{"id":137,"date":"2014-02-18T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2014\/02\/18\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_18-2\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:16","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_18-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_18-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nWrite
\nyour best story. Great advice, but the sentiment is vague.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhat is
\nyour best story?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nmarket (both traditional and indie) is flooded right now by writers who believe
\nthey have written their greatest achievement until their next story gets put
\ndown on paper. Some authors have reached their goal. Others have not, and they are the ones creating a vast problem.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nMany authors have no idea what their best story can be because they haven\u2019t
\nstudied the craft of storytelling. Increasingly the level for excellence has
\nbeen lowered while the availability for publication has increased.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nYes, this
\nbusiness is a subjective one. An editor looks at a story and decides it doesn\u2019t
\nhave what it takes. Another reviews the same manuscript, and he feel it\u2019s the author\u2019s
\nbreakout novel. Independent writers, so proud of their prose that they believe
\nit can rise above the millions of other published works, place it in the
\nmarket. Some readers love it. Others hate it.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHow in
\nthe world is an author supposed to craft their best story in such an industry
\nwhere beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI used
\na key word in that leading question. Did you see it?<\/div>\n
\nRight in the middle is the
\nword craft<\/i>.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nCraft
\nis vital to storytelling. Putting a story onto paper is only the beginning. The first draft, maybe even the second draft of a story does not mean it is a finished work of art. Much like a sculptor, the author needs to chisel away words,
\nscenes, entire chapters. In the same way a painter does, an author needs to color
\nthe prose with conflict, emotion, and vibrant pictures. These are aided by voice, by grammar, by the proper (and sometimes improper) placement of punctuation, and by style.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI\u2019m
\nafraid that in today\u2019s world of publishing (in both traditional and indie), crap<\/i> instead of craft<\/i> is the key word. Individuals who long to be authors aren\u2019t
\nsatisfied with rejection, even when the rejections are specific enough to help a writer begin to craft<\/i> a story into a
\nmasterpiece. They do not want to take the time it takes to learn how to craft a
\nstory. They lean upon the \u201csubjective\u201d nature of the work. \u201cWell, not everyone
\nis going to like it.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nCouple
\nthe authors inattention to craft with editors (both in-house and freelance) who haven\u2019t studied the craft
\nof storytelling, the art of punctuation, and the refinement of grammar, and the
\nindustry has a very big problem. Horrible novels are flooding the marketplace,
\ntainting the industry\u2014especially the Christian publishing industry, which has
\nhad to fight this stigma from the beginning.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nbeginning of the solution lies in self-editing. To do so, though, an author
\nmust learn the craft of storytelling, the art of punctuation, the refinement of
\ngrammar and using it to tell the best story ever. He or she must also learn to
\ndiscern good advice from bad, to lay aside his or her bias toward a manuscript and begin to
\nrealize whose subjectivity is the best to lean upon.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHappy
\nediting.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Write your best story. Great advice, but the sentiment is vague. What is your best story? The market (both traditional and indie) is flooded right now by writers who believe they have written their greatest achievement until their next story gets put down on paper. Some authors have reached their goal. Others have not, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[110,111,70,10],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-christian-publishing","tag-publishing","tag-self-editing","tag-writing-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}