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The Art of Self-Editing

If you want to embrace the full experience of authoring, try <i>self-editing.</i> This is the chance to examine your work from an objective point of view, something that is very difficult to develop.  Here are a few suggestions that might stimulate your editorial skills.  Set your word processor to find common words, such  as "and, then, but, or, just, so" and and remove those.  You don't need them.  Next, look for generic verbs such as "put, go, want, was, were, etc.," and replace them with specific words such as "throw, toss, meander and march," just to mention a few.  You can look up these generic words in a thesaurus and find specific words to replace them.  Generic words invariably make writing boring by their repetition and commonality, whereas specific words make your content more vivid and alive.

Another aspect of the self-editing process relates to how you organize your material.  If you're writing a book, careful consideration should be given to how you organize information.  In a work of fiction, often writers use a prologue to introduce the drama.  In non-fiction, a table of contents helps to direct readers, followed by a brief introduction.  Chapters are the life-blood of all books.  They should define a period or episode of the theme of the book.

I hope the readers of this article find this information useful.  Please help me by making comments on it.  I welcome any constructive criticism. 

  dw