Tips For Tweeking & Editing
By Eastlight
One of my cats sits meowing near my seat either craving some readily available affection while I type or warning I should keep my opinions quiet. Sorry Sylvester, I believe my point is valid. Oh! Ok! Climb up here, watch the fur on the keyboard while monitoring my hunting and pecking.From two random compositions, I chose two first sentences, which I believe demonstrate points I continually encounter within many texts, even published compositions. I find selecting random statements faster and easier than fabricating examples; declare me lazy that way (as in, I do declare!). I did not read authors' names so if one of the sentences belongs to you in my mind you remain anonymous.
First, I preface my “lesson” stating, I prefer a more formal writing style and do not encounter informal sentences or colloquialisms in novels I read unless attributed by direct quotes.
I find many amateur and professional authors alike overusing conjunctions (and), prepositions (of) and (a conjunction
) worn out adverbs. I like active verbs, inventive adverbs and adjectives, deleting conjunctions favoring the comma instead and using the dreaded preposition “of” as little as possible. I believe the listed grammar dynamics, mostly personal preference, may assist a few writers. Remember, the following are merely my personal opinions, never intended as absolutes.
Original: “Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the young American nation is still a largely unexplored wilderness in the process of being settled and tamed.”
Revision (settled is passive): Five decades following the American Revolution, a vigorously youthful nation traverses unknown (or unexplored) frontier awaiting civilization’s gradual progression (or advancement) toward settling the untamed wilderness. (Could be written wild wilderness if you like alliteration).
Original: "She was sitting, hugging her knees with every ounce of strength her tiny arms could muster, and trying to block out the images. It wasn’t supposed to be real, the monster outside the closet. It couldn’t be, she didn’t want it to find her if it was real."
Revision: Sitting, tightly hugging her knees while tiny arms gradually weaken, she strains closing her eyes, blocking terrible images, knowing the monster outside the closet could not be real. It simply could not exist, could it? Terror grips her, “Do not go out there!”
In my opinion, removing past tense verbs (was) places the reader in the closet. Removing contractions slows the read and helps drive home feelings. A quote here puts me inside the girl’s mind. Again, these are simply my opinions for there are many ways of expressing an idea.
Personally, I never find satisfaction with a first draft. I edit uncountable times, wait a day, re-read my work then edit more. I attempt working around using the same noun, pronoun verb and adverb twice in a single paragraph. Reading novels, observing a known author's style helps a great deal. I joined this web site because someone else reading my work, criticizing and suggesting changes is very helpful. The difference is like playing a game yourself and watching someone else play. You nearly always find the other person’s mistakes when merely observing and I am grateful to those who assist by wading through my compositions. I simply cannot locate every possible error by editing my own stuff (allow me one colloquialism).
My spelling is usually atrocious and vocabulary rather average. I will explain how I overcome some shortcomings. (Editing Example: Here, I formerly wrote "some of my shortcomings" but you may agree, "of my" is unnecessary - we already know whose they are).
First, I always compose in MS Word 2008, dictionary as default and grammar set to “grammar and spelling” (usually the default setting). In Options, I remove auto-correct selections such as “automatically capitalize” and “correct while typing.” MS Word chastises with a squiggly red underline whenever using passive verbs – a huge help, sometimes a headache ridding my work of the #&*$@ pests.
Next, and probably most important: go to WordWeb.com, or Tucows.cl (and search for wordweb) read and download the free program. WordWeb has a Pro version but the free version works very well. It is copyrighted by Princeton University and by placing your cursor at the end of a word (or highlighting a word on the web), pressing Crtl-Alt-W opens WordWeb with definitions and thesaurus for that particular word. The program is small (around 13MB) and downloads quickly.
I hope readers gain some insight from my ramblings. Despite grammar rules, etc. two items remain without which structural or mechanical principles mean less; a desire for creativity, your special artistic qualities necessary for storytelling.
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