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3 Important Line Edits to Make Your Writing Shine

Ah, the line edit: one of the least favorite duties of any writer.

As off-putting as it may be, the line edit is, nevertheless, the point at which your rough first draft starts to present itself as a cleaner, more involving and enjoyable reading experience.

But line editing isn’t just one single task all by itself. Rather, it’s a venerable smorgasbord of jobs – checking for errors in grammar and punctuation, tracking down passive voice, investigating overblown dialogue tags, weeding out redundancies and repetitive phrasing…

The list goes on and on.

Using a grammar checker and editing tool like AutoCrit is a helpful way to ease the editing process, especially when it comes to line edits. AutoCrit analyzes your manuscript to identify areas for improvement, including pacing and momentum, dialogue, strong writing, word choice and repetition. For an in-depth explainer of AutoCrit’s free and premium versions, check out our full AutoCrit review.

Here are the top three line edits you can perform to get maximum benefit in minimum time – so you can have a happier time crafting that second draft.

Now, let’s make that writing shine with these editing tips.

1. Swap out adverbs

This is a cornerstone of any creative writing tuition, and for good reason. Adverbs – those modifiers we often fall back on to try and pack some extra information into our prose – are a crutch that you would do well to leave behind.

You can immediately lend greater weight to your words, and create a smoother reading experience, by substituting the vast majority of adverb combinations for a single stronger verb or adjective.

For example, you could say something was extremely loud. Or, perhaps, it would be more powerful if it were to be deafening.

A person or thing might be really big. Or maybe your reader might feel more intimidated if that person or thing were gigantic instead.

There’s a huge range of possibilities when it comes to getting rid of adverbs, and almost every substitution is guaranteed to elicit a far greater response in the imagination of your reader.

Weeding out adverbs also has the beneficial effect of making your passages leaner, meaning simpler management of pace and cadence (a benefit for you) and more effortless reading for your audience. So it’s a win-win!

2. Eliminate filler words

One of the easiest tasks during any line edit, eliminating filler is a process that shouldn’t be skipped.

Filler words bog down sentences, belabor paragraphs and pad out pages entirely unnecessarily. This makes your writing take much more attention and mental effort to read than is justifiable.

The last thing you want is for a reader to realize they’ve just waded through two pages of prose and gained next to no worthwhile information. Yawn!

Some of the most common filler words to look out for are:

  • Just
  • Really
  • Very
  • That
  • Then
  • Even

Check your writing to see if instances of these words can be removed without lowering comprehension. If the sentence works just fine without them, the filler words can go.

This step makes for a simple big win during the editing process – because even if you don’t make use of editing software, it’s still easy to perform a manual search inside any modern word processing program and be on your way to a perfect economy of words.

3. Investigate sentence starters

Sentence starters are quite an uncommon factor when thinking about your line edit – but the impact of taking them into account can be magnificent.

Check, in particular, for sentences that begin with a pronoun, character name or conjunction.

When describing the actions of a character throughout a passage, it’s often tempting to start with the character name before progressing with he/she did this, then he/she did that, and continuing along the same path.

This can lead to unintended repetition, as the actions arrive staccato:

Greg opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He blinked slowly, trying to clear the fog from his vision. He looked to his side, where the alarm clock read a quarter past seven. He rolled onto his side and groaned. Here we go again, he thought.

When you pay attention to how sentences start, it makes you think more closely about alternative constructions that might be smoother to read, more interesting in terms of rhythm or that could offer more opportunity to build setting or character.

Let’s say we’d read that example in our first draft. There’s a lot of he starting sentences there, so it could definitely do with a bit of modification:

Greg opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Groggy, he blinked a few times in an effort to clear the haze from his vision. Once he could focus, he turned his head to the side and glanced at the alarm clock. A quarter past seven. He rolled onto his side and groaned in futile defiance. Here we go again.

How a sentence starts can dictate how it will end and/or limit what it may contain – the stage is set in the beginning, so take some time to look at your sentence starters as anchor points for information. Are they causing you to lose opportunities for a more involving, imaginative read?

At AutoCrit, our investigations into a wide range of bestselling novels afford us unrivaled insight into their construction. Here are some statistical readings from various titles that show the percentage of sentences within the manuscript that begin with a pronoun or character name. 

