Writers Tip #2

!!! Avoid my mistakes !!!

Along my journey I have had several steep learning curves.

There was a quote from one of my favourite movies, and it goes something like ‘Assumption, is the mother of all f#*k ups!"‘

I assumed that when I sent off a draft to a self-publishing company, that it would return perfect, without any mistakes. Well my friends, it did!

Grammar still needed work, character spacing was wrong, and strangely they couldn’t distinguish between ‘Prologue’ and ‘Epilogue.’

That said, there are a couple of ways to help yourself avoid my mistakes -

BETA Readers - If you are fortunate enough to have some friends who read regularly, then ask them if they wouldn’t mind taking a look at your work. This can be done before and after editing. I have found that not only does this help with plot holes, but getting a second pair of eyes help capture other mistakes as well.

Reading/ listing to other works -

I know this sounds like an obvious one, but trust me, try giving this a go.

Try reading/ listening a piece of work that you like. One or two chapters will do fine. Except this time, try focusing on how it is pieced together. Focus on the construction of a sentence or paragraph. Try to get a feel of what is actually happening on the page.

Try these steps and let me know how it worked for you.