kurrginatorX
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2017
- Posts
- 15,384
Almost every writer has done it. You roll an idea around in your head, add dialogue, a little narrative, and perhaps even a little foreshadowing, and by the end of this exercise you have what you think will transfer to four MS Word pages of text. You begin to pound out the story and you just happen to gaze at the page number and find that you are now on page ten and you are nowhere near the middle because one idea beget another which created the opportunity to go in a completely different direction, but a direction that still fits within the original framework.
We hear of sports figures who say they are "in the zone," and even we, as writers, enter our own special zone at times, cranking out 150 words per minute as we convince ourselves that the story is writing itself, and this is a good thing as it is flash writing at it's purest. We are excited over the progress we make, yet a serious problem looms on the horizon; for even though a story may write itself, it has absolutely no way of editing itself.
Some people tell me that they do not edit until they have the story written in it's entirety, while others, myself included, edit our work per page or even per paragraph. I do not advise waiting until you are sitting on the final draft, if for no other reason than your brain will read what you want your text to be as opposed to what is really there--think of this as the Freudian slip of editing.
"Save often, edit often," should be a writer's mantra, and even after you have edited your own work, show it to someone who will be honest about what he or she has read. Do you really want someone to tell you everything is fine when you have misplaced modifiers, or use non-words like "mischeevious" and "irregardless," or begin sentences with conjunctions? Of course not. When these things are pointed out to you, however, they are not a personal attack on your writing ability, but constructive criticism designed to make you a better writer.
There is no particular editing style--at least, there shouldn't be--but I recently encountered something I had never before witnessed. I had occasion to find a (non-erotic) short story accepted for publication in a fairly new magazine. The editor contacted me via email and sent back a "corrected" version of my story. I asked why he suggested the changes he did--dangling modifiers, beginning sentences with the conjunctions "and" and "but"--and he stated that this is what his staff was referring to as MLF: Modern Language Format. He stated that this was the way people spoke, so framing a story in this way would make it a more widely accepted read, not to mention more economically viable. I responded by telling him that (A) writers are trained to never write as they speak, and (B) what he was doing was nothing more than perpetuating ignorance and illiteracy, not to mention making me look like an ignorant, illiterate fool. He retorted by stating that if I wanted to see my piece published, I would accept the changes he made. I pulled the piece altogether. Yes, the story could have gotten my name out there, but personal pride in my craft prohibited me from compromising my integrity on this issue.
I suggest non-reliance on spell check. I suggest finding an editor who will be honest. As far as that goes, find two or three to see if they are all pointing out the same mistakes or making the same suggestions that ensure your story is as seamless as possible. Your story will always be your story, regardless of what changes you make to it. Keep a thesaurus handy to ensure you are using words in their proper context. In short, take advantage of every opportunity you have to ensure your story is the best it can possibly be.
We hear of sports figures who say they are "in the zone," and even we, as writers, enter our own special zone at times, cranking out 150 words per minute as we convince ourselves that the story is writing itself, and this is a good thing as it is flash writing at it's purest. We are excited over the progress we make, yet a serious problem looms on the horizon; for even though a story may write itself, it has absolutely no way of editing itself.
Some people tell me that they do not edit until they have the story written in it's entirety, while others, myself included, edit our work per page or even per paragraph. I do not advise waiting until you are sitting on the final draft, if for no other reason than your brain will read what you want your text to be as opposed to what is really there--think of this as the Freudian slip of editing.
"Save often, edit often," should be a writer's mantra, and even after you have edited your own work, show it to someone who will be honest about what he or she has read. Do you really want someone to tell you everything is fine when you have misplaced modifiers, or use non-words like "mischeevious" and "irregardless," or begin sentences with conjunctions? Of course not. When these things are pointed out to you, however, they are not a personal attack on your writing ability, but constructive criticism designed to make you a better writer.
There is no particular editing style--at least, there shouldn't be--but I recently encountered something I had never before witnessed. I had occasion to find a (non-erotic) short story accepted for publication in a fairly new magazine. The editor contacted me via email and sent back a "corrected" version of my story. I asked why he suggested the changes he did--dangling modifiers, beginning sentences with the conjunctions "and" and "but"--and he stated that this is what his staff was referring to as MLF: Modern Language Format. He stated that this was the way people spoke, so framing a story in this way would make it a more widely accepted read, not to mention more economically viable. I responded by telling him that (A) writers are trained to never write as they speak, and (B) what he was doing was nothing more than perpetuating ignorance and illiteracy, not to mention making me look like an ignorant, illiterate fool. He retorted by stating that if I wanted to see my piece published, I would accept the changes he made. I pulled the piece altogether. Yes, the story could have gotten my name out there, but personal pride in my craft prohibited me from compromising my integrity on this issue.
I suggest non-reliance on spell check. I suggest finding an editor who will be honest. As far as that goes, find two or three to see if they are all pointing out the same mistakes or making the same suggestions that ensure your story is as seamless as possible. Your story will always be your story, regardless of what changes you make to it. Keep a thesaurus handy to ensure you are using words in their proper context. In short, take advantage of every opportunity you have to ensure your story is the best it can possibly be.
