How to Improve Your Writing

Audrey Owen's
"Get Your Writing Fighting Fit!"

Audrey Owen's comprehensive ebook on how to improve your writing skills

A lot of writers don't yet have the prose and grammar skills that they need in order to write great fiction.

"What's that?" you say. "This is creative writing. It doesn't have to be technically correct."

Uh...wrong. And if you're making the mistake of actually submitting your questionable prose to publishers, I don't care how good your story is...

They aren't going to care.

Now don't get me wrong - I offer an editing service. And frankly, I'd love to have you as a client. It's part of how I make my living.

But there's only so much I can do.

I run into authors who say, "I had my book edited," as if this guarantees that their prose is now perfect.

Uh...wrong again. There's a big difference between great prose and serviceable prose. I can improve the heck out of damaged prose, but I can't make it great. I can't capture all the subtlety of expression that you intend. I receive manuscripts where I'm not even sure what the author is trying to say!

The best prose occurs when an accomplished writer does his/her best with his/her own manuscript, then turns it over to a seasoned professional for a fresh look. That's how editing is supposed to work.

An already refined piece of writing gets MORE refined.

Writing has declined. Writing standards haven't.

If you haven't had specialized training in writing, if you haven't spent years studying, chances are your writing skills aren't professional quality.

(Of course not! To be professional at anything, you're supposed to be better than almost everyone else!!!)

So how to improve your writing? Most people can't just drop what they're doing and start taking graduate level writing courses.

That's where brilliant editor Audrey Owen's Get Your Writing Fighting Fit comes in.

If you're wondering about Audrey's qualifications, heck, just look at that title! It has

• rhythm,
• rhyme, and
• alliteration

All packed into five words and seven syllables. Say it out loud so you can hear it for yourself:

Get Your Writing Fighting Fit!

This woman knows her stuff. Don't you want your prose to sing like that?

More than a few times I've had writers tell me how quickly they can write a book. They think they're impressing me, but they're only making my eyes roll.

How to improve your writing? More drafts. More and more refinement.

A manuscript should go through many drafts before it's ready to send to a publisher, or to self-publish. Yet I run into would-be writers who can't imagine what they should do after a first or second draft.

Audrey tells you. This book has eleven chapters, each with a number of actions to take as you edit and proofread your own work, making it better with every draft.

But Audrey doesn't just tell you what to do; she tells you why. Here's an excerpt from Get Your Writing Fighting Fit Chapter 3 - Cut Empty Calories:

Eliminate redundancies.

I am referring to the tendency for some writers to say things more than once. Repeating yourself without giving new information rates somewhere between being mildly annoying to being infuriating. Trust your reader to hear you the first time.

I see the lack of trust more often in fiction than in nonfiction. In fiction, the amateur writer often tells and then shows.

John was sad. He hung his head and cried....

Can you see the sentence that adds nothing, the one that annoys the reader? Eliminate all such redundancies in your writing.

This is one valuable book

As Audrey puts it, "For less than the cost of an hour with a top notch editor, you can begin to successfully edit your own work, NOW!"

I urge you to let editor Audrey Owen show you how to improve your writing skills.

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