Guest post by Children's Author Anne K. Edwards
Instead of addressing the entire craft of writing in a short
post, it’s simpler going directly to a few problems that many of us encounter.
Like spelling or the misuse of words. Either of these two items will distract a
reader, perhaps completely driving them away from anything we write. Also,
there is the repetition of any word too often or the length of sentences and
paragraphs. Any one of these problems
that forces a reader to reread a passage or line for sense can cause them to
stop and not return to what the writer is trying to say, no matter if it is
fiction or nonfiction. Then too, the
stringing of prepositional phrases is often a problem we don’t see until too
late.
Any writer should be able to see such problems and correct
them before submitting to an agent, editor, or publisher. Think how difficult
it would be to have a pile of short stories, essays, articles, book manuscripts
and the like to tackle and the reading is made that much more difficult by such
errors. Most readers in those jobs will
immediately reject these items because they feel the author doesn’t know the
basic rules of writing. No writer should expect anyone else to fix their
mistakes. That is part of the craft of being an author.
Learn to self edit. Reread what you write several times,
word for word, line for line, paragraph for paragraph for such mistakes and fix
them. Read for the sense of what you say. It might just be the thing that will
get your work out of a slush pile and into the hands of someone willing to take
it to the next step in being accepted.
Any writer who wants to succeed will read and read and read,
making notes of how words are used or misused, sentence structures, and practicing
their own writing to learn the craft of writing. Do not write something once
and think it is wonderful. Be your own best critic. This is a field where your
success will depend more on yourself than anyone else.
Two real-life characters and a startling incident in their lives are the basis for Changing Places. Imagine that you are sitting on your front porch on a warm summer day with your black cat that loves to groom his fur on the rough texture of the cement. This means a lot of rolling about without looking how close to the edge of the porch he’s getting. On this particular warm day, our black cat went through his routine of enjoying the cool feel of the cement. The cat rolled and rolled right off the edge of the porch to land on a seven-foot black snake sunning itself coiled in the flower bed below. Both were so startled by this unexpected event, they fled immediately in opposite directions. It was nearly a full day before the cat could be persuaded to return to the house and nearly a month before he’d go out onto the front porch again. The cat that inspired this story did not appreciate the sound of laughter the incident provoked, nor, I’m sure, did the black snake as it a was a while before we saw him again. However, their collision did give me the germ of an idea for a short tale about what the result might have been if the cat and snake had been able to talk things over instead of running away. I enjoyed writing their story that shows the reader even if things don’t work out after talking something over, different people from different backgrounds can be friends.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anne K. Edwards resides on a farm with her husband and a bunch of cats who rule the roost. When she’s not arguing with them about using the computer, she is dancing attendance on their demands. Anne enjoys reading, meeting new people,
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