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: 48.85%

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin: 45.66%

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin: 46.60%

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin: 46.11%

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin: 41.74%

The Martian by Andy Weir: 42.85%

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins : 40.05%

The Next Always by Nora Roberts: 52.34%

Pet Sematary by Stephen King: 49.20%

Misery by Stephen King: 45.85%

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: 45.39%

The numbers are remarkably similar, with it being a rarity for a successful, published novel to contain more than 50% of sentences beginning with a pronoun or name. Do your stories follow the same trend? 

The first edit of a first draft can be a rocky time, so prioritize these three line edits for your next manuscript and feel your confidence rise more quickly than you’d expect.

Do you agree with our top choices? Share your most impactful edits in the comments below.

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Photo via JKstock / Shutterstock 

The post 3 Important Line Edits to Make Your Writing Shine appeared first on The Write Life.

8 Books to Take You Back to the 1980s

Ah, the 1980s. New Wave, post-punk, huge hair, the brat pack. Dancing next to Grace Jones at AREA, eating at The Empire Diner at 4 a.m., and spying artist Keith Haring drawing on New York subway walls with chalk. The ’80s was an age of fantasy and freedom. So why are novels set in the 1980s so sad? Because beneath a veneer of hedonism and fun, the 1980s was an era of intractable social stratification, racism, and thousands of deaths from AIDS. There was little sympathy in the air—the 1980s was a materialistic, cynical, and mean decade. Television shows like Dynasty and Dallas glamorized corruption and competition. Reagan’s trickle-down economics and tax cuts for the 1% sharpened the divide between the haves and the have-nots. It is chilling and inevitable to compare the US government’s reaction to AIDS to COVID-19. Just as the Trump administration has allowed the virus to run rampant and to ravage the U.S., the Reagan administration denied AIDS as a health crisis for most of the decade.

Age of Consent by Amanda Brainerd

I was a teenager in the 80s, and in my novel, Age of Consent, I explore themes from the decade through the lens of my teenage characters. My protagonist, Justine Rubin, a Jewish scholarship student from an intellectual but impoverished family, arrives at boarding school in Connecticut. Justine befriends Eve Shapiro, a sheltered girl from a wealthy New York family. Both Jewish, they hail from different backgrounds, yet forge a deep friendship. Justine must navigate complex class hierarchies, and slowly learns the nuances between the wealth of the Upper East Side and Soho and how her friends Eve, India and Clay fit into this unfamiliar class and wealth puzzle. The novel is set in 1983 when the United States was in the grip of AIDS but in deep denial. 

February Grace Notes | Mac's Backs-Books on Coventry

The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels 

Sickels’ novel is a beautiful and poignant portrait of a young man returning to die in the rural community that rejected him. It is a new kind of portrait of the AIDS crisis, told as a closely observed family drama.

Christodora by Tim Murphy

The Christadora is a famous apartment building in NYC’s East Village, and its evolution from a squat to luxury apartments has become a symbol of the neighborhood’s gentrification. This ambitious novel moves between the Tompkins Square riots of the 1980s, which were aimed at eliciting a proper governmental response to AIDS, to the glass high rises of today. Murphy paints a compelling picture of the community of activists that transformed queer life in the 1980s, and the people who stood in solidarity to show the world that AIDS was a disease that affected more than just gay men. 

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

An intimate portrait of the wealthy Black community in the Hamptons, Whitehead’s coming of age novel is set in 1985 and follows 15-year-old Benji during a summer in Sag Harbor at his moneyed parents’ house. Growing up, I was keenly aware of the racism and anti-Semitism in the Hamptons, which was the New York City version writ large, fueled by money and hidden behind private hedges. 

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

This is a tale of the bond between two teenage girls from the projects, and the story of how friendship can tether us to home and comfort even if we travel far away.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carola Rifka Blunt

Another beautiful and personal story of loss. June adores her uncle Finn, a successful artist. When he dies of a mysterious disease that June’s mother cannot bear to name, June sees a strange man hanging around Finn’s funeral. A few days later, she receives her uncle’s teapot, with a note from this man, Toby, her uncle’s lover. June and Toby form an unlikely friendship, sharing stories and memories of Finn in order to heal, while June’s sister Greta is unraveling. 

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Woodson’s glorious story of an unexpected teen pregnancy bursts with stunning prose. The story revolves around Iris, a Black teen from a prosperous family, and Aubrey, the son of a struggling single mother. When Iris gets pregnant, the story explodes, divides, and mutates. Woodson examines the choices we make and the ripples that never dissipate.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

An exquisite coming of age novel is set in a rural British village in the 1980s. The novel is composed of thirteen chapters that stand alone as stories themselves. I loved the precocious voice of 13-year-old Jason, and how Mitchell portrays the world, once magical, sometimes macabre, through Jason’s young eyes.

