A BLOG FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

If you write fiction, chances are your characters will be thinking. This article shows you several different ways of conveying what’s going on in their heads.

First off, there is no rule. Instead there are standard ways and not-so-standard ways of conveying thoughts in fiction.

Rules are problematic because they lead writers down a prescriptive road that can render their fiction difficult to read, and lacking in aesthetic on the page.

Method 1: Quotation marks
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) has this advice (13.43: ‘Unspoken discourse’):

This is undoubtedly my least-favourite option. ​I recommend you use the speech-mark style with caution. I can’t remember the last time I saw this approach used in commercial fiction coming out of a mainstream publisher’s stable. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been, of course!

I dislike it intensely, and many fiction publishers seem to be choosing other methods by preference, but those aren’t good reasons to avoid it. Your style is your choice. The best reason for avoiding it is that using speech marks could confuse your reader.

The beauty of speech marks – or quotation marks – is that they indicate speech. When you put speech marks around a character’s thoughts, your reader will immediately assume they’re reading the spoken word.

Look at the CMOS example above. Only when we hit thought Vera do we realize she’s not speaking at all. She’s thinking.

Some authors might be tempted to use a different speech-mark style to indicate a thought. Again, this is confusing. Your reader might assume that you’ve not edited for consistency, as this example demonstrates:

If, like me, you want something a little cleaner, something that won’t pull your reader out of the story because you led them down a speech-based garden path only to pull them up short at the gate, here are a few alternatives.

Method 2: Italic text
You can render your thoughts in italic text. For short thought streams, this is a common approach.

Let’s return to the CMOS example and see what it looks like:

The advantages of this style are as follows:

• It’s a standard approach that readers will be familiar with.
• There’s no confusion. It’s clear that Vera’s not speaking out loud because the speech marks have been omitted.

However, some readers find that large chunks of italic strain their eyes. I’m one of them. I’m much more likely to skim over huge passages of italic because it’s not a pleasant reading experience.

If that text is masking a clue, or a key character trait, information about an important event or something else that holds the plot together, it’s essential that the reader accesses it.

Look at the Vera example again. There are two thought tags – thought Vera and she told herself – just to ram the point home that she’s thinking. Some readers and writers might consider two tags overkill, but they do help to break up the italic text and don’t jar as much as they might.

But imagine if Vera’s thought stream had gone something like this:

That’s a lot of italic to get one’s retinas around. If you have a long stream of consciousness, you might prefer another method.

Method 3: Normal body text
This style forgoes speech marks and italic, and sticks to normal text. This is how it looks with the longer Vera example:

The advantage of this style is that it’s easy on the eye. However, some readers might be jarred by changes in tense.
 
If your narrative is set in the past tense and set in the third person (as in this example with Vera) and you use the same text style for present-tense direct thoughts, then in a longer thought stream you could pull your reader out of the story.
 
And if this happens frequently, your prose will be riddled with flip-flopping tenses that are at best frustrating and at worst confusing.

Method 4: Free indirect style
Another option is to use free indirect style (sometimes called free indirect discourse or free indirect speech). This style offers the essence of first-person thought but through a third-person viewpoint.

The advantages of this style are as follows:

• The character’s voice is foremost but gone is the clutter of speech marks, speech tags, and italic.
• The thoughts can be formatted in the normal body-text style but without the risk of jarring the reader because the tense will be consistent with the main narrative.
• The shift away from the thought stream and into the usual third-person narrative is seamless.

Let’s return to Vera to see how this works:

The free indirect style does keep the narrative distance close but it’s still not quite as immediate at the present-tense first person. So is there anything else we can do?

Method 5: Mix it up
A more creative option might be to combine direct and indirect thought styles.

In the example below we begin with two sentences that use the italic style for the present-tense first-person thought, and we retain the thought tags to break up the text.

Then we move into roman text but cast the thought stream in the free indirect style, which matches the main narrative: third-person past tense.

The advantages of this style are as follows:
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• It’s flexible. The character’s voice is foremost throughout. The narrative distance shifts from the immediacy of the present-tense first person but is still close – we’re still in Vera’s head even when we’re in the third person.
• The italic doesn’t dominate, so the text is easy on the reader’s eye.
• Given that the thought stream is quite long, it still doesn’t feel invasive. The shift into free indirect style gives us a breather. This approach might therefore suit you if your character is having an inner rant and the inner turmoil feels overworked.
• We’ve retained the seamless shift back to the main third-person past-tense narrative comfortably.

Summing up
As with many sentence-level decisions in fiction writing, rendering thoughts is about style choices rather than a single prescriptive rule. Choose the solution that fits your story best. This might mean making different decisions at various points in your novel depending on what’s going on.

Consider combining approaches if you have longer thought streams and want to be sure of retaining reader engagement.

And, finally, avoid speech marks when it comes thoughts. They’re called speech marks for a reason and are best reserved for talking and muttering!

Cited works and related resources

• 3 reasons to use free indirect speech
• Dialogue tags and how to use them in fiction writing
• How to punctuate dialogue in a novel
• How to use apostrophes in fiction writing
• Playing with sentence length
• Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions
• The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. University of Chicago Press, 2017
• Unveiling your characters: Physical description with style
• Why ‘suddenly’ can spoil your fiction

Repetition of key words and phrases in narrative and dialogue can make the reading experience laborious. There are times, however, when saying something more than once works beautifully. It’s time to talk about anaphora.

What is anaphora?
Anaphora is the deliberate repetition  of words or phrases at the beginning of successive clauses for artistic effect. This literary device is often seen in poetic works and in speeches. It’s also common to see it in children’s books that have a rhyming element.

Anaphora – rhythm, emphasis and emotional back doors
First, repetition of words affects rhythm, which can evoke mood: monotony, boredom, excitement, frustration. Emotions transform a story from just words on a page to a reader experience. Plus, rhythmic writing is memorable and digestible, which helps your reader get under the skin of your novel.

Second, anaphora can be used for the purpose of emphasis. We notice repetition and, while it can jar when not used purposefully, deliberate repetition helps your character or narrator to drive a point home.
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Third, anaphora is one of a range of tools that will help you keep your writing tight but emotionally rich. Repetition is used purposefully so that the reader understands what the character is feeling, but via a literary back door.

Anaphora and your fiction’s narrative
Reading isn’t just about ingesting words. It’s about experiencing a sense of place and mood. There are different ways in which a writer can help a reader engage with a character and their story.
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​1. You can tell them what a character’s feeling:

​2. You can show them what’s being felt with action beats:

3. You can nudge them by playing with the rhythmic structures, of which anaphora is one:

None is wrong or right but relying on only one could render your prose dull. Experimenting with different techniques can enrich your narrative.

Anaphora and your fiction’s dialogue
We often use anaphoric constructions in everyday speech, and the fiction writer seeking to mimic that naturally shouldn’t fear using them in dialogue. Here are some examples:

​Note how the repetition adds emphasis and heightens the emotion.
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Take example (1). The anaphora helps us to feel the character’s frustration and hurt. We don’t need an action beat or dialogue tag to tell us this. There’s no need for the narrator to interject with an explanation. We don’t even need to use italic to nudge the reader towards where the emphasis should be placed in our mind’s ear. The anaphoric speech does it all for us.

Here are examples of how the passage might look with extraneous information:

Used purposefully, anaphora can help writers declutter their dialogue. Readers don’t just focus on the words in the conversation: they also do their own emotional imagining. That can be a more rewarding way of engaging with the story than being told what the character must be feeling.

