Home Page of Anne Ashby Writing Warm Fuzzy and Fun Stories

This Month's Blogs...

25 February

For me, the first step in the editing process is to use the "find" key and get rid of all those superfluous words. They flow from your fingers without thought but accept it, they add nothing to your work. Check out my list and add your own to it:

Search for all those ending with "to" - tried to, start to, began to, needed to, decided to, beginning to, continued to, wanted to, etc. Would, could, did, must, very, really, totally, just, that - they can probably all go too. We all know about adverbs, those ly words adding tension or emotion, scrub most of them in favour of stronger nouns/verbs. Check out saw, watched, touched, heard, sensed, felt, looked, knew - these words can indicate telling, find a way to show instead. Was and were are often passive voice. It was and there are not good sentence starters.

After you've found every one of these words and decided whether they portray the impression you're looking for, I think you'll have deleted most of them. I usually have. Don't be despondent if your work was full of them, getting your story out was so much more important than which words you used. But now you're onto the next phase. You're editing, this is the time to look at every word and make it count. Hope this helps a little, good luck.

15 February

Editing your own work is the pits, not allowing this incredible story to pick you up and run with you when you're supposed to be on the lookout for all the glaring mistakes. Because there are glaring errors. They may be invisible to you but they will be obvious to whoever next reads the ms. Since working with The Wild Rose Press I've discovered, for example, that I invariably hit the space key before beginning a new line. Why? Who knows? I just know what a mind-numbing chore it is to correct 300 odd pages.

Anyway, you've completed your story. You've typed 'The End' and sat back with a well deserved sense of pride. Warning: You're probably just a little over halfway to submission. There is still much to do before your work is polished enough to submit. Put your story away for a few weeks, then I suggest you read your draft beginning to end to ensure it's the story you meant it to be. Have you compromised for the sake of time, effort or lack of research? Are your characters still true to your vision? Will your plot capture and involve the reader from beginning to end? Only when you are confident this story is as you imagined it would be, should you start tightening your work. Be happy with your yarn as a whole before playing with the structure of your writing. Love your story and believe in its ability to capture the reader and transport her to whatever world you've developed.

Next week I'll run through the list of superfluous words I always manage to sprinkle through my draft. Perhaps there'll be some there you haven't thought of.

3 February

The beginning of a new year is a great time for diversification and self improvement so I'm about to attempt to achieve exactly this. My reading preference has always been very narrow and while the first writing course I ever went on suggested this was a positive thing - I knew instinctively in which genre I wanted to write - I now wonder if a more eclectic range of reading material could enhance my own writing. So to this end today I embark to my local library in the attempt to broaden my horizons, literarily speaking. I've randomly picked out five books from Holly Lisle's list "396 Resources Writers Recommend to Kickstart Your Writing, Stand Your Thinking On Its Head, And Vastly Increase Your Ability to write what you know". I doubt my ability to read all 396, after all only a few of them might be available in New Zealand. Then I'll also have what might turn out to be my flagging enthusiasm to overcome, I really doubt I could survive a week without reading a romance. See I'm finding excuses already. Still, publishing my intent will keep me honest.