Musings Of A New Southern Man

I was trained to be a journalist, using those pillars of the profession such as the five W's, the inverted pyramid style and the effective use of quotes. I just used one journalism trait called for in The Associated Press style guide. That's the omission of the Oxford comma after "style". Many copy editors and not a few literary agents throw their hands up when they see the Oxford comma omitted, but that just accents the gap between two worlds. My favorite task when I was a reporter was doing a feature story. I loved having the leeway to dive into events that shaped several people, or getting to know people who were just a tad off the standard line. The story I liked best as a young journalist was a feature on a photographer who worked along the Russian River near Guerneville, California. His business name was Tintype Gordon, and he took antique-looking photos of people, putting them in period dress so they looked like they stepped out of the 1880s. The best part of...

I spent the past two writing sessions tearing apart my latest novel. I've heard that your novel is like your child, but I've never treated any of my children the way I treated these words. I know I must change things, and I am hammering away to bolster several areas of the story. I must expand and deepen certain characters. I must heighten tension by injecting events with more life. There must be more peril. I must tighten my writing by eliminating unneeded words, phrases and sentences. The copy editor side of me loves doing that. One more beta reader has to send me a final set of reviews, but the section I am working on isn't affected. He already gave me information on the first two-thirds of the novel, so I am blending some of those recommendations into the work. I will do probably three more versions before hitting a work that I can use to approach literary agents. I apologize to, but thank profusely, those who gave their input on my first and second drafts. Your v...