THE REVISION DIET - A WRITER'S GUIDE TO LOSING THE FAT by Judy Colella (snow like ashes TXT) 📖

Eyes bulging, teeth clenched, the driving instructor hissed, “What was that, Giordano?”

The boy’s grin faltered. “Uh, I was showing you I already know how to drive, Mr. Andrews.”

“Get out of this car, young man, and go sign up for Home Economics – it will be safer for everyone. And believe me, Mr. Giordano,” Jacob Andrews added, hands still gripping the edge of the dashboard, “if I ever see you driving toward me, behind me, or beside me on the regular streets, I will steer my car onto the nearest sidewalk to avoid certain death.”

Frank jammed the gearshift into Park, shook his head, and got out. In the car, Mr. Andrews willed his hands to stop shaking, noting somewhere in his rattled brain the sea of shocked faces as the other students, awaiting their turns, stared at their classmate.

Giordano snatched his backpack from the sidewalk. “What? The guy’s got no guts! I’m gonna go to a professional driving teacher.” He stomped off into the school building, nearly yanking the glass door off its hinges as he went in.

Mr. Andrews, feeling sorry for whatever “professional” instructor Giordano was going to hire, took a few deep breaths, then sat back and raised the clipboard from his lap, scanning for the next name on the list. “All I want to do right now is go home – or to a bar.” He turned off the engine, removed the key from the switch, and lowered his window. “MacDara! You’re next! Hurry up, please.” Shaking his head, the instructor closed his eyes and muttered that retirement was beginning to look better and better.

*******

Trying not to look as nervous as he felt…

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And there it is. As you can see, I changed the POV to that of the main character by inserting those cute little asterisks (known as a flourish in the publishing world), and beginning the next section from Cian’s perspective. As you can also see, the opening is way shorter than the original.

 Bottom line – there’s a good chance, unless you’re channeling Charles Dickens or Shakespeare, that your first draft will have lots of unnecessary verbiage, too many adverbs, typos, spelling snafus (for those who are saying that last group of letters as a word and wondering what the heck I mean, it’s a military acronym – SNAFU – meaning…look it up, please, or I’ll have to list this little book as being for those eighteen and older), tense errors, and POV issues.

 The only way to deal with these things is to put your book on a kind of diet. Which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that “edit” is an anagram of “diet.” Hmmm. Yes. Well, trimming the fat, so to speak, is what you’d do in either case, and as with any good diet, it takes time, patience, and understanding friends and family who are willing to deal with the inevitable mood swings.

 I hope this encourages both new and more experienced writers, and acts as a lovely splash of cold water on the fevered brows of those who just want to get their book out there and don’t think they should be bothered with editing.

 As my dad used to tell me, if something is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing right. Besides, as the poster below says (yeah, I had to hire a cockroach to read it for me), if you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

Publication Date: 02-21-2015

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To anyone who doesn't see the need to edit something at least once before posting it. ')