Write What Your Heart Desires
Sharing my love for reading and writing with you.
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The Three "R's" of Writing
| Posted on May 21, 2012 at 10:10 AM |
There are so many things that go in to writing, I think we often get rather confused about the writing process in order to achieve our goal – whatever that might be – getting published. Writing a story for your grandchildren. There are many reasons why we want to write a story or book.
The other day I was thinking of a subject I could write on for my blog, and decided on the three “R’s”. So what are mine?
Well, my #1 “R” is read. We should all be reading books so that we can get a good idea of what publishers and readers are looking for. But we should also read our own writing before deciding to send it out there for others to read.
Now, having said that, what does this have to do with our own writing? Nothing really, other than it will help us to write a better story for the age group we want to write for.
But, what I’m talking about here is read your work out loud. How does it sound? Could it be improved? Does it flow well? Would readers enjoy reading my story?
There are many more questions we could ask while reading, but the goal here is to find any places that need some more work.
The second “R” is revise. This is an important one. The better we revise, the better our story will be when we send it away to a publisher. The last thing we want is a story filled with spelling and grammar errors (SPAG), sentences that don’t make sense. Again the list goes on. But revising will make our story the best we can get it. And in the revising process, I’ll add getting critiques from other people. You never know what someone might pick up that you’ve missed.
The third “R” is resend. Well, of course. But think about it. You’ve read your manuscript. You’ve revised all you can. And then you lay the manuscript aside and do nothing with it. Oh, they do say you should let it lie for a while, then you should read it again, then you can send it.
If you’re anything like me, sending it is probably the hardest part. This is where you lose control of your story’s destiny. But if we want to publish the story, we need to send it out there.
So in short, that is my three “R’s” of writing. Do you have any? I’d love to hear about yours.
Categories: Monday Moment, Writing
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5 Comments
The other day I was thinking of a subject I could write on for my blog, and decided on the three ?R?s?. So what are mine?
Well, my #1 ?R? is read. We should all be reading books so that we can get a good idea of what publishers and readers are looking for. But we should also read our own writing before deciding to send it out there for others to read.
Now, having said that, what does this have to do with our own writing? Nothing really, other than it will help us to write a better story for the age group we want to write for.
But, what I?m talking about here is read your work out loud. How does it sound? Could it be improved? Does it flow well? Would readers enjoy reading my story?
There are many more questions we could ask while reading, but the goal here is to find any places that need some more work.
The second ?R? is revise. This is an important one. The better we revise, the better our story will be when we send it away to a publisher. The last thing we want is a story filled with spelling and grammar errors (SPAG), sentences that don?t make sense. Again the list goes on. But revising will make our story the best we can get it. And in the revising process, I?ll add getting critiques from other people. You never know what someone might pick up that you?ve missed.
The third ?R? is resend. Well, of course. But think about it. You?ve read your manuscript. You?ve revised all you can. And then you lay the manuscript aside and do nothing with it. Oh, they do say you should let it lie for a while, then you should read it again, then you can send it.
If you?re anything like me, sending it is probably the hardest part. This is where you lose control of your story?s destiny. But if we want to publish the story, we need to send it out there.
So in short, that is my three ?R?s? of writing.
Does that not make sense or something? Is that not a logical rebuttal against how people sometimes percieve me, Terrie?
Taurean Watkins says...
I wish Reading was more fun. But it's not. Often I have to white knuckle through things and mostly read craft books and trying to keep up with publishing news, which is frankly more than I can bear knowing and most of it isn't helpful for me because it involves events I can't travel to and people or services I can't afford, and I hope you of all people get that it's "Can't Afford" not "Won't pay" because the latter implies "I'm too good for it" and many people think that when I tell them why, thinking it's just a shameful excuse, but my money is limited, and I wish people would respect that, I feel like I get misread as a lazy prick, but if it that were true, I wouldn't be so upset and hurt by it, because I would be "too self-absorbed to care" how I came off to others.
Does that not make sense or something? Is that not a logical rebuttal against how people sometimes percieve me, Terrie?
Yes this does make sense, Taurean.
kellyhashway says...
These are great R's. Reading is the best form of research, in my opinion. And revising and resending are definitely essential too.
Thanks Kelly. They just came to me the other day while I was thinking of a topic to write about.
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