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Month: May 2023

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Craft

Eight Things to Look Out for When Editing Your Writing

Post author By Rachel Grosvenor
Post date May 25, 2023
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Editing is an essential part of the creative writing process. It involves revising, proofreading, and fine-tuning your writing to improve clarity, flow, and effectiveness. Unsure what to look out for when editing? Let’s take a look together!

Repetition: read through your work and identify any repeated words, phrases, or ideas. Replace them with synonyms or rephrase the sentences.
Strengthen verbs: look for weak or generic verbs in your writing and replace them with stronger, more specific verbs.
Remove unnecessary adjectives and adverbs: check your writing for excessive use of adjectives and adverbs. Consider whether each one is essential and contributes to the overall meaning. Remove any that are redundant.
Sentence structure: varied sentence structure can keep a reader as engaged as content can. Mix shorter, punchy sentences with longer, more descriptive ones to add rhythm and keep your reader reading!
Consistency in point of view: check that you maintain a consistent point of view throughout your piece. Avoid head hopping unless this is an active narrative choice.
Dialogue: review your dialogue and remove unnecessary tags. Make sure each line of dialogue serves a purpose, either revealing something about the characters, or advancing the plot.
Show, don’t tell: identify passages where you tell the reader something dramatic instead of showing it through action, dialogue, or sensory details. Remember – there is a place for telling in your story. Click here to find out how to differentiate between show and tell, and when to do either.
Proofreading for grammar and punctuation: finally, proofread your piece for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.

Remember, great writing is often created in the editing process, so don’t be afraid to revise your work multiple times. Each round of editing will help you refine your writing.

Want to read something similar?

5 Things to Consider When Hiring an Editor
How to Edit Creative Writing for Clarity, Style and Substance
How to Find and Fix Plot Holes

If you have any questions about editing, feel free to get in touch and ask me. To learn more about the editing packages I offer, click on the editing page on my website! As a writer with a PhD, MA and BA in Creative Writing and a previous CW lecturer, I’ve done my fair share of high-level fiction editing, and have very happy testimonials. Get in touch today for dates, questions, and information. I’m always happy to chat!

Tags edit, editing, editing creative writing, help me edit, how to edit

Productivity

How I Wrote 12,000 Words in Six Days

Post author By Rachel Grosvenor
Post date May 4, 2023
No Comments on How I Wrote 12,000 Words in Six Days

I have just finished running the Writing Week Retreat with my fellow writer, editor and coach, Isobelle (of Inspired Creative Co.), and it was wonderful. We had some fantastic writers join us from around the world, and overall, the final word count for the week was over 50,000 words between us. That’s an amazing achievement for six days! Let’s talk about how we did it.

1 – Community

For me, there is nothing as powerful as community support when it comes to writing. I thrive when surrounded by writers, whether in real life or virtually, and I have witnessed the impact on others, too. During the retreat, we had two hour-long writing sprints a day. Having that dedicated time meant we could focus on our words with others.

Your Task: Find your community.

2 – Goals

My goal at the start of every hour-long writing sprint was to write as much as I knew I could – 1000 words in one hour. I know that I can write this because this is my creative data (if you’re not sure what I mean, check this blog post out!), and so I pushed myself to achieve this goal. This meant that my 12000 word achievement was my goal all along, and I am delighted to have made it!

Your task: Discover your creative data and set realistic goals.

3 – Plans

I’m a dedicated plotter, but during the retreat, I tried something completely different. I had an idea of where I wanted my story to go, and I discussed it with others, but overall I allowed myself to be a discovery writer. This means that the characters took me where they wanted to go, and out of that came a story I absolutely love. While it does differ from my original idea, I am loving the new tale, and the process is exciting and really fun.

Your task: Don’t be too rigid in terms of plans, allow yourself to discover too!

4 – Vision

To help visualise my finished book, I played with title ideas and covers on Canva. The mocked-up image is below! This sort of thing really helps when it comes to picturing the finished novel, which helps motivate me to create and write more.

Your task: Give your work in progress a title and a cover. It doesn’t have to be final.

5 – Craft

Despite having spent eight years in higher education learning the craft of Creative Writing, there is always more to learn. That’s why one of my values is education! During the retreat, Isobelle and I ran classes on everything from character arcs to raising the stakes, and our focus on that craft element helped tighten up my prose.

Your task: Don’t be afraid to improve your craft and take a class.

Are you looking for community, creativity, and craft advice? Well, stay tuned. We have more planned and can’t wait to share it with you.

If you still need to grab your copy of the Story Development Workbook (unfortunately, we have had issues with Etsy on their end!), it is now available. Click here to learn more because this workbook is jam-packed with help, and you don’t want to miss it!