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Getting a story out onto paper (or into a computer) is easy at times, and more difficult at other times. Regardless of ones efforts, editing must be done before it is shared with the world.
I have been working on a book (a memoir) for four years now. I think I am done, but I now need to do some editing. Not my best skill with my own writing. It also takes a lot on a 101,000 word book.
Passive Verb Tense: This is one of my biggest issues. I have had this problem for years. There are places that you want it, but I have found I use it way too much.
Wordiness: I babble a little too much. In stories sometimes this is good, but most people want a balance between going on and on, versus getting straight to the point. I also tend to use many words instead of one, for example: "a lot of" instead of "many"
Contractions: In formal writing they say not to use them, in casual writing they say it is okay. I just haven't figured out the balance for my memoir.
Colons and Semicolons: I always confuse these two
That: I use the word "that" a lot, but that is okay now, isn't it? :)
Clauses: apparently I don't always use the commas I should to separate clauses, diagramming sentences was never a strength of mine in school.
Verb Tense: Past, Present, Future - - and everything inbetween - - When you are writing a memoir, it gets a little complicated staying in one time zone. Grammar checkers actually don't catch this, for each sentence is correct, even if I switch around within a paragraph
Those are the big grammar things I am dealing with, and then there are the other editing things, dealing with story flow and paragraph alignment. it is amazing what moving one sentence can do to change the power of a paragraph, or moving a few paragraphs around to improve the flow of a story.
My current challenge is to go through and make decisions on every underlined squiggle I find in Microsoft Word.
Wish me Luck
Keep Smiling, Keep Writing
Teekabell
Comments
Ah yes....
Passive verbs can be tense because they aren't able to articulate their frustrations and often end up drinking too much at the pub after work.
Wordiness can be a problem when you really want to get your point across and end up channeling Roget as you lay out a thesaurus like sentence that keeps going on and on and you just don't know when to stop because if you stop too soon you might not get your point across but feel really bad anyway because you were too afraid to stop....
Contractions are very helpful in dialogue since who says "I cannot deal with your histrionics and I am hoping that you shall be able to cease your mewling" when "Dude, don't you ever shut up? Just shut up...." would work just as well. And of course there are those times when your Braxton Hicks contractions make you think, 'Dear Goddess in heaven, finally,' when you're still a couple of weeks away from delivery....
Colons and Semicolons.... Bartolo Colon is doing quite well with the New York Mets. Ronald Reagan had a semi-colon for a period of time until his intestines healed....
THAT THAT IS IS THAT THAT IS NOT IS NOT....
I almost never use Clauses unless I'm writing a story about Christmas...
Verb Tenses - again, some verbs are unable to express frustration and everything comes out as moody and irritable. You might suggest to your verbs that they count to ten or imagine a safe place where they can play frisbee with their dog or maybe have a nice cup of tea with another verb? I find that I and some verbs I use gain a measure of success with Cymbalta...
Love, Andrea Lena
It may help to have someone
It may help to have someone else edit your story for you. He's likely to catch much more than you would on your own. You know what you mean to say, and you might not notice that you didn't actually say it. "When you say something, make sure you have said it. Your chances of having said it are only fair." -- St&Wh.
-- Daphne Xu
I read this method on another post here and tried it.
Self-editing is extremely hard. The reason being that we know our own work so well that we tend to skip past the small details. The method I read about and tried to some success was this. Print your work out onto hard copy. Make sure it's double-spaced and in an easily readable font that you do not use normally. I also waited two weeks before beginning my editing process. The gap of time, combined with the very different format of font and hard copy fooled my brain into looking at the work almost as if it were something new. I found several grammatical errors along with errors of word choice as well as punctuation. I got out my red pen and went to work.
Try it. It might work for you.
I have to comment about the contractions thing...
"Contractions: In formal writing they say not to use them, in casual writing they say it is okay. I just haven't figured out the balance for my memoir."
In conversation by all means use them. Conversations look stilted and unnatural without them.