The Importance of Editing

Saturday, June 16. 10 a.m., Blue Room, Visalia Library, Oak St., Visalia

Today, so many are self-publishing and too often the result is a book full of mistakes, typos and other problem. In many cases, with some good editing, the book could have been worth reading. This is one of the reasons all of us who write need to make sure our books have gone through the editing process.

If you are someone who is trying to interest and agent or an editor in taking on your book, make sure it's the best it can possible before send it off. A manuscript full of errors won't even be read through, probably not given more than a glance.

No book is perfect, even the ones put out by the big name publishers, but they have gone through the editing and copy editing process. However, you can be sure it was looked at by many eyes before it was put on the market.

No matter how you plan to publish, you want your book to be the best it can possible be.

At the meeting next Saturday, we'll go over self-editing tips. Ways to make sure you've done your job before you send it off to anyone else to have a look.

Marilyn Meredith has over 40 books published, taught writing at conferences, for Writers Digest Schools and at bookstores.

Hand-outs will be available.

Krista Lynn Shared Much Valuable Information

If you missed the last meeting, you truly missed out.

Krista Lynn shared many valuable tips about editing and much, much more.

She talked about self-publishing and how many people are going that route because many publishers are not editing or promoting. If you must do both, you might as well publish yourself.

Ways to punch up your writing:

List your characters, make sure the names aren't too similar.

Think about the setting, what is it like? You need to know where your characters are.

And your character, what kind of things do they do, do they talk a certain way, are they successful?

Go back through the manuscript and add things about the characters.

Characters must be up against conflict--have problems reaching their goals.

What does the character look like? What does he/she really want?

Pull out little characteristics--be consistent with mannerisms.

Self-edit.

Use power words.

Get rid of work like, it, that, just--and any word you use too often.

Read your manuscript out loud.

Instead of said, us something the character does instead for a dialogue tag.

Not too much back story.

She share much, much more.

Head on over to her webpage:

www.kristallynn.com

www.kristallynndesigns.com

Krista Lynn and our fearless leader, Gloria Getman.

Next Meeting for Tulare-Kings Writers

When: Saturday, March 18

Time: 10 a.m.

Where: The Blue Room, big Visalia Library, Oak St., Visalia
(The Blue Room is upstairs, you can take the elevator or stairs.)

Topic: TIPS FOR WRITERS

Multi-published author, Marilyn Meredith, will go over some often overlooked tips that will make your writing better whether you write fiction or non-fiction. Handouts will be available

Marilyn is the author of two mystery series, the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series written as Marilyn Meredith, and the Rocky Bluff P.D. series written under the name F.M. Meredith. She was an instructor for Writers Digest School for 10 years, taught writing in various other venues, and given presentations and served on panels for many writing and mystery conferences.

Her webpage is:

http://fictionforyou.com/

Blog:

http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com

She is also on Facebook and Twitter under her own name.