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Are the subject matter and level of difficulty appropriate for the age level intended?
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Is the manuscript appropriate for the medium intended (magazine, book, play, etc.)?
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Does the story have a beginning, middle, and end?
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Is the story's meaning clear?
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Is the story organized?
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Is the story believable from all aspects (character, dialogue, etc.)?
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Is all information, including each detail, accurate? If the story is set during the time of George Washington, the years better be in the 1700s, not the 1500s.
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Could any generalities be made more precise? Could "dog" become "poodle"?
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Are assumptions explained smoothly? Don't assume readers know that the average snowfall in the Grand Canyon is greater than that in Minnesota.
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Could the manuscript be condensed without losing impact? Could the first few or last few pages be eliminated?
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Is anything repeated needlessly?
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Is the manuscript consistent in tense, language, characterization, point-of-view, etc.?
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Are the transitions smooth?
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Is the continuity accurate? If a character has brown eyes in one chapter, she can't have blue eyes in another-unless she's wearing colored contact lenses!
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Does the writing have a variety of sentence and paragraph lengths and structures?
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Does the writing have run-on sentences or sentence fragments?
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Are prepositional phrases used at a minimum?
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Are word choices the strongest possible?
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Are the verbs active instead of passive?
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Have stronger verbs or nouns been used instead of adverbs and adjectives? (Hint: circle all the "ly" words to notice their frequency.)
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Are modifiers in their proper places? Be alert to sentences like "Plucking at his beard, the boy talked to President Lincoln."
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Have the words, not the punctuation, told the story?
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Do all verbs agree with their subjects?
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Has all punctuation been used properly?
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Are all words spelled correctly?
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Is the manuscript in proper submission form?
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Make a list of your particular problems. For example: Did I put a question mark after each question?" or "Is my plot strong enough?" or "Are my characters believable?"