Getting a manuscript ready for professional editing is notoriously painstaking work. It drags you into seemingly endless rounds of scrutiny: searching for plot holes, questioning the characters’ motivations, adding zing to the dialogue, and squashing typos and grammatical errors. With so much ground to cover, a revision plan ensures you’re not overlooking anything. What’s not Read more about When are you ready for professional editing?[…]
Do you get sucked into spending more time reading about writing fiction than actually doing it? I’ve just updated my short list of the best books on writing, so you can level up and take the techniques back to your manuscript. One of my favorite ways to help writers is recommending books that will help Read more about Updated: Best books on writing for writers[…]
Updated for 2020: Best books for writers of fiction It’s been a stressful year to try to write a novel. It feels easier for many authors to step back from their own pages and reframe their thinking. How do experienced authors go about developing a concept into a novel? What are turning points and what Read more about Updated for 2020: Best books for writers[…]
Cleaning up messes is standard operating procedure for editors. Whether we’re handed story messes such as plot holes, writing messes such as head-hopping, or mechanical messes such as three different spellings of a character’s name, we’re ready to take on the work you need help with. We just want to make sure you’re not creating Read more about Avoid this editing misconception that could sabotage your writing[…]
How many passes are enough to prepare a manuscript for professional editing? If you take away anything from this article, let it be this: No editor wants to work on your first or second draft. It’s not ready for editing. A manuscript isn’t edit-ready until you’ve set it aside for weeks or months to regain Read more about Peeling the onion: The simplified revision plan[…]
Your first time attempting anything you value is fraught with risk. Most authors I know tackle their first novels with little more than hopes and dreams under the hood. Under these conditions, writing eighty thousand words can seem like an impossible exercise, and publishing those words remains an inscrutable business best left to the rich, Read more about What every writer should know before writing a first novel[…]
Writing is such a minuscule part of the writing a novel. People who’ve never written anything longer than a school paper have a hard time imagining that pouring all those words onto the page isn’t the major part of the battle, but experienced authors know better. While the writing process hogs the public spotlight, revisions Read more about Revision: Separating the sheep from the goats (and the writers)[…]
Nothing makes an editor sadder than slogging through a manuscript that isn’t ready for editing yet. Let’s not embark upon a journey your manuscript isn’t ready to take. Really. As exciting as it feels to move one step closer to publication, typing “The End” is only the close of the very first step. The majority Read more about Is your book ready for editing?[…]
Bad news: You just got your manuscript back from the editor, and your computer has collapsed in a fit of pique. Every time you open the document, Microsoft Word stalls out. The only thing still moving is your cursor, chasing its tail like an eternal puppy. How can you process your revisions if you can’t Read more about Help! My edit is choking my computer![…]
Nobody wants to scale the stony gray wall of revision. Nobody. Not even those crazy Spartan racers. (You go, Spartans.) A novel revision stares you down with the same inscrutable gaze of a blinking cursor on a blank page. How on earth should you begin? You start rereading your manuscript. Something’s misfiring; you can hear Read more about How to revise the early drafts of your novel[…]
Are you guilty of trying to put lipstick on a pig? As my colleague Jami Gold confided via email, “I’ve seen far too many authors consider themselves ‘edited’ just because someone did a comma check, but my reviews and impressions of a story are almost always about the story itself. We can’t emphasize that enough, Read more about How to develop your story revision skills[…]
If you’ve never used Microsoft Word’s Track Changes feature before, the idea of getting your manuscript back from an editor filled with all sorts of lines and squiggles you have to do something to in order to keep your novel from plummeting precipitously through a fiery ring of digital destruction and disappearing into the black Read more about Updated: Author’s survival guide to Track Changes[…]
Are you well-read? Do you know what’s hot in your genre right now? What are fans reading more of? What are they reading less of? Whether or not you consider your book like today’s bestsellers, those titles are what your book will be competing against. It turns out that aspiring authors aren’t the only ones Read more about 10 kinds of books anyone who writes fiction should be reading[…]
No author wants spend time changing a bunch of commas in their manuscript—except when the editor recommends deep changes, at which point changing commas is often all you feel capable of doing. Every writer feels the sting of opening a document file filled with red ink. But when the entire editing process becomes a battle Read more about How to handle editing and feedback on your novel[…]
You’ve poured your heart and soul into your manuscript, and you’ve taken it as far as you can on your own. Now it’s time to widen the circle of your publishing team with a critique. Whether you’re sending your manuscript to an agent or self-publishing the title yourself, professional-quality publishing means putting your work in Read more about Where to find writing critique partners and groups[…]
Track Changes—a fate worth than death? Though revising an edit full of tracked changes and comments can seem utterly intimidating the first time, a few simple guidelines will keep you safe and sound. Truth be told, thanks to this guide, I haven’t lost an author to Track Changes yet. You too can emerge unscathed—and with Read more about The author’s survival guide to Track Changes[…]
If you’re like many writers, your monitor is a veritable porcupine of sticky notes, many of them warning you away from the clichés your beta readers and editor have called you out on again and again: Her heart pounded as his hand slid up the side of her neck. She took a deep breath and Read more about Revealing emotion means more than “playing the organ”[…]
What if I told you there was a writing tool that could help you nail your final draft, slash time and effort off the front of the editing process, and set up your novel for acceptance by an agent or publisher? Such a beast really does exist, and it’s something you already know you’ll need Read more about How a synopsis proves you understand your own book[…]