#lazyhazydaysofsummer

June 26, 2017:  

I heard back from my Editor! Eight weeks after the last email, a file dropped into Dropbox. It just magically appeared. I couldn’t wait to dig in; unfortunately, I had to. After work, I eagerly opened the document to find wonderful little suggestions from my Editor--sometimes a better choice of words, a clearer sentence, and even in one case, pointing out something that didn’t work. So I jumped into the deep end on my second revision. What kind of mistakes, you ask? Silly ones.

I used two different verb tenses--past and present--in same sentence. Going forward, during the proofing stage, I will circle every verb with a pen to check and double-check the tense.

 A couple of times, I slipped out of voice for one of my characters--my Editor pointed out a particular sentence sounded more like Mom; another time, he said it sounded more like me. Note to self: read each character’s dialog out loud, beginning to end, and ask: how would he/she say this? Is that the word he/she would use? Does this sound right for his/her age group?

Another time, I just allowed a character to vanish without telling the reader what happened to her. Here one minute, gone the next--which is what I had Mom say when she resurfaced. Then I let that particular character explain what had happened to her. Brilliant on my part! (We’ll see if my Editor agrees!!) Another rule to follow: at the end of the story, ask yourself three things about each character:

1.      What do they contribute to the story?

2.      Did I tie up his/her story line?

3.      Are all his/her scenes as believable as possible?

If any of those answers are “no,” you’ve got more work to do.