6 Editing-My-Novel Steps by J.Q. Rose, 25% Off Sale

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog by J.Q. Rose!

Mark Twain Quote

I am slogging through the manuscript for Terror on Sunshine Boulevard. Yes, editing. Finding the right words, like Mark Twain said, makes a difference in your story. It is grueling work. When I read a word and it stops me in my editing zone, then it's the wrong word. I have find the right word, but how? 

The steps I go through to find the "right" word.

• I roll around a lot of words in my head, 
• I hit shift/f7 to bring up a "dictionary" of sorts in my Word program, 
• then I go to thesaurus.com for help 
• if nothing else works, I BOLD and italicize it to return to it when the right word pops into my brain.

6 Editing-My-Novel Steps by J.Q. Rose

Here are the steps I go through when editing (and I must admit I don't have a set number of edits.) Some writers write the first draft, edit for content, edit it for grammar and spellings, final edit for formatting = 4 read-throughs.

1. First draft--I do not edit as I write, or try not to. If you edit as you write, you will never reach the end of the story. Just get down the bones. I admit I do have to correct misspelled words. I am OCD about spelling. I write chronologically. I don't do the big scenes then try and string them together. Tried that once. Never again.

2. I write each chapter and save it in a separate file. I edit each chapter (more than once) before I add it to the manuscript file. Here I add flesh to the bones and clean up awkward sentences and try to slash unnecessary words or redundant information. I have a list of words I overuse, and in the ms I use the Find program in Word to find and replace them.

3. I write the scenes on sticky notes and place them in order according to the ms like a story board. Here's where I can delete or move scenes if I think it improves the flow of the story.

4. I read through the entire ms to check the timeline, sequence, and the characters' actions and descriptions.

5. I put it away and don't touch it for a couple of weeks. Then I send the ms to my kindle and convert it to an ebook. I read it on my kindle and highlight typos, nonsensical sentences, blue eyes to brown eyes, and all the stuff that really sticks out when reading the ms in this format. Sometimes I use the text to speech to "listen" to the story too. Then I find the highlighted notes in the ms and correct them.

6. Finally, I check formatting and make sure Chapter 3 follows Chapter 2, etc. and delete extra pages that sometimes end up in the ms after all the editing.

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I'm sure if you have a novel-writing program like Scrivener, some of this work is done for you. But I don't have Scrivener. Do you? Do you use it?

I have a wonderful writers group who reads my chapters and helps me brainstorm and also look for "problems" in the story whether in content or proof-reading. Fresh eyes really, really help. 

By the final read-through, I am comfortable to send it out to beta readers for feedback. And when I get that back, it's back to editing, adding, taking away, etc. You know what I mean.

I'd appreciate hearing from you on your steps for editing. Always eager to learn new methods. Leave a comment below.

Kindle for editing
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Click here or my blog post on using the kindle for editing

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Grammarly
I am experimenting with Grammarly.com, an online program to correct errors in documents. I have it on my FB and email, so when I use these pages errors are highlighted right away. I like that.I haven't tried putting a whole ms into the program...yet. 

I only have the free version. The premium version offers more information such as finding passive sentences, but so far I haven't been curious enough to pay for the service.

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BIG NEWS

My publisher, BWL Publishing is offering 25% off my mysteries when using the coupon for Smashwords. The sales price with the coupon is $2.24...Grab them for yourself or your friends! All formats are available. If you have a kindle, order the mobi file.

Click on the titles below to go to the Smashwords Sales Page. 

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Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing: Roseanne Dowell on Characters and Editing, Giveaway

To listen to the welcome and introduction of the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing series, 

click the red arrow at the top of the page.

Hello and welcome to the kick-off of the series, Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing. Our "tipster" author today is Roseanne Dowell. Roseanne is giving away an e-copy of her romance/mystery, All in the Family. Please leave a comment to be eligible for the drawing on Sunday at 9 p.m.

Roseanne, where do you get your ideas for stories?

1.      Where I get my ideas. That’s easy. Everywhere, from groceries stores, looking in people’s carts,  restaurants, overhearing people’s conversations, to making up stories of people sitting next to me in traffic. Even newspaper articles, classified ads, just everywhere around us.

     Thanks so much for sharing these helpful tips on characters and editing. 

CHARACTER  SHEET 

I always make a character sheet for the main characters of the book. I like to know everything about them – the obvious, of course, age, hair and eye color, height, build, occupation, favorite color, do they like children, animals, where they live, where they grew up, do they have sisters, brothers. Their likes, dislikes, birth date, favorite sport, hobby, general physical description, what kind of clothes do they like to wear, what’s important to them, their dreams, goals, what do they fear, undesirable characteristics *yes even the hero/heroine should have undesirable traits, no one is perfect. 

I often make storyboards with pictures from magazines of my hero/heroine other important characters labeled with their names, even their houses or other important settings. It’s amazing how helpful that is. 

