Tag: editing

Top Three Writing Mistakes


When I first started writing and sending my attempts out to beta partners and critique sites, it wasn’t unusual to get a wide range of comments from “This sucks.” to “This is the best thing I’ve ever read!”  Just goes to show how different people view what you write, and it’s pointless to try to please all of them.  One thing that was consistent were the following comments:

1.  Don’t be so descriptive and technical.

A big comment I got a lot was “I love your descriptions, but they go on too long and I started skimming.”

Skimming?  Oh no.  No skimming in my books.  It’s been a hard lesson for me to learn because I am such a description hound, but there is a happy medium.  There is no need to take your reader on a tour of the room unless each of the things you point out are relevant to the story in some way.  For example:

“Above the cherry-wood mantel hung a gilded mirror.  Upon closer inspection of the frame, I noticed the handiwork revealed cherubs chasing rabbits through vines of ivy. Each cherub possessed a unique expression and varying lengths of hair, as well as age. The intricate work down to their fingernails, was exquisite.”

Now unless my main character is an art dealer and is looking for such a piece, or those cherubs are about to come to life, this information is way too much.  For most, knowing there is a gilded mirror over the mantel is enough information.

2.  Voice change.

Writing a character’s voice and keeping it consistent is difficult.  With me, my ‘adult’ voice creeps in now and then and my teens sound older than they really are.   Thank goodness I have a couple of good beta readers that are excellent at finding my ‘voice’ mistakes and offering suggestions on how to fix them. I am also thankful for my teen son who has no problem telling me he wouldn’t say something a certain way.

3.  Disembodied body parts and having eyes do strange things

All of us writers do it, and most of the time we don’t see it when we edit.  That’s why we have beta readers and critique partners.  How many times have you written something like, “His hand reached for his gun.”  Is his hand not connected to his body?  Did it wander off on its own?  Yep, funny stuff, but not as funny as what we get our eyes to do.

We’ve all seen the phrases:

  • Their eyes met across the room.
  • Her eyes devoured him. (wow, those are some big hungry, man-eating eyes)
  • His eyes fell to the floor. (splat)
  • Her eyes were glued to the book.  (ouch)

I used to roll my eyes and grimace whenever I saw comments like this because everyone knows what the author meant.  Still, eyes are not disembodied body parts that can wander around. I’ve learned to rev up the heat or the tension by showing and involving the reader in my scene.

Instead of “Her eyes devoured him.” try something like:

“Her sultry body and come-hither stare consumed him, burning him in a way he hadn’t felt since Nina died.”

Yeah, it’s a bit longer, but the picture is much clearer, don’t you think?

What are some mistakes you’ve learned as a writer you’d like to share?

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Be careful what you put your name on…once published, there are no do-overs


When growing up, my mom and dad always taught me to think about my actions before acting.  They taught me every move has a consequence.  They taught me the value of a reputation.  If you break the law, you’ll be remembered as a criminal.  If you habitually drink, you’ll be labeled an alcoholic.  If you smoke dope and pop pills, you’ll be a druggie.  If on the other hand you do good deeds, help people, are involved in the community, you’ll be thought of as a humanitarian, a philanthropist, a caring person.  If you drop everything you’re doing to be with someone in physical or emotional pain, you’re considered the truest of friends.

The same advice used to get through life should also be applied to writing.  If you can help it, try not to put your name on something you aren’t 100% proud of.

I did that once.  One of my favorite short stories appeared in an anthology I am not 100% proud of.  See, I took on a job as ‘editor’ for an aspiring authors writer’s group I was in. The founder and publisher decided to put together an anthology of the member’s works.  There was no set theme, no cohesion, and, it was a ‘pay for inclusion’ publication for members only.  I cringed inside when I realized too late into the project I had very little ‘editing’ control over the submitted pieces. By then, I’d made a commitment to see the project through.  My reputation was on the line.  The result featured snippets of novels, short stories, some complete short stories, and some errors that would make most editors and polished authors quiver.  While it was a morale booster to those who submitted, the finished work was not what I had envisioned.  My name was on something I wasn’t 100% proud of.  I didn’t get to perform my job the best I should have, the best I would have, if given control of the reins.

Was the experience a bad one?  No, nor do I regret it.  I learned a lot.  I met some really wonderful people.  I gained experience of working with over 20 authors for one project, which was way cool.  I worked on cover design, formatting text, placement of stories.  It wasn’t a complete wash, but I wish I hadn’t included one of my favorite short stories.  Because it was published in this anthology, no magazine or publisher will touch it, even though I gave up no rights.  I’m looking at publishing it as a stand-alone e-book short story, that’s how much I love this southern paranormal tale.

