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Yes, I have decided to make another change to this blog. On Monday, a librarian contacted me about one of my posts in my “Thursday’s Thoughts, Questions, & Comments About Writing” category. Our communication prompted me to do two things:

1) On August 20, 2020, I had written a blog post entitled “Writing Resources” under the “Thursday’s Thoughts, Questions, & Comments About Writing” category. A librarian contacted me about that post. She also suggested another writing resource to add to my list. A fellow librarian, who does a lot of writing, suggested it. Therefore, I added the suggested resource, put that post under the new heading, and create a button for it, at the top of my website, so all writers and authors will be able to find it with ease.

2) This wasn’t the first time I’d been contacted about something I’d posted under that category, and since I’m still writing and am now an author, I decided it would be good to start writing and posting articles in that category again. Therefore, Thursdays are going back to “Thursday’s Thoughts, Questions, & Comments About Writing”, starting today.

If you enjoy the Places, Plants, & Animals posts, don’t worry, they’ll still be here, but I’m moving them to Fridays. That means I will do my best to post here Monday through Friday each week.

So my writing topic today is “the importance of critique partners and editors”. With the ease of independently publishing on Amazon, there are writers who believe they can write, revise, and edit their own book, then publish it without having to have anyone else go over it, especially since the majority of professional editors charge three or four cents per word.

If you write an average length book of 85,000 words, and your editor charges three cents per word, that’s $2,550. If your editor charges four cents per word, it’s $3,400. If you write an average fantasy book of 100,000 words, at four cents a word, that’s $4,000. Let’s face it, new writers can’t afford that, especially if you’re getting ready to publish your very first book. Most writers with a few books under their belt can’t afford that. I happen to know that a lot of writers can’t even afford to write as their full-time job. Many still work outside the home, taking what little time they have to write, when they’re not at their “real” job or doing family things. (And no, I’m not saying writing isn’t a “real” job. Believe me, I know how much work it takes to write and publish a novel.)

So, what can you do? Be sure to find at least three other writers and schedule a time to meet at least twice a month. Share your writing with one another, usually one chapter at a time. That way, each of your chapters is being read and critiqued by four pairs of eyes–yours, and the other three writers’. Doing it this way, the other three writers learn a little bit about who you are. They learn what you write and why you write it. They also learn your writing style and your writing voice. By doing it one chapter at a time from start to finish, they follow your story, making it easier to find continuity issues, as well as errors you repeat.

Most often, at least one person in the group will be good at finding the little errors — things like spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. All three should be able to tell you if they think your pacing is too fast or too slow, if your characters all sound the same, if you provide enough description to paint the scenes in your readers’ minds without overdoing it, if you have enough tension to grab and hold your readers’ attention, and all the other big things we want to master.

Listen carefully to what your critique partners say and don’t get defensive. If at least two of them are in agreement about something, you should really think about what they say, and seriously consider making their suggested changes. Of course, you should read over each chapter before giving it to your critique partners to catch as many of your own errors or problems as you can. Remember, the goal is to write a book that is written to the absolute best of your ability.

Another reason it’s so good to have critique partners reading and giving you feedback is because they’ll see the things you do consistently that you need to change, especially words you use too often, too close together. In my first manuscript, I had three words I used too often and/or too close together: looked, smiled, and turned. Because my critique partners pointed those out to me, I was able to change most of them to something stronger and more interesting, which made my novel better and stronger.

This post has gotten longer than I anticipated, so I’ll talk about the importance of a good editor, and how to find one that you can afford, in next week’s post.