Write First, Edit Later

Write First, Edit Later

You took too many English classes. Someone has told you that it’s more important to say it right than to say it at all.

Well, it is important to write correctly. It makes your communication clearer, and your reputation brighter. But it’s usually better to say what you mean poorly than to say nothing.

Why? Because once you write it, you can edit it. Or you can ask someone else to.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The first draft of anything is garbage.” Well, garbage wasn’t the word he actually used, but you get the idea. If Hemingway, one of the most influential prose writers in the English language, thought that his first drafts were garbage, you should feel just fine if that’s what your first draft looks like. Garbage is honorable. It’s hard to improve on perfection, but it’s really easy to improve on garbage. Reading it again will give you all sorts of ideas for improvement.

But, you say, Ernest Hemingway had an editor who was paid to rework his stuff. What if you don’t have anyone to revise your writing, and you’re depressed by the thought of having to do it yourself?

Let your writing sit for a while. It may make more sense if you sleep on it. Or, it may make less sense after you have slept on it. At least you’ll know which.

Find someone to read it for you, to make suggestions, or even to edit it for you. You don’t need someone who is a great writer themselves. Sometimes it’s better to find someone with nothing more than a good head on their shoulders and the ability to read English words.

Ask questions. Any sensible person can tell you if he or she understood what you wrote. And if your reader didn’t understand, ask what her or she thought you said. That will give you ideas for improvement, I assure you, depending how far off the mark they were.

Run an ad in Craigslist, offering to pay someone a small sum to edit your writing. The ad is free, it’s easy to run, and the work can be done cheaply. You may find that you get what you pay for, but you can decide how much it’s worth to you.

Find a writing critique group. Writers groups are mostly for creative writers: poets, playwrights and novelists. But for business writing, you could ask someone in your local civic club or chamber of commerce for advice.

The point is to free yourself from the worry that you’re writing in stone. You’re not. Anything you say can and should be considered changeable.

Literary Terms You Should Know

In medias res: More than literary narratives use the in medias res device, which drops audiences straight into the middle of the action and builds upon the recent past as the tale unfolds.

 

Book Cover Layout Tips by Brian Scott

Book Cover Layout Tips by Brian Scott

A survey cited by "The Wall Street Journal" says that a person who surfs the book store actually spends more time looking at the front book cover before he reads the back cover. Yes, you got it right. You should carefully think about how to design your book cover using recommended design techniques to attract buyers.

Here are some noteworthy book cover creation tips you can use.

1. The Front Cover

The front book cover showcases the title, its subtitle, and the author's name. Think of the front cover as a billboard ad displayed on one of the busiest streets in the city. Its design must express a solid message without being too flashy and fussy. The graphics should be bold, unique, and distinct. Graphics should relate to the book's content and not mislead readers. Use contrasting bold typeface as the lettering. You can use your imagination for the color scheme. The font size must be readable, even from a distance.

Poorly designed book covers will result in poor sales. The best tip is to hire a professional graphic designer who is skilled in printing, photography, software, and creative skills. Now that will truly make sense.

2. The Book Spine

The book's spine must contain the author's name, the book's title, and the publishing company's logo (if applicable). The information must be legible, uncluttered, and visibly clean. Use bold and contrasting colors for the letters.

3. Tease the Back Cover

The back cover gives you a second chance at selling your book to a potential buyer who found your front cover interesting. The back cover should tease the minds of potential buyers and persuade them to buy your book. Go for a terrific headline and advertise it to your target market, provide a brief but persuasive background of the content, include your bio-data and photo, the bar code, and the 13-digit ISBN number.


Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, you must choose the best title for your book.

4. Keep Your Book Title Short

Favor short titles instead of long titles. Short titles make a great impact. Statistics show that more readers remember a short book title instead of a long book title. Book titles don't have to form a complete sentence. Phrases, terms, fragments, or even just one word might make the perfect book title if it can fully encompass the main idea of your work.

