It is important to think about MARKETING. It is important to think about this even before you go about looking for agents and editors because there are some agents who want to know how you plan to promote your work.

One book written does not a writing philosophy make. Your writing philosophy will no doubt change as you move through your newness as a writer and develop yourself.

If getting your manuscript in the hands of an agent or editor is your goal for 2010, you will need a strong, titillating, one-paged query letter.

The synopsis is not a tool for you; it’s a tool for an agent or an editor, for someone you hope will like your story idea enough to want to read the whole manuscript and will want to BUY it.

Editors, and I’m speaking from my own experience, clean up errors and make a lot of suggestions. If I see a hole in the plot, I state where I see it and make suggestions on how to fix it.

Many of the formatting rules will no doubt make you go, “Duh, thanks, Shōn,” but you’d be surprised at how many people forget one thing or decide not to do something a specific way because they like the way they do it better.

Use modifiers that are strong. “Pretty” is not a strong adjective. It doesn’t convey much, and if your purpose is to add detail and visuals to your story, you have done yourself a disservice in using it. Same goes for words like “little,” “very,” and even “good” and “bad”; they are too general and do nothing to add to your story.

We all know that words and how we manipulate them are the backbone to writing a good story, but what helps the reader to understand everything we write is the punctuation we use with those words.

Some of these will sound SO obvious, but having been an editor for the last seven years, I can tell you…writers (including myself) often miss the most obvious of mistakes while rereading and revising their work.

Overall, active voice is preferred over passive voice because active voice shows immediacy, action. However, this isn’t to say you should never use passive voice.