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Tips for checking your own writing: Editor's Notes #211
May 31, 2016
Hello,

Compose with utter freedom
and edit with utter discipline.

--Erica Jong


In this issue:

1. Tips for checking your own writing
2. Tickled my funnybone
3. Interesting Web site
4. Writing prompt

1. Tips for checking your own writing
The biggest reason it is best to have someone else edit your work is that no one but you lives in your brain. Everyone else can easily misunderstand you, and a good editor points out what might trip up your readers.

Getting out of your own head even a little, however, lets you find some problems in your writing you may not otherwise find. Here are some little tricks to fool your mind into thinking differently about what you have written.

  • Stand up when you reread your writing. (And if you normally stand to write, sit down to look for problems.)
  • Change the look of your page. Make your font colored or larger. Use a different font. Then print out your whole text and read it aloud.
  • Tape yourself reading your writing. Then play it back.
  • Make multiple passes through your writing, looking for only one problem each time. (punctuation, variations in sentence structure, spelling, plot highlights, inconsistencies, and pacing)


After you've done all you can with your own writing, you are ready for an editor.

PS. I'm an editor. Did you know you can take me for a trial edit? https://www.writershelper.com/sample-edit.html

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2.Tickled my funnybone
From a church bulletin: Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

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3. Interesting Web site
Click at random or carefully choose a book from the list. Either way, this site gives you a host of synopses. What do writers have to do? Write a synopsis of their own book.
http://www.60secondrecap.com/reviews/

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4. Writing prompt
Choose a book you already know from the Interesting Web site link above, but don't click on the link yet. Write a synopsis of the book you've chosen. THEN click on the link and compare your synopsis with the one the site provides. Which do you prefer? Can you do better?

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