Anaphora, memorability and overuse
Anaphoric constructions are rhythmic, which makes them memorable. That’s why politicians employ them in their speeches when they’re trying to rally the masses, and why children’s book authors use them to help young readers engage with their stories.
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Look how Julia Donaldson uses it to gorgeous effect in The Magic Paintbrush:

Still, in a novel, that memorability can work against the writer. If you overuse deliberate repetition, it could become an irritant instead of an engagement device. Readers will view it as a writing pattern, not a writing tool.

As with any literary device, think about peppering rather than littering your prose with anaphora. That way, you maximize the impact. It becomes just one literary device among others that makes your prose interesting.
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When repetition isn’t a literary device
Sometimes an author can get so carried away with writing that they don’t notice they’ve repeated words. This can make the prose clunky to read. After your first draft, revisit what you’ve written. You might even like to read it out loud or play it through an onboard narration tool on your computer.
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Anaphora is deliberate repetition. It serves a purpose – to evoke emotion, drive emphasis, or nudge readers towards their own emotional imagining. If multiple uses of a word or phrase aren’t serving artistry, recast the sentence.

​Summing up
Anaphora is one device among several that has a place in the novelist’s toolbox. I’m not advocating removing description or action beats – not at all. Rather, I’m suggesting you might like to experiment with anaphora here and there in your fiction.
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If you enjoyed this post, check out my other articles on sentence-level mastery.

• 3 reasons to use free indirect speech in crime fiction
• Dialogue tags and how to use them in fiction writing
• How to punctuate dialogue in a novel
• How to use apostrophes in fiction writing: A beginner’s guide
• Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?
• Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions
• Unveiling your characters: Physical description with style
• Why ‘suddenly’ can spoil your crime fiction: Advice for new writers

If you’re struggling to decide what to call your new editing or proofreading business, here’s a 6-step framework to set you on the right path.

Deciding what to call your editing or proofreading business is part of the BRANDING process and needs careful consideration. Follow these steps to work out what’s right for you.

Step 1: Brainstorm a list of possible business names
Let your imagination fly. Put your silly hat on. Then your serious one. Then your smarty-pants one. Anything goes at this point. This is all about you and what floats your boat. There’s no wrong or right – just ideas.

For demonstration, let’s imagine a new proofreader called Basil Rhoueny. Basil is trying to decide on a business name and comes up with the following ideas:

1. Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
2. Basil Rhoueny Editorial
3. Bulletproof Editorial
4. Comma Sutra
5. Full-proof Editorial Services
6. Norfolk Editorial
7. Perfect Prose
​8. Responsible Editing

Step 2: Identify target clients
The next step is for Basil to identify his target clients. If he doesn’t know who he wants to work for, he can’t create a message that compels them – via his business name, his mission statement, his elevator pitch, his web copy, or any other marketing materials.

And if he doesn’t have a compelling message, why would anyone choose him over any one of the tens of thousands of colleagues who are also offer editing services? ‘I’ll edit and proofread anything for anyone’ isn’t a standout proposition. Basil needs to do better.

Even if an editor is prepared to be something of a generalist, I recommend talking like a specialist when communicating with different client groups. On our websites, that means giving visitors signals so that they can navigate to specialist messaging on different pages that focus on solving group-specific problems.
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Some people know who they want to work for right from the get-go. Some have no clue. Some think they do, but seven years ahead find that they’ve completely shifted their client base. We’ll deal with that issue in Step 6.

For now, let’s imagine that Basil thinks his editorial training, educational background and former career make him best suited to the following client groups:

• academic publishers
• students
• independent academics

Identifying these groups will help him with Steps 3 and 4.

Step 3: Identify core brand values
A brand can be loosely defined as what others think about us – external perceptions. A brand identity is the distinctive business persona we present that nudges target clients to notice the things that we want them to notice. It’s what allows us to influence those external perceptions.

Brand values are the essence of our brand identity. They represent the kind of editorial pro we want to be seen as – the things we stand for, what we’re passionate about, what makes us tick, why we’re different.

Our business name, photographs, colour palette, web copy and marketing materials should reflect our brand values so that the clients we’d most love to work with will most love to work with us.

It’s no small thing to develop a brand identity. If you need help, I have an online course called Branding for Business Growth that can help you develop an emotion-based business brand identity.

Let’s imagine that Basil has identified the following brand values that he wishes to convey at every touchpoint of his business:

• The Editorial Professor – this reflects his desire to proofread knowledgeably and respectfully
• The Green Editor – this reflects his commitment to environmental sustainability and socially responsible, ethical business practice
• The Globalist – this reflects his passion for working with people whose first language isn’t English

Identifying these brand values will help him with Step 5.

Step 4: Serving the client
In this step, Basil revisits his list of business-name ideas and considers whether they’re appropriate for his target client groups: academic publishers, students and independent academics.

1. Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
2. Basil Rhoueny Editorial
3. Bulletproof Editorial
4. Comma Sutra
5. Full-proof Editorial Services
6. Norfolk Editorial
7. Perfect Prose
8. Responsible Editing

He asks himself the following questions:

• Do the business names tell the target client what he’s offering? If people find him online, they’ll likely be deciding in seconds whether he can solve their problems, and therefore whether he’s worth investigating further.
• Is the name available? If existing services exist, clients might become confused about who’s who. Basil’s competitors will be less confused than furious that this newbie is diluting their carefully developed brand identity.
• Will the name be findable by clients who are searching online for someone who can solve their problems?

Names (1) , (2) and (8) best reflect exactly what he’s offering.

Names (3), (5) and (6) are next in line, though they’re less specific.

Name (4) alludes to sentence-level editing work, and some will think it amusing.
However, Basil wonders whether some of his non-native English-speaking clients will get the joke and bypass him.

Name (5) is a problem – there’s an existing established business called Full Proof | Professional Proofreading Solutions.

Names (4) and (7) give him cause for concern regarding their searchability. It’s likely that the words ‘proofreading’ or ‘editing’ or ‘editorial’ will be searched for by potential clients. It’s far less likely that someone will search for ‘comma sutra’ or ‘perfect prose’ if they need proofreading assistance, though they are distinctive.

Name (6), however, might be great for being found in the search engines by local clients.

Basil decides to remove Comma Sutra, Full-proof Editorial Services, and Perfect Prose from the list of contenders.
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Now he turns to the branding issue.

Step 5: Serving the brand
In this step, Basil revisits his list of business-name ideas and considers whether they’re good brand practice. His remaining names are:

1. Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
2. Basil Rhoueny Editorial
3. Bulletproof Editorial
6. Norfolk Editorial
​8. Responsible Editing

He asks himself the following questions:

• Are the remaining business names distinctive? After all, branding is about showing potential clients those things that set us apart from other editors, not what will make us look like every other editor.
• Do they reflect his brand values (BVs): Editorial Professor, Green Editor, and Globalist?

Basil has an unusual name. If he’d been called John Smith, he might have been easy to confuse with other editors called John Smith, at least in the West. However, either of his remaining business names would work.

There is, however, a good chance that his name might be misspelled. Is this something he needs to worry about if people are searching for him by name? This could be an issue if he’s referring someone to his website by phone, or if a word-of-mouth lead is trying to find him.

Here’s a test. Type ‘louise harby editor’ or ‘louis hornby proofreader’ into the search engines. Can you find me? I can find me! I’m not convinced that tricky-to-spell names are as problematic as we might think.

Back to Basil. Name (3) is at odds with the sentiment of BV-Green Editor. This brand value seeks to nudge potential clients towards thinking of Basil as compassionate, respectful, broad-minded, ethical, warm … someone who can see the bigger picture. The word ‘bullet’ might bring to mind thoughts of violence, death, harm and brutality.
It’s potentially a negative nudge rather than one that evokes positivity.

