Wow. It has been about 7 months since my beta partner and I sat on the phone pulling our hair out over the comments the publisher made on her manuscript. I think at this point I have hacked up and drilled everything they had to say as much as possible. The rest of their comments are just repeats of the same mistakes throughout the work.
Sooooo….. This is the last one. Thirty posts in all.
So, did this help you? Did you learn from this? I totally did. My novel is much more crisp, clean, and fluid as a result of all this information. I hope you have benefitted as well.
Now the only problem is…. What do I post about on Monday nights from now on?
**GACK** I have no idea!
Here are all the lessons in a sparkly package for you. If you missed one, I’d suggest going back and taking a look. Heck, maybe read them over again to get a fresh perspective.
I hope that you have all benefitted from these lessons as much as I have. I’d also like to send out a special “thanks” to the brave author who was nice enough to allow me to slice and dice her red-lined manuscript for all the world to learn from.
Just out of curiosity, which lessons helped you the most?
I truly hope all of you will have the opportunity one day to add the revised version of the Gold Mine Manuscript into your own libraries. Once it is published, (with the author’s permission) I will let you know so you can all see the value of good clear suggestions, and the results of hard work and editing.
Lesson One: Write without Looking
Lesson Two: Do we like your main character yet?
Lesson Three: Action Action, where is the Action?
Lesson Four: And Then there was a Conjunction, or Was There?
Lesson Five: Let’s keep it in the past
Lesson Seven: Where did that character come from?
Lesson Eight: Magically Appearing Items in the Setting
Lesson Nine: Written Any Good (Bad) Cliché’s lately?
Lesson Ten: Girls Rule and Boys Drool
Lesson Twelve: How Are Your Characters Feeling Today?
Lesson Thirteen: Keeping inside the Point Of View, Part 1
Lesson Fourteen: Keeping inside the Point Of View, Part 2
Lesson Fifteen: How Many POV’s Can You Have?
Lesson Sixteen: Cutting down your Point of View Characters
Lesson Seventeen: Who are we talking to?
Lesson Eighteen: What makes your story Unique?
Lesson Nineteen: Don’t annoy the reader
Lesson Twenty: Don’t make things so easy
Lesson Twenty-One: Common, and Cliché Themes
Lesson Twenty-Two: Does your Protagonist “Grow Enough?”
Lesson Twenty-Three from a Manuscript Red Line: Kindle Syndrome
Lesson Twenty-Four: Remembering where your characters are
Lesson Twenty-Five: Bullying for Bully’s sake
Lesson Twenty-Six: Capital Letters
Lesson Twenty Seven: Fluidity in Action-The Art of a Good Fight Scene
Lesson Twenty-Eight: Very Discreet Point of View Switches
Lesson Twenty-Nine: Watch your Synopsis
Don’t forget to let me know which one you enjoyed the most!
Jennifer M Eaton 
I am late to this party, but I have found the posts I have read to be good reminders of things I need to be vigilant about and some brand new bits as well. I admire your extensive pingbacking, a labor of love for you, I hope! I will check out your older posts and am looking forward to what you come up with in the future!
I’m bookmarking too! Gonna hunker down and read all of these in one day; someday soon, might I add!
Good Luck! Probably better a few at a time to take it all in. Took me months to chew this thing all up!
I was envisioning myself doing it all at once, with wine!
Sounds like someone needs to become an agent or editor themselves:) Nicely done!
Thanks, Jamie. Nope… I’d rather write. More fun to create my own world.
neat – thanks for posting them all in once place. it can be a blog-a-day lesson now 🙂
I just bookmarked this page as an all around wonderful writing resource page I know I’ll come back to time and time again. Thanks for all your hard work you put into this for us Jennifer and here’s to finding a new Monday topic to luv on!! 🙂
Jennifer, I can’t thank you enough for these. Every post was helpful and provided a learning opportunity. Anything you learn from future beta reading would be useful to hear. Good luck with Monday nights.
Jennifer, since I am a brand new follower, this is perfect. I’m bookmarking this page and will be back for your lessons.
Sounds like the publisher did her job. Like an immunization shot in the arm when we’re three, we don’t understand, we just know it hurts.
But, we learn, we become more competent, the lessons become part of our technique, and we slowly graduate to competence.
No, I didn’t come up with that competence bit on my own. Margie Lawson (www.margielawson.com) explains that growth in her lectures.
Very impressive!
You did an excellent job. I can’t decide which lesson I learned the most from. They are all important to the final cut. Thank you for sharing everything with us. It has definitely been a ride!