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10 Ways to Improve Your Fiction Manuscript Iola Goulton

2014 cwc 10 steps to editing final

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10 Ways to Improve Your Fiction

Manuscript

Iola Goulton

Bathrooms

Evacuation Procedure

Overheads available www.christianediting.co.nz

o Sign up for my newsletter

Questions

o Keep for end

When Reading … When Writing …

Backstory

Conflict

Dialogue tags

Facts

Formatting

Interior Monologue

Point of view

Reader expectations

Showing and telling

Structure

12 point type

Times New Roman

2.5 cm (1 inch) margins

Double line spacing

One space between sentences

1.25 cm (1/2 inch) intent for new paragraph

Extra line space or # or ### for new scene

New chapter begins on a new page

A4 paper (US Letter for US submissions)

Genre

o Thriller

o Romance

o Speculative

Plot and subplot

Target Age

Word Count

o Category Romance vs. Single Title

Act One: the first 20%o Hook

o Inciting Incident

o Key Event

o First major plot point

Act Two: the middle 55%o Reaction

o Midpoint (second major plot point)

o Action

Act Three: the last 25%o Third major plot point

o Climax

o Resolution

Recommended

First Person

Third Person

o Deep Perspective

Cinematic

o Limited uses

Avoid

Second Person

Third Person

o Distant

Omniscient

o Head hopping

Only one point of view character per scene

The viewpoint character should be the character who is

most impacted by the events in the scene

A new scene is indicated to the reader by an additional

line break

Show them the scene—don’t tell them about the scene

o Viewpoint of a single character

o Crucial sense or thought impressions that character is

experiencing at any given moment

o Present those impressions as vividly and briefly as possible

o Give those impressions in a logical order

Scene is showing

Narrative summary is telling

Principle also applies to interior monologue and feelings

o Resist the Urge to Explain

Appropriate speaker attributionso said – whispered – shouted – asked

o Name first (she said, not said she)

o No –ly adverbs

o Use beats to break up he said, she said

o Sometimes the best attribution is no attribution

Paragraphingo New speaker = new paragraph

o Dialogue, then speaker attribution or beat (then more dialogue, but only one beat per speech)

o Keep it short

In media res

o Start in the middle of the action

Character histories

o Marble information throughout the plot

o No information dumps or author intrusions

o No psychoanalysing characters

Related Issues

o Prologues

o Flashbacks

o Telegraphing

Conflict is the essence of fiction

Commercial fiction readers expect you to answer four simple questions.

o Who = character

o What = goal

o Why = motivation

o Why not = conflict

Character Internal External

Goal

Motivation

Conflict

Historical

o Anachronisms

o Factual errors

Contemporary

o References to technology

Both

o Vocabulary that doesn’t fit the character

• Consistent with the time period

• Consistent with the age and education level of the character

• Use of contractions

Anything by James Scott Bell, especially Revision and Self-editing

Goal Motivation Conflict by Deborah Dixon

Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Browne & King

The Word Loss Diet by Rayne Hall

Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

Structuring Your Novel by KM Weiland

Questions

I specialise in adult and young adult Christian fiction, and can be contacted at [email protected]. You can also find me at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/ChristianReads and http://www.facebook.com/#!/christianediting

www.christianreads.blogspot.com and www.christianediting.co.nz

I offer the following services:

Manuscript Assessment:

A manuscript assessment is an appraisal and critique of your novel, providing feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of your plot, scenes, characters, dialogue, interior monologue, narrative, point of view, style, pace, language, Christian themes and overall consistency. This will highlight your strengths and provide you with specific areas on which to focus the revision of your manuscript. This is most appropriate when you have finished revising the first draft.

While a manuscript assessment does not include line-by-line copy editing or proofreading, I will provide general feedback to help you decide whether your revised novel will need further content editing or copy editing before you reach the proofreading stage.

Copy Editing:

Copy editing includes all aspects of proofreading, plus a line by line edit to look at sentence, paragraph and chapter length; identify repetition of words or ideas; ensure consistent plot, style, tense and point of view; ensure language and tone are consistent with the location and time period of the story; and undertake basic fact checking against reputable internet sites. While copy editing does not include rewriting, I do suggest alternatives for words used out of context, and revisions for sentences or paragraphs that are overly long. Please note that copy editing does not include formatting or coding manuscripts for traditional or electronic publication.

Proofreading:

Proofreading is the final step in preparing your novel before submission to a publisher or agent. This assumes the manuscript has already been extensively revised and edited, and involves checking spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalisation, missing or incorrect words and other typographical errors. If my initial read-through shows that the manuscript needs more assistance than basic proofreading, I will discuss this with you before I begin work.

Editing and proofreading are undertaken in Microsoft Word using the Track Changes and Comments features.