Musings Of A New Southern Man

This entry comes with a big tip of the cap to Harlan Coben, who posted on Twitter recently that he reads his manuscript aloud as the final step before submission to the publishing house. Here's a hint: It works. No, make that "it works great!" I did this on the fourth read through my novel. What an eye-opener. I think writers get so locked in on small sections of their manuscripts while doing a normal edit that they forget to look at the entire picture. It's that "can't see the forest for the trees" problem. Reading the novel aloud corrects that. Give yourself an entire day's work time to do it, if you have written a novel of any size. Here's what I found once I read aloud: The pacing wasn't right. I took too long in cutting to the chase (no pun intended). I had some great chapters that exposed my character's voice, and some backstory, that didn't need to be there. There was some good writing. I will admit that. It just didn...

I have again been less than prompt in blogging for the very reason I am writing this entry. (Well, there is that two-other-jobs thing.) I am involved in the third revision of my novel. Each revision has discovered flaws that earlier had been acceptable work. Of course, as a copy editor I see the value in revising copy. It makes the content stronger. Most of the work I do involves the nip-and-tuck of extraneous sections. I allow violations of the "show, don't tell" mandate for authors. I don't amp up my main character's emotions in the right places. I don't make him keep to a straight path when he encounters certain situations. I tighten up the conflict between MC and chief protagonist. Snip, snip, all gone. Spackle and sand, and scenes are suddenly stronger. The key element in all this is the opening chapter. Almost every agent wants to see at least the first chapter of your novel. That makes sense because a reader standing in an airport bookstore will m...