Where the power lies:
The most power in a sentence, paragraph, chapter, or complete work is at the end. And, it is usually true that ending with a noun is more powerful than ending with a verb which is more powerful than ending with an adjective or adverb which are more powerful than ending in a preposition. <em>Usually.</em> This is something I'm trying to keep in mind especially as I craft my sentences. For example, it is more powerful to say, "He became a writhing, howling anguish" than "He became an anguish, writhing and howling."
Coincidences and crazy happenings:
At the beginning of a story, you get to set pretty much whatever parameters that you want for the story. The reader agrees to accept what you layout here (or they can just stop reading if they can't or won't do that - and they've invested no time so no harm). So - if your first sentence is, "Mary entered the room in a most unusual way - she walked right through the wall," the reader has been told upfront that Mary can walk through walls and this is likely to be an important premise for the story.
As the story progresses, however, you have less and less leeway to create coincidences or unlikely occurrences. When you have these happening in the middle of a story, you can make them more palatable by acknowledging them in the story, either through the narrator or by having a character remark on the unlikely thing. At the end of the story you have very little such wriggle room unless you've laid it all out throughout the rest of the story so that it doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. You don't want, for example, to have Mary be able to rescue someone because she happens to be able to walk through walls, and you just forgot to mention it until the end when the rescuing takes place. The reader will see this as a cheat and will not be amused.
The same things could be said for the voice and tone of the story. For example, if the first sentence is, "Mary quite contrary to custom and convention danced and pranced in polka dot pants all the way to the circus where she tamed lions and tigers and bears, oh my," the reader has been put on notice that the story is going to be light and rather silly. If, however, it turns into a dull drab serious story with no more silliness - then the reader is likely to feel like the promise of the first sentence was not delivered. (For an example of setting an unusual voice from the get go, check out this awesome little gem: All Them Pretty Babies by Alexandra Renwick.
Line editing - some specific tricks I use:
When doing my line editing, I like to use the find function in the word program to search for certain words that I know I'm apt to misuse, or that often allow me to write better if I try to get rid of them. Some examples are - forms of "to be." When I find and try to replace these I often get rid of passive voice, increase my use of dynamic action words, find better nouns that include connotations of action, etc. I never, of course, get rid of all of them, that would <em>be</em> quite silly. But I often get rid of 20-40% of them, and all to the good. Another word I like to look for is "that," which is often pure filler, like saying "uhm" when talking.
Backing up my work:
I've found the quickest and easiest way to back up my work is to email copies to myself. I then move the emails into folders in the email program. I guess this would only work with an internet based email system - but then nowadays does anyone not use internet based email systems??
