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At the moment I seem to be learning a lot about writing, through the looong editing process I'm having with A Dance With Fury.

Have you learnt anything recently? Has one project shown you something that just 'clicked'?

Sounds like we're having similar experiences ...

The thing that's leapt out at me recently is how much I use 'that' and 'as' ... I'll have to watch that! lols :))

Good luck with the editing process

It wasn't my work, but I read something recently that really opened my eyes. I was reading a friend's novel and he used a device, where often a scene was about more than one thing. For example he had a scene where the MC was talking on the phone with her sister while she researching on the internet. The phone conversation revealed a lot about the MC and her relationship with her family. While at the same time, she made big plot discoveries on the computer. It added so much power to them. Now I'm struggling to incorporate that into my WIP. I've realized I'm focused on just one thing in each scene, and they should be bigger than that.

Honestly, my most important lesson in the recent year(s) is still finally learning to draft quickly (for me, anyway) and turn off the inner censor until it's editing time. It's made such a difference.

I like that, David. It's so much like reality, layered, complex, with pieces coming from various directions all at once.

@David From reader's perspective it is just fluid- there are all these things happening at once but it's natural. From A writer's perspective I look at the prose and thing "OMG that guy playing the piano is also playing the guitar with his toes. How on Earth do I learn to do that?"

Learning how to write is from reading and actually writing a lot but a great break through comes when you sit down and think about the books you most like to read and reread and then you discover what you like to write and can write the best.

I like the phonecall idea :]

I'm pushing 60 yet my writing pace is more deliberate than ever. I want the story right, not fast.

Nooooo! Write now. Edit later! :p

Couldn't agree more. Don't edit your first draft whilst writing it!!! Write first, have fun, then edit :)

Now, now. There's more than one way to fillet a penguin.

Finding the right word/phrase/character beats on the first draft isn't incompatible with having fun while writing.

You can write as you will, but stories I'm writing lately are literary fiction. Tone and voice control character and plot. Therefore, a good deal of editing must be done or the thing falls apart.

Must be the nature of the beast, Carl. I'm writing in this same genre and, by necessity, edit as I go.

The multilayered strategy of building scenes is a good one, but I wouldn't call it more realistic. Movies use this technique a lot, because they have a limited runtime and need to give you information quickly. Books have more freedom to meander. Throw in a few red herrings to keep readers guessing where you're going with the story. They shouldn't be meaningless scenes, but they don't need to foreshadow future events. If everything connects with everything else it becomes much harder to surprise readers.

David, so it seems.

I've been a life long closet writer until a couple of years ago. But still learning. Writing every day is something I learned is key in keeping my writing well oiled.

for when you're ready to edit.
Remove every instance of the word "just"
keep adverbs to a minimum
watch out for repeated uses of words like "was" or "had" and their variations.

@David, I really like that.
'So' is my personal bug-bear. I use it when I'm transitioning from one idea to the next, when a character is coming to a conclusion, or when I'm just trying to avoid starting a sentence with 'And.' Terrible. When I was editing my last work, I used the 'find' function to go through every instance of 'so'. I got rid of most of them. I believe in the 'just write, edit later' axiom. I'm putting up with 'so' in my current WIP, but it does make me grind my teeth whenever I see it!

While I'm not the *best* writer, I consider myself pretty good; but i'm still amazed at how much I still learn all the time about writing. I think it's a never-ending process. You may never know everything about writing lol

Now i'm trying to think…what was it I leaned? xD Oh gosh, i can't even remember now (I'm so terrible xp). It was some technicality (if i remember i'll be sure to update ha). But on a deeper level, I've leaned that even when you think you're done you may not be…and 8 drafts later here i am lol

for my novel THE FORAGER, after the rewrite was accepted. It went through five edits with a my content editor, three with a line editor and then two more with the publisher. That's a total of ten edits AFTER the mss was accepted, and there are still errors in the final copy.

Sounds about right haha

When my thriller novels didn't get an agent, my cousin recommended I pick up Stein on Writing by Sol Stein. It nearly changed my life. Now I know what I was doing wrong. It's truly the best book on how to write that I've ever read.

Man, that was a hard sell on Stein on Writing, John. I added it to my Amazon wishlist immediately, and I don't even like books about writing! Essays, classes, and workshops are where I've done most of the learning (though I've read a few memoirs by writers, who always inevitably talk about their craft).

On Writing was a blast, a lovely combination of master class and memoir. Stephen King. Quick read, really, and full of solid advice.

Writing every day, I think, also goes a long distance. And reading voraciously. Fiction, non-fiction, essay, poetry, comedy...the more expansive your collection the more informative it should be. I hope.

But what should I know?

(I also am in the "write first" camp, though I've been known to scrap two hundred pages with a Ctrl+A, 'Backspace,' and Ctrl+S, as well.)