Name (6), while potentially clickbaity for local searches, doesn’t sit so well with BV-Globalist. Basil would be happy to work with local clients, but he’s not sure he can build a sustainable business on this alone.

Name (8) has a definite though subtle nod to BV-Green Editor.
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He elects to remove Bulletproof Editorial and Norfolk Editorial from the list of contenders.

Step 6: Think ahead but don’t get bogged down
Can any of us be absolutely sure that what we want to do now is what we will want to do in the years ahead? Choosing a business name requires us to think ahead, but also to be true to who we are and what we’re offering in the present time.

In case you didn’t spot it, Basil’s name is an anagram of mine. When I set up my business in 2005, I was a dedicated proofreader who specialized in working for social-science publishers. If you’d told me back then that by 2016 I’d be specializing in line- and copyediting for indie fiction authors, I’d have been a tad surprised.

But that’s exactly what happened. My original business name was Louise Harnby | Proofreader. My URL was and still is: www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com. My business name now is Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor.

It wasn’t actually a big deal to add an ampersand and the word ‘copyeditor’ into my business name and didn’t affect my findability in the search engines. Would it have if I’d changed it to Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor, or Fabulous Fiction Editing, or something else?

Possibly, but Google Search is a tricky beast to master and shifts the goalposts often in a bid to thwart those who’d use black-hat SEO techniques rather than genuine attempts to be interesting and discoverable online.
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Basil is left with choosing between the following:

• Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
• Basil Rhoueny Editorial
• Responsible Editing

​There are good arguments for the SEO-friendliness of the first two, and the flexibility of the third. My view is that any would work because they are true to his business’s brand identity in different ways.

What’s right for you?
Basil’s brand identity and your brand identity will not be the same because you and Basil are individuals, each with your own businesses, ideal clients, goals, hopes, dreams and passions. The decisions you make will therefore be different to the one Basil makes. That’s fine.

Will there be a perfect solution? Unlikely. There will be choices to be made.

• You might decide it would be to your advantage to have a short name rather than a long one.
• You might choose a little SEO clickbait over humour.
• You might choose a punny name over a more straightforward business name.
• You might opt for flexibility over specificity.
• You might choose memorability at the expense of spellability.
• You might elect to incorporate the essence of your political or social values.

What’s important is that you choose a business name that you feel comfortable with: one that reflects your brand identity and nudges your ideal clients towards an awareness of the kind of editor you are and why you’ll be a great fit with them; one that alludes to what you do.

Here are just a few of my favourites:

• A Novel Edit: Beth Hill specializes in helping authors prepare for submission to agents and publishers. The gentle and humorous play on words in her business name evokes a sense of freshness and vision.
  
• Enigma Editorial: Cally Worden specializes in editing mystery, crime and thrillers. Her business name tells us what she's passionate about. It's also short and snappy, and avoids cliche.
  
• Denise Cowle Editorial: Denise specializes in editing non-fiction for businesses and publishers. Her surname is unusual, and her business name capitalizes on this. We know immediately who we're dealing with, and that makes it personal.
  
• Le Mot Juste: Sarah Patey specializes in non-fiction editing and translation. The business name reflects her language skills and her commitment to detail and accuracy.
  
• Liminal Pages: Sophie Playle specializes in editing speculative fiction. Her business name reflects the pushing of boundaries that exists within the novels she works on. It's also sounds elegant to my ear.
  
• Radical Copyediting: Alex Kapitan specializes in helping authors and publishers use equitable and inclusive language. The business name reflects Alex's values and includes some SEO functionality.
  
• Wordstitch Editorial: Hazel Bird specializes in non-fiction editing and editorial project management. Her business name embodies a sense of editing as a craft, and evokes a strong sense of her commitment to detail and precision.
  

It’s likely your choice will not be clear cut. Try not to get bogged down by that. Business names alone will not make you visible or discoverable. The compromises you make can be offset by other business-promotion activities that strengthen your online presence.

Happy naming!

Novels and screenplays are two very different art forms. When a story is presented to a reader as if it were something being watched in a cinema or on TV, the book begins to wobble.

Great screenwriters can be great novelists, but being the former doesn’t guarantee the latter.

Description and dialogue
When a novelist approaches their story as if it’s going to be watched, the narrative and dialogue can become overwritten.

In TV shows and movies, characters do lots of quite mundane things – walking into and out of rooms, opening and shutting doors, scratching their heads, putting the kettle on, wringing their hands, frowning, standing up, sitting down, walking over to windows and gazing out of them, picking up tea cups or beer bottles and taking a sip or a slug.

They say hello and goodbye, and hmm, mmm, er, um and aah as they talk to each other and themselves.

All this stuff happens quickly and provides a backdrop to the main action and dialogue. Sometimes there’ll be a backing track to assist with mood creation.

Some of that mundane stuff can go into a novel, but when it’s replicated in full it can be tedious to read and does nothing to drive the novel forward.

Example: taut description and dialogue in a novel
Here’s a scene from Harlan Coben’s Don’t Let Go (Penguin Random House, 2017, p. 201). There are 122 words.

Example: description and dialogue in a screenplay
If we were watching that on TV, we’d be shown a great deal more.​

• We’d the see colour of the garage, the material it’s constructed from, the car pulling up and stopping.
• The driver would switch off the engine, then both men would undo their seatbelts, exit the car, close their doors and walk to the garage. One would open the side door and they’d both walk through as the door closed behind them. Then they’d walk down the steps, reach the door of the basement and open it.
• Once in the room, David would flick the light switch, walk over to the safe, bend down, move the dial, left, then right, then left again.
• The camera might flip from the concentration on his face and the beads of sweat on his forehead to the way his trousers pull down over his backside as he bends.
• We might watch and hear his laboured breathing or the slight grunt he lets out as he works.
• He might scratch his face, touch his hair, purse his lips, or look up at the other man (Nap).
• Nap, meanwhile, would be doing a bunch of things with his own body.
• As for the conversation, either man might sigh, pause, stammer, belch or cough at any point, and at no time would it moderate the pace of the film because the camera can show us many of these things simultaneously.

In his book, Coben omits almost all of that.

Instead, he lets the reader do the work. Good choice because all that stage direction would be boring to read. It could take a page to get through it all, maybe two, and none of it would drive the novel forward.

He gives us just enough to imagine the setting in our mind’s eye, then gets down to business with the interesting elements of the story.

He and we know that no one’s walking through doors spectre-like; they need to be opened and shut. No one’s leaving the car running; the engine will be switched off. And natural speech invariably includes noise and pause.

Example: overwriting in a novel
Here’s my mangled example of how that might have looked if the detail of the screen version had been written into the novel. There are 421 words.

Word dump
Writers who choose to write novels for viewers rather than readers risk adding ten, maybe twenty thousand words to their books that don’t need to be in there.

I’m not advocating removing description; I’m advocating writing for the page. That means making sure that the description is relevant rather than suffocating, enriching rather than boring.

If you have pages of characters making small talk about how they take their coffee over the noise the kettle’s making, that small talk needs to be central to the plot. So does the whistle of the kettle. And if it takes 500 words to get your character out of their car, there needs to be a reason for that.

If that information is just filler, give your reader the nudges they need and dump the rest into a box for when you write the screenplay version. Your director will the delighted! 

Viewpoint characters
Viewpoint can unravel when a novelist approaches their story like a screenwriter.

