Revision and editing advice to take your first draft to the next level.
As The Picture Book Whisperer and Editor for Bushel & Peck Books, I’m regularly invited to conferences to give manuscript critiques. Most recently, I participated in the Florida SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators) Critique-a-Palooza, and from the feedback I received on my critiques, I scored like a champ. Since these involved 15-minute Zoom conversations with the authors, I already knew that—I witnessed how my written and verbal comments were difference-making.
Best of all, no one cried.
You might think that last sentence was left in for the comedic value, but here’s the truth—when I started teaching writing at the college level 20-whatever years ago, I make someone cry. Maybe even a few someones. Why? Because it’d been commonplace in my grad school writing workshops for students to get blubbery during or immediately after a professor’s critique. After all, when speaking about critiques, don’t we often use words like “destroy,”
