Overview

Diane is not only a cozy mystery writer, she helps run a theater and has written plays. This is a topic that most authors don't know much about and she divulges quite a bit of great information about her process.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/Dwji9jsw6Nk

Transcript

So Diane, let's talk some author stuff. You've written multiple books at this point. So what are you doing different now that you, than what you used to do? What are some things you've learned that you've changed?

[00:24:11] Diane: I've taken out a lot of passive writing in by that. Things like has been, or had, or there's those words that a lot of them are just fillers.

And they slow down the action. So I find taking out like has been, or had been, and just putting was just speeds the speeds up the flow of the sentence or the paragraph, whatever you're working on. Okay.

[00:24:39] Stephen: And how did you learn that? Or who told you or how'd you, how were you told, Hey, maybe change this.

Where'd you get that from

[00:24:48] Diane: a lot of edits from editors I've 13 books in, I've dealt with a lot of editors I've done I've different writing courses there. I don't think there was any one place that, that was really a thing. It was just one of those things you of start picking. and the, like we were saying, the more you read, the more you're writing, the more you're having feedback on your work, the more you start learning all of these little tricks and all of these little things.

[00:25:16] Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. Do you use, have you used anything like Grammarly or pro writing aid?

[00:25:23] Diane: I really haven't. Okay. And. I th I'm not really sure why I haven't I've thought about it, but I just, it's just one of those things that I just haven't

[00:25:34] Stephen: done. Got it. I, I have pro writing aid and I've learned so much from that.

My editors reinforced it, oh yeah. My editor just told me that I ignored it when pro writing aid told me, maybe I should listen. My, one of my big things when I first started was. Almost every paragraph had one or two sentences that started with an I N G word. And it was just, so once I realized it and then read it, I'm like, yeah, you're right.

That doesn't sound great. And now I rarely ever even do it cuz I've retrained myself. So yeah the editors definitely when they tell you something, listen and see, cuz I. I have a couple author friends one even said, oh, I didn't get an editor because I don't think they get what I was trying to do with the story.

I'm like, wow. Okay. And I think they sold a grand total of 20 books and that includes to friends. Yeah. Definitely listen to the editors, try the software for what it's good for.

[00:26:34] Diane: Yeah, exactly. And one of the other big things, and I know it was always, actually two things that. I have a good friend.

Who's a professional editor and she always would slap my wrist for was exclamation marks cause I was the queen of exclamation marks with my very first one. And the other one is repetitive words. Ah, and just using you have to find different words and right. And different cliches make your own cliches, that kind of thing.

Like. People start reading and they're like, oh my gosh, you've said this word, like 12 times in one page. Like yeah, you have a

[00:27:13] Stephen: very limited vocabulary.