I just love what this young author has to say! If you’ve never watched any of Shaelin’s videos on Youtube, you’re missing out! She may be young but this girl has got talent. She’s already written 8 books! I love that she wants to help out fellow writers and share her writing tips and tricks as she learns them. This video is all about stronger, cleaner prose. The first few minutes give some great insight to line edits, but the hacks start at 6:04, so if you’re not at an editing point in your current project, you’ll want to skip ahead otherwise the info can overwhelm you!

This is such good info for writers of all stages. Shaelin just gets me; in this video, she says, “Treat these as rules, not guidelines, otherwise you’ll always make excuses for why you don’t have to edit.” How does she know?! Another great point Shaelin makes is that a lot of people are anti-prose rules because they see these rules as restricting and just trying to make everyone write the same way. In fact, as Shaelin argues, these rules only serve to enhance your own personal style. “Before these rules, we all had the beginnings of style, but it sounded more or less the same because we were all making the same mistakes. After these edits, we cut the mistakes and were able to see our own style shine through.” Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but hear her out!

**SPOILER ALERT: This video is anti-adverbs, anti -ing verbs, and anti-adjectives. But don’t worry, as, with all rules, they are meant to be broken. See how to earn your adverbs in the video below! (You’ll want to take notes).