Here’s a little taste of my post, “When Is My Manuscript Ready for a Freelance Editor? A Cost-Effective Look at Polishing Your Novel,” which is all about finding the right freelance editor on a budget, along with a link to read the rest on Girl Tell Me’s website.
Read MoreQ&A with Tiffany Grimes of Burgeon Editorial and Design
I’ve known Tiffany Grimes, the editor behind Burgeon Editorial and Design, since we were wee and angsty writers participating in Teen Ink Magazine’s London Writing Program. Through the years our paths have crossed time and time again, and Tiffany is one of my favorite editors to follow on Instagram.
When I heard that she and two other editors (Jeni Chappelle and Carly Hayward) were hosting a virtual writing retreat all about character development in February 2021, I leapt at the opportunity to get more information and to share it with you.
Read MoreThe Top 5 Editorial Mistakes I’ve Seen… and How to Fix Them, Part 3.
Characters lacking in agency often don’t have many motivating factors to help them think, speak, or act. Instead, they passively accept the things happening around them.
This can make it difficult for the reader to empathize with your characters, often because it seems the characters are doing nothing to help themselves. As a result, you may risk losing your reader’s interest in your novel.
Read MoreThe Top 5 Editorial Mistakes I’ve Seen… and How to Fix Them, Part 2.
Remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears? We don’t want too much or too little background on a character in a manuscript. We want it to be just right.
Read MoreThe Top 5 Editorial Mistakes I’ve Seen… and How to Fix Them, Part 1 of 5.
If 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.
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