What a job! One minute the creative juices are flowing, then the next you’re ripping your precious baby to pieces. Although the experts say you need to take a short break before the butchering begins. I was once a writer that hated the editing process, who was loath to sit at my desk and picking my book apart. Not that I revel in editing now, but things have been made easier for me. I’ve learnt to be ruthless, I’ve learnt that what might be marvellous to you, might be the thing that turns your readers, and most importantly, a publisher off.
The best thing I did was go on an authonomy.com Writing course. The authonomy.com site itself offers the writers the opportunity to have actual readers to offer critical advice. Once you show your work to a real audience you then feel less
worried about editing and being critical about your own work.
From the workshops I took at the authonomy writing course, which took place at
Harpercollins headquarters, I learnt a lot of good tools, such as reading pages
backwards to spot grammar and spelling mistakes. Using word cloud online is another useful tool. Enter some of your writing and word cloud shows you the words you over
use. Then it’s down to cut out those words or sentences that don’t need to be there. You are telling a story, anything unrelated to the events you describe do not need to be there. I think enlarging the font or zooming in on your book also helps. You find yourself tripping over a sentence, then get rid of it!
I’m off to edit…wish me luck.