During a marathon writing coach session, my client and I marched through the manuscript he needed to revise. For months he had written sloppy copy. I helped create order out of all that rough draft material, but now we wanted to make sure that both the manuscript and the story flowed. So our mission that morning involved identifying the theme of each chapter, along with any material that didn’t belong.
Once we had clearly ascertained the single message of each chapter, which we summed up with a working title and listed in an outline, we looked at the leads. While almost all the chapters ended with a solid punch, they opened with a limp handshake at best.
The problem?
My client excelled at burying his leads.
Fortunately, all we had to do was either move or delete the expository material that opened each chapter, thereby uncovering his lead.
The next time you go back to revise your first or second or third draft (which you absolutely must do since no one writes perfect rough, first or even second drafts), make to remember this easy tip:
Don’t bury a lead. Let it shine.
Always, always, proofread – check it above!
Absolutely. But it’s not always easy to spot your own mistakes. The brain fills in and auto-corrects. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate to the page or the screen. Especially not to the screen.