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.

EDITING PARTNER’S CHECKLIST