Mystery Writing Notes

Using MS Word 2000-2003 Track Changes

2008-07-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

This handout that was sent to me by Joan Pulver of epress-online.com. I hope you find it useful.

Craft of Writing

Take Full Advantage of MS Word's Editing Capabilities

As a Senior Editor for ePress-Online and a freelance editor, I needed to find a way to communicate with authors in a way they would understand and be able to make informed decisions. The most efficient way I’ve found is using MS Word Track Changes. During this process I need to communicate with the authors just how this works. For that reason I put together this little tutorial on using that feature as I edit and what the author has to do when I am done.

Track changes while you edit

In all versions of Word: Double-click the TRK text in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. If TRK is black, Word is tracking changes.

1. Open the document you want to revise.

2. On the Reviewing toolbar, click Track Changes.

If you don’t see the Reviewing toolbar, pick Toolbars on your View menu, then pick Reviewing. This will open your Reviewing toolbar. Then pick Track Changes as shown above.

3. Make the changes you want by inserting, deleting, or moving text or graphics just as you would on your own work. MS Word uses default revision marks. Insert will be underlined and deletions will be crossed out.

4. To change the way revision marks look and work in Microsoft Word click Options (Tools menu), click the Track Changes tab, and then select one or more of the following options.

TRACK CHANGES WINDOW

To change the color and other formatting that Word uses to identify changes, select the formatting options you want and make your changes.

5. Be sure you have Track Changes turned on. After you are finished you will notice that there are vertical lines in the left hand margin. These lines denote changes made.

This is an excellent tool for both the author and the editor. It enables us to check that all changes are accepted or declined by the author. Minute changes, such as an inserted period or comma are hard to see. Vertical lines in the left margin alert the author to an un-addressed change.

Type a comment

1. Select the text or item you want to comment on, or click at the end of the text.

2. On the Reviewing toolbar, click Insert Comment.(See above to turn on this toolbar.) A comment box will open.

3. Type your comments in this window. On the finished product highlighted text indicates comments have been made. When the cursor rests on the highlights, a small window pops up to display them. The author can then make an educated decision based on the editor’s comments.

Accept or reject changes suggested with change tracking

You can review tracked changes in two ways:

1. Use the Reviewing toolbar. If you don’t see the Reviewing toolbar pick Toolbars on your View menu, then pick Reviewing. This will open your Reviewing toolbar.

2. There are three ways to accept changes and reject changes.

A. Use the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box (Tools menu, Track Changes submenu, Accept or Reject Changes command).

B. Right click on the change and choose either Accept or Reject Change.

C. Use the Reviewing toolbar and pick either Accept or Reject Change.

3. Be sure you have Track Changes turned on. You will notice vertical lines in the left hand margin to alert you to each change. This vertical line marks all errors even something as small as a common or a deleted space, which can be missed at first glance.

This is an excellent tool for both the author and the editor. It is a way to check and be sure that all changes have been either accepted or rejected. If you see the vertical line you know there is a change there which has not been addressed.

Delete a comment

1. Display the comment you want to delete. How? Rest the pointer over shaded text to read.

2. Read the comment and take the chosen action.

3. When finished, click anywhere on the highlighted word. On the Reviewing toolbar, click Delete Comment. Word automatically renumbers any remaining comments.

4. You can also right click on the shaded text and click Delete Comment.

Other editions of MS Word might have some differences but basically they are the same.

For Word 2002 and 2003, deleting is done a little differently:

To accept or reject a tracked change

To accept or reject a tracked change, click within the change and then on the Reviewing toolbar, click the either Accept or Reject Change button.

Or, right-click on the tracked change and choose Accept/Reject Insertion, Deletion or Format Change, etc.

Track changes works well with in most cases. Be aware that different editions of MS Word will show the track changes in different ways. Track Changes in Word XP uses balloons instead of strikethrough/underline and comments. If you prefer being able to see the strikethrough/underline on the page you can change it by going to Tools, Options pick the Track Changes tab and uncheck "use baloons." In Word 2000 through 2003, the comments will show up in a little box at the bottom of the screen. The additions and deletions will only show in the text. In both editions there will be a vertical line down the left side of the page. Regardless of which edition you use, Track Changes is an excellent tool to use when editing someone else's work.

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Writing Rules

2008-07-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather.

If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''

3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''

This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.''

''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

More on Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing available in hardcopy:

Get your copy at Amazon.com
Get the book at Powell's Books

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Words that writers should avoid where possible

2008-06-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

Harvey Stanbrough edited my novel, Switcheroo, and during that process I read his book on Punctuation for Writers. His advice is to avoid using state-of-being verbs whenever you can. They do not show action and do not engage the reader. There are only a handful:

is
are
was
were
be
being

These are often accompanied by have, has, and had, which you should also avoid whenever possible. Once you've finished writing a piece, it's a good practice to go back and circle every state-of-being verb. Then, try to recast each sentence that contains a state-of-being verb into an active sentence. You won't be able to in every case, but every change you make from a passive construction to an active one will render your writing stronger, more interesting, and more effective.

Here is a list of other weak words

a bit, a little, about, actually, all, almost, alot/a lot, already, am, appear, approximately, are, back, basically, be, been, began, begin, being, close to, could, definitely, down, even, eventually, exactly, fairly, feel, felt, few. finally, good, had, heard, here, highly, imagine, instead, is, just, just, kind of, like
look, maybe, .might, mostly, nearly, nice, not, now, of the, out, ponder, possibly, practically, pretty, quite, rather, really. seem, simply, slightly, so, some, somehow, somewhat, sort of, start to, started, suddenly, tend to, that, then, there, to be, to the, truly, up, use, utterly, very, was, went, were, which, who, wonder, would

Sources on the web:

http://lbarker.orconhosting.net.nz/redundancies.html
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/style-guide-weak-words/
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/wordines.html
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4411
http://www.writersdock.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=31
http://www.writersvillage.com

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