No doubt you’ve seen them — the charts that allow you to get to know your novel’s characters by filling in the blanks. These charts prompt you with basic questions about each character: Siblings? Age? Education? Many writers spend hours diligently completing these charts and still don’t really know their characters.
As a developmental editor, I see many of the same issues in novel and memoir manuscripts. The good news is that none of these issues are deal breakers for your WIP. Here are the four most common problems I find in manuscripts…and a few tips to fix them.
Point of View (POV) is the framework for how your story is told. Let’s take a deeper look at how POV, perspective, and narration impact your novel or short story.
Close reading is an essential skill for all writers, allowing you to uncover how your favorite stories tick and putting those techniques to work in your own story.
We writers often think dialogue should be the easiest aspect of storytelling. After all, we talk all the time IRL. Therefore, conversations between our characters should be a no-brainer. Right? Wrong! As an editor, I find dialogue to be one of the biggest hurdles writers face and they don’t even realize it.
One of the questions writers always ask when editing their work is: where do I begin? The 31-Day Editing Challenge will help you answer that question and more!
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