Many years ago my
daughter’s second-grade class was told to write an essay on “What I Did On My
Summer Vacation”. By the time the papers were marked and graded by the teacher,
more than half of the students, my daughter included, came home crying to their
parents that they hated school and
would never write anything again as long
as they lived. When I looked at my daughter’s graded paper I understood
why.
The teacher red-lined
every error, was liberal with her
critique and marked their low or failing (on the average) grades across the
front of the papers in huge block letters – large enough to cover at least
three-quarters of the page and obscure some of the written work. The areas the
teacher criticized included more than the tangible spelling and punctuation
mistakes, but also the content, point of view and whether the student told or showed how they felt about their experiences. There were NO
positive comments, recommendations for improvement, or encouragement regarding
future essays.
Perhaps the teacher
would have done well as an upper class (high school or college) English teacher
or even a newspaper editor, but for second grade students who were in the
throes of learning to express themselves via the written word it was a
humiliating defeat. As a parent, professional writer and part-time
artist-in-residence writing instructor, I confronted her.
When you are writing
your first draft of a story you cannot allow yourself to be stymied by editing
and memories of brutal grade-school teachers; borrow a line from the Cajun
French, “Laissez les bons temps rouler”
(let the good times roll). The creative juices should not be hampered; just
write, there will be plenty of drafts and editing AFTER you finish getting your
story down on paper.
AFTER you have written
and finished the story, go back through and check spelling and punctuation.
Verify that all tenses are consistent. Remove duplicate words and redundant
speech. Make sure you are using the correct word and definition; antonyms,
synonyms, and homonyms can be confusing. Avoid head-hopping (mixing point of
view) within a scene – although there are a few cases where that actually works.
Read your work out-loud to hear if it makes sense, is in chronological order
(except for necessary flashbacks), and is not missing key passages. Check for
spelling and grammar one paragraph at a time from the back of the book to the
front so that you will not see only what you meant to say. If during one of
your passes through edits you added, deleted, or moved a scene, make sure that
the content is still chronological and complete (for example, if a character
dies and you later move scenes around, make sure the character is alive and
dead in the appropriate order).
It is recommended that
you have someone else review your work after you have self-edited; maybe it’s a
good idea to have more than one person help you out. Professional editors,
although they are still human beings and therefore capable of making mistakes,
are trained to spot spelling punctuation and grammatical errors as well as
correct content mistakes including POV, story flow, etc., and they can work
with multiple genres; hiring a professional MAY be worth the investment, be
sure to check credentials and reputation. A trusted friend may be terrific at
spelling but not a fan of your type of genre, while another friend reads that
genre all the time – if you can, use both. When all is said and done, self-edit
AGAIN. Mistakes can get through no matter how many eyes have looked, obviously
you want as few of those as possible.
After edits and
revisions are finished, submit your manuscript to your agent or publisher
(according to submission guidelines) and don’t be surprised or disheartened if
more revisions are suggested – every new person will see, read and hear
something different. While most submission editors are professional after
reading manuscripts, there are a FEW who think they are second-grade teachers
and may be brutal in their rejections, don’t let it get you down – review the
manuscript again, by all means use the comments as a guide, and RE-submit
elsewhere.
Success is only part
talent and a lot of persistence. Keep writing.
Writing Exercise: Set your timer for 20-minutes. Free write
beginning with the sentence “If I had it to do all over again…” And if you find
yourself wring away when the timer goes off then just keep writing.
Writing Prompt: Fill in this sentence 10 to 15 times: “My first ________.” List the most important
FIRSTS in your life.
Challenge: A genie offers your antagonist three wishes,
wishing for more wishes is NOT permitted. List the three wishes your antagonist
makes. The genie grants the wishes exactly as requested one at a time; however
the results are NOT what the antagonist really wanted. Write a short story describing
what happens after each wish is granted.
