{"id":197,"date":"2013-05-07T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T20:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/05\/07\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-14\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:17","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhen you look at
\nthis picture, what do you see? Do you see a picture of a beautiful, but shy,
\nyounger woman or do you see the old hag-like woman?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSometimes the
\nwords in the sentences we write are similar to this illusion. The writer may
\nmean something totally different, but the reader\u2019s mind paints another picture.
\nSame words; different mindset.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nFor example: The
\nman\u2019s eyes remained fixed on the table.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nClearly, the
\nauthor did not mean to paint the picture of a man\u2019s eyes laying on the table,
\nbut some readers will see that image clearly. Other readers will gloss right
\nover it and realize that the man was staring at the table.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSo, in order to
\navoid painting the wrong picture in a reader\u2019s mind, the words should be chosen
\ncarefully. The man\u2019s gaze remained fixed on the table shows a much clearer picture.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nMost often, the wrong picture is painted in words when an author has a character’s body part doing something alone. This error has been dubbed the use of “floating body parts.” For example: His hand reached out and grabbed her.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nNow, I once saw a terrifying movie about a man’s hand that had been cut off and it sought revenged on its own, but most often this is not what an author intends. The better form of the sentence is to allow the person to do the action. The reader will know that he grabbed her with his hand: He reached out and grabbed her.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIf an author
\nkeeps in mind that a body part can do nothing without the person it is attached
\nto, these funny or sometimes horrifying word pictures can be eliminated from
\nprose.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nDo you have any
\nexamples you\u2019d like to share? Feel free to do so. Doing so, will help other
\nauthors to realize that the picture they wish to paint with their words isn\u2019t
\nthe picture the reader might see.<\/div>\n

Happy editing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you look at this picture, what do you see? Do you see a picture of a beautiful, but shy, younger woman or do you see the old hag-like woman? Sometimes the words in the sentences we write are similar to this illusion. The writer may mean something totally different, but the reader\u2019s mind paints […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":924,"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":[67,18,135,70,62],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-editing","tag-editing-tips","tag-editors-tips","tag-self-editing","tag-tips-for-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","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=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}