Want Your Editors to LOVE You?

I'm working on a few book editing projects and thought that I'd share some editing tips for all of you authors out there. If you REALLY want to sharpen your writing, try incorporating the following elements: 

       


 






Focus on using more strong verbs and eliminating the use of "is," "are," "be," etc. This is vital to the "hook" and readability (as well as the sales!) of your book. People want to read vivid, exciting action words. They want to be entertained and to have lots of stories/description in a book. Get a thesaurus, read through your manuscript, and replace every boring verb with a powerful one. 
 

 







Eliminate the construction of "There are/there is" as the subject and verb of a sentence. Ask yourself what the REAL subject should be. There's always a way to fix this. :) Or, I should say, you can always find a way to fix this. :)   

 
 
 




Remember to add lots of sensory/emotion words to draw in your audience. Ask yourself: What did it look like? What did it sound like? What did it taste like? What did it smell like? What did it feel like? What color was it? How did the person feel? Most book buyers are women, so work hard to make that emotional connection in every paragraph. 
      
 
 





Use more stories/illustrations if possible - at least one per page. People like to read about other people. 
      
 
 





Cut down on the number of endnotes. Most publishers are leaning toward including as much info in the text as possible to make it more reader-friendly. (Most of your readers won't take the time to turn to the back of the book to look at the endnotes, anyway.) Also, include all Bible references in the text itself rather than using footnotes or endnotes for the Scripture references. 
      


 


 



       I promise that integrating these elements into your writing will make your editors fantastically happy!