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The manuscript is finished. Now what? Time to revise and
polish. And let me encourage you to be brutal. This is
your last chance to make the story as good as it
possibly can be before you start submitting it. You only
get one chance to impress an agent or editor. Make it
count.
Start with the beginning. Does your
opening sentence raise a question in the reader's mind,
something to hook them into reading on? If not, work on
it until it does.
Is your first chapter bogged down
with back-story? Slash it now. Hit the ground running
and don't look back. You need to know what's come
before. Your readers only need the barest hint and then
only if it's absolutely necessary for them to understand
enough to continue. Keeping your reader slightly off
balance, wondering why something is happening or why a
character is reacting in an unusual manner is a good way
to keep the pages turning. And that is your goal.
I tell my husband he married a
hooker. I'm talking about writing hooks. These are tiny
tantalizing bits of information that create a path for
your readers. If you work it right, you can literally
pull your reader forward through your story. This is
what keeps readers up nights.
Check your prose. Are you using
passive voice? Hope not. Lots of helping verbs? Weak.
Circle every word ending in "ly" and cut them till
there's no more than one or two per page. Use
descriptive verbs and nouns instead of adjectives and
adverbs.
Read your story aloud. You'll hear
the echoes of over-used words your eyes may miss. Any
sentence you have to take a breath to finish is too
long. Cut it in half.
Look at your
pages. How much white space is there? Are you too heavy
on narrative and too light on dialogue? Do you need the
tags on your dialogue or can you tell who's speaking
based on their speech patterns? Do all your characters
sound alike?
Can you smell your scenes? Have you
engaged all the senses or are you relying merely on
visual? Your reader wants to walk in the heroine's
shoes. Give her enough to know where she is and how to
feel about it.
Are you sticking with one point of
view per scene or are you popping in and out of your
character's heads so much you'll give your readers
whiplash?
Do your characters have similar
sounding names? Tolkien may have gotten away with Eowen
and Eomer, but most readers prefer not to have to work
that hard. Do your character's names start with the same
letter? For the sake of clarity, change one of them now.
Use the spell checker. I mistrust
the grammar checker, but the spell check is my friend.
When your story is polished till
you're sick of it, turn it over to someone whose
judgment you trust--generally not a relative or someone who wants to continue to sleep with
you. Don't be defensive. Prepare yourself for requests
for revisions. If you don't develop the hide of a
rhinoceros, your stay in Writerland will be painful and
brief. Accept their comments and consider them
carefully. You didn't come down the mountain with the
story carved in stone. Revise if you find you agree with
them.
Once you're satisfied your
manuscript sparkles, do your homework. Don't send it to
an editor or agent who doesn't handle your brand of
romance. Choose your targets carefully. Why set yourself
up for a 'no?'
Print it up. Say a prayer. Submit
and start working on the next one. Don't even think
about contacting them for a response before three
months. Good luck!
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