When you think you’ve done all you can, put your work down and take another break from it - again, this can be anything from a couple of hours to a few weeks. Try mapping out your story as a whole, in chronological order, from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, and then work out which parts will use each tense or point of view. Of course, some stories are purposefully written across multiple timelines or perspectives and if this is the case with yours, make sure you’re absolutely certain you’re using the right one at the right time. If you inadvertently switch between tenses and viewpoints, you’ll confuse many of your readers. Work out whether past or present tense is best for your work and from which point of view you’re telling it. He was very grateful indeed (image: Pathé) 7. Delighted, the owner invited Carrie to a dinner party he was hosting that night. She had returned a stranger’s wallet that she found perched on the edge of Rome’s Trevi fountain. You may wish to split this mouthful up into:Ĭarrie told Alan about her time in Europe. See if turning your run-on sentences into two (or more) shorter ones would be better.Ĭarrie told Alan about the time she went to Europe and returned a stranger’s wallet perched on the edge of Rome’s Trevi fountain only to be rewarded with an invitation to a dinner party that night, hosted by the delighted owner. Once again, it can help to read your work aloud - if you find yourself struggling for breath, it could mean that you’ve hit upon a sentence that’s too long. Keep your eye out for consecutive sentences that start the same way - they can have the unintended effect of sounding like you’re droning on and on and on. Varying your sentence structures and finding a balance is difficult but well worth the effort. Too many short sentences can make your prose look like one long list, while too many long sentences become confusing. Of course, you don’t have to follow King’s advice to the letter, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for ‘ly’ words as you re-read and edit your work. Instead, seek out that perfect verb which will make your writing more dynamic.Īdverbs are commonly overused in passages that are pretty heavy in dialogue: In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King recommends removing them entirely, claiming that they’re just a quick-fix solution for when you can’t quite find the right verb. You can even ask someone to read your work to you, giving you a second pair of eyes before you move on to the next stage in the editing process.Īdverbs are another type of word that often weakens your writing. Reading out loud or using text-to-speech functions often helps you hear unnecessary words. Just like overusing passive voice, they reduce the impact of your work and tax your readers, so they are pretty much always found on editing checklists suggesting ways to finetune your writing. Fillers crowd your sentences without adding any extra meaning. When we give presentations, we’re taught to avoid filler words like ‘like,’ ‘okay,’ or ‘so’ this rule also applies to writing. Passive voice should be avoided by writers (or rather: writers should avoid passive voice)Ĭlick to tweet! 4. He found a 10-year-old copy of “The Hunger Games”. In AP, only numbers up to nine are written out in full while book titles should be in quotation marks. He found a ten-year-old copy of The Hunger Games. With Chicago, ‘ten-year-old’ would be hyphenated as a compound adjective, and the book’s title would be in italics. He found a ten year old copy of The Hunger Games. If you’re writing something truly out-of-the-box, you may develop a stylesheet specific to the project that lays out any unique spelling and grammar rules. The AP Stylebook, on the other hand, is common among copywriters and journalists. While you’re self-editing, they’ll help familiarize you with grammar rules and ensure you stay consistent throughout.įor example, the Chicago Manual of Style is typically used for novels. Top Tip: Changing the font can help you see your work in a new light!Ī professional copy editor will always follow a certain style guide depending on the project. (And if you want to keep your mind active without thinking about your writing, try some of these editing-related podcasts!) You may need to cut out some of what you thought was your best writing, so some objectivity and distance between you and your work will make this much easier. Whether it’s just an hour during your lunch break or a week off working on another project, stepping away between your first draft and your first edit will help you view it as a reader would.
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