When a novelist selects a viewpoint character for a section or chapter of their book, the reader will experience the story through that character’s perspective – what they see, smell, hear, touch and think.

Viewpoint characters allow the reader to immerse themselves in the moment, and for that reason they’re tremendously enriching.

Example: viewpoint on the screen 
Imagine watching this short scene on TV:

1. One of the characters, Matt, ducks under a hedge. We seem him grimacing, shutting his eyes tightly. Then the camera cuts to a close-up of the thorns in the hedge pressing into his head. Perhaps there’s a trickle of blood down one side of his neck.
2. The camera stays with Matt and we see him mouth the word ‘bitch’.
3. We hear the clip-clopping of heels, and the camera moves to a lone woman on a footpath in the garden – Adriana. She speaks into her phone, saying, ‘He can’t have gone far. Find him and take him out,’ then rubs her throat. She continues to talk, telling the person on the other end of the line that she’d had a skinful the previous night and is furious about Matt’s interference, which is all she needs because she feels like she has cold coming on.
4. The camera cuts to another character, John. He’s clad in black. We hear him reply to her, telling her not to worry, then watch as he peeks over a wall and sees Adriana.
5. The view shifts to Adriana. She’s putting her phone in her pocket. Her expression is one of anger and frustration.
6. We go back to John. He pulls down a balaclava and moves stealthily towards an area at the back of the house. He’s almost invisible in the darkness of the night but we see him in the shadows because the camera shows us where he is.
7. Now it’s back to Matt. He’s still hunched up in the hedge, eyes wide, body still.
8. The camera zooms out so that we can see Adriana moving ever closer to where Matt’s hiding. She’s getting nearer.
9. The view moves in on Adriana. We see her flinch and purse her lips. She hobbles just a little, then bends to adjust her shoe. The camera view tilts down to her feet and we see the redness of the skin where it’s rubbing against her stilettos.
10. The camera cuts to Matt, still in the hedge. But now he’s smiling, enjoying Adriana’s discomfort.
11. Notice that the viewer can’t know what anyone’s thinking unless we are told through dialogue or facial expression. Gesturing will fill in the gaps. A soundtrack will also create mood.

Example: confused viewpoint in a novel
What some beginner writers do is render the scene in a way that partially mimics the screen version. That’s because they’re familiar with how stories are presented on the TV or in film.

The problem is that there are multiple viewpoints that force the reader to bounce from one character’s experience to another. We never invest in Matt, Adriana or John because as soon as we try to immerse ourselves in the experience of one of those people, we’re dragged into the head of another.

The result is a wonky hybrid of novel and screenplay. We know what everyone’s doing, thinking and seeing. It rips out the tension and destroys the structure of the scene.

Example: singular immersive viewpoint in a novel
If, however, the writer commits to the viewpoint of one character, the prose is very different. In this version, we lose John completely. Adriana is visible but only from Matt’s perspective. We don’t have access to her thoughts, only what Matt thinks might be going on in her head based on what he knows, sees and hears.
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It’s shorter, certainly, but the tension is back and the writing is tighter.

Summing up
If you’re at the start of your writing journey, take care to craft words for the page, not for the screen. Keep the boring stuff out, even if it’s realistic. You’ll reduce your wordcount but enhance reader engagement.
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Look to books written by your favourite novelists for inspiration on how to build a beautiful page, rather than the Netflix adaptations. Your writing will be all the better for it, I promise.

If you’ve made yourself visible enough to be asked to quote, that quotation needs to sparkle with value. A poor response is just poor marketing. Here are some ideas about how to offer compelling quotes that go beyond the fee.

Why quoting is a part of marketing
1. You’re not alone
It’s never been easier or quicker to find an editor and get a quotation. That’s great news because any one of us can make ourselves visible. That’s just the first step, though.

Your author has probably asked more than one editor to quote. And so they should have. They’re trying to find the best-fit editor – someone with the right skills, experience, availability, fee structure, and personality.

And just because you’ve made the final three, five, ten (or whatever) doesn’t mean any of you will get the gig. If none of you float the client’s boat, they’ll head back to the search engines and directories in a jiffy. There are plenty more editing fish in the sea.

Never forget the competition when you’re quoting. You’re not alone; you’re one among thousands. Standing out is essential.

​2. Is the author really just asking for a quote?
Most of us have been interviewed at some time. Questions are asked and we respond. But we’re not assessed just on the words that come out of our mouths.

The interviewer(s) will also be influenced (even unintentionally) by how we smile; what we’re wearing; whether we seem friendly, confident and engaged; whether we arrive in a timely manner; and the degree to which the answers we deliver reflect the CV we submitted.

It’s the same when we respond to quotation requests. Our authors, too, will be influenced by the engagement we show, the speed of our response, the tone we use, and whether that matches what they were expecting.

Imagine you and I have just sat down in a restaurant. You ask me what my favourite chocolate is. My response is one of the following:

1. ‘Lindt.’
2. ‘I absolutely love Lindt. It’s delicious. Just thinking about it brings to mind Christmas when I was a kid.’
3. ‘Lindt is my top choice. That company sources high-quality beans from sustainable cocoa-farming programmes.’

If all you want to know is what my favourite chocolate is, then (1) answers the question. But if we’re chatting over dinner, I’m not exactly helping the conversation along. You might think me rather dull. You might be texting Uber. You might already have your coat on.

The other two responses tell you something more about me. Answer (2) might evoke a sense of warmth and openness. Answer (3) might evoke a sense of my political and environmental values. Either way, both show that I’m interested in your question, that I’m prepared to give thought to it.

And maybe I can hold off your Uber text for just a little longer.

Our responses to requests to quote need to demonstrate engagement and thoughtfulness too. Getting a cab with Uber is quick. Deleting an email is quicker.

3. You might be able to change their mind
Perhaps the author’s done their editor search with the intention of sourcing three hundred quid’s worth of proofreading within the next month. Based on the sample you’ve assessed, you think it needs seven hundred pounds’ worth of copyediting. Plus, you’ve got a wait list of six months.

You don’t know what the author’s budget is but that’s not what matters. What matters is that they do, and it’s way lower than what’s in the email you’ve just sent them. And the time frame is just wrong.

When you add value, you might be able to change their mind. Maybe they’ll say:

‘I’d planned to have this turned around within the next few weeks, but you’ve blown me away. You’re worth waiting for.’

Or:

‘I’ll be honest – that’s a lot more than I’d budgeted for. However, you’ve really nailed what I’m struggling with, and I think you’re worth it.’

4. Or they might become your champion
Sometimes you won’t be able to change the author’s mind because the budget or the timing just isn’t right. But that doesn’t mean you won’t stay top of mind. Perhaps they’ll say:

‘I really, really need to get this out now, so I’m going to walk away. But I want you to know that I would have loved you to edit my book. Here’s a testimonial.’

Or:

‘I’m really sad that I can’t afford you. You’re worth every penny. Next time I’ll plan ahead and save up.’

And even though they haven’t hired you, they’ll still be your champion. Perhaps they’ll tell another writer about you, or maybe they will plan ahead with the next book and save up for you.

When you add value, you’re not just quoting for this job, you’re quoting for future jobs too.

5. You’re dealing with people who don’t know you
If you’ve been contacted by someone who’s never met you before, trust issues are already in play. For the less experienced author, sourcing editing can feel like a high-risk venture.

Unlike doctors or electricians, there’s nothing to stop anyone entering professional practice. Editors can’t be struck off.

Here’s what an author recently told me:

‘My problem is one that's all too common across all aspects of the indie publishing landscape. The barriers to entry are few (a website) and the options available to a customer to confirm or verify quality are limited and poor, short of taking a test drive.’

