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    Reviewing Books, Yay or Nay? @mizging #Reviews #RLFblog

    Dancing Fawn 

    Author Ginger Simpson shares an opinion piece about reviewing books.

    Sometimes I wonder if as an author
    I should review the work of others. Before I was published, I read for the sheer
    enjoyment, but now, after going through so many editing sessions and being whipped
    into an actual author, I cannot read without my internal editor whispering in my
    ear. I read with an eye for pitfalls I’ve been advised to avoid rather than losing
    myself in the story as I once was able to do. Heck, before my debut novel, I hadn’t
    even heard half the terms I hear now–headhopping, passive voice, transitions, etc..
    Now the simplest mistakes keep me from really connecting with the characters. It
    could be that the books I read all those years had been finely edited so assuming
    a place in the heroine’s shoes came naturally.
    Don’t get me wrong. I think editors
    are an essential part of the process, and now when I read, I can definitely tell
    the novices from the professionals. Is it fair to report to readers that I’ve found
    areas in a story that should have been caught by an editor and the reader advised
    to fix? I’m not sure. Does it make me come across as a “know it all?”
    Trust me, I don’t. I learn a new rule every day, and the scary thing is that I’m
    never sure that the rule is hard and fast.
    It’s a fact that the majority of editors
    working in small press are authors as well, and possibly some that haven’t been
    writing very long themselves. Could it be they are just passing along what they’ve
    learned? I’ve found that some of what I’ve been told isn’t exactly true, but I think
    some of the examples I can share with you today make sense. For example: Overusing
    He/She if you’ve made it clear whose POV your in at the moment. Read these two paragraphs
    and see which sounds more polished.
    John smelled Joan’s perfume as she
    twirled by him on the dance floor. He envied the man who held her in his arms. He
    believed she was the most beautiful woman in the room, and he vowed to ask her to
    dance the next time the orchestra played a slow song. He intended to be the one
    to take her home tonight.
    John inhaled the sweet smell of Joan’s
    perfume as she twirled by him on the dance floor. The man who held her in his arms
    was one lucky guy. Before the evening ended, John intended to share a slow dance
    with her, and if his prayers were answered, he’d be the one to take her home.
    See, you don’t need he envied, he
    believed, he intended. You’ve let the reader know by John enjoying the aroma of
    Joan’s perfume that we’re in his POV, so anything you type should be interpreted
    as his perspective.
    Another pet peeve are needless tags.
    It’s always best to use an action tag in place of he said, she said, but if you
    end the dialogue with a question mark, do you really need to say, she asked? I think
    the punctuation is a big hint. *smile* When only two people are in the room, using
    the character’s names over and over becomes redundant. The reader is usually smart
    enough to determine who is talking, and if you need to clarify, you can say something
    like: “Are you crazy?” John’s eyes widened beneath a furrowed brow.
    Editors become very important in keeping
    the redundancy out of the story line. Authors don’t usually write an entire book
    in one setting, so it’s very hard to remember everything you’ve already written.
    For example: If you’ve pointed out to the reader that the heroine broke her leg
    by falling off a horse, it isn’t necessary to repeat that information again in dialogue
    with someone and then add it in a descriptive paragraph pages later. Readers, me
    included, roll their eyes and say, “enough already…I know, I know.”
    Since I don’t plot my stories and
    find my memory isn’t what it used to be, I’ve taken to making notes about the physical
    attributes of my characters. It’s quite easy to describe sky blue eyes in one chapter
    and chocolate brown in another further down the line. Unless you’re writing from
    the perspective of an Australian Shepherd, both eyes should be the same color and
    remain that way throughout the story.
    As an historical author, I learned
    long ago, and I’m still learning, that you really need to be on guard to assure
    your language is appropriate for the period about which you write. I’ve read some
    love scenes lately that left me shaking my head because of the present day terminology
    used for body parts. It’s really not believable that an Indian brave would bust
    out with the word “clitoris.”
    I’ve found the online Etymology dictionary
    most helpful in determining the origin of most words, but judgement helps too. Think
    about your story’s time period and how people spoke. While you might find word origins
    described from the 1500s, that doesn’t mean they were used all over the globe. Example:
    Ma/Maw/Momma is how a child addressed their female parent rather than just Mom in
    1840. Although “kid” has been a word for a long time, the manner in which
    it was used in the 1800s most often referred to a baby goat. Children were not kids,
    but you could kid with them (tease). Historical credibility is all a matter of knowing
    your time period and doing your research. Trust me, if you make a mistake, someone
    will notice and let you know.

    My most recent editor pointed out
    her amazement that my heroine still had a bottom lip as she constantly chewed on
    it. *lol* It’s so easy to utilize the same action without realizing you’ve overdone
    it. Here again, that’s because we don’t write books in one sitting nor do we usually
    go back and re-read the previous chapters. Thank God for those who devote their
    time and talents to making us stop and think about our writing habits. What would
    we do without our editors…internal and external?

    Reviewing Books, Yay or Nay? by Ginger Simpson was first blogged here and is used with permission.

    Buy This Book

    Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Fawn-Ginger-Simpson-ebook/dp/B0153LGPYK/ 

    About the Author

    Ginger Simpson — Writing with a dream for bigger and better
    things.