The author S.A. Joo's Writing & Editing Advice & Tips

A professional Editor www.sirraedits.com and YA Writer, represented by Black Hawk Literary Agency.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Twitter Writetip and EditTip #1




I should write a long, thoughtful blog post filled with wise and helpful writing tips. But the time eludes me...as well as logic. I'm just going to take a tweep's advice and compile those #writetip tweets of mine. Hope they help. xoxoxo
Positive #writetip If you can show me that your MC is nervous w/o using words like nervous, trepidation, anxious, antsy, you win! xoxo meow
ALWAYS check the facts right before you write. Like....WW2. You might want to google it before you refer to it as the war of the orient.
My only evil today. Before you self-pub, the best thing is to run it by an editor, preferably a human one. Just an idea. @_@
Writers. Writers. Writers. Run your MS through QUALIFIED beta readers for review, NOT your girlfriend who owes you money. #SheLied
Redundant dialogue tags-shouted loudly. cried tearfully. glared defiantly. whispered softly. crept sneakily. laugh happily #stabby #writetip
Eye-bleeding dialogue tags. Ex: "Give me the money!" He demanded. "Please." He begged. #amediting #amcutting #redundancy
Writers. Before I go back to #amediting Try the standard MS format. Indent paragraphs, not double double space. That's crazy. @_@ #writetip
All writers have to do is research. The information is everywhere! Just like single space after a period. It's not that hard.
Writing for teens doesn't mean you should butcher the language. It's condescending to your readers, you know, the teens who actually read?
Overuse of slangs & accents in dialogues doesn't make characters sound authentic. It comes off as stereotypical, 1 dimensional, & irritating.
"BTW, have you seen this? Lol." translates to someone saying, "Beeteedoubleyou, have you seen this? Elohel." DON'T BELONG IN BOOKS!! #stabby
Precisely. Don't circle around the block or give me your creds. Get to the good part. Unless you're incapable...then me gone. (This was re: prologues)
No preference. Roll over or cuddle. As long as it has closure, I can live with it. (Re: epilogues)
Major issue in 3rd POV. Head hopping. 3rd subjective, 3rd objective, or 3rd omniscient? Pick one and be consistent.
I read aloud before I edit/revise. Writers! Please use , . ! ? so I can pause to breathe. Plus, punctuation is important...so I've heard.
Writers often bleed their own life stories in their first book. Next one? Less of the real life. That makes it fiction. That makes it good.
Dialogues shouldn’t be more than 4-5 lines. Real people pause to breathe, twitch, or let others respond. Unless you're a douche. #writetip
Another repetitious word "as" Don't have the MC do or say something "as" they do or say something else ALL the time. #amediting #writetip
"She had sexy legs" is not descriptive writing. It's a "telling" summarization. It's only acceptable in your own diary. #writetip #amediting
Write down a short conversation you had w/ anyone. Read it. That's how dialogues are supposed to be written. Learn from yourself. #writetip
Writers! If ALL of your characters have funky names w/ lots of silent consonants that I can't pronounce even in my head, you're dead to me.


Thanks for reading. If you need professional editing service, click here. Happy writing~

8 comments:

  1. Funny. Am I following you on twitter? Hm. I should be.

    ReplyDelete
  2. For the redundant dialogue tags, I want to add "shrugged shoulders".

    ReplyDelete
  3. He shrugged his shoulders by moving them in upward and downward motions therefore bringing his shoulders closer to his ears.... Yeah. Overly descriptive and redundant. @_@ Thanks for all the comments, BTW!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Excellent advice! Amen especially to that condescending "teen language" ... That's one of my greatest pet peeves, when YA authors use frikkin text speech in their books! It'll be like, "And then I walked down the street and I saw my BFF holding hands with my BF and I was like WTF." Ugh.

    Lyk srsly, WTF? :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great post, really good advice.
    Oh, and @Bridid Gorry-Hines LOL!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great tips. Sometimes I wish ppl would pay attention to "Writing for teens doesn't mean you have to butcher the language."
    bethfred.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. I enjoy your #AmWriting #AmEditing #AmStabby tweets on Twitter. They are a humorous way to get an important point across to us writers. Actually, the more snarky and #Stabby, the better.

    And again I make the suggestion. Gather them up and post them as a page and just keep adding to it from time to time.

    Thanks Su.

    @scooterchicken

    ReplyDelete
  8. I just saw this--this is a great post! I love how consise it is for quick perusal. Great. I'm a big fan of your #AmStabby tweets too, btw. I think you should write a YA with a protag who talks like that. :)

    ReplyDelete