One Line Wednesday Reflections

I joined in One Line Wednesday on Twitter for the first time in quite a while last week. But perhaps because of the break, I was really struck by the value of it.

Not so much for the marketing value, although it certainly can’t hurt to put snippets of your best stuff out there. And not the sheer enjoyment factor of participating, since it’s easy for me right now just to focus on sheer productivity.

But the subtle, enduring value of One Line Wednesday is that it gets me to skip through my manuscripts with a selective eye. You have to understand that all eight of them have been beta read by some very talented people. First chapters and synopses have been posted online for review–and Absolute Write’s Share Your Work is not an easy room.

But skipping through my manuscripts, looking for a key words and snippets that can be used for tweets–this forces me to look at my work with different eyes. And that sort of mental distance is beyond price when working covering ground which is so well-trodden.

I’ve polished passages that I thought couldn’t be improved. I’ve noticed areas that can be cut–or expanded. One Line Wednesday is actually a terrific editing tool. It encourages brevity and challenges me to have more memorable lines.

So if you’ve been out of the game for a while like me, I encourage you to jump back in. And if you’ve never tried One Line Wednesday, it’s well worth the effort, even if you never sell a single book from it. Just use the hashtag #1linewed.

And keep tweeting–and editing. 🙂

About cathleentownsend

Avid writer and reader of Faerie tales and noblebright fantasy.