Write what should not be forgotten.
– Isabel Allende
Author: closeupediting
Editing & Assessment Services
Writing Quote
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!
– Ray Bradbury
Writing Quote
Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.
― William Faulkner
Dealing with Rejection
One of the most difficult things for a writer is maintaining confidence in the face of rejection. There’s a lot of information and tips out there, but we like the witty advice of Chuck Wendig.
Check out this post: 25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection.
Here’s a preview:
10. Beware Snark, Reject Cruelty
Every once in a while you’ll get a mean rejection. I don’t mean a rejection that takes you to task — that’s what rejections should do. I mean a rejection that is destructive over constructive. That insults aggressively (or passive-aggressively). Maybe the editor was having a bad day. Or maybe the editor’s just a sack of dicks. Rare, but it happens. When it does: ignore and discard. You’re expected to be professional. So are they.
Special Offer
If you are just starting out as a writer, you will hear things like, ‘You must learn to handle criticism’, and ‘You must develop a thick skin to succeed as a writer.’ Is this true? Yes. But don’t let this advice instil so much fear in you that you lack the confidence to send your work to an editor, or worse, finish your piece of writing at all.
At Close-Up, we aren’t only editors, we are writers as well. We know how it feels to send your work out there. We know you’ve spent hours and hours on it, and we know how much you want to see it published.
To celebrate our second year of business, from November 1st, if you send your project to us, you will received 10% off our regular fee!
And be assured that we will treat it the way we would want our own work treated. As trained editors, we will show you how to improve your writing, and as writers, we will ensure that all advice we give you is constructive.
Ashley & Brooke
City of Masks – Print Edition Available!
Just a quick e-mail to mention that Ashley’s first novel is now available in print and ebook!
Details right here.
City of Masks Released!
Close-Up Editing’s Ashley Capes has had his novel City of Masks released!
Check out the link right here.
Sentence Structure
Here’s a link to some quick tips for improving your writing – 25 Tips to Punch up Your Writing, each with varying uses, whether fiction or non-fiction.
Number 7 on the list is easily one of the most important, whichever genre or form you’re writing in:
7. Vary sentence structure. Except when it’s to make a point, don’t repeat the same sentence structure in all your sentences. It can come across as juvenile or repetitive. For example: This is Jane. This is Dick. They are friends.
This is wonderful advice because as writers, we want our prose to flow, to be readable. We don’t want to block the reader.
We also want our sentences to have a desired effect. And that’s the key. Desired. Thus, if you’re using shorter, choppy sentences and fragments – are you doing it on purpose, in an action scene perhaps? Or by accident?
Varying sentence length and construction is the best way to avoid fatiguing the reader.
Curious about Haiku?
If you’ve ever found yourself curious about the poetic form ‘haiku’ but haven’t taken the plunge, here are some links from one of Ashley’s blogs that outline some common concepts and approaches to writing haiku:
Jake Kerr on ‘The Art of Revision’
Very simply, this is one of the best articles we’ve seen on revision.
Revision requires you to recognize a gap between what you intended and what you achieved. Closing that gap is pretty much the definition of revision. But if you recognized that gap initially, you wouldn’t have made the mistake, so I call these gaps “blind spots.” Blind spots are different than grammatical ignorance or oversight (such as using a colon wrong). Blind spots are things like weaving in a sub-plot that powers an entire character arc but that actually doesn’t exist on the page–only in your head.
My biggest personal blind spot is not being clear enough in outlining character motivation. Critique partners will often say, “I don’t understand why that happened” or “I don’t know why she did that.” Thus one of the first things I do in revision is go through and make sure all the pieces of the narrative are clearly communicated. It’s so basic, but it is something I miss all the time.
Close-Up Editing & Assessment 