There are many, many writing conferences in the states, but some of my favorite ones are in Utah. My #1 favorite conference is usually held in May: Storymakers Conference.
This year, the conference went virtual, due to #covid19. And while I didn't get to "see" my friends I usually see once a year, I was able to 'attend' more classes than I ever did when the conference was live.
For the next couple of months, I'm going to write out my notes in, hopefully helpful, posts. These will be based on my own notes that I will try and make sense of all the words!
The Final Draft: Advanced Self-editing by Kelsy Thompson (editor)
You can edit in different ways and I'm sure I'll be posting more about editing. In Kelsey's class, she taught different levels of editing and how to self-check them.
Start by looking at your:
Narrative
Plot
Self-check:
Are your character's goals specific? Attainable (but not too easily)?
Does the story have too many or too little subplots?
Character
Self-check:
Do the characters serve the main plot?
Are supporting characters fleshed out?
Do I have too many characters?
Do they have a symbiotic relationship? Symbiosis
defines three basic relationship types occurring between living
entities: mutualism, where both species benefit; commensalism, where one
organism benefits and the other experiences no harm; and parasitism, in
which one entity benefits, sometimes at the cost of the other.
Tension
Self-check:
How does the tension flow?
Is the tension internal AND external?
Are you pulling punches to protect your character?
"In places of higher tension a very agreeable person can be put to their limit and blow up
Tension exercise:
Examine every scene, define your source of tension
Assign a level of tension 1-10 --> 1 lowest, 10 highest
This exercise should give a fresh look at the scenes and where the tension lies. Where do you need to amp up the tension or give some down time?
Subtext
Self-check:
Use incongruence as a way to 'show' there is more going on then meets the eye.
For instance, A Type A personality who is having a hard time might not shower or clean their apartment for days when upset.
Is there more happening on the page than just words?
Pacing
Self-check:
Do I have a mix of slow and fast pacing?
Are flashbacks slowing the pace?
Voice
Self-check
Am I using the right POV for my characters?
Am I carrying in sentence length?
Is my character's voice consistent?
Tone
Self-check
Do I establish tone from the first chapter and carry it through the whole story?
Does every scene have a tone?
Does every character have their own tone?
Line editing and proofreading
Self-check
Show, don't tell
Avoid adverbs
Find and crutch words
A cool way to do this is to use Wordcloud to find your crutch words and edit them for better words or take out completely. I love this idea! Look at the words of my Work In Progress and what words I need to eliminate:
The story is about Gretchen, but maybe I've used her name too much? How about 'said?' I use that a ton, as well as didn't, like, hand, head, time, etc. I'll plug those words into my 'search and find' tool in Word and see if I can cut those words or restructure the sentence to be stronger.
Proofing work
Read your manuscript out loud
The labor of editing
Let your brain rest between your editing passes
Don't edit more than a couple of hours a day
Two great editing books:
