Tuesday, January 29

Moving forward in the face of criticism

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 Laurel Garver
Putting ourselves out there to be evaluated by others--whether it's for critique partners or blog readers or agents and editors or the reading public--will involve risk every...

Friday, January 25

Secret or separate? Discreet and Discrete

Friday, January 25, 2013 Laurel Garver
It's Friday Phonics time, and today we will be tackling the homophone pair discreet and discrete. Mixing up these two higher-level vocabulary words is something I've seen in both...

Monday, January 21

Tips for avoiding the dreaded label "purple prose"

Monday, January 21, 2013 Laurel Garver
Today is my final installment of my series on "Reducing Bloat / Revising Overwriting." Overly elaborate diction is what most think of when they hear the term "overwriting." I'd...

Wednesday, January 16

The ties that bind: adhesive in conflict

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 Laurel Garver
Conflict should be at the core of what drives a story forward. Ah, but here's the rub: being conflict-averse and passive aggressive is far more common in real life than shouting...

Monday, January 14

Three tips for streamlining dialogue

Monday, January 14, 2013 Laurel Garver
In my ongoing series on reducing bloat (aka revising "overwriting"), we've looked at eliminating tangents and sentence-level wordiness. Today, we'll look at "sins of the...

Wednesday, January 9

How to rein in tangents: four tips

Wednesday, January 09, 2013 Laurel Garver
In my series on reducing bloat (aka revising an overwritten manuscript), today we'll be tackling tangents, a term you might associate with geometry. My MC Danielle, an gifted...

Monday, January 7

Reducing bloat: simple strategies

Monday, January 07, 2013 Laurel Garver
Many of you are revising NaNo projects and have discovered that your eagerness to hit word counts led you to create a whole lot of bloated prose. Some of the problem might be...

Friday, January 4

The heights of looking excited: using peak, peek and pique

Friday, January 04, 2013 Laurel Garver
In my continuing series Homophone Helps, we'll be looking at three sound-alikes I've frequently seen confused both online and in some self-published books. Getting a handle on...

Wednesday, January 2

Just a number?

Wednesday, January 02, 2013 Laurel Garver
Happy New Year, friends. I hadn't intended to take quite such a long blogging hiatus, but I've been battling a rather nasty respiratory virus for many weeks. Something had to...
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About Me

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City dweller, word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile. Professor's wife and mom to a young adult daughter. Follower of the Good Shepherd, who is faithful when we are faithless. My poetry and fiction explore the places where heart and soul are tested and growing up truly begins.

I'm also a freelance editor who has been editing professionally since 1991. How can I help you make your manuscript shine? Click my "editing services" tab to learn more

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