{"id":201,"date":"2013-04-23T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T13:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/04\/23\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_23-2\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:18","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_23-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_23-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nThis
\nweek, I had a budding author ask me about the latest release by a bestselling
\nnovelist. She has read previous offerings from this author, and she had never noticed
\nthe problems she found in his current work. She has been studying the elements
\nof storytelling, she has been getting advice from fellow critique partners and
\nauthors, and she was curious as to why this bestselling author could break the
\nrules.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI\u2019ve
\nthought about the issues she mentioned: an excessive use of \u201cly\u201d words
\n(adverbs) in dialogue attributes, a switch in tense within scenes and\/or
\nchapters, a lack of description to enable the reader to envision the scenes, as
\nwell as a predictable plot.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI know
\nwhat some would expect me to say: \u201cHis books sell in the millions. He can
\ndo whatever he wants.\u201d Or what about this one: \u201cThe author is experienced, and
\nhe knows when to break the rules\u201d?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhile I
\nsuspect that, to a certain extent, the above comments might be true, I\u2019d like
\nto point out that this multi-million dollar author has a reader who sees a
\ndecline in his writing style. Might there be other readers who may not notice
\nthe \u201cly\u201d words, but who could stumble over the change in tense or fail to get a
\ngood grasp of a scene? I\u2019ll give the writer the benefit of the doubt. The current
\nbooks seems to be a book outside this author\u2019s usual genre. Maybe the outcome
\nof the plot wasn\u2019t as important as the events that led up to it.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nquestions asked of my friend and budding author brought a few thoughts to mind:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAn author must
\nnever get to a point in his career where he believes that there is nothing new
\nto learn. He might have gotten away with head-hopping a few decades ago.
\nToday, a manuscript written from more than one point of view per scene screams
\namateur. Other stylistic changes throughout the decades are seen in the same way.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nA bestselling
\nauthor should not lean on his past record. He should always strive for
\ncreativity and innovation. Failure to do so will eventually catch up with him.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAn author must
\nnot break the rules just because he can. There must be a reason to break the
\nrules, and they should be broken sparingly so that a reader never questions the
\nauthor\u2019s knowledge versus his voice or style.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nNew authors who
\nare reading experienced authors and have the ability to spot the problems in a
\npublished book are seeing their knowledge blossom right before their eyes. Once
\na writer begins to critique, she\u2019ll never look at a published book the same. For exactly that reason, experienced
\nauthors should work hard so that newer authors can learn by good examples and
\nnot by poorly written ones.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSomething else
\nthat came to mind as I studied on this issue is that quite possibly the
\ngreatest gift an editor can give to an experienced author is to treat him no
\ndifferently than he would be treated if the book were his first creation.
\nLikewise, an experienced author should take special care to self-edit and look
\nfor those instances where he breaks the rules simply because he knows he can get
\naway with it.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHappy editing.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, I had a budding author ask me about the latest release by a bestselling novelist. She has read previous offerings from this author, and she had never noticed the problems she found in his current work. She has been studying the elements of storytelling, she has been getting advice from fellow critique partners […]<\/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":[173,168,174,135,4,10,23],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-adverbs","tag-common-errors-in-writing","tag-creativity","tag-editors-tips","tag-writing-advice","tag-writing-craft","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","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=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}