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Writing means different things to me. I'm a storyteller, a book editor, and a songwriter. For me, it's like breathing.

Monday, January 13, 2014

A great self-edit program

I like to self-edit and get my manuscripts as clean as I can before having an editor take a final look. In the past, I’ve used a list to guide me through my self-edits, but this time I used a free site called Edit Minion. I’m glad I used it because I found some words I had been overusing that I hadn’t noticed.

Edit Minion is a basic guide using highlighting to indicate passive voice, adverbs, ending in prepositions, weak words and ‘said’ replacements. Then it lists how many times a word has been used. This basic guide worked for me and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a free self-edit program.

I discovered I use ‘that’ and ‘with’ way too much. I also end a lot of sentences with prepositions.

Editing programs are great for cleaning up your manuscript, but I would recommend using a live editor or proofreader before publishing if you plan to self-publish. There are some errors only a live person can catch.

 

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

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