I suppose it was inevitable that editing apps would become available eventually. After all, pattern recognition is something computers do very well, and a lot of copyediting comes under the heading of recognizing and, in some cases, changing authorial patterns of language. For example, most of us have words we habitually overuse. Some authors keep […]
There are two main expenses for self-publishing—covers (about which, more later) and editing. Of the two, beginning writers are more likely to spend on the former than the latter. They’re making a big mistake. I come to this conclusion from a somewhat unique perspective—I was a freelance copy editor myself for several years. At one […]
A while ago I took a workshop in which the presenter recommended writing a sentence summing up the purpose of each paragraph in a chapter just to make sure all the paragraphs were necessary. At the time, that struck me as torture—and, to be honest, it still does. But the idea behind the exercise was […]
Well, I have a lovely new cover (at left), but the MS is still being edited. Editing with fiction means several things since there are several rounds of edit for most novels. The first edits come from your editor at the publishing house, and those are usually the most grueling. The editor isn’t particularly concerned […]
Here’s a little-known truth of writing: you’re always in love with next year’s book. Next year’s book is the new guy at work, the strap-hanger on the bus who looks a lot like Ryan Gosling, the new barrista with the cute smile. Next year’s book makes your heart race a bit, and the more you […]
Okay, it’s time to admit the truth. Once, long, long ago in the dim, dusky past, I was a copyeditor. Not only that, I actually taught copyediting. Now you’d think this would help me write, but in fact all it really does is help me punctuate. Any copyeditor can tell you that editing your own […]
Okay, I came late to the train wreck that is the Jacqueline Howett/ Books and Pals fight, but a comment on one of my discussion lists stuck with me. One author said she’d stopped editing self-pubbed authors because, like Howett, they were just too hard to work with. This was her polite way of saying […]
