Backstory Blog

by Patricia J. Parsons

Writers write. Editors edit. It’s that simple. Right? Well, not really. Let’s take a trip through the writing-editing process from the beginning of an idea to when a book makes its way into a reader’s hands.

An idea forms in a writer’s head and that writer takes a unique, individualized approach to percolating the idea until it gets to a point of forming a story. Then the writer sits down in front of a computer (or less often, with a pen and paper) and begins to put words on the page. Those words accumulate through the writing process until, sometime down the line, a book is finished. Then what? The editing process begins, and it begins with the writer.

The first draft of anything is shit, or so said Ernest Hemingway. That means regardless of how experienced you are as a writer, you never publish…

by Patricia J.Parsons

In his book On Writing Well, an absolute must-read for anyone who writes, the estimable William Zinsser presents to us an entire chapter simply titled “clutter.” He begins by telling us that “…fighting clutter is like fighting weeds – the writer is always slightly behind.” This is probably truer these days than ever before as so many people seem to be writing and publishing books just because they can.

There are two ways that we clutter our writing. The first Zinsser describes as using a “laborious phrase which has pushed out the short word which means the same thing.” His example: “At the present time we are experiencing precipitation” rather than clearly stating: “It is raining.”

There is also another kind of clutter that is subtly different and has a different motivation on the part of the writer.

All you have to do is read the…

If you write fiction, you’ve been told over and over that publishers and readers look for “fresh voices” and it’s much the same for nonfiction. A writer’s voice is that unique fingerprint that identifies that writer’s style, or as it was put to me early in my writing career, style is the sound your words make on paper.

Writers spend a lot of time cultivating this voice then completely ignore it whenever they are online. Doesn’t it just make simple sense, though, that you’d want your social media voice to emulate the kind of style and voice a reader will find in your writing? It does to me.

Modern social media marketing strategy suggests that online tactics and tools are key to the promotion of absolutely everything these days, books included. So why do writers often forget that their voice everywhere online ought to be consistent and reflective of who…