able to assess my own writing, and this process has been instrumental.
To the people who book my beta reading gig on Fiverr (visit my gig here!) I provide a reader report and comments within the writers’ document. In the reader report I go into 7 key topics, such as characters, plot, pacing, etc. I describe what I thought about these topics and point out 2-3 specific examples of areas of opportunity I’ve noticed, and possible ways to change them. In the comments that I write in the body of the story I go into more minute analysis. For example: “this character said one thing in the beginning, and here he says something completely different. Did he change his mind? Are we meant to question his narration?” or “this scene may go better earlier in the story so we can learn these details before we get into the bulk of the content.”
This was originally going to be only one post with two tips, but as I began writing it ended up pretty lengthy, so I’m splitting it into two. Eventually I may break out more of them, but for now, in no particular order, here are two of my common suggestions for writers, and what you have to look forward to!:
- Watch out for redundancy!
- Dialogue tags shouldn’t be scary!
So without further ado…
1. Watch out for redundancy!
This is something I suggest in almost every one of my reader reports. It’s easy to miss! Sometimes it’s an overused word, sometimes an idea, or even just using.a character’s name where a pronoun would suffice. Having a friend read your work, or even reading your work out loud can help you pick out overused words, phrases, or ideas, and I definitely recommend it. In this post, though, I’m going to focus on when it may be unclear when repeated references are redundancy, or necessity. Here’s an example of how this might play out in setting:
The author of a novel I read wanted to get across that the characters traversed a rainy planet. To that end, every paragraph talked about rain dripping off the plants, characters sliding in the mud, the rain in their eyes, the sound of the rain, etc. These were interspersed in such a way that the rain took attention away from the topic at hand, whether that was fighting a monster or expressing important motivations. At some point the number of times the rain was mentioned became not just a redundancy, but an irritation.
A contrast in more ways than one, a short story I read took place in the desert. The author made his mentions of the desert more sparingly, often at the beginning of the scene to set it up. When the main character had to drag a heavy object, he had to push sweaty hair off his forehead. The glare of the sun against the sand burned his eyes. A coyote acquaintance further helped to set up that desert atmosphere. These and other mentions of the desert work together without exhausting the reader with repeated similar references. It was less a reminder of where the main character was, and more of a thread woven into the story.
One good difference to note in these specific examples when trying to decide if something is redundant (aside from a quick search of all the times the word “rain” is used) is to describe the setting as it relates to the character. In the first example the rain impacted the surroundings, therefore drawing the reader’s attention away from the action (That’s not to say there is not a place for this. This can be extremely useful for tonal shifts, but that’s another topic entirely.). In the second example, the description of the setting helped to highlight the main character’s physical and mental state.
Thanks for reading! I’ll be posting tip 2 in a week or so. See you soon!