Welcome to the Writing Jungle

[Lea Schizas]

As an editor for several publishing houses, I have come across tons of manuscripts where writers consistently make the same 'oops':

head hopping

passive voice

weak beginning

plot holes

and more.

What I'd like for all of us to do is help one another by posing questions so we can answer. Our responses will be a great help to many of us.

[Aidana WillowRaven]

Well, although I am not an author, but an illustrator; I have found my biggest issue when handed a new ms to illustrate, the lack of descriptive words & phrases (especially about characters & key scenes) can make it very hard for an illustrator to capture the visual accurately.

Does an editor help with those areas too?

[Lea Schizas]

An editor does help since these are areas they should be looking out for. Usually when I edit someone's ms, I look for weak areas, give them my notes, and then let the author revise and edit. This not only gives them the opportunity to learn the editing process needed but it helps to keep the ms in their own writing voice. When there are a few areas that still need tightening up, then I'll go in and finetune.

With each edit I give them at least a few examples to see what I mean by my comments so they have an opportunity to read the differences one sentence invokes compared to the other.

Lea Schizas

[Vivian Gilbert Zabel]

Why do many writers insist on using phrases and verbs such as the following:
John is working on his homework.
We sat eating our food.
We finished buying our books.

The writing is stronger if written
John works on his homework.
We ate our food.
We bought our books.

Vivian