Lesson 10

Writing Class 101 by Rick Kurtis
 Editing and editors; Lesson 10
 Salutations, dear friends. I hope it has been a wonderful week for you. Hopefully you have gathered your thoughts and completed your book. Congratulations! You have finished step one with ump-teen more to go. I said we would talk about editing and editors, and this we will.

You wrote your book down on paper, or straight into the computer, and hopefully saved each time before you closed for the day. Also I hope you have it stored in the cloud program, just in case your computer crashes. I have had both happen to me. I went through the whole book, and the computer glitches out on the very last page of the very last chapter, and the whole thing disappeared, even with the cloud and auto save. I don’t know where it went. I had to go through my hand scribbles again, and reenter every single word back into my computer. I say it was the devil didn’t want my book ‘Day of the Cross’ on the market. Another time, after having fifteen books in my computer, the computer froze, fidgeted, and died. I thought my heart would stop. I still had them all on paper, but luckily they were all saved in the cloud.
Okay, back to edit. You have it in your computer. You backtracked periodically from the beginning to read through checking what we discussed before. Now, increase the magnification and start from the beginning and check it again. Go slow and read through your work out loud. Look for all punctuation's.
Remember, he said is followed by a comma, open quote, period at the end, close quote.
Comma, close quote, he said, period.
If you want he said in the middle, it depends on the phrasing.
“Rick,” she said, “don’t do that.” Or “Rick, you stink,” she said. “Why don’t you get off that chair and take a shower?” Notice that the first one is one sentence, so comma on the continuation and not capitalized. The second is two separate sentences directed to the same person, thus both are capped with a period after said.
Another one that I see a lot is, “You goofball!” she said. Or, She said, “You goofball!”  The first she said, to me, is a poor sentence. I guess you could get away with this, but it just doesn’t look right. Rephrase or juggle the words around. Get rid of said by describing ‘action,’ (note the comma inside the quote mark, periods too.) or place it in front. She said, “You goofball!” / She said, “What’s wrong?”
Some say to change the word said and some say don’t. She yelled, she blurted out, she hollered, she screamed. She gave him a disgusted look. “You goofball!” You notice how the last example I didn’t use said or any other type of word to say that she was speaking. She just spoke. I added ‘Action.’ She looked deep into his beautiful brown eyes. “What’s wrong?” The quotation marks says it all, and it brings action and emotion to your book. When editing, read one paragraph at a time, but try not to read the story. Instead, analyze it. Does each sentence flow, does it sound right? I still question myself.
Now that you have saved, and all your little minor mistakes have been corrected, go ahead and print it out. Keep it at twelve font, or even better, use fourteen font with the double space. This way you can read it again. The bigger letters help trick your mind into watching each word. If you want, start from the last page and read it backwards. I don’t mean each word, but by paragraphs. This helps to break up your mind and not really read into the story. You might be amazed at how many more mistakes you have missed.
In the white space between the words make the corrections with a red pen. This will catch your eye as you page through, while rewriting. Also make your words big and legible. I have had editors that scribbled in a small word and I didn’t know what they wrote or meant. If you feel you need to add to the story, write it on the blank backside of the page, or in the top or bottom margins. Now go back to your computer, input your corrections, and print it out, again. This time give it to a loved one, a friend who wants to help, or someone you trust and loves to read. Tell them to red mark any mistakes. I have my wife read it back to me and she catches a lot. When this is done, again, you go back to your computer and put in the corrections, and you will find even a few more that you missed as you make your final corrections.
Being an English D student and from Wisconsin, farm country, my dialect and word phrase vocabulary sounded like a hillbilly Norwegian, crossed with a Canadian, Ay, don-choo know. It has taken me a long time to even make sense out of my own sentences and still I struggle. At least you don’t have to sit looking through a dictionary while reading one of my books. Even my wife hates that with some authors that she reads.
My first editor returned my first book with so many red marks, I thought my paper was on fire. But I learned from her, and the vanity publisher editors, on what it took to polish and refine my work. My last book that was published, ‘Daniel Peters, Ace Reporter, B-29 Found’ had very little red marks. Maybe a few every ten pages, out of 260, and again, some suggested edits from the publisher which were minor. All of this helped me, so I can polish my other fifty books that are waiting to be published. I will pull out one of my writings that I did four years ago and see so many corrections I can do, now that I have learned so much more.
Writing has become a joy, which it always has been, because I started with stories and games in my own backyard for my children and grandchildren to act out, then they could relive their adventures while reading what they did.
People that have read my work have all given me high praises and have wanted more. Even my college professors, who used to work in Hollywood, encouraged me to share my work and extend to the next level. I have tried submitting to many publishers, agents, and even film producers with no success. But with today’s market of many self-publishing places, and Internet connection selling, we all have a chance of getting noticed.
So, don’t give up on your dreams. It only takes one. One person, one book, one idea, and if these steps are all in your favor, you might be the one, have the one, or find the one, who puts you over the top.
I have found that in my spare time when I’m not writing, I do word searches. This has trained my eyes and my brain to pick up on things, and has helped me with my writing, spelling, and editing. It has also helped me in seeing moves in Solitaire. Let’s get back to class.
You have read your story so many times you know it forwards and backwards. You are now ready for an editor, but we ran out of time. We’ll pick this back up next week.
May every day bring you joy and happiness, and I look forward in helping you fulfill your dream.
 
Happy Writing from rickkurtisbooks.com