First Step to publishing

Tree Top Perch | by Lee Rawn

I’ve been asked to give a workshop about the first step to publishing. In order to publish a quality book, editing is key. After your own edits and re-writes, it’s important for a professional to edit your book. By doing the initial edits and read- throughs yourself, you’ll save your editor time and yourself a bit of money as a result. 

You may be delighted with your novel after you’ve edited, but it’s still not enough. You’re too close to your story. A fresh eye is needed to catch what you’ve missed. Everyone has their own writing and editing processes. This is my initial approach:

The first paragraph is most important. If a publisher isn’t grabbed by the first few words, your manuscript is tossed into the reject pile lickety split.

If you begin your novel with a description, it had better be amazing. Look at the the first paragraphs of your favourite books. How did they pull you into the story? Action, which can include dialog, will lead the reader to paragraph two. This, obviously isn’t  a hard and fast rule, but active sentences have clout. 

If you insist on beginning your story with description, see if you can transform what you are describing into a character. Everyone knows to avoid ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ but if you write the stormy sky as a character, you’ll end up with the action after all. The clouds aren’t just raining, They’re casting lightening bolts with gleeful abandon. 

There is much to look for when editing. Starting with active rather than passive sentences is a good place to start.