The Dark Orchid Express

Heres a little trick to help you edit your work. Imagine that youre submitting your work for critique or publication. This can be to a book doctor, small press or agent. Now close your eyes and imagine getting negative feedback or rejection. Picture this in as much detail as you can. Now, open your eyes and write down everything they say. This is a... ctually your writers intuition telling you what aspects of your work you find to be the most problematic. Once youve done this, go through your book and copy and paste it into a new document or documents, giving it a different file name. Go through it and try to incorporate as many of these changes as you can. Note I said as many and not all, as you will undoubtedly encounter scenes where you still feel strongly that nothing should change. You should listen to your intuition about that as well. When youve changed as much as you reasonably think you can without ruining your project, and when your inner critic is more or less quiet, then youll know the piece is done. Today, I read an article that suggested writers should never base characters on themselves or people they know or, for that matter, insert their own personal experiences into their characters lives. Of course, thats absurd. For one thing, theres an extent to which you cant not do it, at least somewhat. When youre writing, even with a character wholly of your own creation, youll naturally draw upon your own experiences, either directly via autobiographical details or indirectly, through people youve known. You may not even consciously realize youre doing it until much later. Another and bigger problem, though, is that if you choose to go too far outside your wheelhouse, you better be prepared to do researchlots of it. In general, being a bit too self-referential is a much less damnable offense than writing about something of which you have very little idea and winding up with characters that are little more than stereotypes. Case in point: I was in a workshop with someone that wrote a piece about an ...Read More