Editing My Old Writing #3 - SPECIFICITY | 15 Line Editing Tips
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- Today we chat specificity in fiction, its benefits & tips on how to do so, all while line editing my old writing. Leave requests for future topics I should cover and let me know if you'd submit work for a viewer submission's style critique!
TIMESTAMPS:
1:11 - EXCERPT 1: Amplifying vague details
5:03 - Tip 1: Look for vague specific details and punch them up
6:13 - Tip 2: Specificity enhances voice
6:32 - Tip 3: Debunking "but vague details are more universal for a reader"
7:55 - Tip 4: Focus on sound/musicality
9:32 - Tip 5: Link verbs & nouns to enhance voice/style
14:25 - Tip 6: Watch for unnecessary & illogical telling (especially in first person)
18:31 - Tip 7: Using and adjective doesn't mean your writing is automatically specific
20:06 - Tip 8: Weed out unnecessary specific details to make selected details pop
23:01 - Tip 9: Follow cues from your writing when unsure where to place specific detail
23:23 - EXCERPT 2: Clarifying & specifying a character description
25:17 - Tip 10: Critiquing isn't just about negatives! Be kind to your work
32:50 - Tip 11: Use action to reveal character instead of telling
36:24 - Tip 12: Specificity, clarity & concrete language enhance what you already have
36:49 - EXCERPT 3: Identifying good examples of specific details & refining them for flow and clarity (TW: mild gore?)
39:49 - Tip 13: Writing specifically requires practice. Actively write specifically
40:17 - Tip 14: Identify and specify your nouns
41:27 - Tip 15: Learn the vocabulary of your work's atmosphere
48:03 - Showing you examples of good specific detail
Also in the final excerpt, I edited "she caved" to "he caved" when it should actually be "she caved" (referring to the mother caving to the father's convincing to keep the hardwood).
P.S. I filmed this video in May!
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LINKS
Writing updates: bit.ly/3fOsIAf
Blog: / coffeeandcalligraphy
Twitter: / rachellwrites
Pinterest: bit.ly/2qdKsyM
Want to read excerpts from my books?
Moth Work intro page & writing updates: bit.ly/3k31Puu
Feeding Habits intro page & writing updates: bit.ly/31kBnE7
MY WORK
→ My short story "The Species is Dead" in Minola Review bit.ly/2WVNuXw
→ My flash fiction piece "Mama Lives in My Mouth" in Young Voices (fc. Fall 2020)
ABOUT ME
Hi y'all! I'm Rachel, an eighteen-year-old writer from Toronto. I've been writing for six years and will be starting my second year as a writing undergrad in the fall. On my channel, I document my writing journey and try to post once a week (usually on Fridays). You can read my work in issue 25 of Minola Review, Grain Magazine, on my blog, and elsewhere!
ASK ME ANYTHING: bit.ly/2q00dJv
Outro: This is not a joke by Monplaisir
My equipment:
→ Vlog camera: my iPhone 8
→ Fancy camera: Canon Rebel T3 w/ Canon 24mm 2.4 pancake lens
→ Vlog mic: Rode Video Micro
→ Sit-down mic: Blue Snowball iCE
→ Editor: Premiere Pro
Last video: • Photoshopping my novel...
Amazing insights *and* your hair looks great? She does it all!
ShaelinWrites from the hair queen herself I feel honoured 😭😭😭 (it’s truly all in the finger coiling!!!)
@@rachelwritesbooks all we know is have great curls, use specificity, eat hot chip & lie
oh there it is: the thesis of my life & the supporting examples 😭😭😭
The best thing I love about your channel, is that there is always something to learn. There's always some insight on how to improve as a writer/creator, and for that, I'm grateful. Keep up the great work. Always love your videos and channel.
Dalton Patterson thank you so much! Your comments are always so kind!! ❤️
Your writing is surprisingly good for a 13 years old!
Thank you! I was surprised too??
@@rachelwritesbooksI'm glad you had a pleasant surprise. I still have things I wrote when I was 12 and I honestly regret backing them up and transferring them to my most recent computer. They're that terrible.
😂😂 I totally have some writing like that too I get you!
TIMESTAMPS:
1:11 - EXCERPT 1: Amplifying vague details
5:03 - Tip 1: Look for vague specific details and punch them up
6:13 - Tip 2: Specificity enhances voice
6:32 - Tip 3: Debunking "but vague details are more universal for a reader"
7:55 - Tip 4: Focus on sound/musicality
9:32 - Tip 5: Link verbs & nouns to enhance voice/style
14:25 - Tip 6: Watch for unnecessary & illogical telling (especially in first person)
18:31 - Tip 7: Using and adjective doesn't mean your writing is automatically specific
20:06 - Tip 8: Weed out unnecessary specific details to make selected details pop
23:01 - Tip 9: Follow cues from your writing when unsure where to place specific detail
23:23 - EXCERPT 2: Clarifying & specifying a character description
25:17 - Tip 10: Critiquing isn't just about negatives! Be kind to your work
32:50 - Tip 11: Use action to reveal character instead of telling
36:24 - Tip 12: Specificity, clarity & concrete language enhance what you already have
36:49 - EXCERPT 3: Identifying good examples of specific details & refining them for flow and clarity (TW: mild gore?)
