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ery interesting series of blog entries about revising fiction over on WRITE NOW, Steven R. Boyett's blog about writing and a zillion other things. We writers spend hours and hours (and drafts) poring over our latest novel or short piece, trying to refine it and make the finished product come even close to that radiant vision that flashed through our imagination.
You edit for spelling, typos, grammar and style. You edit for tone and the voice of each character. You edit for pacing and crispness of dialog. You omit needless words and prune "the fact that" as often as possible to appease the ghosts of messrs. Strunk and White. You drive a stake through the undead heart of the passive voice.
You edit, and edit and edit. Isaac Asimov once claimed in an interview that he never edited his multitude of stories and novels. Just wrote them and, bam, done. I tend to believe this was a bit of self-PR. Or perhaps my memory is bad. It’s hard to imagine someone able to do that. Gort, maybe, or Kal-El.
Steven Boyett is an accomplished short story and novel author, well worth checking out.
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