These are notes from the LDSMS writer’s conference: The full title is: Self-Editing and Revision: Fixing All the Language Stuff—Glaring and Nit-Picky—to Make the Best Impression
Rules vs. style choices:
Style choices
- Italics: handling thoughts/letters/flashbacks and quotes
- Formatting
- Some commas
- End-of-line hyphenations
- Windows and orphans (single line at the start or end of the page)
Changes
- Two spaces after a period. >is now is one space.
- No spaces w/ em dash.
- Underlining > used to be for italics. Now hyperlinks.
Get a style guide
- Whatever one you use be consistent.
- Most used for capitalization. Church, temple, conference, celestial, Deity pronouns.
- Different publishers use their own style guide
- Are you using the most current version?
- You can get Chicago online style guide for a fee.
- Merriam Webster dictionary > is used for spelling
- If Grammarly points something out or Microsoft Word> check to see why.
At the beginning
- Many stories start with no beginning. Too many stories start with world-building at the start. Need a hook.
- If you need to cut and don’t want to deleted. Cut and paste and save it elsewhere.
- One author writes 100 pgs. to see where her story is going and then start over.
- Cut your first paragraph does it work? Cut the first page, does it work? If not sure let someone else see it and say ‘draw a line when you’re bored.
- Don’t do something for a reader’s benefit. Readers are smart.
Work in info naturally
- No maid and butler dialog
- No info dumps
- No maid and butler dialog.
- Ways to relay info> work in tiny pieces.
- In the TV series, The Gilmore Girls TV show is an example of writing well.
First Chapter
- How often does a sentence with one of these: I, am, was, were, the, but, and name pronouns.
- Avid ‘there was” at the beginning of a sentence.
- Where can you trim unnecessary words?
- The equally evil it > put in what it represents. It was… make it more specific and powerful.
- By the way it’s on Tuesday? What is it? Jake couldn’t take it? > be specific.
Words are over used
Any get just nod somewhat up had going to like pretty
Suddenly vent good breathe that well literally rather that
Definitely look really in order to then down most some totally
Suggestions:
- To be verbs are weak. (was, were, am, is. Maybe use to be no more than twice per page.
- Using a lot of adjectives & adverbs is putting a makeup on a weak noun.
- The words you use will alter the purpose of your story
- What would be a more specific word than cloth or a women’s shoe?
- Sentence structures are types long or short in groups. Speed action is short but avoid choppy.
- 2 simple sentence structure tips
- Cause then effect.
- The end word of a sentence gets the emphasis.
- Adverbs> find a strong way to use it
Deadwood: getting wordy:
- In order to
- A long period of time > long time
- Nodding silently
- Her hair hung down
- She had an impatient tone of voice
- Clutched at
- sniffed with his nose
- Nodded his head
- Blinked his eyes
- Tasted in her mouth
- She grinned on her face.
- Sniffed with his nose.
- Nodded his head
- Blinked his eyes
- Wiped tears from her eyes.
- A confused expression on her face.
- Peter gestured with his hand.
Filter words
- Heard, wondered, saw, realized, noticed, thought to himself
- Point of view> head-hopping
Dialog
- Make sure the dialog has a job or three.
- Is it talking heads?
- Are the speakers clear?
- Don’t overuse a name.
- You can use ‘said’. Don’t overdo alternatives.
- Blocking: where is everyone in the scene?
- Passive voice.
- Proofreaders will catch 80% so you need more than one reader.
- Read your text back to front, page by page and you’ll catch a lot.
