Sending off First Edits to an author is always a nerve-racking experience. First Edits by their very nature are a tricky balancing act between suggesting possible changes which might improve a book and insisting on certain changes which are vital to the credibility and coherence of the work as a whole.
These changes can be straightforward: continuity problems when characters forget what they have done in the past, change their eye colour mid-novel, or even change their names half way through.
They can be dialogue-based. Every character speaks with the same voice, uses the same favourite slang word or expression, or the same grammatical constructions.
Often they are to do with the pace of the novel--no hooks at the end of chapters so no tension, too much action and no dialogue so no reader identification with the protagonists.
Sometimes, a writer has a penchant for overusing adjectives or adverbs. I have just been reading Janie Franz's Edits with LY words which makes a lot of sense.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
MuseItUp at Literary Gala
MuseItUp Publishing made its U.K. debut last month at the Literary Gala held on the Isle of Wight in aid of SSAFA Forces Help.
The Soldiers,Sailors, Airmen and Families Association this year celebrates the 125th anniversary of its founding and the Gala was held at Woodlands Vale, former home of Admiral Lord Calthorpe, a senior admiral at the time of the First World War.
Renowned for its literary connections as well as the famous pop festival of 1970, the Isle of Wight was home to famous writers from Dickens to Darwin, poets like Keats, Swinburne and Tennyson as well as Karl Marx and Queen Victoria.
But the most popular poet to spend time on the Island was perhaps Henry Wadsworth Longfellow whose poem Hiawatha (1855) celebrated the native American lifestyle. So MuseItUp's invitation to the Gala was particularly appropriate as one of our first books to come off the metaphorical presses will be Harvest Moon,the native American inspired paranormal fantasy by Krista D. Ball.
MuseItUp editor Anne Duguid brought the audience up to date with the growing market for ebooks and epublishing while Paul Armfield, songwriter, nusician and manager of Waterstone's bookstore on the Isle of Wight demonstrated the benefits and advantages of the latest e-readers.
The Gala raised £1000 for SSAFA.
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