5. Keep It Descriptive

The title of your book must mirror the idea of your book. One simple but effective example is the first book of C.S. Lewis' popular Chronicles of Narnia Series, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. With those words, you know immediately which important figures encompass the story.

You don't have to be literal all the time. Abstract ideas and allusions work as long as you can catch readers' attention and exhibit an underlying significance in hindsight. One good example is Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie.

6. Speak the Language of Your Readers

Your story's success relies on how much your readers can relate to and appreciate your book. Although this doesn't mean you have to write about situations that your readers have experienced, it does mean writing in a way that helps readers grasp your meaning. Apply the same reasoning as you develop a title for your book.

Using buzzwords are okay if you believe they're appropriate. Consider the long-term consequences of your choice. A popular term today may be obsolete in the next decade.

7. Make It Unforgettable

This is where various factors like alliteration, rhyming, choice of verbs, and even choice of language all come into play. You don't need to use complicated words; one glance at "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" proves that rather well.

If you need help creating unforgettable book titles, focus on your book's content. What ideas in your book seemed preposterous at the start, but you defended and proved your point in the end? Can you sum them up in a few words?

Ponder these important book cover creation tips and be ready to hit the market with the potential of great sales.

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7 Solutions for Repetitive Sentence Structure

7 Solutions for Repetitive Sentence Structure

It takes little time or effort to spruce up a sentence that includes repetitive-sounding phrases. Here are some examples of minor revisions that eliminate echoes of phrasing:

1. “Six models are available, from a one-bedroom bungalow for $81,000 to a three-bedroom, two-story city house for about $200,000.”

Avoid the “this for that, this for that” structure of this sentence by varying the second for phrase: “Six models are available, from an $81,000 one-bedroom bungalow to a three-bedroom, two-story city house priced in the low $200,000s.”

2. “Locations range from Sonoma, Berkeley, and Crockett in the San Francisco Bay Area to Shelter Island in Washington State.”
The “this in that” repetition here is resolved by flipping
the city/state order of the second element by using the possessive form of the larger geographic element: “Locations range from Sonoma, Berkeley, and Crockett in the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington State’s Vashon Island.”

This type of solution is often useful even when no repetition occurs; “Chicago’s downtown hub,” for example, flows more smoothly than “the downtown hub of Chicago.” (Also, note in the example above that the capitalization of state is correct; this is an anomalous usage when distinguishing between the state of Washington and Washington, DC.)

3. “Her designs include the Vitra company’s fire station in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome in London, and a tram station and car park in Strasbourg, France.”

Introducing variations in this reference to buildings in various locations reduces the number of prepositions from four to two: “Her designs include the Vitra company’s fire station, in Weil am Rhein, Germany; the Mind Zone, at London’s Millennium Dome; and a Strasbourg, France, tram station and car park.”

Note that because formal writing calls for setting off restrictive phrases — without a comma, “the Mind Zone at London’s Millennium Done,” for example, implies that other Mind Zones are to be found elsewhere — the three elements of this sentence have been separated by semicolons.

4. “The story bridges the stylistic gap between the dreams of Tim Burton and the nightmares of David Lynch.”

The fix in the second example, above, can be applied to names of people as well as those of places: “The story bridges the stylistic gap between the dreams of Tim Burton and David Lynch’s nightmares.”

5. “They range from venerable standards such as House Beautiful, with a circulation of 7.6 million, to the local up-and-comer, Dwell, with a circulation of about 250,000.”

Substitution of “which has” for a weak with and elegant variation of one word strengthens this sentence: “They range from venerable standards such as House Beautiful, with a circulation of 7.6 million, to the local up-and-comer, Dwell, which has a readership of about 250,000.”

Various revisions of the final phrase are possible. You could choose a more vivid verb and write “which boasts 250,000 readers,” for example, but be careful about weighted words such as boasts and claims. Also, in some sentences, the grammatical structure of “the 250,000-reader Dwell” is valid, but applying the template here produces awkward wording.

