Editor-Proof Your Writing

21 Steps to the Clear Prose Publishers and Agents Crave

Don McNair

• Publisher: Quill Driver Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781610351997
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Creative Writing
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Don't let simple mistakes ruin your book's chances!

If you're not getting published, you may suffer from foggy writing—writing that's full of unnecessary, misused, and overused words. Foggy writing drives editors crazy, and it's the number one reason most manuscripts are rejected on first glance.

Let veteran editor Don McNair show youhow to clear up your foggy writing and produce sparkling copy that will attract agents, editors, readers, and sales.

Editor-Proof Your Writing will show you how to avoid fatal writing mistakes by eliminating unnecessary words—and in the process you'll strengthen your book's action, invigorate your dialogue, and make your writing cracklewith life. Containing 21 simple, straightforward principles, Editor-Proof Your Writing teaches how to edit weak verb forms, strip away author intrusions, ban redundancies, eliminate foggy phrases, correct passive-voice sentences, slash misused and overused words, and fix other writing mistakes.

A must-have addition to every writer's toolkit, Editor-Proof Your Writing won't just make your writing clearer; itwill make you a better writer — more expressive, more entertaining, and more likely to sell.

Contents

Introduction: You can be published!

PART ONE: PUTTING WORDS IN

CHAPTER 1

Your classroom? It’s your first chapter!

CHAPTER 2

Why you should be a hooker

CHAPTER 3

What’s your point of view?

CHAPTER 4

Don’t be an information dumper

CHAPTER 5

Your manuscript is a Christmas tree

CHAPTER 6

William Brennan: A “Christmas tree” case history

CHAPTER 7

Make your scenes work harder

CHAPTER 8

Don’t discuss sows’ ears with silken words

CHAPTER 9

You say your heroine doesn’t hate your hero? Too bad!

CHAPTER 10

But they have to like each other, too!

PART TWO: TAKING WORDS OUT

Introduction: 21 Steps to fog-free writing

STEP 1

Use fewer –ing words

STEP 2

Use fewer infinitives

STEP 3

Change passive voice to active voice

STEP 4

Avoid “expletive” and “had ____ that” constructions

STEP 5

Use fewer “hads” in internal dialogue

STEP 6

Shorten verbs

STEP 7

Eliminate double verbs

STEP 8

Eliminate double nouns, adjectives, and adverbs

STEP 9

Watch for foggy phrases

STEP 10

Remove character filters

STEP 11

Delete -ly words

STEP 12

Get rid of all dialogue tags except “said”

STEP 13

Now, get rid of “said”!

STEP 14

Cut the dialogue!

STEP 15

Eliminate redundancies

STEP 16

Use fewer prepositional phrases

STEP 17

Get rid of throwaway words

STEP 18

Edit for conciseness

STEP 19

Avoid clichés like the plague

STEP 20

Get rid of superficials

STEP 21

Stop those wandering eyes

PART THREE: SHARING YOUR WORDS

Introduction: Sharing Your Work

CHAPTER 11

Critique partners

CHAPTER 12

Professional editors

CHAPTER 13

Publishers and agents

CHAPTER 14

Writing the query letter

CHAPTER 15

Writing the synopsis

Appendix

Exercise Solutions

Sarah’s Perils Solutions

Mystery on Firefly Knob Synopsis

Novels used as examples

Index

About the author

INTRODUCTION

You can be published!

Unpublished writer “Barbara Stevens” asked me to critique and edit her newest unpublished novel’s first chapter. “I’ve written twelve other manuscripts,” she said, “and they’ve been rejected a lot of times. I hope you can figure out what’s wrong.”

Well, I did figure it out, and quickly. This lady was basically a good writer. Her blogs sparkled, she dreamed up creative plots, and her heart was certainly in her work. But she’d made a major craft mistake in that chapter and, presumably, in all twelve of those manuscripts. It was a mistake that almost guaranteed she’d never be published.

We discussed her problem (we’ll get back to that later), and the light bulb over her head glowed brilliantly. She rewrote that first chapter and I edited it again, and, as if by magic, it became publishable. Barbara used her newfound knowledge to revise the rest of that manuscript, and then her twelve other novels. Within two months she sold one, and she’s now been published many times. She’s on her way.

The point? Barbara’s breakthrough came directly from correcting that one craft mistake. She’d made it time and time again and was destined to repeat it again and again, until someone told her what it was.

You may be making that same mistake. Or, perhaps you’re making another equally deadly one—mistakes we’ll identify and resolve in this book—and are not aware of it. But there’s hope.

Bad news, good news

If you’ve never been published, there’s both bad news and good news.

The bad news is that most unpublished writers will never be published. Editors receive hundreds of manuscripts each week and ultimately buy fewer than one percent. We’ve all heard of hapless writers who have wallpapered their home or office walls with rejections. Perhaps you’re one.

The reason is basic. Many writers send problem-riddled manuscripts to editor after editor, as Barbara did, believing they are perfect. In the meantime they blithely build the same flaws into their next manuscript. They simply don’t know they’re making those mistakes. Unless someone tells them or they somehow learn on their own, their manuscripts will be rejected the rest of their lives.

Note, however, that someone does recognize their problems. Those editors! They quickly spot them in a manuscript’s first chapter—often on the first page—and reject the submission without reading further. They know the rest of the manuscript contains the same mistakes, just as we know an iceberg’s submerged part is made up of more of the same ice seen on top. Editors simply don’t have the time or inclination to teach authors writing skills. So they send out “sorry, it’s not for us” letters and move on to the next manuscript in their bulging in-baskets.

The good news? That can change!

It’s time for someone to tell these writers what they’re doing wrong. And that, of course, is the purpose of this book. If you apply what you learn here to your current and future manuscripts, they’ll be tremendously improved. Improved enough, perhaps, to entice that next editor to take you on.

I’ve seen your problems many times. I edited trade magazines for twelve years, supervised writers while writing for a major PR firm’s national clients for six years, and headed my own company (McNair Marketing Communications) for twenty-two years. For the last five years I’ve run my own editing firm (McNairEdits.com), where I polish other writers’ work. Believe me, I know firsthand the problems many writers build into their ma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Testimonials
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents