Life's hard.

It's even harder when you're stupid.

John Wayne

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Writer Series: The Word-Loss Diet by Rayne Hall

I am not afraid to admit that I am passionately and genuinely in love with words.  I enjoy looking at them and admiring the beauty in their shape.  I say them over and over again just hear them role off my tongue like musical notes.  I relish their various shades of meaning and stringing them together in my pursuit of perfectly conveying my ideas in a way I find pleasing - which admittedly is a more-or-less proposition as to degree of success.  So understandably my writing tends toward the wordy, which brought about my interest in The Word Loss Diet by Rayne Hall. 

Ms. Rayne Hall started The Word-Loss Diet as an online class, but eventually due to its popularity she turned it into a 70-page Kindle book where is has become a bestseller.   Ms. Hall’s practical, straightforward help for the self-editing process helps writers of many different levels tighten up their writing for maximum impact.  Her suggestions tend to be easy to apply, with great step-by-step directions and clear examples. 

This book is one of the most straightforward-writing books I have read in a long time.  And the fact that it is an amazingly quick, but useful, read is great.  Ms. Hall takes a lot of the guess work out of the editing process, and I am really excited to apply some of the techniques to my current and older projects.  Of course, use only the suggestions you need.  Apply the advice of the later chapters with discretion.  For example, my current manuscript is a very introspective book, which considerably affects my writing style.  Some of the recommendations to make everything quick and pithy, I feel, would really take away from the story. 

Another thing to consider is the eBook format.  This was the first writing book I have read on my iPad, so it took some getting used to.  I ended up with a lot of paper notes for quick reference.  If you are new to this format, like me, realize you may have to make some changes to your usual routine to accommodate it.  The ending pages tended to be advertisements for her other books.  Not really necessary, but you can easily ignore it if you want.  

Ms. Hall had plenty of experience at editing both her own and others’ works.  She earned a degree in publishing management and a master’s degree in creative writing.  Her books, totally over 40, are published word wide in a variety of genres, using an assortment of pen names.  She has also spent time as an editor for various projects during her long career.  Writing Fight Scenes, and Writing Scary Scenes are her other bestselling books on writing and can be found on Kindle.

Self-editing can be a painful process.  The love, time and care you devote to a project can make it heartbreaking to acknowledge the flaws, both small and large.  But as I have gained experience writing, I learned nothing is too precious to cut if it isn’t working.  I love my words, but as a writer having a real impact and getting my story across is more important.  The Word-Loss Diet helps with a quick clean up and makes suggestions for more depth changes, leaving a leaner, meaner project behind.

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