The Eagle Order | JUDY L MOHR

Finding an Editor for ‘The Eagle Order’

Normally, I'm the one sending out quotes and commenting on prospective clients' work, trying to showcase what I can do. However, for the first time in a long time, I was on the other side of the search for an editor. And I will gladly admit that it highlighted a few things that were a bit concerning about my sector of the publishing industry.

In today's post, I want to describe the process that I went through to find an editor for my own work, explaining how I was able to weed through the noise, and how I came to my final decision.

I feel this post will be insightful for writers and editors alike.

Too many short sentences make a scene feel stilted

When I was still new to writing, someone told me that to write a good action sequence you had to use a lot of short sentences. The idea was that short sentences were straight to the point and didn't give you a chance to add fluffy stuff. When I was told this advice, I was told that the short sentences would speed things up. Now that I'm more experienced, I know that this was bad advice and fundamentally not true.

Short sentences can be a great device to add emphasis, which is why this misconception exists. When used wisely, the short sentence can create urgency within your storytelling. However, too many short sentences in quick succession will create a stilted feeling in the narrative that is disjointed and slow to read. It can even make things confusing.

In today's post, we're going to discuss the true nature of using short sentences in action sequences.