We need to help potential clients confirm or verify quality. Adding value is part of that process.

6. Your brand is at stake
Responses to quotation requests need to be on-brand. Branding is not just about having an eye-catching logo. It’s about conveying the essence of what you stand for at every touchpoint of your business – from your website and business cards to your emails and invoices.

There’s little point in having a compelling website if your quotation responses are forgettable or off-putting.
​
Whether your passion lies in editing for students, academics, corporates, or novelists, your quotations need to reflect that passion. Offering value – something beyond ‘This is what it will cost and when I can do it’ – is one way of reinforcing that brand identity and moving away from an any-old-editor mentality.

How to add value to the quote
1. Include a digital swag bag of relevant hero resources
Let’s imagine your evaluation of the sample indicates problems with dialogue tagging and viewpoint.

What if, in addition to telling the author your price and availability, you gave them two free booklets that offer guidance on how they might rectify those problems in the book you’re quoting for or their future writing.

Even if those booklets are on your website, don’t assume the author has downloaded them. Maybe they didn’t get round to it, or perhaps they found you through a different platform.

Hero content adds value in multiple ways:
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• It demonstrates engagement and thoughtfulness – you’re showing you understand what the client’s problems are, and are providing solutions.
• It offers proof of expertise – you have the knowledge, and that helps to build trust.
• It stands out – most editors don’t offer free booklets or free resources.

2. Do a small sample, even if you haven’t been asked to
Even if you usually charge for sample line/copyedits or proofreads of a thousand or so words, consider doing a short one for free. This delivers value in the form of:

• Engagement and thoughtfulness – you’re giving the author something valuable that they can measure or use for comparative purposes.
• Expertise – you’re demonstrating your abilities; showing the difference it would make if the client were to choose you.
• Acknowledgement of subjectivity – you’re helping the author assess whether your style of editing fits their expectations.

3. Provide a teeny critique
Another option is to offer a mini critique of the sample they’ve sent. I’m not suggesting a five-page report, but rather a few paragraphs that summarize the main problems as you see them, illustrated with a few examples.

As with the free short sample edit, it’s something they can use, and it demonstrates your knowledge of and engagement with their craft.

This is an opportunity to show not only how you’d get under the skin of the writing, but also how working with you would push the author’s project forward.

​4. Be a little personal
How about including a personal snippet that responds to something in their enquiry that truly resonated with you?

• Perhaps they mentioned being inspired by a love of a particular author’s published works. If you’re a fan, too, tell them.
• Maybe they told you this is their first novel. If you’re an editor who’s written fiction, tell them so, and include a few words to show that you understand what it’s like to start out on the writing journey.
• Did something about the premise of their novel really stand out for you in the sample? Maybe you’ve visited a place they mentioned, or have a personal fascination with an aspect of the life/culture/society/history etc. that their story touches on.
• If they’ve expressed concerns about anything – fear of being edited, confidentiality, new-author nerves, then express your empathy and address those issues with solutions.

Whatever you choose to communicate, remember that it’s a small personal connector that says, ‘I get you.’

Don’t make it up. It must be genuine ... the thing that excites you and reflects your desire to invest in the book. When we feel that itch, we’re starting on a journey too, one that compels us to do a standout job. Communicating this in some small way can help you to earn the author’s trust.

5. Show your enthusiasm
Don’t forget to make sure that you sound like you want the job! ‘This is what is will cost and when I can do it’ won’t inspire confidence in any author who’s even slightly nervous about working with an author … not on its own.

If, like me, you love your job, and think it’s a privilege to get paid for doing something you love, use language that conveys that passion. Tell your potential clients that you want to work with them, that you’d relish the chance help them with their writing journey.

Talk to them about the price and your availability, of course. That’s what was asked for and it must be front and centre.

That’s where you should start … because when it comes to the fee you’re offering, it’s not enough to think, I’m worth that. Worth has to be proved. And in a noisy, global online market, that takes effort.

If that effort helps you secure the opportunities to work for your ideal clients, it’ll be time well spent. An editor with no work is not running a business; they’re unemployed. Every minute we spend adding value to our quotations is an investment in employment and business ownership.

Let me know what you do to add value when you quote for work!

***
​With thanks to my fellow editors Cally Worden and Lesley Jones for their inspiring comments and suggestions.

Will your reader immerse themselves in your crime novel’s setting? Will the world you’ve built make sense, even if it’s a work of fantasy? And is it coherent? If you’re not sure, create a wiki.

A world-building wiki will help you keep track of your novel’s environment and the rules that govern it. And that will go some way to protecting your plot and maintaining a logical narrative.

‘But I write crime, not fantasy ...’
Even if your novel’s setting is the world as we know it right now, a world-building wiki is still useful.

I live in a hamlet in Norfolk (the UK one). Some of the things I have to deal with in my day-to-day life are different to those of friends who live only ten miles away in the city of Norwich.

How does all of this relate to fiction writing?

​One of my author clients bases his books in the Colorado Rockies. I know the lie of the land – how the weather affects the local population on a seasonal basis, how the pine smells in the spring, how the mountain passes are treacherous in the winter.

Then there’s the town where the sheriff’s office is located. And it is a sheriff rather than a chief constable who’s in charge of this fictional county’s law enforcement. I know about the guns people carry, the idiomatic turns of phrase they use, and where they tuck their chewing tobacco when they speak.

I live five thousand miles away and have never visited this region of the US, and yet I swear if I drove into that town with a flat tyre, I could locate the garage and a find place to grab a latte while the mechanic was fixing my car – without having to ask a soul.

And that’s because my author is a great world-builder.
​
He writes crime thrillers, but he never forgets that most of his readers aren’t cops; that many don’t even live in the US, never mind near the Colorado Rockies; and that no one lives in Rocky Points … because he made it up.

Environments of the not-now and the not-here
Crime fiction is as versatile a genre as any other. For not-here, think about Chris Brookmyre’s Places in the Darkness. The Ciudad de Cielo space station makes the Colorado Rockies seem like a mere hop. It’s crime fiction, but spacey!

For not-now, how about C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake series. It’s crime fiction but the Tudor world in which our lawyer-detective operates bears little resemblance to that of a modern detective.

And then there’s China Miéville’s not-here and not-now The City & The City. It’s a richly gritty world of hardboiled crime fiction where things don’t work in quite the same way. However, the narrative feels utterly reliable.

All three authors are fine crime-writing world-builders, and their plots never unravel because the worlds they’ve shown us work.

Your wiki and your plot
Not everything in your wiki has to end up in your book, but all of the information will help you keep track of who’s who, what’s where, and how. That means you can keep the environment(s) in which your story is set coherent.

Furthermore, if you decide to write a series, your wiki will help you maintain consistency across books. Even if you switch to a new location, even a new planet, and different rules come into play, it’s a space in which you can record the additional information and keep yourself on track.

Let’s look at some of the elements you might include in your crime wiki.

Physical environment
Where does your story take place and how will the geography, geology and climate play with your plot? Does the landscape or the weather restrict or empower your characters, and if so, how?

Real or fantastical, every world must obey its own scientific laws. Continuity is key, and your wiki will help you stay on track.

Imagine your protagonist’s partner dies because the paramedic’s oxygen tank is empty, but they live on a world where the population breathes mainly nitrogen. Even your characters’ inhalations can blow a hole in your plot if you don’t keep track of the rules of your physical environment.
​
If you’re setting a story in a real place that you’ve not visited, the wiki is where you record the details you’ll need to stop pedantic locals getting the hump when your hero sprints from the Tube station at Amersham to the next stop on the line. Chalfont & Latimer looks close by on the London Underground map, but trust me, it’s not for sprinting. Embankment to Charing Cross, yes!

