69 results for editing tips

Embrace the Inner Psychopath: Great Authors Will Even Kill Christmas

Embrace the inner psychopath. If I could only teach ONE ‘trick’ for writing great stories, it would be this: The moral codes that make us excellent citizens make us terrible writers. We have to remember the rules change when dealing in the realms of imagination. Fiction is NOT life, rather it is an imitation of life. …

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Revising a Novel: The Five Stages of Death, Dying & Drama

Today we’re going to talk about revising a novel. It’s a highly emotional and arduous task, but vital. Revising a novel is more than mind-bending work at a computer (or with a red pen for the retro crowd). It’s a tough emotional experience that can blindside us and land us in the mire if we …

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Description: Fiction Without the Fillers

National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo). For those who aren’t yet familiar with NaNoWriMo, it is a yearly challenge to write 50K words in thirty days. It’s a fantastic introduction into writing as a profession, because writing as a profession differs vastly from writing for a hobby.  NaNoWriMo is held during the first …

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Is Your Story STUCK? 5 Reasons Your Novel is Breaking Down

If you’ve been writing any amount of time you’ve been there—STUCK. Stuck is the place we never want to be, but goes with the job. Every writer at one time or another has experienced the literary doldrums. We hit a spot that, no matter how hard we try, we just cannot seem to move our …

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Research Matters: The Devil is Always in the Details

Research can be a double-edged sword. It can elevate writing to an entirely new level, but can also be a place we hide, procrastination masked as ‘work.’ Recently, I posted on the dangers of premature editing and gave tips to help keep us moving forward on that first draft until it is FINISHED. A common …

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