EDITING

1. Editing. Wow that’s a topic in and of itself. One of the first and most important things to do before editing is to let your manuscript sit for at least a week. I usually let mine sit longer – a month or months. You need to get away from it for a while, forget about it. When you come back to it, it’ll be with fresh eyes.  One of the first things I look for is the word, ‘that’ . Most of them can be removed. And then is also over used. Type in She/he – see if you can change the sentence to avoid overuse. Many sentences can be changed with strong verbs and eliminating she/he to start a sentence. Watch verb tenses keep them consistent. And a pet peeve of mine is the improper use of me and I when combined with another name and and. There’s an easy way to see which one to use. Jordan and I went to the store, eliminate Jordan and – you’re left with I went to the store which is correct. You wouldn’t say me went to the store. Another example. Sarah went to the store with Jordan and me. If you eliminate Jordan and – you’re left with Sarah went to the store with me. That is correct, you wouldn’t say Sarah went to the store with I. 

2. Vary the length of your sentences. Sometimes shorter sentences are better. It’s fine to use a compound sentence occasionally, but if you use too many, or if your sentence is so long you run out of breath reading it aloud, much like this sentence, shorten it. Short choppy sentences add tension. Sometimes it’s good to have a string of short sentences. 

3. Be careful with ing words. If you begin a sentence with an ing word, the action has to be physically possible to carry through to the end of the sentence. Example – Getting into the car, I turned on the ignition. Impossible. You have to be in the car to turn it on.  Sobbing, I got into the car and turned the ignition. That works because you can sob the whole time you’re getting into the car. 

Roseanne's advice to writers--"WRITE! Write every day."

Ø    Back of the book: Taking over the police chief’s job in her hometown should have been easy for Callie Johnson. At least that's what she thought. After working in a big city, small town crime would be a breeze. What a surprise when she arrives to find her grandmother, the judge, accused of murder. As if that wasn't enough she’s attacked while walking to her car. Between criminal investigations, her nutty family’s antics and her Aunt Beatrice Lulu's matchmaking, Callie definitely has her work cut out for her. Will her grandmother be exonerated? Can Callie ward off her aunt’s unsuitable suitors? What other surprises were in store for her? More importantly, can she find the person who attacked her?

      Purchase Link and sample for All in the Family

About  Roseanne Dowell

Roseanne grew up reading first Nancy Drew mysteries and soon moved on to Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney. She’s a big fan of Agatha Christie and always loved writing even as a teen, often making up different endings to books she read and writing poems. 

While working as a school secretary, she took  a correspondence course, writing for children. It didn’t take long to realize that even though she had six children, it took someone special to write books for them. So, she tried her hand at nonfiction, but didn’t care for that either.  That’s when she moved on to romance novels. But they sat in the attic with her poems and journals.

In 2002 at a Book Club meeting, she confessed regret about not pursuing a career in writing. That’s all it took.  Her friends convinced her it wasn’t too late. After giving it some thought, she decided they were right and took another writing course. Within a few months, her first article was published in Good Old Days Magazine. Since then, she’s had articles published in several magazines. 

In 2006, Roseanne’s first book, Satin Sheets, was published and sold over 35,000 copies. Since then, she’s decided to go the way of the future – E-books.  She writes various types of romance – paranormal, contemporary, mystery and women’s fiction. Her heroines range from their early twenties to late seventies. Yes, seniors need love, too.  

Roseanne lives with her husband of fifty years, has six grown children, fourteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren. She spends her time between writing, quilting, and embroidering. She also enjoys blogging, tweeting, facebooking and posting on various writers’ groups. Her favorite time is being with her family.

Connect online with Roseanne at her Amazon Author Page.

Editing My Manuscript for Sunshine Boulevard

This week I received the first edited manuscript for Sunshine Boulevard. My content editor, Karen McGrath, sent me her edited version of the ms done by using the Tracking option on Microsoft Word program. Oh, my goodness, but you should have seen the red boxes with deletions, insertions, and comments! Whoooo-eeeeeeeeee….Karen assured me this is what all authors have to go through and that mine was no worse than others.
Do you remember getting your red-inked English theme back from your sixth grade teacher? While that was a shock, opening up my ms file and seeing all the red boxes on the right side of the page with broken lines leading to the text took me back to those school years. Oh my.
When my heart slowed down and I could breathe again, I began reading through the ms. As I read, I noticed the flow of the story was smoother, the action was faster, a few words replaced several sentences. All of the things I love to do when I edit my writing. Hey, she made this script even better??
I now look at the trimmed down story as being on Word Watchers…a writer’s version of Weight Watchers.  I went over her changes and suggestions and added my own, then emailed the file back to her.
I did not realize that after turning in a ms I would be spending hours on revising it again. But I want to put out the best story for my readers and I appreciate Karen working with me to do that.  I am anxious to see what she sends back to me for the second edit and to learn about the process that Muse It Up Publishing uses to finish the ms in order to give the reader the very best reading experience.
Stay tuned. I’ll probably be whining again about the editing!!