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Blogs by Joel Arnold
Writing Tip o' the Day (now with vitamin C!) 11/16/2010 1:36:49 PM
Tweaking
When I feel that I'm nearly done with a writing project, whether it's a short story, magazine article or novel, I give it a quick read-through as if reading someone else's already published work. You know that voice in your head you use - your comfortable inner reading voice? The one that you use for the bulk of the novels and stories you read while sitting in your favorite comfy chair? I use that voice when reading my nearly finished draft, and that way I often catch problems with the overall flow of a piece. It helps me see that perhaps I used to many short sentences in this paragraph, or this transition from one paragraph to the next isn't very smooth. Or maybe that sentence is confusing, or I really need a different word here. So then I make those changes, rinse and repeat until I can read the whole thing through without hitting any bumps in the narrative.
