Everyday Canvas

After NaNo, the Surface Fix & Destiny’s Unavoidability

By the surface fix, I mean making the draft at least half-way readable. Even a weathered and tested editor may get sidetracked by small mishaps. So, before asking someone’s opinion of our manuscripts, we better read them with a stranger’s eye without getting caught in our emotions over the story.

These are the things to check, which we all make without meaning to, at one time or another:

1. Language: punctuation, spelling, tense, word, phrase or idea order inside the sentences, and simplify too complicated and long sentences if they blur the meaning.

2. Overused words: Do not eliminate them. Just don’t use them too much, words like see, know, feel, there, get, is, was, are, were, etc.
And if you see these or any other same words used in close proximity within a sentence or paragraph, change one of them to its proper synonym.

3. If you spot redundancies, eliminate them. I began first by screaming. I began screaming.
4. Adverbs: If you spot a verb+adverb combination, see if you can use a better verb and omit the adverb.
(She looked at me angrily.
She glared at me.)

5. Try to change the passive voice sections that mostly creep up during the sections of exposition. Active voice grips the reader’s attention much better. Using the passive voice is fine only when the subject of the sentence is unknown.

6. See if your pronouns are clearly referring to the character that you intended them to refer.

Once you do all of the above, the text is minimally ready for reading, but it you want to take it a bit further then also check for:

1. Pacing: Make sure too many fast-paced chapters are not bunched together. The same goes for slower-paced sections.

2. Repetitions: Check if you have repeated the same idea within the same chapter. Ideas, like words, need to be sprinkled and not repeated. Check for other repetitions, too, if they are necessary or not. Then, if you need the repetition of something, write that in. (Chekov’s Gun comes to mind.)

3. Clichés: Most people will tell you to avoid them, but people do use clichés a lot when they talk. The place to eliminate the clichés then are the descriptions and the expository sections.

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Prompt: "If you knew the future and the past, would you change your path or assume that your destiny was immutable and inevitable? Can we alter the course of the future or the past or only adapt to it? Or should both be respected and untouched?" Danielle Steel What are your thoughts on this?

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This is such a hypothetical question that I have to answer it by saying yes to the first part of it. Yes, if I knew it, I would change things, but luckily or yuckily, I am ignorant of it.

On the other hand, these questions produce other questions in my mind.

If we all you knew the future and the past and changed our paths, wouldn’t our roads in life clash?

Then if we clashed, wouldn’t it cause more of an anarchy in the world, generally or personally, than the one we are already experiencing?

Also, if we could change things, why do we need the idea of the universe or God or spirituality or any of the religions? Come to think of it, getting rid of the religions wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

As a final thought, taking into account all the ideas borne from my questions, I have to say the future should be respected and the past should be left untouched, except in fiction.