Our Round Robin question for August is: Do you have any character habits or favorite words that always crop up in your writing?

Oh, boy! Do they ever. But – that is what first drafts are for. Once I have started writing I try to keep going. I say try because I am a Virgo and if you know anything about astrological signs and their characteristics, you’ll know that Virgos are perfectionists. I like the first sentence, first paragraph, first chapter, to be perfect – except there is no such thing as perfection.

 I learnt by trial and many, many errors to get on with the story and took Nora Roberts’ advice to keep writing as you can’t edit a blank page. Quite apart from those niggling fillers like had, was, just, really, very—I could go on but won’t—I find that with each book I write I have a ‘crutch’ word.

 In one of my books my hero grinned so much I’m not sure that he would ever have straightened his face out if I hadn’t taken myself in hand and did a painstaking search to rewrite practically every instance of where I had him grinning. Likewise, a Regency heroine who was forever sighing. I’ve had my moments with ‘however,’ ‘especially,’ ‘nevertheless,’ and many more.

 But this is where self-editing comes in. Being aware of the nuances of what you’re writing means you can go over your work and search out those offending words which are often repetitious. The editing process gives authors a chance to not only weed out those wretched stumbling blocks, but in that process make their writing more powerful by re-writing sentences and phrases for more of an impact. (I struck this out as it means pretty much the same as more powerful and is therefore redundant.)

 Writing a book is not a solo effort. It may be in the beginning as it is the author’s idea, characters, plot and so on, and the first revision will include weeding out the repetitions and redundancies. The next stage will be beta readers who, if they are doing their job, will point out character or plot holes and often pick up a ‘crutch’ word the author may not have been aware they were using. After another round of edits and revisions, then comes the editing stage and quite likely another round of edits and revisions. It really does take a village to produce a book.

 And on that note, I’m going to check on my Round Robin villagers to see what they have to say. I hope you’ll join me in visiting:

 Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Judith Copek https://lynx-sis-blogspot.com

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2ow

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

 

Round Robin Blog on Self-editing

It’s officially springtime and our first spring Round Robin blog for March 23, is: How do you self-edit your books before submitting or publishing? Many people, and not only non-writers, think the work is done when you write THE END, but this is where work on your novel really begins.

Once I have completed the first draft, I'll put it aside for a few days to develop a flavor, a bit like yesterday's pizza or that wicked from-scratch chili. When I go back to it, I first do a search and find for my usual crutch words which are has, was, had and a few more besides. I’ll see what I can eliminate or if I can make my writing more active by rewriting.

Have I used strong nouns and verbs? I have a list I sometimes refer to improve them if I can. Are there passages where I am telling rather than showing? What about dialog tags? How many can I remove and show what my characters are doing instead? I’ll look for those tricky little homonyms, those words which have the same spelling and pronunciation, but different meanings such as bit – the past tense of bite, or a tiny amount. Then there are the homographs which have the same spelling but different pronunciations and definitions such as wind (it blows) or wind (as to wind a clock.) Last but not least we come to homophones like to, too, and two which sound the same but have different spelling and meaning and are all too often misused. 

I'll nearly always catch my misplaced modifiers in my first drafts, but these aren't always found in books. You'll often see some doozies in church notices and on gravestones such as this, ‘Erected in memory of John MacFarlane, Drowned in the Water of Leith by a few affectionate friends.' With friends like that, who needs enemies?

When I have checked for pace and balance, usually a highlighting exercise, I’ll then read my work aloud. I’m sure many authors would dispute this exercise, but I still make time to do it. It is one of the easiest ways I know to catch long-winded or wordy sentences. If you can’t comfortably read a sentence in one breath, then you know it either needs punctuation or can or should be broken into two, or perhaps three. In reading aloud I’ll also catch myself on continuity – does my heroine have black hair and blue eyes all the way through my story?

Once I have done all that, I’ll hand my work over to my beta readers. If they make suggestions, I’ll look at what they think is required, and then make revisions accordingly. Once that is done, I’ll run the manuscript through Grammarly and make any corrections necessary and only then will I send it to my publisher. At that point, I really do think I have come to THE END and indulge in a large glass of wine before starting the next book.

Visit these authors to discover their processes:

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1yE
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com