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Editing Using MSWord’s “Find and Replace”
Pesky words creep into your writing and do no good—other than add to a manuscript’s word count, take up space, and
keep sentences weak. I search for those words using MSWord’s “Find and Replace,” then decide if deletion is a word's
highest and best fate.
The more I use this editing method, the more I find I use my personal filler words less and don’t have to take out as
many. Editing dialog is different because certain words are part of a character’s personality.
Jeannie Eddy in “Fixing Your Fiction: Being Your Own Best Editor” (Romance Writers Report, August, 2007) reminds
writers removing words tightens fiction. Her article made me think about my personal unnecessary word list I use
“Find and Replace” to eliminate.
Here’s my List. Send me your “words” and I’ll add them to the list.
Pesky words creep into your writing and do no good—other than add to a manuscript’s word count, take up space, and
keep sentences weak. I search for those words using MSWord’s “Find and Replace,” then decide if deletion is a word's
highest and best fate.
The more I use this editing method, the more I find I use my personal filler words less and don’t have to take out as
many. Editing dialog is different because certain words are part of a character’s personality.
Jeannie Eddy in “Fixing Your Fiction: Being Your Own Best Editor” (Romance Writers Report, August, 2007) reminds
writers removing words tightens fiction. Her article made me think about my personal unnecessary word list I use
“Find and Replace” to eliminate.
Here’s my List. Send me your “words” and I’ll add them to the list.
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experience with audiobooks.
Listening to other writers increases appreciation of their craft, moods, and settings, and helps you
hear their characters’ voices. Be transported into a story without printed words to slow your brain.
Unabridged books give you all the author’s words, yet abridged versions, skillfully cut, keep the flavor
and integrity of the original—a travesty in some opinions. As a writer, notice how an editor keeps the
plot, characters, and style while eliminating as much as two-thirds of the words.
You’d think authors would be their own best reader, but often a skilled narrator better fits the
story. Examples of voices that enhance books:
• “Memoirs of a Geisha” with Bernadette Dunne’s Japanese accented voice
• Sandra Brown’s “Envy” read in Victor Slezak’s southern accents.
• Brad Pitt reading Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses”
• Sissy Spacek’s delightful new reading of “To Kill a Mockingbird”
• Geraldine James’ narration of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series
• Maeve Binchy’s stories in “The Return Journey” narrated by Fionnula Flanagan.
• Jennifer Cruise & Bob Mayer’s “Don’t Look Down,” has a narrator for each voice
Find time to enjoy old friends or try a new author or a new genre. Read while you walk or change a
boring commute, a doctor’s office wait, or a long trip from dread to anticipation. Turn cooking and
cleaning into “reading” time.
Buy, borrow, download, or rent audiobooks as cassettes, CDs, MP3 CDs, or computer downloads. Most
public libraries have great selections. Look for unabridged or well-abridged nonfiction to help in your
research.
Digital downloads (www.audible.com has a great selection) let you to listen on your computer or
transfer files to your ipod or MP3 player. Adapters plug into your car audio system. Load CDs into
iTunes and listen whenever you are ready.
Interested in becoming an audiobook author? Publishers publish audio editions close to the print
version release date or ‘originals’ in audio format. Audio Publishers Association has a directory of
publishers, www.audiopub.org. As audiobook listening increases, some also start out as audio, gain
popularity, and then become print titles.
You, too, could turn from a bookworm to a tapeworm as David Sedaris suggests in his “The Tapeworm
Is In” from “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”
Listening to other writers increases appreciation of their craft, moods, and settings, and helps you
hear their characters’ voices. Be transported into a story without printed words to slow your brain.
Unabridged books give you all the author’s words, yet abridged versions, skillfully cut, keep the flavor
and integrity of the original—a travesty in some opinions. As a writer, notice how an editor keeps the
plot, characters, and style while eliminating as much as two-thirds of the words.
You’d think authors would be their own best reader, but often a skilled narrator better fits the
story. Examples of voices that enhance books:
• “Memoirs of a Geisha” with Bernadette Dunne’s Japanese accented voice
• Sandra Brown’s “Envy” read in Victor Slezak’s southern accents.
• Brad Pitt reading Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses”
• Sissy Spacek’s delightful new reading of “To Kill a Mockingbird”
• Geraldine James’ narration of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series
• Maeve Binchy’s stories in “The Return Journey” narrated by Fionnula Flanagan.
• Jennifer Cruise & Bob Mayer’s “Don’t Look Down,” has a narrator for each voice
Find time to enjoy old friends or try a new author or a new genre. Read while you walk or change a
boring commute, a doctor’s office wait, or a long trip from dread to anticipation. Turn cooking and
cleaning into “reading” time.
Buy, borrow, download, or rent audiobooks as cassettes, CDs, MP3 CDs, or computer downloads. Most
public libraries have great selections. Look for unabridged or well-abridged nonfiction to help in your
research.
Digital downloads (www.audible.com has a great selection) let you to listen on your computer or
transfer files to your ipod or MP3 player. Adapters plug into your car audio system. Load CDs into
iTunes and listen whenever you are ready.
Interested in becoming an audiobook author? Publishers publish audio editions close to the print
version release date or ‘originals’ in audio format. Audio Publishers Association has a directory of
publishers, www.audiopub.org. As audiobook listening increases, some also start out as audio, gain
popularity, and then become print titles.
You, too, could turn from a bookworm to a tapeworm as David Sedaris suggests in his “The Tapeworm
Is In” from “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”
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Copyright@Amber Polo 2007-09
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