Category Archives: editing

Careless Editors & Languishing in Romantical Writer-Myths

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What’s wrong with this sentence? “My only child was struck and killed by a car riding a bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September.” (From Enon, by Paul Harding) So, there was this car riding a bicycle to the beach, see, and…. {Sigh}. And this book was published traditionally and by Random House, where I assume they have professional editors being paid the big bucks to catch things like that. I’m sure there are a million reasons why an editor could have missed that. Perhaps he had been up too late the night before, perhaps he sneezed and … Continue reading →

Glaring Errors

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  This is a wide subject area, but I want to focus on just a few things. As a segue, I have to share this post I came across. I was on a forum where people were posting for help about making money blogging. One poster was frustrated and confused and posted this: “Been using these for over a year and made 2 penies.  How do I earn money on goggle.  It is simply frostrating.  I posted so many adds  on my blog but I have earned no money. what is happening? I have been trying to write all the … Continue reading →

Are Writers Born or Made?

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I was discussing this topic with another writer, and as is my tendency, I wallow in the gray areas. A simple answer is never forthcoming and requires examination. So if I were to answer the question of whether writers are born or made, I’d have to say Both. And then I would have to wade through the morass of That-Depends toward the destination of Picker of Nits. The first question I would throw back is “What do you mean by writer?” One could be a writer, in that she actually WRITES. But it doesn’t automatically ensure the writing is any … Continue reading →

Writing Tips: To Know, To Begin, To Feel

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As a writer, I am always in training. Like any vocation, it can be mastered to some degree if the individual cares enough about it. One thing I have noticed along the way, is that I have used certain phrases and words which do not serve the story in quality, plot or character development, or even in achieving clean, sharp examples of good craft. Most of these examples refer to rough drafts, as I have been writing for 25 years, and cannot be excused for doing this in a final version, but still, it comes up in the editing process … Continue reading →

Critique of Bad Fiction

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Several years ago, I did a critique for a friend who wanted my editorial-writerly insight on some stories she wrote. After I read them, I was then uneasy, because I am not willing to lie, yet I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. When she asked about the results of my reading, I told her I was afraid she wouldn’t like my critique. She stated emphatically that she wanted the cold hard truth. And so, that’s what I gave her. Below, is the critique, and I post it because I feel it covers lots of territory that every new writer … Continue reading →

I Heard You the First Time

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…Repetition as enemy to style and cadence. Even great writers make mistakes. I can usually tell when it’s an editing oversight, or the fault of the author. An editor’s oversight seems a simultaneous contradiction, in that it can mean “overlook”, but also “seeing-over,” as in monitoring–same word, two opposite meanings. Accordingly, when I use the word “mistake” in this context, it doesn’t necessarily imply the condition of being WRONG. I use the word, “mistake” loosely. What I’m really talking about are stylistic errors. But telling someone how to have a writing style, is like telling someone how to have clothing … Continue reading →

Style Editing: Word Choice & Attribution

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What is meant by a writer’s “style”? I’m not referring to MLA or Harvard or APA style; nor am I referring to terms such as “expository,” “Journalistic,” or “academic.” In the context of book authors, I’m talking about a writer’s unique voice; the way a writer strings words and phrases together on a page; the method by which a writer can engender fear or sympathy or suspense in a reader. These things can be as much about setting, atmosphere, and characters, as they can be about sentence construction and word usage. I’ll focus on word choice and attributions in this … Continue reading →