This final Editorial Mistake concerns errors that happen on a line-by-line and sentence-by-sentence basis.
This is line editing, which typically has a localized impact, if any, on the reader's experience. However, when copyediting errors are abundant in a manuscript, it can keep the reader from investing interest in the story at hand.
Read MoreIf you’ve taken a creative writing workshop or even a high school composition course, you’ve likely heard the advice: “Show, don’t tell.”
When we’re writing fiction or creative non-fiction, we want to show instead of tell, which translates to telling our story through a series of interconnected scenes, instead of summarizing the events that happened.
If a character needs a raise to pay the rent, the writer shouldn’t explicitly state, “Bob needed a raise to pay his rent,” at least not without also providing supporting details. Instead, she may place an important conversation between Bob and his work best friend in a coffee shop, where Bob explains that he’s having his second triple latte of the day at 10:00 a.m. after pulling an all-nighter with the quarterly earnings report.
So, yes, “Show, don’t tell.” You know that intuitively. But I’m here to explain part of the “why” behind this age-old adage.
Read MoreFrom time to time, fiction writers I work with struggle with the delivery of natural-sounding dialogue on the page. The following are resources I share with them, which have helped immensely.
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