Writing Lessons-- EDITS System by Margie Lawson

Again, this comes from Margie Lawson's lecture http://www.margielawson.com/

Now for the EDITS system. Each one of these has a colored highlighter and a technique so bear with me. This can be done in MS Word, or take one printout of your chapter and do the following:

E- emotion and NVC (pink highlight or underline)
D- Dialogue (blue highlight or underline)
I- Internalizations (yellow or underline)
T- Tension and conflict (orange dashes down the margin)
S- Setting (green highlight or underline)

Spread the entire chapter in order on the floor, tape to a wall or door, something so you can see the overall colors. If you have done this in MS Word, click the page magnification to 50% and scroll. When you see a large block of too much of any one color, click there then turn the magnification to 100%.

Is it balanced? Too much of any one color? (Yellow should be the least you see.)

Now add specialization and personalization.

Purple highlighter is for your specialization in genre- comedic touches for romantic comedy, use of naughty words for erotic writers, or certain things you are working on.
Black- circle all metaphors and similes. (Work to remove clichés)
Red underline- the six senses and note which ones were used in the margin. See, taste, smell, hear, touch, and intuit.

In the next section below, you will find out how to highlight online. I actually prefer this method. Here's a trick: Highlight online using Word, just as I describe above (blue dialogue, pink emotives, etc.) Now go to your word program and look for the zoom window. It should contain a percentage value, such as 100%, 54%, or 240%. Change it to 50% using the drop-down arrow beside the zoom window.

You should see two pages on your screen. Look at them and scroll through the entire chapter. Wherever you see large blocks of one or two colors only, stop. Click there. Change your font color to RED. Put in a note. (Add emotion here, Add setting description, or my bane "Too much introspection! Break this up!") By changing the font color to red, it will show up easily once you use Control-A/Highlight/No Color and return the document to its original legible state.

I have below a list of words to use the Find/Replace command on MSWord to locate. This exercise will light up your ms like a Christmas tree, but will highlight all of the no-no's, including many instances of passive voice.

1. Choose a Highlight Color. On my toolbar, the Highlight command looks like a pen with a colored line beneath it. When I click on the arrow beside that button, I get a choice of colors. Choose one. I use yellow for possible passives, pink for "wussy" phrasing like "kind of", "quite", and "suddenly", green for It, adverbs, and That, and blue for lazy dialogue tags.

2. To begin checking your ms, hit Cntrl-H. This puts you in the Edit/Replace window. Type in the word you wish to find.

Let's use the word "that" for an example. In the Find What box, type: that

3. In the Replace with box, type the same. Now it gets tricky. Using your mouse, highlight the "that" in the second box. Click on the More button. Click on the Format button. Click on the Highlight button. Check to make sure the lower box (Replace with) now has the word "highlight" beneath it. This is important.

4. Now, click Replace All. If you've done this correctly, all instances of the word "that" will now be highlighted.

5. Repeat with all words you wish to check for. Here's my list:

ly -(adverbs) Note: I advocate the judicious use of adverbs, myself. Merely look for too many.)
That
It
Kind of
Sort of
Almost
Maybe
Somehow
Ing - many instances of passive voice include this. (ie "was running") Most will be fine, but it's one way to check for this pernicious evil.
be
been
being
are
was
is
will be
had been
am
were
have
somewhat
perhaps
nearly
very
only
just
suddenly
almost
should
would
could
feel
felt
begin
began
rather
a few
seem
appear
quite
really
always
***
said
thought
asked
answered
cried
whispered
muttered
responded
something- "He does something to me." What? What does he do to you? Give you the shivers? Makes you hot, tired, or want to dance? This word is a cop-out.

Toward vs. towards
Also exclamation points - check if you really need them. Maybe the words you use could be stronger.


Now all you have to look for that is un-highlighted are: flying body parts (rolling eyes), misplaced modifiers, redundancies "little Chihuahua" is redundant (The breed is known for its size), metaphors, clichés and similes, and starting your sentences with -ing words.

Lena