Vigilant Silver Fox

I won a book in a drawing and promised the author I would review it. It is the first book in a trilogy.The book's concept is wonderful. It presented another world where elves and ogres exist. The plot includes a young woman captured from earth by an elf who was betrothed to her at birth. He risks entering the human world because he needs her to avert an uprising in his world. The author's creative mind and the storyline both have great potential. 
My eagerness to read this story was halted by the abrupt changes in point of view, inconsistent verb tenses, run-on sentences, incomplete phrases, grammatical errors, spelling errors, and missing words. These writing errors plague me and many of my colleagues. It is the reason why writers use alpha readers, beta readers, and attend a critique groups. Even though I can write a book in 30 days. It takes me months to clean up my creations.
My heart went out to the author who paid someone to edit her book. She needs to get a refund. Her ed…

More than a century ago, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, a Cambridge University lecturer, authored the term, "murder your darlings." William Faulkner, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Stephen King, and Mark Twain also received attribution for the writing advice: "Kill Your Darlings." This phrase instructs the writer to edit and revise without emotional attachment.These three words remind writers to weed their writing of extraneous descriptions and flowery language.


       Every writer is guilty of harboring 'darlings' in my manuscripts.They include characters, settings, favorite words, phrases, and places.When I take off my writer's hat and put on my editor's glasses my darlings become glaring.


         One must plan to "kill their darlings."
1) Put the manuscript away.Give your document a rest.Clear your mind and desk of any evidence of its existence.
2) Exam your work as if is you are editing someone else's manuscript.Search for the following 'dar…