Editing Tips For Writers of Fiction

Odessa Gillespie BlackDecember 8, 2016Uncategorized, writing tipsauthor, authors, cut, cuts, details, draft, editing, editor, fiction, hot guy, how-to, imagination, info dumps, less is more, pace, pacing, process, readers, sink, tips, vivid, world, writing a novel, Writing tips

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Some of my favorite advice to give writers when editing their work is to cut 1/3 of their work after they’ve gone through the first draft process. This speeds pace, nails down conciseness, and keeps your reader turning that page.

The worst thing in the world to happen to an author, other than terrible reviews, is for a reader to put his or her book down. Times when this can happen is when a reader gets bored. If it absolutely doesn’t have to be there, cut it. You’d be amazed at how info dumps (large pieces of backstory, overloads of scenery details, and rambling) can be struck from any paragraph to increase your pacing, content understanding, and story quality. LESS IS MORE. Trust your readers. They have an imagination. They can take a few vivid details and create a world they can sink into. Just a little info I’ve learned from my editor.

Published by Odessa Gillespie Black

For my bachelor's degree, I crunched 4 years education into three years so I could get into my character's heads. Maybe I wanted to understand myself a little better, also. I'm an avid reader of all things educational, and I love to read paranormal romance to sink myself into a world even weirder than my own. A mother of four, and the wife of a humble, handsome husband, I live on a farm in the middle of North Carolina where we say, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes..." View more posts