Culture, language and faith
Use your wiki to record the ideas, customs, belief systems and social behaviours that distinguish your world, and how those will impact on your characters. Record also how your characters speak, and whether they are out of place in the setting, or fully integrated.

How will you reflect the way people speak in your world? Do people from the region in which the novel’s set have a particular idiom or dialect, and will you express this just through dialogue or in the narrative too?

Will you offer nudges here and there or include it consistently and heavily throughout the book?
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It goes without saying that if you include phrasing in a language you’re not fluent in, get it checked by someone who is. Google Translate is not the tool of choice here.

Rules of governance
Record who’s in control and how the rule of law works in your novel’s setting. If you’re mimicking reality, there might be variations not just between countries but also between states, counties, provinces or municipalities.

Who makes the law? Who upholds it? What powers do they have? What are their titles? Who are they accountable to? What are the checks and balances that restrict them? And what does sentencing and punishment look like in the world you’ve created?

How about the rules of engagement and the customary notifications given to characters apprehended by law enforcement? If a right-to-silence warning is given to a suspect arrested in the UK, and it’s referred to as a Miranda warning, your narrator’s reliability will be compromised. The term ‘caution’ is used in this neck of the woods.

Make notes about the way the jurisprudence system works, and the rights of your world’s citizens in the locations you situate them. For example, time and place will determine how long a person can be held without access to legal representation, and how they might be punished if they’re found guilty of a crime.

If your story is taking place in a fantastical setting, you can decide how all of this works. Still, your wiki will ensure there’s continuity in the way you apply your fictional rule of law to your characters.

Science, technology, engineering and medicine ... and guns
Your wiki is the perfect place to record essential information about science, tech and weaponry – what it is, how it works, who has access to it and what it’s used for.

If you’re going for authenticity, make notes about how it works in the real world. How heavy is a Glock 19, and can a suppressor be attached to the barrel? What noise does a suppressed gun really make – is it just a pop or something louder?

Years ago, I read a novel by a very well-known fantasy and horror writer. One of the subplots hinged on the DNA of a set of identical twins – one egg, one sperm, one zygote, which had split into two embryos. They had almost identical DNA. Only they didn’t because our twins were different sexes. That meant they were fraternal, not identical. The only thing they’d shared was a womb. A technical error pulled the plot to pieces.

Food, drink and dress
What do people eat and drink in this world, and how do they dress?

Are there foodstuffs or materials that are restricted, impractical, unaffordable or impossible to access for some or all of the characters in your world?

Does what people eat and how they dress indicate something about their status, their identity, their belief system, and what are the norms and rules surrounding their choices?

Even if this information isn’t integral to the plot, it can still help your reader immerse themselves in your narrative as they experience the colours, textures, tastes and smells of the world in which your characters are moving.

Heterogeneity in homogeneity
As with real life, just because a group of people share a location, a job, a faith, doesn’t mean they’re all the same.

Unless homogeneity is central to the plot, it can suck the soul from a novel because it’s unusual.

Any other quirks
Record information about any other quirks that are story-specific in a miscellaneous section.

I nearly came undone with my own writing when embarking on a piece of flash fiction centred around where I live in Norfolk. During my research into pheasant shooting, I found out that my wee tale had come undone before I’d put a word on the page.

Initially, I’d centred my plot around a crime being ignored during the summer because of the gunshots from legal pheasant-shooting parties. ​

Summing up
You can include whatever you need to in your wiki. Fundamentally, it’s about consistency and continuity, such that your plot isn’t plundered because you forgot something crucial about your world and how it works.
​
More than that though, a reliable world is a believable world, even if it’s completely fabricated. When your readers feel like they can visit without having to ask where to grab a cuppa, you know you’ve built something beautiful.

Readers want to know what characters look like. Writers want to show them. Here are some tools that will help do it with subtlety rather than a sledgehammer.

We like to know what characters look like because it allows us to picture them in our mind’s eye. That helps us invest.

The author wants us to invest in them, immerse ourselves in their journey, because then we’re more likely to keep on reading.

Still, no reader wants all that information hurled at them as if they’re reading a shopping list, and certainly not in a way that’s cliched or mundane. That’s nothing more than an information dump.

Here are some ideas for how you might unveil your characters’ physical descriptions in ways that are relevant and interesting. I’ve used examples that I’ve enjoyed from published works of crime and speculative fiction.

First things: Pick and choose what to tell
I said above that readers like to know what characters look like. Actually, we don’t necessarily need this detail to immerse ourselves in a character’s experience.

I’ve just finished reading I Am Missing by Tim Weaver. I love the David Raker series, and have read most of the books in it. I can’t recall whether and where Weaver has given me a physical description of his missing-persons investigator, but he certainly didn’t in I Am Missing. And you know what? I didn’t care a jot.

Weaver uses first-person past-tense narratives, which means we uncover the mystery with Raker. We see what he saw, wonder what he wondered, run when he ran. His fear, pain, shock and relief are ours. That’s where the immersion comes, rather than in knowing that he’s X feet tall or has hair the colour of whatever.

Which is to say, you might not need to tell us about the physical appearance of a character to draw us deep into the story.

And even if you do want to give your readers a sense of what a character looks like, we don’t need to know everything. Tell us what’s interesting, what gives us an insight into the way they think or feel, or things they notice that will be relevant later in the story.

Green eyes might be more interesting if they’re surrounded by bags that show tiredness, or creped lids that give a clue to the character’s age. Long elegant fingers might be more deserving of a mention if the owner picked away at their cuticles and made them bleed, perhaps because of anxiety.

Choose the right space
If you decide you want to put a character’s physical traits in front of the reader in one fell swoop, you could follow Roger Hobbs’s approach. Ghostman is a gritty, punchy thriller. Hobbs’s writing is fast and taut.

Five pages into the novel (p. 8) we’re given a description of Jerome Ribbons. Hobbs fires a lot of information at us – skin, height, weight, strength. This is no shopping list, though.

Ribbons is about to carry out a casino heist, and Hobbs uses a description of the character’s physical traits to show us that he’s physically and mentally capable of the crime.

It’s a case of the right words in the right space.

​Show us through another character’s eyes
There’s no better time to show what someone looks like than when a viewpoint character sets eyes on them. We’re already in the viewpoint character’s head, thinking and seeing with them. Their observations are reliable, and it feels natural for the reader to be confronted with descriptions of what’s visible, and why it’s noticeable.

Here’s another excerpt from Ghostman (pp. 31–2).

Jack is the protagonist, and the viewpoint character in this chapter. We see what he saw, and know what he knew. More telling, we learn something about how this character’s appearance belies his nature.

Make your character self-reflect
A viewpoint character’s self-reflection is another useful tool for character description, especially when it includes contrast … that was then, this is now. We don’t feel like we’re reading a shopping list. Instead, the details tell us a story of change – whether that is positive or negative.
​
In The Wife Between Us (p. 11), Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen weave Vanessa’s current hair colour, height and weight into a narrative about the challenges she endured when her marriage to a wealthy hedge-fund manager broke down.

Think about what you do when you look in a mirror.
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• I don’t think: there’s a woman with brown hair with an orange streak in it. I think: I need my roots doing because there’s a grey stripe at the hairline that’s really stark against the brown hair and orange streak.
• I don’t think: there’s a woman with blue eyes. I think: I need to get a good night’s sleep tonight because my eyes look bloodshot, more so against the blue irises.

