writerzitch.com

Too busy to write

Yes. I have been. And too busy to do many corrections, although I’m chipping away at my current novel WIP.

Study, and improve your style, and your writing!

One thing I have noticed, since critiquing and receiving reviews and critiques, is that my writing style has improved. For example, several people mentioned that I use adverbs and adjectives too freely, instead of describing by actions, speech, interaction, etc.

Case in point,
“He was really mad!”

“He strode across the carpet, hands in pocket, head bowed. Sweetling sat still, she’d seen Macho do that once before, and she still bore the scars from it.”

I try to strip my chapters of all ‘ly’ words. (I end up leaving a few because they ’sound right’.) I am attempting to show instead of tell. These are such basic lessons in the art of writing, yet if you don’t know it you won’t do it. You’ll tell. And tell. And tell.

I sometimes think of all the new, or wannabe writers. I was/am one. A word of advice. You HAVE to study and learn. Inspiration alone is not enough. You may be an incredibly creative writer, you may be able to catapult people to new worlds with a few dashes of your pen. But, sadly, if you don’t get the mechanics of writing down–if you don’t study, learn, and improve on your style–they won’t stay there.

Having your work critiqued is a good way of showing you what areas you need to concentrate on. Once you narrow down one, or two, or three areas; start studying. Improve. Don’t try to work on every area at once. Instead concentrate on one thing at a time. Read, re-work your manuscript, and progress!

This tip may not be helpful to all, so take it or leave it, or adapt it. I received critiques on one chapter. Rather than reworking that chapter, taking into account the areas it needed improving, and then re-posting it, I instead applied the same counsel to the next chapter. My goal was to see if I could post the next chapter and not have the readers comment, “Oh, you use way too many adjectives…”

My theory is that if I can get one weak area out of the way, I can give people a chance to look for other flaws in my writing.

“WIP”; work in progress. A progressing work.

It is soooo much easier, though, to write “He was really mad.”