Spelling and grammar are not just rules to irritate authors; they are (uniform/essential/language-specific) guidelines that, over centuries of continuous change, help clarify the prose for the reader. Correct spelling and grammar make the reading easier and more fluid for the reader, and they clarify the meaning. Instances where stories use altered spelling or ungrammatical prose are often necessary, but they are created only to enhance characterization or establish setting by an author who knows what is accepted as proper. As an author, don’t believe out-of-control poor spelling and sloppy grammar is stylistic. It is just amateurish.
Avoid fancy fonts that are now available on computers. Times or Times Roman are standard. For a manuscript submission, always double-space the text and leave ample margins. Keep the font size at 12 points; there are no exceptions.
M. Process of revision
Revision is a continuous process while creating a story, not an end step in story writing. Revision starts before the writing, when the essential thinking about the story is active. Revision is important during the writing at all levels, from creating conflict and action to selecting the right word. Revision involves making changes in the story that will improve reader understanding and enjoyment, and it should be an inseparable part of an author’s approach to storytelling.
Principles-revision
* Stories should be entertaining.
* Stories should enlighten or change existing thought.
* Writing fiction is creating a great story for the reader. Writing a memoir is telling with interest what has happened. To confuse your purpose decreases your effectiveness in each discipline. If memoir ideas restrict the telling of a literary story, restructure.
* Use the narrator to create drama. Ineffective narrator use is a common error in storytelling.
* Good storytelling depends on specific, not general, language; concrete, not abstract, ideas; fresh voice; character consistency; avoidance of cuteness or self-importance.
* Stories should have a theme to create unity.
* Good modern stories avoid fatalism. Freewill of characters is what drives a story.
* Stories are not essays on psychology. Psychological ideas in a story require dramatization. Don’t analyze on the page.
* Back story (action or information that occurred before story beginning) is only effective as an integral part of a continuously progressing front story.
* Time is imbedded in characters, in the prose, and in the reader. Time moves in a line. Failure to orient the reader to time causes confusion and the storytelling fails.