If your character is seeing themselves reflected in a window or mirror, have them notice things about themselves naturally.

Create an out-of-place setting
Might you set a character’s description in a scene where they look out of place?
Philip K. Dick doesn’t use any clever descriptors for Bill Black in Time Out of Joint (p. 19). Instead, the interest comes from how his manner of dress, hairstyle and gait appear old-fashioned to the viewpoint character, Ragle.

It’s less a case of what he looks like than why he looks strange. No matter – the reader knows what they’re looking at.

Show us the viewpoint character’s emotional reactions
Describing how another character’s appearance makes the viewpoint character feel is another trick.

In Bad Luck and Trouble (p. 32), Lee Child uses rather mundane adjectives to describe Neagley, but the emotional impact on the plucky and usually granite-like Reacher, and Child’s typically no-nonsense sentence structure make this description anything but dull. 

​In the above example, Reacher feels awkward. You might use other emotional reactions as a way to open the door to natural-sounding physical description: envy, disgust, desire, for example.

Unveil through dialogue
Character descriptions needn’t come solely through the narrative. Dialogue is perfect for unveiling too because it pushes the details front and centre.
​
In I Am Missing (p. 13), Tim Weaver constructs a discussion between Raker, the protagonist investigator, and his client, Richard Kite. Weaver uses the conversation to show the scarring on Kite’s face.

Of note here is that the author chooses to give us little else about what Kite looks like – hair or eye colour, for example. It’s clever because this character is suffering from dissociative amnesia – unable to recall large chunks of information about himself. He is lost.

The author keeps such tight control over the physical description that we are drawn deeper into Kite’s loss of self, and Raker’s struggle to find any clue to who he is. As I read, he remained almost faceless in my mind’s eye. All I could picture was the harm he’d suffered.

Writers can and should be picky about what they choose to include, and omit, in order to draw a picture and evoke a mood.

Summing up
Do your best to avoid descriptions of characters that read like shopping lists or police reports. Instead, wrap the details around emotions, contrasts, and journeys of change.

​See you next time (said the blue-eyed fiction editor with a bob, who wore size-nine shoes and was five foot eight).

Cited works and further reading

• Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, The Wife Between Us. Pan, 2018
• Lee Child, Bad Luck and Trouble. Bantam Books, 2011
• Louise Harnby, 3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction
• Louise Harnby, Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions
• Louise Harnby, Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?
• Louise Harnby, A beginner's guide to narrative point of view in crime writing
• Philip K. Dick, Time Out of Joint. Vintage, 2002
• Roger Hobbs, Ghostman. Corgi, 2014
• Tim Weaver, I Am Missing. Penguin, 2017

This free booklet offers one example of how an editor or proofreader might approach testing which pricing model works best for their editing and proofreading business.

I discuss how and why I collect data, and the macro and micro insights I've gained that have helped me to grow my editorial income stream.

Hope you find it useful!

Click on the image above to download your copy.

Apostrophes confound some authors. Not knowing how to use them doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, but getting them wrong can distract a reader and alter the meaning of what you want to say. This guide shows you how to get it right.

What does an apostrophe look like?
The apostrophe is the same mark as a closing single quotation mark: ’ (unicode 2019).

This is worth remembering when you use them in your fiction to indicate the omission of letters at the beginning of a word. More on that further down.

What do apostrophes do?
Apostrophes have two main jobs:

1. To indicate possession
2. To indicate omission

And sometimes a third (though this is rarer and only applies to some expressions):

3. To indicate a plural

​1. Indicating possession
The English language doesn’t have one set of rules that apply universally. However, when it comes to possessive apostrophes, the following will usually apply:

Add an apostrophe after the thing that is doing the possessing.
​

• If there is one thing – one noun – an s follows the apostrophe.
• If there’s more than one noun, and the plural noun is formed by adding an s (e.g. 1 horse; 2 horses), no s is required after the apostrophe.
• If there’s more than one noun, and the plural is formed irregularly (e.g. 1 child; 2 children), an s follows the apostrophe.

Possessive apostrophes and names
Names can be tricky. The most common problem I see is authors struggling to place the apostrophe correctly when family names are being used in the possessive case, even more so when the name ends with an s.
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Here are some examples of standard usage to show you how it’s done:

Note that in the Melanie Fields singular-possession example, there are two options. Both are correct but some readers will find the second more difficult to pronounce because there are three s's a row.

Hart’s Rules (4.2.1 Possession) has this advice: 'An apostrophe and s are generally used with personal names ending in an s, x, or z sound […] but an apostrophe alone may be used in cases where an additional s would cause difficulty in pronunciation, typically after longer names that are not accented on the last or penultimate syllable.’

If you're unsure whether to apply the final s in a case like this, use common sense. Read it aloud to see if you can wrap your tongue around it, and decide whether the meaning is clear. Then choose the version that works best and go for consistency across your file. Pedantry shouldn't trump prescriptivism in effective writing.

2. Indicating omission
Indicating omission when one word is created from two
In fiction, we often use contracted forms of two words to create a more natural rhythm in the prose, particularly in dialogue. The apostrophes indicate that letters (and spaces) have been removed.
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Common examples include:

Indicating omission at the beginning, middle and end of single words
We can use an apostrophe to indicate that a letter is missing at the end of a word (dancing – dancin’), the middle of a word (cannot – can’t) and the beginning of a word (horrible – ’orrible).

Start-of-word letter omissions are commonly used in fiction writing to indicate informal speech or a speaker’s accent.

Make sure you use the correct mark. Microsoft Word automatically inserts an opening single quotation mark (‘) when you type it at the beginning of a word because it assumes you’re using it as a speech indicator.

Apostrophes are ALWAYS the closing single quotation mark (’) so do double check if you’re indicating omission at the start of a word.

Indicating omission in numbers and dates
Plural numbers don’t usually require an apostrophe because there’s no ambiguity. In fiction writing, it’s common to spell out numbers for one hundred and below, but even when numerals are used, no apostrophe is needed for plurals.

Omission-indicating apostrophes at the beginning of dates are acceptable according to some style manuals. In the example below, the 1970s is abbreviated. It’s conventional in UK writing to follow the NHR example below.
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In fiction, however, you can avoid the issue by spelling out the dates. This is universally acceptable, and my preference when writing and editing fiction.

3. Indicating a plural with an apostrophe
When indicating the plural of lower-case letters – for example, if you want to refer to two instances of the letter a – it’s essential to use an apostrophe because the addition of only an s will lead to confusion.
​
In the non-standard examples below, you can see how the plurals (in bold) form complete words, resulting in ambiguity.

For that reason, it’s considered standard to use an apostrophe (see The Chicago Manual of Style Online 7.15 and New Hart’s Rules 4.2.2).

When indicating the plural of upper-case letters, the apostrophe would be considered non-standard because there’s no ambiguity.

Avoiding erroneous apostrophes and possessive pronouns
Possessive pronouns are the bane of the apostrophe novice’s writing life, especially its!

The following possessive pronouns NEVER need an apostrophe: hers, theirs, yours and its.

• it’s = the contracted form of it is (or it has)
• its = the possessive pronoun

​If you’re unsure whether to insert an apostrophe in its, say it out loud as it is. If it makes sense, you need an apostrophe; if it doesn’t, you don’t!

Avoiding erroneous apostrophes in plural forms
The apostrophe novice can fall into the trap of creating plural forms of nouns by adding an apostrophe before the final s.

Summary
I hope you’ve found this overview useful. It isn’t exhaustive – there are entire books about apostrophes. Fucking Apostrophes is one of my favourites.