6. “In the white winters, you can sled or cross-country ski, or drive to the North Lake Tahoe ski resorts. In the hot, bright summers, there’s hiking through giant forests, climbing the towering Sierra Buttes, and swimming in the 130 nearby lakes. In the autumn, the deciduous trees glow with vivid fall colors, and in the spring, the masses of wildflowers create a psychedelic dreamscape.”

The repetitive “in the (noun)” introductory phrases in this paragraph are mitigated by some variety in the respective following phrases, but further differentiation is easily accomplished: “In the white winters, you can sled or cross-country ski, or drive to the North Lake Tahoe ski resorts. During the hot, bright summers, there’s hiking through giant forests, climbing the towering Sierra Buttes, and swimming in the 130 nearby lakes. Come autumn, the deciduous trees glow with vivid fall colors, and when spring arrives, the masses of wildflowers create a psychedelic dreamscape.”

7. “She says that over the past month, she’s made over 350 calls on her cell phone.”

Avoid using a word more than once in a sentence, especially if it has different meanings each time: “She says that over the past month, she’s made more than 350 calls on her cell phone.” (But generally, when you come across over used in the sense of “more than,” don’t automatically correct it unless your workplace’s style guide mandates it. If you believe that over, as an alternative to “more than,” is not valid, get over it: Many usage manuals and style guides accept either term to mean “in excess of.”)

Literary Terms to Know

Humours: Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the human body to be comprised of four humours — blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm — that corresponded with different personality types, seasons, organs and elements. It’s pretty much accepted as complete scientific doodie by now, but the concept has left an indelible impression on literary history all the same.

Tips on Writing a Book

1.       When I’m writing a book I only read other books that somehow inform my book. If it doesn’t serve my process — no matter how much I want to read it — I don’t. I suspect there are a lot of people who will give the opposite opinion (take a break from reading about your subject matter, etc.), but I’m not one of them. This is your time to be completely and justifiably obsessed. So go ahead — bask in the madness.

2.      Non-fiction shouldn’t mean poorly written. Writing is writing and art always counts. Make your book beautiful to read and you’re more likely to communicate your messages to your reader.

3.      Don’t focus on the promotional aspects of social media. Just share your passion for the subject matter as it filters through your writing process. The promotion aspect will be an organic extension of your passion.

BEWARE OF WORKING TITLES

BEWARE OF WORKING TITLES by Dan Poynter 

Be careful what you make permanent. Working titles are dangerous. They can become too familiar to us while being misleading or meaningless to potential customers.

Choices, a Teen Woman's Journal for Self-awareness and Personal Planning was a hot seller and spawned a publishing company as a subsidiary for the Girls Club of Santa Barbara. The company thrived but soon found that Choices could not be used in schools unless there was a version for the boys. So the authors, Mindy Bingham, Sandy Stryker and Judy Edmonson, wrote a matching masculine edition.

Working titles ranged from Choices II, to Choices Too, and even Son of Choices. What sounded ridiculous or humorous in the beginning became familiar and sounded fairly good.

Finally the three female authors settled on Changes but found that men did not like the proposed title. After discussions with a number of men (including Mindy's father), they agreed to change the title to Challenges, a Teen Man's Journal for Self-awareness and Personal Planning. The female authors discovered that while many women want a change, most men do not like change. Men prefer challenges. http://www.academicinnovations.com

The title must be easy to remember and easy to say. It has to grab the attention of the potential buyer and it must project an image the buyer can relate to. Authors and publishers often argue over titles. Authors may be closer to the subject matter and publishers may be closer to the buyers.

Authors, as a rule, are poor judges of titles and often go for the cute or clever rather than the practical. ~ Nat Bodian, The Joy of Publishing

So far Choices has sold over one million copies and Challenges over a half million. They are used side-by-side in many schools. A "working title" is for the manuscript, not necessarily for the book.

Dan Poynter has written more than 100 books since 1969 including Writing Nonfiction and The Self-Publishing Manual. He is past-chair of NSA's Writer-Publisher PEG and the founder of the PEG newsletter.