Comments on: Line Editing in 10 Easy Steps

By: Bonita Kale

Bonita Kale — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:33:37 +0000

Number Eight! If a sentence justwon’t come right, I take it as a sign that it wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.

By: Paul Baughman

Paul Baughman — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:32:17 +0000

Re #10, that reminds me of a Japanese proverb I heard many years ago. I did a quick google search and couldn’t find any references to what I remember. Apologies in advance for butchering any of the details.

A rich man commissioned an artist for a painting of a cat. After a month, with no painting, he spoke to the artist, who told him to come back later. A month later, he again asked the artist for his painting and was told to come back later. This went on for many months. Finally, after a year of pleading and waiting and pleading some more, the rich man stormed into the artist’s house and demanded his painting or his money back.

The artist grabbed a handy piece of paper, brush and ink and dashed off a painting which he handed to the rich man. The man was amazed at the life-like realism of the seemingly off-hand effort. It was the most beautiful cat he had ever seen.

He turned to the artist and asked: “If you could paint such a wonderful picture with no effort, why did you make me wait?”

The artist opened a closet and showed the rich man the hundreds of discarded paintings of cats.

–
I love this story because it illustrates that even with talent, it takes hard work to become a true artist. It lets me hope that I have potential to become an artist.

By: Line Editing Links

Line Editing Links — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:48:52 +0000

[...] Line Editing in 10 easy steps [...]

By: Linda

Linda — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:20:57 +0000

For #1, I found more words than than (i.e., a bit, a little, a little bit, just, etc.), so I used Word’s autocorrect to automatically capitalize them. That way, I’ll see immediately how often I’m using the qualifiers and I can work on eliminatingthem as I write.

By: Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:01:20 +0000

“In other words â€” the old stereotype of the writer who keeps revising and revising until he decides to just give up and label his work â€œfinishedâ€ is not true. You do actually finish if you keep revising long enough.”

I agree, and I know I’m done when I can read the latest draft and NOT have to pick up the red pen for anything.

Mind you, it takes me at least 12-15 printed drafts before I reach that stage, and that’s after writing and editing the manuscript on the PC first.

By: fritz freiheit.com Â» The craft of manuscript editing

fritz freiheit.com Â» The craft of manuscript editing — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:14:36 +0000

[...] is some good advice on the craft of manuscript editing. Vonda McIntyre has this (pdf) good introduction to manuscript preparation.Â Or, in a nut shell, [...]

By: Kristen

Kristen — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:56:55 +0000

The abundance of unnecessary “thats” is a common complaint, yet there are many bestselling authors still guilty of wrongful use of the word. There is a whole article devoted to the subject on this site:
http://www.writersmind.com/articles/unnecessarythat.html

I agree with Matt Jarpe’s comment about seeking out every use of the verb “be” (or in past tense, “been”). It’s a great way to track down and eliminate inflated prose.

By: triggxr

triggxr — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:29:19 +0000

I can’t belive you wrote ‘bane of my existence’ after reading this great list.

By: Matt Jarpe

Matt Jarpe — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:47:53 +0000

I like this list. I myself am not guilty of any of these crimes, but I’m sure these tips will help others.

I got some great advice from Gordon Van Gelder when he line edited “The Bad Hamburger.” Seek out every instance of the verb “be.” If you think about it, ~~each of those sentences can be made better with a bit of rearranging.~~ you can make each of those sentences better with a bit of rearranging.

By: M.T.

M.T. — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 02:14:40 +0000

3. Eliminate repeated words and phrases.

This is one of the biggest problems I have as a writer whose native language is Chinese. In Chinese, repetition = emphasis. The English equivalent would be using two different words with the same meaning, but in Chinese you could get away with just repeating the one.

So a thesaurus would indeed be helpful.

Reading aloud is what triggers the â€œoh my god, I used â€œeyesâ€ eight times in two pagesâ€ thing for me.

Reading stuff aloud never really worked for me, for some reason. I generally notice repeated words as I put them down on the page and try to get rid of them with a vengeance.