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Gaitskill is a master of the deadpan. But beneath her vicious descriptions of cruelty, debauchery, and self-harm, lies a tenderness towards her characters, which once discovered is all the more incisive. Veronica alternates between the present and the past of the 1980s, a narrative that the New York Times accurately described as a “’where are they now’ for the Nan Goldin crew.”

The post 8 Books to Take You Back to the 1980s appeared first on Electric Literature.

Here’s What’s On Your Favorite Authors’ Bookshelves Right Now | Writer’s Relief

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Here’s What’s On Your Favorite Authors Bookshelves Right Now | Writer’s Relief

Over the past few months, we’ve all had more time to read—including famous authors! In this article on LitHub.com, Writer’s Relief found a great list of all the books your favorite authors are reading right now. For instance, Anne Tyler is spending her time reading Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples and Alexander McCall Smith has been enjoying the Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh. You may be surprised by what’s on Judy Blume’s bookshelf!

You can see the complete list of books that 100 authors are reading here.

 

The Brothers Grimm: A New Translation

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys a new translation of the classic fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm Snow White, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and Rumpelstiltskin: these names are among those we meet during our earliest years, with the stories they summon never leaving […]

The post The Brothers Grimm: A New Translation appeared first on Interesting Literature.

Amnion

1
My parents collided on opposing bicycles outside the Radcliffe Camera. They were married on a grey Westminster morning. They ate grapes afterwards.

 

2
I remember my first encounter with a cathedral: the Parvis de Notre-Dame in the rain. I was a small pink anorak. I was looking at a skyscraper studded with kings. Unfathomable to me that a skyscraper should be so old.

(A fathom is the distance between the outstretched hands. I was a small pink anorak and I could not embrace the skyscraper of kings).

 

3
My mother was born on the Sahara’s edge:
blonde, with blue eyes in the dark hands
of the doctor who slapped her
to breath.

 

4
In 1986 my mother slowed to avoid but did not: instead bumping, and falling
almost as an afterthought.

 

5
My father was born on an island brushed by the hem of the monsoon.

 

6
In the beginning, the begetting. Leda, Mary, Igrayne, the Sabines, the mothers of Theseus and Heracles: blessed among women.
One of this story’s beginnings takes place in my grandmother’s nineteen-year-old body. This was a body into which the catechism had been carved so as to keep it blank. She knew nothing of men and their urges. We think.

 

7
room 10a of the British Museum: considered the sport of kings,

 

8
My grandmother was nineteen when she went down on her back
not knowing why –
the islands,
her hacienda on a hill,
and her pearls from the boy
who later gave her
two black eyes.

 

9
They tell me you would have married pink
to have a cook bring you rice, sticky in banana leaves;
had you not moved wetly
with the black-pearl boy who didn’t
really want you.

 

10
Two black eyes
held wet and shining
In the palms of the hands –

so you were sent away –
and came back with two black eyes
and a baby boy

 

11
(Portuguese Beach, Mendocino, 1997)
I was a mop of dark curls skinned soft with love. I was cramming my pockets with sea-glass until my yellow mac sagged. There was my mother, splintering the sun with her head, and there was my father walking silent on the sand.

 

12
Colossal marble statue of a recumbent lion;
carved with inlaid eyes
originally probably of glass

now missing.

13
The Lion of Knidos’s empty sockets would have held eyes of glass
to help ships off Halikarnassus
Weighing twelve tons,
it sits ironic in the inky heart
of London

an emblem of empire,
blind.

 

14
When the Wall fell my mother was twenty-one and she cried because this was the end of the world as she had always known it.

 

15
In the place where I grew up there were horses, thighs moving like nudity under their fur
the pigeons are clattering into the heights now
(in the British Museum there are shards of horse)
(in the British Museum there is a blind lion)
My grandfather collected lions.

 

16
Empires fall like milk teeth.

 

*

 

1
To the school: I am delivered. A three hour drive north, through a valed land replete with cathedrals. There is Amiens, with its traces of paint, still;
and Chartres of the windows;
Beauvais, unfinished – thrice its spire fell through; now it is braced with wooden beams: on crutches. It boasts the highest clerestory in Europe, it smells of mouldering stone.
Rheims where are buried the kings; Coulombs which boasts the pecker-piece of the Saviour.
Under the Channel, to burst forth near a hill where runs a horse white in chalk.
Past Dover, the cliffs, so famed for smuggling and the welcoming sight to those from Dunkirk (I remember that boat, smallest to answer the call.)
(Named Tamzine, it lies on the floor of the museum for imperial war).
The school is of flint and brick, it too has a cathedral.

