FEEDBACK: YOUR EDITING PARTNER’S CHECKLIST
WRITER__________ PARTNER/EDITOR___________
___1. Sensory images (see, feel, taste, touch, smell & hear) Employ several.
___2. Use the present tense
___3. Employ action verbs. Eradicate verbs of being, avoid passive voice.
___4. Specifics: Hawk not bird, Dogwoods not trees, Nikes or stilettos, not shoes.
___5. Dialogue. Try it!
___6. Show don’t tell. Avoid adverbs, few adjectives, no redun. synonyms, use images.
___7. Title. (distinctive or unusual, should inform, may be ironic)
___8. Development: is detail sufficient or merely bare bones? Enough furniture?
___9. Point of view? First, second person or third? Does it suit purpose? Does it shift?
___10. Sound: Play with it. Employ alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, cacophony
Avoid rhymed couplets unless sing-song, Dr Seussy, rhyme suits your purpose.
___11. Visual. Consider, does form match content? Appropriate to topic or genre?
Avoid centered poems, unless there is a good reason, ie topic is clouds or floating.
Consider whether line length, caesura & stanza breaks are appropriate.
___12. Language: concrete nouns not abstractions, consider diction, lists, PVC.
___13. Allusions: use them! You can delete later if it’s too much.
___14. Figurative language: try similes, personification, metaphor.
___15. Clarity. Indicate confusions by placing a question mark in the margin.
___16. Repetition & refrains. Read aloud.
___17 Diction: plain, elaborate, scholarly, unsophisticated___________? Varied?
___18. Employ irony, reversals, or the unexpected.
___19. Tone. Describe it: ________________. Is it consistent? Should it be?
___20. Concludes smoothly and naturally, is not abruptly chopped off or too easy.