Anna ♥'s List: Writing and Editing resources

I evaluate fiction for a publisher, using the publisher's standard set of questions, with the last question being: thumbs up or down? It's a tough list of standards, and I see a pattern of common problems that keep manuscripts from being accepted. The most significant problems involve the bond between story and character. If you want an agent or editor to get past the first chapter of your story, here are 10 things to keep in mind:

"TEN EDITING TIPS: FOR NOVELS, NON-"EXPERIMENTAL""

What follows is not for the squeamish. It's the nature of writers to fall in love with words, particularly their own. Clever turns of phrase excite us; we beam like proud parents when our protagonists take on lives of their own; a shapely plot twist can turn our heads. There is nothing wrong with indulging in the occasional fling - as long as it stops in draft. When time comes to make that final revision, however, you must harden your heart, sharpen the axe and murder your darlings ....

"Another post about why sequence is essential:
The conflict of the earlier scene guides the emotion of the next scene. The reader will assume (rightly, of course) that the first event will have some effect on the characters, and that they will show that effect, even if they try to hide it, in the immediately succeeding scene."

"When writing dialogue, keep in mind the three-sentence rule: give no character more than three uninterrupted sentences at once. You really can trust your audience to read between the lines: in fact, part of the pleasure of reading a story is putting the pieces together. And most importantly, remember that your characters should not tell each other things they already know."

Here are 5 tips for handling goals and motivations in your story (this is excerpted from my Sensational Scenes class that starts tomorrow, Wed 9/22):

You're sitting at your desk staring at your manuscript, realizing that you've written ten or fifty or three hundred (ouch) pages in which nothing really happens. People talk to each other and they go places and they do things, but you couldn't find enough suspense in what they're doing to fill a thimble, and you're creeping up on the sneaking suspicion that your book is a wash, your ideas were stupid, and your characters are duds. Or worse, that you are. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel, admit defeat, take your parents' advice and go into the family wax-dummy business. Don't do that. You can fix this. It may not be easy, but if you want to save your characters and your idea and at least some of the work you've already done, you can.

Sometimes drama works. And sometimes it's just loud.
Hyping up the drama in fiction is not the same as creating dramatic conflict or believable tension ...

The main purpose of commas is to make a sentence easier to read and understand, which means a writer often needs to rely on good judgment in addition to some of the hard-and-fast rules. Still, there are a number of comma errors writers make that consistently pop up again and again.

It's time for part two of our series covering basic punctuation. Today's post discusses common errors made using semicolons and colons.

Tips for mass appeal and mechanical tips for writers - the latter is a must-read.

When editing a manuscript, some words deserve to die - not always, but usually. (If you miss the humor of the last sentence, you won't after reading this document.) The words listed appear in order of popularity; words and phrases abused with the greatest frequency top the list ...

"While books on writing have a lot to say about the writing process, many valuable skills and strategies can be learned by studying the work -- as well as the lives -- of writers you admire. Writing fiction is a complex process: it requires a suitably nuanced course of study. In the same way, the answers to many questions about how to lead a writer's life can be found in the models provided by successful writers. "

This book. It's great.