Swiss Cheese: Get the holes out of your story

We're having a birthday luncheon at work today. We're doing subs and everyone is supposed to bring in something. My requirement: pickles and swiss cheese.

I asked my husband to pick up 2 lbs of swiss. This morning when I woke, I found 2 lbs of swiss in the fridge. 2 solid blocks of swiss. I looked at the package and they are indeed 16 oz.s each.

Although technically, that's exactly what I asked for, its not what I needed.

One of the reasons we need to give our manuscripts to trusted readers is to find the holes. Things that may be technically currect but don't quite get the intended meaning across.

I could give my finished manuscript to a dozen people and they could each find something wrong. Or be unclear about a characters motivation. One of the big ones is when I get a question like: Why did Jack kill Bob?

Ahhhhh. Jack didn't kill Bob. Bob killed Jack!! "Oh, that wasn't clear."

Oh dear. I go back through and read to see what made them think that and I find it. Maybe something as small as a misplaced comma.

"Having already murdered, Jack he lay on the floor like a discarded side of beef.

Oh, it should say "Having already murdered Jack (COMMA) Bob lay on the floor like a discarded side of beef."

Alright forget that's a terrible piece of writing. You get the point.

If readers are unclear of what you meant, or who did what or why, you need to fix it before you send it off to editors. Because if one person misreads it, likely others will too. Maybe even your dream editor.

I need to go now and hand slice 2 lbs of swiss. Lucky me.