I finally did it.
Today, for the first time in my life, I spelled onomatopoeia right on the first try.
If I had a nickel for every time I asked an author, "hey, did you mean to include this allegory in your work?" and got "OOPS!" in reply, I'd have a lot of nickels.
Save yourself the grief and *very carefully* examine the power structures and systems in your writing before hitting 'publish.' [3/3]
Every time I edit for a first-time novelist who writes like they have six manuscripts under their belt, I wonder what it's like to be god's favorite child, because lordddddd knows my first attempts were unfit for human consumption.
It's rare to have an entirely unique experience these days, but I'm pretty confident that I'm the first dev editor in history to work on a military/hard SF manuscript to the dulcet tunes of the string quintet arrangement of Charlie XCX's 360.
Lasers, aliens, and pizzicato, baby. #amediting
Plz understand that what you *intended* to write and what you *actually* wrote won't necessarily have 1:1 overlap. Try a thought experiment and ask yourself, "If the reader perceives these as cops, what have I said about the relationship between police, institutional power, and the citizenry?" [2/3]
Nothing encapsulates the true depth of ignorance quite like the sentence "I don't use pronouns."
We've always struggled w the difference btween "I don't think this hit the mark the creator meant" and "this isn't what I'd have done." We just get to hear more of it now bc the internet lets the discussion snowball. Before, these were one-off conversations had w annoying uncles at the dinner table.
The most important advice can I give to new (genre fic) writers is that in each scene:
1. The protag should be trying to do something
2. Something must change
There's more to it, of course, but if you lock down a sense of progression in every scene, you'll be off to a strong start.
#writesky
