Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A Special Treat


In the picture above, our two youngest grandchildren are making delectable fresh strawberries even better by dipping them into melted chocolate. Cole loves strawberries, but he adores them coated in chocolate. He and Jordan did a good job on this special treat that we all enjoyed.

You might consider making something you've written even more special--coat it in delightful chocolate prose. Make good writing better by adding more to it. 

I've said it before and I'll say it here and probably again in a couple of weeks--let your finished work sit idle for a few days. Read it again and you may realize it's not so finished, after all. Your perception changes when you haven't been working with the piece for a few days. 

Look for places where you can add something more, something that will make your story or essay better than the first time around. What can you add to create a special treat for readers? Make a checklist with things like flow, adjectives, sensory detail, sentence structure and anything else you can think of. Do you meet your standards for each one? Can you enhance the ones that you thought were OK? If you feel OK about a story, maybe that's how an editor will also feel, but if you are truly proud of your work, it may have a better chance of being accepted for publication. 

Strawberries are good, but chocolate dipped strawberries are even better for she who loves chocolate like I do. Make your writing the same kind of treat.

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