PERFECT LAYERS TOOL FREE
By separating each one of those pesky, not-quite-perfect writing habits, you’re free to focus on improving just one thing at a time, 100% confident that you’ll catch everything–one layer at a time. Just like step one, this step provides an incredible degree of freedom to the baker. At least half of the time I find an IT, I can replace the word with a more specific reference. I am always shocked at how often those tiny offenders hit the page. Every time I find an IT, I make deliberate decision on whether or not that word is the best word in the context. In this layer, I go over mhy entire piece of writing solving for IT. You wouldn’t try to mix the perfect pink and the ideal indigo at the same time, and it’s just as difficult to fix all the things all in one swoop.įor example: If you like to use the word “it” waaaaayyyy too much– like I do in every single draft ever– then you’ll need at It Layer. In working each layer, you need to concentrate on one and only one thing. Just as one by one, each layer of that rainbow cake needs conscious care to get just the right hue of red, green or blue, each of your edit layers will also need unique, focused attention, to ensure you get just the right end result around that particular component of craft. Before you are ready to bake, you need to divvy up that batter and add some color! The colors represent your literary weaknesses, or those elements of craft you are currently focused on mastering. This is one seriously obnoxious rainbow cake. Remember, I told you this isn’t some ordinary 3-layer chocolate-on-chocolate dessert. Write freely and write fearlessly, knowing your batter will be baked to perfection. In other words, if my metaphor isn’t doing it for you, write. So free your mind, fill up the counter, and dump those goodies in a bowl. And your readers will never know what your initial ingredients looked like either. Think about it– Have you ever tasted an egg in a cake? Nope. In the end they are transformed into something completely different. Ingredients are only components of the cake. So write away, with no worries over the final result. And you can’t edit without your raw materials. You can’t bake that cake without breaking some eggs. Here’s the simple recipe for the perfect Layer Cake Edit, no matter how many layers you decide to bake. My coaching clients make incredible progress when we identify their layers, because small craft corrections make for huge changes in the finished product. In addition to attacking a pervasive weak point in your craft, you can use your layers to master a new skill like writing dialogue or punching up the humor in a piece. Your components will be different than mine.
When we edit in layers, we focus on one component of craft at a time. In my experience, beating yourself up about those weaknesses is nothing but a colossal waste of energy. Whether that’s passive voice, favorite/over-used words, or forgetting to include tasty sensory details. In my writing, teaching, and coaching, I have found that we tend to struggle with the same weaknesses over and over.
PERFECT LAYERS TOOL PROFESSIONAL
The Layer Cake Edit is your recipe for crafting professional prose like a pro. Unlike attempts to create a Pinterest-worthy rainbow cake, the Layer Cake Edit won’t leave you feeling like failure. The Layer Cake Edit is one of those ridiculous rainbow cakes you see on Pinterest, the kind you gaze upon with either admiration for the skill, patience, and dedication to culinary beauty, or astonishment at the amount of disposable time some people seem to have.Įither way, this is the kind of layer cake that makes you question your choices in life, and on the page. This is no ordinary all-the-same-flavor layer cake. I’m no baker, but I’m a master of the Layer Cake Edit. That’s why I get so excited about a method I’ve developed for myself and taught to students and clients over the years. You’re usually way too close to those darlings to kill them. Three cheers for editing! However, while editing others’ work is easy peas, editing your own work can be brutal. Editing really and truly is a skill you can practice and perfect.
If I do say so myself. Editing, or any other component of the craft of writing, is not about talent.
With practice I have become a very good editor. Editing means that someone else has done the heavy lifting of imagining and I get to pick all those words and paragraphs apart and put them back together–better, faster, stronger. Here’s my nerdy little secret: I love editing.
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