The 10% Solution: Self-editing for the Modern Writer
by Ken Rand
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Fairwood Press (Seattle): 1998. Booklet: 64 pages. ISBN-10: 0-9668184-0-7 Suggested retail price: $5.99 (US) Tag: Editing Tactical strength: [6/10] |
Compare prices on The 10% Solution: Self-editing for the Modern Writer by Ken Rand at Book Cost
In The 10% Solution, Ken Rand describes his theory for improved writing. First, you wear two hats: the writer's hat and the editor's hat. As a writer, you write quickly, without editorial criticism. As the editor, you revise and attempt to reduce the word count by 10%.
Rand lists words and endings you should question in your writing. For example, you should examine each time of, appears and ask if it expresses your idea in the most accurate, clear, and brief way. If not, then revise or delete. Rand also provides the standard advice to read your prose aloud, read them on paper, and have someone else proofread them.
Rand provides mostly sound advice, but he also suggests that you scour your manuscript for widows, which he defines as any word on a line by itself. He suggests that widows in your manuscript might bother editors and affect their buying decision. What preposterous bunk. Although you should enable widow/orphan control in your word processor to eliminate the most obvious problems, don't waste time editing paragraphs for visual appearance. You cannot predict how your paragraph will look when typeset, thus the widows and orphans in your manuscript have no effect on the published work.
Fairwood Press should have followed Rand's advice and scoured the proofs for numerous annoyances, such as widows, inconsistent font sizes, and a chapter of bulleted paragraphs. Rand's repeated use of, "More on this later," reveals the need to reorganize the material -- something not covered in Rand's advice.