We hear all the time of actors and actresses who say they regret making some of their first films.  Susan Sarandon has stated several times she would like to forget her role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Ironically, that is one of her most remembered and beloved roles.  I’m not going to go so far to say I wish I hadn’t participated in the anthology but I did learn valuable lessons like the importance of determining where your work appears.  Remember, in the publishing world…there are no do-overs, so make sure you do your best to get it right the first time.

“Throw out the visual garbage. It’s stinking up your manuscript!”


This is part 3 of my series, How to write a fantasy novel.

As with all novels, you have a Main Character (MC) and what I like to call minions – secondary characters who help or hinder your MC’s movement forward.  Even though you’re writing fiction, these characters need to be fleshed out, well-rounded and most importantly…real.

There are several things to think about before writing.  Whose view point are you going to write from?  Is it going to be 1st, 2nd or 3rd person?  Is your MC a male or female?

For me, I know instantly whether my MC is male or female.  I can hear the voice in my head.  I also know if the character is young or old and I have an idea of the setting.  These concepts, however, are just the framework.  I need to find and build the substance, the interior. This can prove to be challenging.

I know in my earlier post I talked about outlining; however, I’m not a huge outliner.  I tend to formulate my ideas and plot, do a one or two sentence ‘outline’ of where I’d like to see the story go in each chapter, but for the most part I sit down and write.  When I write short stories, this seems to work ok. My characters come alive and they take me on wild journeys.  Revisions are   easier to work through, probably because the stories are less than 10k words.  Novels on the other hand…not so much.

I thought I had really good character development with my novel, In the Shadow of the Dragon King (“Dragon King”), until I submitted it to a publisher.  Man, was I in for an awakening.  Here are some of the line comments:

“Terms such as the one in bold portray the character as significantly older than 15.”

“He’s [David] been portrayed as a bit of a spoiled rich boy. We’re not lead to feel any compassion for him at all. It’s important in the opener to give us as much a feel for the truth of the character as possible.”

[after the MC uses the word ‘darn’] – “Later, David does swear, and the mix up of this type of language and the latter makes him feel much younger than 15.”

Obviously, my character needed work.  He was inconsistent.  He wasn’t fleshed out enough and he wasn’t likeable.  Back to the drawing board I went.  David is now 17 and the language fits much better, and, according to beta readers, he’s much more likeable from the beginning.  The readers are now invested, but it didn’t happen by simply re-writing.  I followed the advice of many famous authors.  I created character sketches and profiles.

What does one put in a character sketch?  Anything you can think of.  You have to know your characters inside out and upside down even though you may never tell your readers half of it.  What does (s)he do during the day?  What does (s)he do for fun?  Who is his/her best friend?  What color eyes does (s)he have?  What are the character traits?  What toothpaste does (s)he use?  Is (s)he an ice cream or cereal junkie?  I found, for me, doing a character sketch helped out a lot.  I didn’t do this for all my characters, only the top four – David, Charlotte, Eric and Trog.  I found it easier to pit them against each other as well as have them support each other once I knew their strengths and flaws.  You can read David’s and Charlotte’s character sketches here and here.

Another thing I learned that can be a death sentence for your manuscript is focusing on details too much and not on the plot.  When I wrote my first draft of Dragon King, I thought it was important the reader know what color eyes my characters had, their hair color, their size and what sort of clothes they wore.  I thought it got the reader into the scene, gave them visuals.  After all, when you meet someone for the first time, you notice things like that, right?  Unfortunately for me, it took an editor to set me straight.  She wrote on my manuscript in big red letters, “Throw out the visual garbage. It’s stinking up your manuscript.”  Throughout the 367 pages, she’d crossed through the extraneous descriptions, both related to character and setting, that needed to go.  It was painful to see my manuscript bleeding profusely, but I have to admit…she was right.

Something else she explained to me was to make sure the character’s personality traits or life events mentioned define our characters.  These things must move our characters forward.  They must have some sort of role in changing who they are.  To quote:

“Your characters must grow.  They must be different in the end of your novel than they were in the beginning.  Something significant needs to occur so the characters learn more about themselves and each other.  Find your character’s weakest trait, his worst nightmare, and focus on making his every action a step to overcoming that issue.  Make me want to help him.  Make me want to reach into the story and give him what he needs to succeed.  When you can do that, you know you’ve written a well-loved, believable character.”