39:49 - Tip 13: Writing specifically requires practice. Actively write specifically
40:17 - Tip 14: Identify and specify your nouns
41:27 - Tip 15: Learn the vocabulary of your work's atmosphere
48:03 - Showing you examples of good specific detail
I love editing videos like this because I always learn so much more from examples than just a list of what to cut/rework. Your prose at 13...more coherent than I can write now😩 haha
I never really liked editing but after watching your last video and this one I actually feel really pumped to edit. I’ve started to like it. It’s, dare I say, fun?
NeuroticNovelist -Libbie ahh I’m so happy to hear! I’ll def to more vids like this in the future :) and good luck with your edits!
Hello, great content! Just discovered your channel and really like what you are doing. Keep up your amazing hard work! Looking forward to your growth and more great uploads on TH-cam!!!
Thank you!
the thing that frustrates me is that i can't just take a word and go "let's switch this word for this word", without like.... consulting a thesaurus. and every time i do that, i feel like a fraud??? authortube and bloggers, 5, 6, 10 years ago, used to be kind of heavily against going to a thesaurus. so that kind of has tainted the idea for me. and i'm not sure if they were right or not.
the idea, i understand, is that you shouldn't go to a thesaurus to look up the most flowery word possible. but THAT part was not emphasized enough to me when i was looking up tips on how to improve my writing. it was just simply: "if you need a thesaurus, it's the wrong word." (which is a paraphrased quote by Stephen King, in his book On Writing, from TWO THOUSAND.)
and then here's you, not even NEEDING a thesaurus (i'm barely 10 minutes in, so this may change, i don't know) to come up with these FAR superior words, to replace words that were ALREADY EVOCATIVE in their own way. i have more than a sneaking suspicion this isn't meant to make me feel inferior, for not being able to call up these words just from my brain, but it still creeps in, a little. and that gives me pause. and idk how to reconcile that.
You’re right these vids aren’t ever meant to make anyone feel inferior. IMO that ideology from Stephen King is dumb haha, a thesaurus is a great tool. The worst thing you’ll do when you use a thesaurus is go a little synonym crazy and choose a word that doesn’t work in the sentence. I did that a lot when I first started using a thesaurus. The great thing about using any tool is you’ll get better at it over time and the great thing about words is you can change it. For about a year I wrote side by side with a thesaurus because I couldn’t think of good words to use. It took hard work and practice to call upon better words without glancing at a thesaurus. Now I rarely use one at all but will reference if I don’t want to waste my time for 45 minutes trying to remember the exact word I want. Don’t stress out about this. The worst thing you’re going to do is write in a word that looks a little funky on the page. Who cares-you can change it later.
i’m in love with this video!! your progress from the first excerpt to the last is amazing
jenica. Thank you! I’m so glad you enjoyed :)
Ever since getting into university, I haven't been able to continue this almost 2 year old draft I have 😢😢😢 but this honestly, lifted up my spirits to start writing again :))
Kapryle Vhan I’m so so happy to hear that! You can do it!! ❤️
Another excellent Editing video. Thank you so much.
Happy you enjoyed!
I haven't seen a video like this before, but it's a great idea! It makes advice so much easier to understand. And the musicality of words thing!!! I do that too! And so few people mention it. I also do the pronoun thing (writing a pronoun instead of a name) but for me it's linked to the musicality thing. 'He' is short and sharp, 'she' is elegant, and 'they' is gentle, but even if they aren't the sound I want, they're more subtle than the sounds of names.
I’m so glad you liked it! And omg me too with the pronoun thing 😭 I often do that for musicality too! I’d love to do a case study on musicality sometime!
I think it would be fun and I would so send you a sample of my new story to do cause I think it would be fun and helpful. I like how lyrical you write (if that's the right way to say that)! And this was so calming to watch too!! :)
Happy to hear! :)
Shit I wish I wrote like that when I was 13.
I was honestly surprised by how good it was!
Not the topic of the video but Okay curls!!
Thank you!!
23:40 putting this here so i can run this line edit dry 😭😭
This is really random, but if you're comfortable answering, what is your ethnicity?
Kaila Michelle I’m mixed Guyanese so I don’t really have a set ethnicity but I’m mixed with a lot of things (Indian, Chinese, Indigenous, Black etc and more it’s kind of impossible to know!). But I just identify as Caribbean/Guyanese since Guyana is a bit of a melting pot of ethnicities!
Are you still taking viewer work submissions for line editing? I'm not sure if you'll read this, ha. This video is from a year ago. I just discovered you.
Hi Julian, unfortunately I’m not looking for viewer submissions at the time, tho I might do this again in a few months (I’m moving and about to start school again, so this wouldn’t be for a while). Thanks for asking!
@@rachelwritesbooks Wow, thank you for responding. I totally understand about being busy. Starting school, full time job, taking care of my house, helping with my local Pride event, and then throwing writing a novel into the mix, it call be time consuming. So I can completely relate!