I’m working on editing my manuscript, and part of that is eliminating excess words. These fluff words can usually be deleted or replaced with fewer but more descriptive words. By eliminating them, you cut down your word count and make the text clearer. Below is a list of words I Read more…
Holly Atkinson is a freelance editor, and her company is called Evil Eye Editing. She was gracious enough to do a last-minute interview with me at the end of the writing conference, and I am truly grateful. She had some good insight for authors on editing. She is also an Read more…
At the writers conference, I interviewed Ally Robertson, editor with The Wild Rose Press and suspense author. She is a wealth of information since she works on the editing side as well as the writing side. I learned so many tidbits on how to improve my manuscript from just a Read more…
I’ve heard it said several times by professionals that the final draft of your book should be at least 10% shorter than your first draft. This happens because you cut out the excess—both in scenes and in words. It may seem daunting, but, in my experience, it’s more tedious than Read more…
As one of the biggest culprits of inflating a word count, repetition is something everyone does that writers have to teach themselves to avoid. If you listen to people talk, they will repeat themselves numerous times even if they don’t have a memory problem. It’s natural for us to say Read more…