What an exciting week I’ve had being introduced to the world of editing. Content edits with my book titled, Protector, began–and I’m going to share with you three simple tips I picked up, ones which aided me and will do the same for you.

Sentence Length

When writing we can get so carried away with getting our words out, that our sentence length drags. Please read your long sentences out loud. I promise it will become obvious exactly where you’ve gone wrong. If you do this, you’ll find yourself chopping long sentences right down. Before you know it, your book’s pace will pick up, enabling your reader to become more engaged.

Telling as Compared to Showing

This can be an issue, and one we’re not even aware of it. What to learn is, don’t tell your reader what your character is doing, but show them with physical reactions. Add more dialogue if necessary. Below is an example of a sentence re-written, but let me give you some background for it to make sense. This character has been struck on the head and lost consciousness, and now she is awakening.

“I’ve been out for twenty minutes?” Confusion took me.   ←(This is telling, not showing.)

Now it reads–

“I’ve been out for twenty minutes?” I scrunched up my forehead. “That’s not good.”    ←(Yeah, this character has a sense of humor.)

Overuse of Adverbs and Adjectives

Do not overuse adverbs and adjectives. You don’t want your reader thinking too hard, not when they should be immersed in your story. Here’s an example of overuse–and all that’s necessary is to remove one word to allow the writing to flow easier.

Jack stepped away, quietly propping his back against the wide trunk of the tree.

Simply delete the word–“quietly” and read again. The sentence frees up–so simple.

Please tune in next week for some more tidbits. Simply click “follow” or “like” on the right-hand side panel. I’d love you to join me.