Deborah Halverson

Author & Editor

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Review Week 2014 – Great stories, great advice

May 15, 2014

Every spring on my writer’s advice website DearEditor.com, I host prolific authors for a week of revision tips, insights, and stories from the trenches. I call it Revision Week, and it’s truly a labor of love. Last week was the third annual installment. You can read those interviews (as well as past years’) here. There are so many great insights, and such well articulated advice. And the anecdotes they share about overcoming story challenges are just riveting. Below are direct links to this year’s interviews. I you’ll read and enjoy them all!

MarlaFrazee-225x300 croppedMarla Frazee, two-time Caldecott Honor-winning picture book author/illustrator: “I don’t think of revising as revising. It’s more a question of, Are we getting somewhere?”

 

Jean FerrisJean Ferris, award-winning author of nineteen young adult novels: “I tend to write what amounts to an expanded outline for the first draft, and each draft gets longer as I understand more and more what the book and its characters are about.” 

 

Joni Rodgers croppedJoni Rodgers, best-selling novelist and ghostwriter: “[Ghostwriting] is the ultimate test of ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ I listen, ask questions, and revamp until we find what feels right.” 

 

Warren_FahyxWarren Fahy, best-selling author of science-based thrillers: “Wherever [my advance readers] stop reading a manuscript, I fix it so that nobody wants to stop there again. I pay attention to what they don’t say as much as to what they do say.”

 

Denise Grover SwankDenise Grover Swank,best-selling author of YA, NA, and novels for adults. “It’s not unusual for me to write a first draft and then cut one-third to half the book out and start over again.”

Filed Under: Adventures in Writing

Comments

  1. Jane Herb says

    May 17, 2014 at 12:53 pm

    Seven Silly Eaters is a favorite around our house! We love Marla Frazee!

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