Good morning.
I try to review a piece every day, to grow my networking, to sharpen my skills and to help others. It seems I'm better at reviewing other people’s work than my own. It amazes me how long a missing or wrong word can remain before anyone notices. I've found them in pieces reviewed twenty or more times over multiple years.
The technique I use for reviewing is as follows:
· I begin with a gross edit using MS Word, and then post the work on FanStory. I like their editors, which convert pieces to HTML very conveniently.
· Then, I read the posted writing and edit both the word and posted document as I work through it.
· Next, I print a copy from Word and edit from the printed copy. (I only afford the luxury of printed reviews for my own works.) I believe that reading from different medias helps me catch stuff. Of course,
· I use the Word spell checker and any help I can get.
· Finally, I keep a spreadsheet of my own systematic failings such as excessive exclamation marks and overused words, and I check my work for those items on a checklist that also includes missing quotes. I’d love to hear what methods others use.
I have also found that a review of the basics every few years is very useful. I just re-read Elements of Style by Strunk and White and am beginning on Show Don’t Tell by William Noble. I plan to complete the cycle with The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman, Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain, On Writing by Stephen King and Eats Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. I’d love to hear which books others have found helpful through the learning process.
I actively post my work at the Online Writer’s Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror and have a few items on Writing.com.
So, in summary, I review other people’s work routinely, use a method and am trying to stay knowledgeable.
Let me know what you think.
Good writing,
Larry
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I like your comment about reviewing the basics every so often, and I think it applies to almost every field of learning. Expertise is learning the basics thoroughly, then learning the cases where they don't apply. The latter is an ongoing process during which we often lose track of how it all began...
ReplyDeleteBut as for how to do an actual review, I prefer to tailor that to the piece being reviewed, as I was never able to find a formula that can be successfully applied to everything.
Hi Larry,
ReplyDeleteI find that to properly review a piece I have to read it and then let it sit for at least an hour, if not two, before rereading it. This lets my subconscious mull on the text. Quite often it will shout out loudly during that hour about a problem with the timing or logic in the piece that I hadn't noticed when reading. However, more importantly it helps pick up subtle issues when I do do the reread.
Another thing I find useful is reading the text aloud. You don't even have to be reading it to someone else. Just the process of articulation helps to pickup problems that the eye will skip over.
Anyway, good luck with the site. I'll try to pop in every now and then, but I'm getting stretched quite thin at the moment with all the web sites and podcasts I should be visiting. Currently, I'm spending most of my time on an Australian Speculative Fiction Community website called 'A Writer Goes On A Journey', where I'm actually one of the staff (or minions, if you like).
Drop by and have a look.
Phill Berrie.
P.S. Site URL: http://awritergoesonajourney.com/
Larry,
ReplyDeleteI found "Self Editing for Fiction Writers" by Browne and King a great resource for editing. Also, listening to the words on a text to speech program helps find misspellings and missing words, but you have to be able to listen to a story in a semi-robotic voice.
Cheers,
NewGuyDave
Reviewing has always been a tricky business. Many writers are so sensitive about their 'babies' that no matter what you say or how you say it, they could take it wrongly. I'm not of the school of thought that 'harsher is better for the writer'. To me, that is detrimental and not encouraging. Growing a thick skin? Heh. Let's see. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and how you take those opinions is very individual. Some folk just have a knack of getting others' backs up even when they truly don't mean to.
ReplyDeleteFor me there are several factors when reviewing others' work. How far along they are on their learning curve, what draft the work is, how much is a person willing to listen. Then what has to be taken into account is your own learning curve. Are you honestly qualified to give certain pieces of advice or are you just quoting what others have said?
For example, when you start quoting 'rules' you are already in deep water, because out there somewhere is a published writer who has broken every one of those 'rules'.
I look at a writing piece for energy, interest and *story*. If the story is good (enthralling) a writer can make any number of 'mistakes' and a reader will pass over them.
I feel that you have to get the story/plot right before you start getting into the mechanics. Unless a writer is a total newbie and 'loses' the story in really terrible prose. Because then, what point in having a damned good story if it is unreadable?
What do I mean by unreadable? I mean wooden sentences, sentences which don't even make sense, dull verbs, telling etc. All the tools in our arsenals that we didn't know about either when we started out.
You don't have to be harsh to convey that to a new writer. You definitely don't have to be sarcastic. We were all there once. None of us were born knowing 'how' to write in a way that appeals to many. We can all write. It depends who we are writing for.
Sue Curnow