Wednesday 6 April 2011

Editing Is Creative!

Look what I've created via Wordle! Thanks to Morton Gray for recommending this site!  Guess the names of my hero and heroine. 

I copied and pasted my whole manuscript into the text part and pressed go. Then fiddled with the colours etc and limited it to 50 words (it's default is 150 words) and here they are. My most used 50 words in the novel. Some are obviously going to remain the same (Adam and Sophie), but some like 'just' and 'felt' I will need to go filter out.

I didn't put it on the gallery, yet I did copy and paste (print screen, then paste into paint, then crop) it so I could keep the result and show you guys here. I have also printed it off (plus the 150 word version), which it gives you the option on the website.

I finished reading it through last night, and was chuckling at places (you're supposed to chuckle at). Hubby asked me if I was supposed to be laughing at my own novel. Now means working through some notes a friend has given me and going from there. I don't know whether to work on the big stuff first, or the small stuff. Help!

I've also got to crack the two space after a sentence habit. Something my new 'fiction' tutor has advised. Gah, it's going to be like trying to give up smoking or something, impossible (not that I actually smoke, or know what it's like to give it up) - only they don't give out patches. But I'm trying to do it with my blog even now. I have to pause after every full stop. Crazy. It just feels weird hitting the space bar once.

4 comments:

  1. What a neat post! Looking forward for more post from you. Thank you for sharing!

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  2. Took me no time at all to break the two spaces habit. Maybe have your formatting symbols visible for now, or even just the ones for spaces, then you've got an immediate visual clue that you've hit two, which might reduce the time spent pausing.

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  3. Glad you like Wordle. If you put the common word in your find option on Word it makes it really easy to filter out the repeats. I seem to use words twice or three times in some paragraphs and it definitely helps with this. Mx

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  4. Becky, luckily Find and Replace can fix it for me too :D But not a bad idea about keeping the characters 'on'.

    Morton, I was going through last night and removing the 'just' word. OMG how often do I use that? Some are staying, as well, I believe it's only natural in conversation, but it certainly weakens the text.

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