The other day when I was making pizza, I went to the cupboard to find the cheese grater, but it wasn't there. Usually it's in a bowl lying down beside my braun mixer. I looked in the sink, the dishwasher, and all of the other cupboards. After five minutes of searching I asked my son to come in and see if he could find it. He opened the cupboard and there it was standing beside the bowl, but since it wasn't lying down I had failed to notice it.As I go through the edits that my beta readers have given me, I've noticed a few things. I use the phrase turned around and walked over a lot. Apparently I need to document their every move. It's funny how I couldn't see it before, even though I've read through my book numerous times. All it took was a fresh pair of eyes to notice it and point me in the right direction.
I often find it amazing how every time I read my book I can come up with better ways to say something. It makes me wonder why I didn't come up with that word the first time when it came so easily to me the second time.
Writing is a funny business, all I can hope for is to learn from my mistakes so eventually I won't make so many.
10 comments:
I do the same things. It's funny, isn't it? :-)
I use the phrase "looked away" a lot. I know I do it, and I strive not to, but it never fails that the phrase is in excess in my writing. Maybe eventually I'll stop. :)
Another set of eyes is a good thing. No matter how hard I try to catch everything in my manuscript that is amiss there is always something messed up that my beta's will pick up on.
Jen: That and walking downstairs and forgetting why I'm there are my biggest pet peeves right now.
Susan: I have a list of words I have to go do a find and edit for.
Natalie: It's amazing what you miss.
I read a blog post not long ago where the writer suggested highlighting a phrase or a certain set of words to see how often you used repetition.
Amazing exercise!
In my very first middle grade novel I used the word 'cool' 68 times. One of my later beta readers brought it to my attention.
It took me a considerable amount of time to revise all the cool's.
Tamika; That's what I plan on doing.
KM: I'm not looking forward to all the highlighting I have to do.
It is so easy to do that! Cover every breath and step, when a lot of it is just implied. I'm going to have to edit out a lot of nods in my book.
That's why once I have something in print or I post something, I can't read my own writing. I'll do the edit thing and wish I said something a different way and it will lead me to madness.
Jessie:I'm really trying to learn that you don't have to have your characters stand up and sit down all the time.
SW: I'm almost there.
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