I’m still working on that piece of advice.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about developing your villains.  They’re not as nasty as you think they are.  They only seem that way.

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How many times have you re-written Chapter 1?


Guys, I must be a total dweeb.  I think I’ve re-written Chapter 1 of my novel 30 times if I’ve written in once.  As I write this, I’m in the process of re-writing it again!  Why?  Why do I keep fudging with it?

I have to admit this time it is much better and it moves the story forward faster and I can cut a bunch of words, but didn’t I do that the last time?  If I keep doing this, Chapter 1 may be gone and Chapter 3 will take its place.  Then Chapter 3 will dwindle away to make room for Chapter 9 to take over.  Ahhhhh!!!  Before I know it, my book will be about 30 pages long…the shortest fantasy novel in history!!!

Hey!  Wait a minute!  *snaps fingers*.  That’s it!  I’ll make it the shortest fantasy book ever!  I can do that!  But wait…no I can’t.  Writing means editing which means the first 10 words will be replaced by the next 10…page 4 will replace page 1, and so on, and so on until there’s nothing left.  My story will fall into oblivion.

Wait!  *snaps fingers*  Did I just find two more titles for books in that rant?  Who would have thunk?

How many times have you re-written Chapter 1?

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Re-writing a manuscript: Stick with it or let it go?


I’ve been writing my Chronicles of Fallhollow trilogy for years.  Yes, I said years.  I started a long time ago, mainly as a passing fancy.  Then, something happened in 2003 and I knew in my heart and soul I had to finish it.

I also knew it would have to be three books; otherwise I would have one, 300,000 word novel.  Big NOT.  I wrote here and there, working on all three novels when the urge hit me, but came to an abrupt halt about a year later.  It wasn’t working.  My writing was lacking that umph.  I needed help.

I began to read young adult books and fantasy books with a passion.  I also began to research the publishing world.  I found out that agents and publishers wanted stand alone books in trilogies or in a series, meaning they had to be complete unto themselves, even though the story continued.  Back to the drawing board.

I continued to write when I could find time between taking care of a family and working full-time.  I joined an online writer’s group out of the UK – YouWriteOn.com and began getting feedback.  With the critiques came praises along with a few slaps in the face.  The slaps in the face were the ones that woke me up to the problems, while the praises kept me motivated.  I have to admit I almost gave up, especially after a critique partner told me I should let the story go to its grave.  “Sometimes,” he said, “it’s better to let it go than continue trying to resurrect the damn thing.”

Let it go?  Was he crazy?  This was my baby…the novel closest to my heart.  I’d written others.  They’re gone now, lost, destroyed.  This wasn’t my first attempt…but it was the first time I felt so passionate about the need to tell this story and get it published.

After I lost my job in 2010, I focused on nothing but my writing.  I set myself a goal, found a few great beta readers, and off I went to finish In the Shadow of the Dragon King. Exactly one year later, almost to the date of setting my goal, I submitted my novel to a publisher.  I knew it wasn’t perfect but I’d polished it the best I could.  With bated breath I waited.  And waited.  Three weeks later I got a response.  The message:  it needs work, but we’d love to see you resubmit if you decide you want to make the enclosed changes.

When I opened my attached manuscript, it was bleeding.  A lot.  I mean, it was mortally wounded.  I got a hold of one of my trusted beta partners and sobbed.  When I got over the pain of being kicked in the gut, she and I went over the comments and changes.  We both realized I had a goldmine in my hand.  A publisher took a lot of time to go through my manuscript, page by page, line by line, and tell me what was wrong with it, what I needed to fix, and if I decided to make the changes, to resubmit.

That was eleven months ago.  Life got in the way during that time, slowing down my momentum to re-write.  I have a month and a half to finish my revisions and send it back by the ‘not exactly a rejection’ anniversary date.  Should I stick with it or let it go?  I’m definitely sticking with it.

Have you ever had a project you almost gave up on only to be glad you didn’t?

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You’ve signed a publishing contract…what’s next?


