{"id":173,"date":"2013-08-20T04:33:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T04:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/08\/20\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_20\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:17","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_20\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nHave you
\never met a person and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn\u2019t connect with
\nhim or her? Sometimes, an individual might carry themselves with a haughty tip
\nof the nose as if they are looking down upon you. We might realize that they
\ncare nothing for ethics, morality, or legalities. On occasion, someone might
\njust grate our last nerves, and we can\u2019t figure out why.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWell,
\nthat\u2019s real life. What about fiction?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThere\u2019s
\nthe old adage, \u201cYou never get a chance to make a first impression.\u201d This is
\ntrue in real life and in the lives of our heroes and heroines.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nDon\u2019t
\nget me wrong. Our star characters can have flaws. They can fail at something,
\nbut 99.9% of our heroes and heroines should be likeable from the start of a manuscript.
\nDon\u2019t allow characters to make a bad first impression. Connect the reader to a
\nhero and heroine by showing their good sides. Then, if a character fails, the
\nreader will care enough to want him or her to do better.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIf your
\nplot is such that the hero or heroine has a drastic character arc, one which
\nrequires them to make an awful first impression, give the reader something that
\nmakes him care for the character no matter how small. In the novel, Mother of My Son <\/i>(Harbourlight Books),
\nauthor Rachel Allord introduces a heroine who does something most women would
\nnever think of doing, but the author shortly thereafter connects the reader
\nwith the character by showing us the life she has lived, the people who seem never
\ntruly to have loved her, and the one person who does lover her. The reader wants
\nher to overcome the difficult childhood and to receive the miracle of
\nredemption and recovery that only God can bring.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhen
\nediting your work, decide if the failures and flaws of your characters can wait
\na scene or two. If not, work hard to show that your main character is
\nattempting to overcome that bad first impression.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nHappy
\nediting.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever met a person and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn\u2019t connect with him or her? Sometimes, an individual might carry themselves with a haughty tip of the nose as if they are looking down upon you. We might realize that they care nothing for ethics, morality, or legalities. On occasion, […]<\/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":[151,80,67,18,22,136,152,153],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-character","tag-characterization","tag-editing","tag-editing-tips","tag-editor-tips","tag-editors","tag-heroes","tag-heroine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","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=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}