At the boarding house, which is new, but built out of the ruins of the old infirmary ten centuries old, another mother is wearing a poncho. She asks where we’re from, how we got here. At my mother’s reply (the Eurotunnel) she says Oh well you will have come in under our land then.

I am unpacked and stowed away.

Later that night, the others start to arrive. There are five blondes in a total of twelve. There is lacrosse gear and lurid pink mouthguards. Their jeans are different from mine (tighter). I have never seen so many sets of big breasts. Their hair is midlength (it swishes). Their clothes are all somehow the same.

– Are you rich?
(The others wait politely for my reply)

 

2
What is a woman?
An invitation to interpretation.

What is a book?
An invitation to identify.

What is a cathedral?
A show of force.

What is an island?
A thing of limits,
which likes to think it knows
where it begins and ends
not bleeding into others
a tamper-evident opening
tear here
the egregious arrogance of this self-ensconcing country!

 

3
They were confirmed so as to be gifted hoops and cufflinks of white gold.
Common prayers.
They wanted to marry in squat flint churches, as if they were tourists, with big white dresses, as if they were cakes.
I do not want your noncommittal creed thank you.

 

4
Once a month came round
the zinc smell in the corridors, of all our clumping blood in bins.

 

5
In the run of evenings the flatline pallid blue shaded to plum and Bell Harry kept thrusting up:
centrifugal, unrenounced.

 

6
I am English en-lessoned. The teacher is teaching us ‘The Flea’.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed . . . w’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet
I think of a bed: one of those little beds, short and tight in stately homes. Thick-curtained against the cold. This seemed to me at the time of my buttressing in pinstripes, to be something rich and strange I wished to know.
buttress, n.: a structure of stone or brick built against a wall to strengthen or support it
buttress, v.: increase the strength or justification for; reinforce.
In the great age of cathedrals, flying buttresses were instated to counteract the lateral forces of high walls and naves, which would seek to burst open.
They were like ribs –
A universe so newly heliocentric. How afraid he must have been.
Then there was
Lay your sleeping head, my love, / Human on my faithless arm;
(how often I would think of that in the grey half-heart of a Wednesday dawning)

 

7
When the parents came, they were loud.
They came two by two in pairs of Sunday-lunching racists.
The fathers wore trousers the colour of rare meat.
(A hunk of roast beef seeping)
(banking on things in the city)
(with flats, useful for unfaithing.)
Their wives stayed at home, in the counties. Maybe they were lonely, and screamed
themselves hoarse in the cut-stone quiet of their houses.
These marriages seemed structures of mutual scorn.
Watching them made me flush hot with fear that this was coming for me and sent me knockkneed to hide.
Their days of barboured torpor; the cream-coloured afternoons –

 

8
One night, towards the end (when I could afford, increasingly, to laugh at them openly), at tea (never since have I called it that, for if there is one thing I hate it is a wasted euphemism):
dwarfs all look the same
what?
yeah, like, to the untrained eye, all Asians look alike
yes, it’s easier to differentiate between black people
I tugged hard on a sharp laugh
Stephanie is ethnic, this upsets her more
(I did it again, this red cord conversationally dangling)
(Their names, improbably, rhymed)
& no nurse came tap-tap running down the corridor to administer.

 

9
When the United States came knocking for its foothold in the ironically named Pacific in 1903
a member of my family sold some several thousand hectares near Subic Bay
for an airbase which would be named for the clean-jawed Clark.
wherefrom was eventually waged most of the bombing of Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos.
Historians refer to the base as having been a backbone of logistical support for Kissinger’s crimes.

Nine hours after what happened at Pearl Harbour,
Clark Field would be bombed by the Japanese and subsequently overrun
like time running over, like water flowing over a cup.
If you are familiar with the name Douglas MacArthur, hq’d here at the butting-place, you should know also of the names and their lilts, linked like a necklace of beads across the dateline
in the order of the dawn: Wake, Guam, Davao, Baguio.
MacArthur getting off lightly, giving his name to transit stops and avenues,
and us to this day gummy in our ignorance
of Guam.

 

These poems are taken from a full-length work titled Amnion

Photograph © Didier Jordana

The post Amnion appeared first on Granta.