If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’ve recently begun to navigate some uncharted waters.  I wrote a short story based on a publisher’s prompt, went through many beta reads until I got it ‘right’, paused a long time before I hit the submit button, and managed to obtain that elusive publishing contract.  I know.  To a lot of people,  a short story in an anthology is not the same as getting a novel accepted for publication, but to me…a publishing contract is a publishing contract.  I’ll take it, baby!  🙂

But what happens after you sign the dotted line? (which isn’t dotted by the way, in case you’re wondering)

I can’t speak for the industry as a whole because this is my first venture, but for me, I’ve been assigned an editor.  Now, if you’ve never worked with an editor, this can be a little daunting and scary.  Editors are different than beta readers in the sense they have a feel for the market.  They know what works and what doesn’t work.  They know what to look for:  grammar, logic, flow, story, clarity, sentence structure, specific errors, overuse of words, and many other elements.

I’d like to pause here for a moment and recommend two sites to help you fine-tune your document before you submit.  There is the paid version of Autocrit, which is a fantastic piece of software, and there’s the poor man’s version (free), ProWritingAid. Both will help you find overused words and constructs, consistencies in hyphenation, US vs UK words, capitalization, spelling, cliché’s, redundancies, and so much more.  Autocrit is a little better because it breaks down the sections into reports and explains errors in a bit more detail than ProWritingAid does, but not everyone has the $$$ for Autocrit and ProWritingAid performs well.

Okay, what happens after you get the contract and get an editor?  You get your first line edits from the editor.  This can be really scary and upsetting if you don’t know what to expect.  Let me warn you, it may (and probably will), drive you to tears, but you can’t take it personally. Remember…your editor is your new best friend.  (S)he will help you polish your gem and make it the best it can be.  With that will come a few growing pains.  You’ll get through them.  Trust me.

When I got my first set of line edits, my manuscript looked like someone bled on it.  There were bracketed comments in the middle of the document with editor notes in red.  There were strike-throughs, comments, altered text, insertions, deletions.  You name the editing mark, it was probably in there.  Thankfully, my editor and I have an open line of communication (very important), and we’re able to bounce ideas off of each other and find solutions that work for both of us.  So far, the ride has been a smooth one.

I’m currently on my second round of line edits along with what my editor refers to as the author line credits.  This is where I go over the second line edits and make my changes to those.  Again, the second round was difficult to look at because now we’re in the tweaking stage.  Now we’re tightening the voice, keeping the pace consistent.  Looking for additional grammatical errors that were overlooked.  Finding plot holes.  This means more cross-throughs, additions, deletions, text transfers.  And, because I’m working with a publisher and an editor, I now have deadlines.  I’ll talk more about that next week.

Overall, the experience so far has been intense and I’m learning a lot as far as accepting criticism, knowing when parts of my story don’t work and accepting they don’t work, and being a part of watching my story come to life the way it should.  It’s an incredible journey, and one I’m glad I made, and it all started with the click of a button that said, ‘Submit’.

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K is for Knack, Kudos and Kleenex


This is a continuation of the A-Z blog challenge.  Click here to see the list of all 1935 participants!

For the past several weeks I’ve tested my writing capabilities like I’ve never done before.  I wrote a short story based on a picture and submitted it to a publisher for an upcoming anthology.  This was no easy feat.

I stared at the picture a lot, actually for a couple of months.  I thought I had a story I wrote years ago that would work.  I dusted it off and after reading it again, decided it belonged back in the vault. I was back to square one.  I then started reading through some other unpublished pieces and decided to take a few things out of each one that I liked, and weave a new tale that would capture the essence of the picture.

It was more difficult than I thought it would be.

Slowly but surely, a story emerged and I was happy with it…well, I was happy with the 1st half of it.  The second half sucked, with a capital S.  Even my beta readers agreed. However, with their comments, I brainstormed and came up with another half that we agreed was much better and presentable.  I submitted the story to the publisher.  That was April 2.

The next day I received an e-mail from the publisher. My heart almost leapt out of my chest.  I held my breath and opened the e-mail.  They liked the story but wanted changes. Would I be willing to make them and re-submit?  Can anyone say, “Heck Yeah!”  I had until April 11 to resubmit.

I thought about it, racked my brain, tortured my beta readers while offering my own critiques of their short stories for the same anthology competition.  Amazing enough, it never felt for a moment like we were competing against each other.  We were three authors working together in hopes of being published together.  And, because we were all part of an online writer’s group, the three of us had tons of support from the other members.  I can’t begin to say thank you enough to our support team.

In the wee hours of April 11, I sent over a revised copy of my short to the publisher.  An e-mail from the publisher around 11:40 yesterday morning sent my heart racing.  Was it good news?  Bad?  With a knot forming in my gut, I opened the e-mail.

