Loft Literary Center: Be Your Own Editor
Be Your Own Editor: When it's time to listen to your inner critic, make sure it gives you constructive criticism. This class walks you through questions and techniques you can use to improve your prose draft (fiction or nonfiction).
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Writers will receive tools to better edit their own work.
What did participants learn?
To feel the push that a story must be shared
Learning to relate and apply key editing concepts and processes to my own book-in-progress
Many helpful reminders
Where the line is o leave out parts, people, skip unnecessary details. How to break editing down. Not so overwhelmed by the task now.
How to drive our characters to a breaking point. How to sit in on scenes. Have [mental, emotional, physical or ideological] conflict in every scene or every page.
It reminded me of the many ways I need to evaluate my manuscript. She made it possible for me to create a set of whiteboard visuals of my story, graphing her advice for my story in real time. Wow.
I learned how to edit for story structure.
I learned more about story arc, structure, and good techniques for dialogue; using active verbs.
Very good: How to set up your story or book, writing structure for the story.
A good review of the writing and editing process by an effective speaker prepared with examples and references to highlight each point of the lecture.
Reminded I need to realize every page needs to be edited: for story arc, tightness; has the plot moved forward? Has this been said before?