Polishing Your Manuscript

I just recently had an epiphany regarding polishing your Manuscript: Polish your MS to add POP and personality (if you’re writing in the RomCom genre). Think fizzy!

If you’ve ever polished anything (and it’s not something I like to do), you know it takes some effort. Some elbow grease. But it shines when you’re done.

I recommend to every writer to take Linnea Sinclair’s online classes, but I recently took her Deep POV class, and I learned so much. And one thing I learned was how to polish your MS.

• Look at each sentence and see if you can make it better – can you tighten it? Can you add pop or personality? Voice?
• Make every sentence count;
• Add vivid description in the POV of your protagonist;
• Read your work out loud. (I resisted this advice for quite some time–because really it seems like it will take a week to read it out loud, but I finally did it and I found so much to fix.)

Here’s an example. My original sentence:

“She’d almost quit during the eight months she’d worked with him.”

Partner Pursuit by Kathy Strobos

Here’s Linnea’s suggested re-write:

“Eight months of working for him had made her seriously consider ending her law career.”

Partner Pursuit by Kathy Strobos

Linnea’s revised version lets the voice of the character shine through. The desperation is stronger.

Here’s another example. I wrote one sentence as a rhetorical question:

“She didn’t remember reading that in his profile. And didn’t I write I was looking for someone outgoing?“

Partner Pursuit, Draft approx. 51?

But it’s more assertive to write it as a statement:

“She didn’t remember reading that in his profile. And I wrote I was looking for someone outgoing.”

Partner Pursuit, Draft 52

Write Like a Poet

Bessie Blue in her post on How to Polish Your Manuscript has tools to help you write like a poet.

Let’s Talk: Any Tips for Polishing your Manuscript?

What are your tips for polishing your manuscript?

I hope you are doing well. We are starting to open back up in NYC. Men were lined up outside the barber shops. 🙂 I took the subway for the first time since March to go to a doctor’s appointment. The subway gleamed! The floors were so shiny. Most everybody wears a mask. We still have the nightly clap at 7 p.m. for essential workers. I hope we can continue to keep our numbers down.