Edit, Edit, Edit
In the last few months, I have been freelance editing for some talented authors. I consider it an honor to be trusted with some one’s work and love to dig into the story. I can’t stress enough the importance of having your work edited before it goes to print, especially if you are self-publishing. It doesn’t matter how good you are at spelling, grammar and punctuation, as writers, we all skim over our own mistakes, seeing what should be there instead of what is actually on the page.
I love to work on first pages. Right now, I’ve got one of my clients jumping through hoops to get his first pages perfect. It’s going to make a huge difference to his readers. I also corrected some annoying punctuation habits, deleted some of the ending pages, and smoothed out a lot of clunky sentences.
Another client had left a huge hole in his story. He jumped from one point to another without any explanation of how he had gotten there. He almost missed a great opportunity to build suspense and drama. I reminded him to slow down and let the reader savor the story.
If you are ready to send something out into the publication world, perhaps you should consider another set of eyes on your work. After you have read it aloud and it is as good as you can make it, find someone to read it over one last time. You might be surprised at what they find.
