 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
What do you have to do to your
manuscript before sending it off?
What are the mistakes that you
should avoid?
How can you improve the quality of
your writing?
Whether you have just started out
or have a finished manuscript,
these are tips you might need to
know. A workshop on this topic can
be geared to teens or adults and
includes writing exercises designed
to help create strong writing!
Email for more information, costs,
and available dates.
1. Is. (and the rest of the to be family: (am, are, was, were, will be, have, has, had been, will have
been and be). Smith will be tried in court today. Smith’s trial begins today.
2. There. There is something strange around here. Something strange lurks here.
3. To. She is starting to feel sick. She started feeling sick. Even better: Her stomach turned.
4. And. She looked at me and laughed. She looked at me, laughing. She laughed at me. She
laughed.
5. By. It will be followed by a to be verb. A to be verb follows.
6. His--and similar possessives. He turned to her, his eyes glowing. He turned, eyes glowing.
7. That. I knew that she lived downtown. I knew she lived downtown.
8. The. (You’ll need it most times, but make sure.) The windows slammed shut behind me.
Windows slammed shut behind me.
9. Of. Members of the group could not be reached for comment. Group members could not
be reached for comment. No members would comment.
10. It. It was a dark and stormy night. The night was dark and stormy.
STORY PROBLEMS:
contradictions, wrong time lapses, sudden changes in a character's eye color, inconsistencies
such as having a character's hands tied up in one scene and in the next having them wave
them around without someone having first untied them, etc.
WEAK WORDS:
a bit, a little, about, actually, almost, almost like, already, appears, approximately, basically, close
to, even, eventually, exactly, fairly, finally, here, highly, just, just then, kind of, mostly, nearly,
now, practically, pretty, quite, rather, really, seemed, seems, simply, slightly, so, somehow,
somewhat, somewhat like, sort of, suddenly, then, there, truly, utterly, very, that, would, could,
had, begin to, and start to.
REDUNDANT WORDS:
She nodded her head, the words "her head" are redundant: you can't nod anything else but
your head. I thought to myself, the words "to myself" are redundant: you can't think to anyone
else but yourself.
ADVERBS can also be redundant, especially when they're used to tell how something was
spoken. "How dare you go into my room without my permission!" she shouted angrily.
The adverbs in "whispered softly" and "shouted loudly" are also redundant.
1. Tell the story with clarity.
2. Begin the story when something is happening.
3. Show the most important scenes as they happen; don't tell about them after the fact.
4. Know and use your publishing house's preferences in punctuation and formatting.
5. Check punctuation. (Remember less is better, especially this one !!!!!)
6. Check sentence structure. Are sentences varied in length and construction, vivid, move the
action, have sensory detail?
7. Do all the obvious & run the spell-checker.
8. Watch out for words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.
9. Check the grammar.
10. Look for all the words you overuse such as that, just, then, now (see list above).
11. Get rid of words that aren't needed to make the sentence understandable.
12. Eliminate any cliches.
13. Don't overuse fragments.
14. Check dialogue tags. Are they necessary? Could you use action or description to serve as a
tag?
15. Are you characters giving information to each other that they already know?
16. Have you introduced each character with enough description so the reader has a picture of
him/her? Have you reminded the reader during the story of this character's description and
attributes?
17. Have you used a new paragraph when someone new does or says something?
18. Check all verbs. Are they the most descriptive possible? Get rid of as many of the "to be"
verbs as possible.
19. Describe a character in such a way we can see his expression and know what he's feeling.
20. Check all pronouns to make sure they refer back to the correct person.
21. Check for repeated words or phrases.
22. Are your characters speaking correctly for the time period? Using the jargon for his/her
profession.
23. Is the dialogue realistic sounding? Does it move the plot along or reveal character?
24. Eliminate wordiness and redundancies.
25. Make sure your characters' eyes aren't doing strange acrobatics.
26. If you have more than one POV in a scene, are the transitions such the reader knows exactly
what is happening?
27. Is the story being seen and experienced through the POV character at all times, with no
author interruptions?
28. Be sure the reader always knows where your characters are, where the action or
conversations are taking place.
29. Take out any unnecessary "hads."
30. Watch for continuity problems.
31. Did you clear up all the loose ends?
32. Check chapter beginnings, do they hook the reader? Check chapter endings, do propel the
reader on to reading the next chapter?
33. Clean up dialogue tags.
34. Make sure you don't have main characters whose names all begin with the same letter,
sound too much alike or rhyme.
35. Eliminate or replace weak words.
36. Don't make the reader have to use the dictionary too often.
37. Delete unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
38. Vary sentence beginnings, use different sentence structure.
39. Hone in on emotions.
40. Eliminate inaccuracies.
41. Final polish. Do another spell check. Proof the printed copy one more time. Make sure your
format is correct for the particular publisher. Set the book aside and wait a week or two, then
do another read through.