There was a brilliant sounding book in the papers by Sarah Newman and Howard Mittelmark, two American authors. They identify 200 'mistakes' made by unpublished writers. They speak mainly from 30 years experience of teaching creative writing and evaluating emerging writers' manuscripts.
Compare and contrast with the list of reason to reject submissions after one page from the scarily honest agent's blog Author Author Then read her subsequent posts examining each group of rejection reasons in detail. Actually these would make a great book...
Anyway, back to the book in question. I love this rule
If you have thought twice and the exclamation mark (point) is still there, think about it three times or however many times it takes until you delete it.
Like totally! Justification for leaving one or two in? - a piece mimicing a teenagers blog entry.
Also read here from New Scientist September 21st entry.
More later.
1 comment:
A thought provoking title. Also attracted my attention.
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