They wanted clarification and ideas on how I would change some things.  Would I give them in-line comments on how I would fix some things?  Whew.  Not a denial.  I answered “Yes”, and I provided them with what they wanted, but let me tell you, the self-doubt kicked up a notch.  Here I was in the second round of edits and I still missed the mark.  What does that say about me as a writer?

Wait.  No.  Don’t go down the pity path, I said to myself.  They were requesting information from me.  That meant they were still interested.  Stay focused. Stay positive. The next round of e-mails concurred with my ideas and I got the “We’ll let you know” e-mail.  Okay.  Still in the running.

Today, I sit and wait.  Only five out of all the submissions the publisher received will find a home in the new anthology.  Part of me feels very positive. I mean, I gave it my all; the other part feels like I’m an outlier statistic.  These are feelings I think all new authors feel and go through.  Our hands sweat.  We get nervous.  We check our e-mails a gazillion times and pray when we get the one that counts, it’s good news.

No matter what the outcome, I know me.  Tears will fall, either out of joy or sadness.  The box of Kleenex is already on my desk.  I will cry for those who made it, and cry for those who didn’t, but never once will I doubt we all have the knack to tell a great story.  Kudos to all who tried and took the chance, and to my beta sisters who submitted along with me…you rock my world and I am blessed to have you on my side.  Good luck to each of you.  My fingers and toes are crossed.

The dreaded half and half


Hi everyone. Guess what I did?  I wrote a half and half.  What’s a half and half?  It’s a story where the first half kicks awesome butt and the second half gets the awesome butt kicked out of it.

I knew this before I sent it out to my beta readers, but sometimes I’m not sure if my doubts are my own insecurities beating me up, or if my story is really bad writing.  This time, it was really bad writing.

And not only one, but two beta readers told me the same thing.  In fact, they both pointed out to me the exact same spot the story fell apart, why it fell apart, and what to do about it.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were sitting side by side comparing notes, that’s how almost identical their comments were.

Well, I suppose if I’m going to make mistakes, they should be glaring ones.

 So what was wrong with it?  The plot.  It fell apart.  There were pot holes – no, make that sink holes – everywhere in the second half.  Both of my betas said the first half was excellent and they offered minor suggestions to make it tighter.  In the second half, my main character acted against his nature.  I threw in danger when there shouldn’t have been any…in the form of Yetis.  One beta compared the scene to Disneyland Adventures Kinect game. (and this is supposed to be an adult fantasy romance? Oh, no no no.  Make note:  the Disneyland Yetis have to go).  There were characters that walked on and off scene with no reason why, scenes that just happened because…?  (Heck , I don’t even know and I’m the author).  Face it.  There are times when the excuse “Because I can” doesn’t work.

Why did all this happen?

Because I was trying to make the story into something it wasn’t.  I was forcing it, trying to get the story to conform to a mold.  I was looking at a deadline and I was trying too hard to interject an element in the story that really can’t be rushed.  The result?  An ooey gooey mess that now has to be written all over again.  Once again, I should have listened to my gut and not my head.

After giving the story a two-day rest, I started it back up again and I’m writing the second half the way I should have written it all along.  I’m writing for me, not for what I think someone else wants or expects.  I figure others will either like it or they won’t.  I can’t please everyone, so I shouldn’t try.  All I can do is write from the heart.  Once I do that, the rest will fall into place.

So what about you?  Have any of you written a half and half?  Please share your literary blunders and how you overcame them.

Repeating words is so repetitive


I don’t know about you, but I’m guilty of using repetitive words and phrases in my novels.  I didn’t realize how glaringly obvious they were, though, until a few betas pointed them out to me. I would have comments such as “Jen, you just used the word glare.  Try another word.” Or “I counted the word ‘jump’ six times in the last two pages.  Can David leap, bolt, haul ass anything but ‘jump’?”  (I chuckled at that one.)  Somehow, VanHalen popped in my head, but I digress.

Ugh.  I knew I needed to clean up my manuscript, but I didn’t know I needed to de-contaminate if from the rafters to the basement.  It seemed like on every page I found those dratted repetitive words staring back at me with quirky little grins on their lettered faces.  But I fixed them with a sweet little program called AutoCrit Editing Wizard.  How in the heck did I get through life without this software?  It has really made my hunt and destroy mission much easier.   Now onto the additional edits I need to make to my novel.  Hmm.  I wonder if there is a program out there that yells back, “Enough with the editing, and send the damn thing out already!”