{"id":191,"date":"2013-06-04T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-13\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:17","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nAlthough
\nthe art of fiction lies within the author\u2019s ability to create a world for the
\nreader to visit and leave her troubles behind, this does not give the author
\nlicense to forego authenticity within the details of the manuscript. When
\nself-editing, an author should confirm that research has been done in several
\nareas so that the reader does not come away with a sense that the author lives
\nin a world of his own making, or worse, that the author has a childlike understanding
\nof the world around him. Such areas to research are:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nRealistic business dealings<\/b>: There are
\nlaws governing business transactions. There are permitting issues with many
\noccupations and new businesses. Unless an author is writing a historical novel,
\nthe days of sealing a deal with a handshake and opening a business are long
\ngone. Today, business owners face a line of red tape a mile long. Though the
\ndetails may be too boring to share with the reader, the author must give some
\nindication that characters involved in such ventures have jumped through the
\nrequired hoops. If this isn\u2019t done, the story loses realism.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nProfessions:<\/b> Doctors, lawyers, policemen,
\nfiremen, office workers, you name it, every profession works within certain
\nparameters. They also each have their own lingo. For example, if you were a
\nKennedy Space Center worker in the heyday of space exploration, you would have
\nbeen met with a litany of acronyms. And yes, they did have a book that detailed
\nthe meanings. If an author planned to write a novel concerning that era, for
\nauthenticity, he would need to absorb the lingo. He would need to study launch
\nprotocol, and he might need to spend some time with rocket scientists and space
\nengineers, who are different breeds altogether. Researching such details when
\nit comes to professions makes the story ring true.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nCharacters\u2019 Speech<\/b>: As hinted above,
\ndifferent professions have jargon that is utilized in the course of the day. Likewise,
\nin our everyday lives, individuals from different classes and regions have
\ntheir own speech. In answering a question recently, I learned that someone from
\nMinnesota might say, \u201cI\u2019m going with.\u201d For me that is an incomplete statement
\nthat I might hear from a teenager. Someone from the deep South may not say
\ntheir r\u2019s and their g\u2019s. An immigrant, unless he\u2019s been in our country for a long
\nwhile, is not going to use contractions when speaking. Also, depending upon their
\nhome country, they will use different tenses and sometimes incorrectly use
\nwords. These patterns of speech need to be authentic to the reader.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nCharacters\u2019
\nReactions<\/b>: If an author has shown a character to be closed minded, dishonest,
\nand unfriendly, the reader is going to stumble when that same character shows
\nunderstanding, becomes trustworthy, or suddenly wants to befriend everyone.
\nHowever, if the author does a good job of showing the motivation behind the
\ncharacter\u2019s change in behavior\u2014in other words providing a character arc\u2014the
\nreaction will ring true. Without proper motivation, the change in behavior will
\nconfuse the reader and make it difficult for her to believe the story line.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhen
\nself-editing be sure to research areas of law, professional lingo and
\nconvention, the patterns of speech based upon a character\u2019s background, and the
\ncharacters\u2019 motivations for their various reactions.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Although the art of fiction lies within the author\u2019s ability to create a world for the reader to visit and leave her troubles behind, this does not give the author license to forego authenticity within the details of the manuscript. When self-editing, an author should confirm that research has been done in several areas so […]<\/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":[168,67,135,169,4,10,8],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-common-errors-in-writing","tag-editing","tag-editors-tips","tag-readers-expectations","tag-writing-advice","tag-writing-craft","tag-writing-how-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","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=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}