However, when it comes to fiction writing, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to worry about more than the basics covered here.

If you’re stuck on where to stick your apostrophe, feel free to ask me for guidance in the comments.

Further reading

• Fucking Apostrophes (Simon Griffin, Icon Books, 2016)
• How to punctuate dialogue in a novel (article and free booklet)
• Punctuating dialogue in fiction (video series on my YouTube channel)
• New Hart’s Rules (Oxford University Press, 2014)
• The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2017)

Does standing up in front of a room full of editors terrify you? I know that feeling. Still, I learned how to love it, which rather took me by surprise. In this post I show you how I did it.

Let’s talk about nerves
I haven’t conquered my nerves about speaking at editing conferences, but that’s okay. Nerves are normal, even for presentations experts like my friend Simon Raybould.

More on him later, but for now it’s enough to say that feeling nervous is not the same as suffering from a level of anxiety that renders you unable to step out of your comfort zone and try something that could push your editing business forward.

Pushing your business forward
Speaking at editing conferences will push your business forward. You’ll get yourself seen and heard. People will understand more about who you are, what you specialize in, and what you stand for (your brand).

That will lead to opportunities: work referrals, awareness about courses or books that you offer, discounts on the conference registration price (even payment for some gigs), and invitations to speak at other conferences taking place in cities that require a little more effort to get to.

Take me. I live in Norfolk (the UK one). On 7 November, I’ll be speaking at the Society for Editors and Proofreader’s mini-conference in Toronto (register here if you want to join me – it’s now open to non-SfEP members). It’s a massive honour to be invited. I get to talk about my two editorial passions – fiction and marketing!

In 2016, I’d probably have shied away from doing this, despite the opportunity to hang out with my favourite Canadians (and a few of my favourite Americans). The words ‘I’m busy’ would have flown from my mouth just in time to curb the nausea.

In 2017, I might have agreed to do it as long as I was sharing the spotlight with a pal, though the thought would still have made me queasy.

But it’s 2018 and, to my surprise, I’m more than happy to fly solo.

​One way to learn to love it
Loathing turned to love because I changed one thing: I dumped the script.

This is where I get to talk about Simon again, because he’s the person responsible for making me love speaking at editing conferences. In May 2018, he wrote a blog post for me called 6 tips to help you speak in public with confidence. Tip 4 asks us not to use a script.

I was gobsmacked. There was no way in hell I’d dare stand up in front of a group of my peers without having every word of my presentation memorized!

We had a long chat about it over Skype, and by the end of that conversation he’d convinced me it was worth testing.

And so when the SfEP’s conference director, Beth Hamer, asked me to do a two-hour session, on my own, at the annual conference in Lancaster, I promised her I would. And I promised myself I’d do it without a script.

3 snags with scripts
Scripts are inherently problematic.

Snag 1:  They take time to learn, especially if you’re going to be talking for an hour. Unless you have a brilliant memory. Which I don’t.

Snag 2: They’re hard to remember. If they were easy to remember, more of us would be on the stage. Which I’m not.

Snag 3: They’re difficult to deliver well. If they were easy to deliver well, more of us would have Oscars and BAFTAs. Which I don’t.

No wonder so many of us cringe at the thought of speaking at editing conferences.

Even if we manage to learn the damn script, what are the chances that we’ll remember it, given how nervous we are? And if we’re uptight about remembering, what are the chances that we’re going to deliver our script in a way that’s engaging and informative?

This is the kind of stuff that’s always been in my head when I think about presenting. All of which can be summed up as follows: at what point will I fail?

Going scriptless
You can’t fluff a script that doesn’t exist. That in itself gets rid of snags (1) and (2). All you can do is talk about the thing you’ve agreed to talk about.

We’re not in the pub or having lunch with our mates, so we still need a structure.

I am not a perfect presenter, not by any stretch. But I have embraced an approach that means I will present, and I will enjoy it.

This is how I do it:
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• Create a list of every learning point my audience needs to know by the time they walk out of the lecture room.
• Create a slide with an image that illustrates that learning point – that’s my trigger to explain it.
• Glance at the slide for the trigger, then face my audience and talk about that learning point.
• Click to the next slide. Glance at it, then face my audience and talk.
• Repeat until I’m done.

Because you’re talking rather than delivering a script, you’ll sound more natural. And because you can’t forget any of the key learning points, you’ll feel more relaxed. That’s snag (3) dealt with.
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There are caveats, of course. You must know your stuff. And you should rehearse. Each rehearsal will be different because you don’t have a script, but you will prove to yourself that you can talk through every one of the key learning points.

Being imperfect – audience expectations
Will you stumble if you’re scriptless? Maybe. Probably. I stumbled several times in Lancaster. But I loved every minute of that workshop. I felt relaxed, and as I talked I was in the moment, not tuned into the next thing I needed to remember.

And the delegates gave me some amazing feedback. That they enjoyed it is the most important thing of all. I’m sold on scriptlessness!

Plus, having a script doesn’t mean you won’t stumble. You’re human, after all. The difference is that when you’re scriptless, you get to stumble just because you stumbled, not because you forgot anything important or because you were distracted by the pressure of having to remember what’s up next.

Here’s something Simon told me during our Skype chat:

Your audience will forgive you if you trip up over a word.

Your audience will forgive you if you stammer.

Your audience will forgive you if you fluff a line and have to restart the sentence and explain something in a different way.

Your audience will forgive you for just being an editor rather than a TED Talk speaker.

What your audience will not forgive is your failing to deliver the key learning points that you promised you would ... for wasting their time.

At the larger editing conferences, delegates have to choose which sessions to attend. So I know that when someone chooses to come to mine, they’re probably missing at least two workshops they’d have learned something valuable from. That I don’t teach them what I promised is unacceptable. And that is the only way I can fail.

When will I see you again?
If you can get to Toronto on 7 November 2018, please come and listen to me talking about how to build a knockout home page, getting fiction editing work, and marketing an editing business.

Will I fluff my words? More than likely. Will I fail? No. I’ve already created slides for my key learning points and rehearsed what I’ll chat about.

I might well stumble and stammer, but I will smile at you as I do so, and I will deliver what I've promised!

​In this article, I offer 12 tips on how to make your book file editor-ready.

Interior book design is something that should be carried out after your book’s been edited, not before.

If you’re creating a printed book, post-design page proofs are perfect for the proofreader because they can check not only your spelling, punctuation and grammar but also the layout.

Page proofs are either hard-copy or PDF versions of the book that are laid out exactly as they will appear in the final printed version.

You and your proofreader will be looking at what the reader would see if they were to walk into a bookshop, pull the title off the shelf and browse through the pages … almost. The proofreader’s job is to ensure that any final errors and layout problems have been attended to before the book is printed.

For a comprehensive overview of what needs to be attended to when proofreading designed page proofs, read this: Proofreading checklist: How to check page proofs like a professional.

With copyediting (and proofreading raw-text files for digital books), it’s a different story ...

Working with raw-text files
If you are asking a professional editor to work on the raw text of your book, follow these 12 recommendations to ensure that the file is editor-friendly.

The good news is this: it means less work for you, not more, because you’re not having to design anything … not yet, anyway.

1. File format
Most professional fiction editors work in Microsoft Word. That’s because, despite the odd glitch, it’s still the best word-processing software on the planet.

It has a range of excellent onboard tools that help your editor style the various elements of your text consistently, and quickly locate potential problems that might need fixing.

Word is compatible with a host of macros that complement the editor’s brain and eye. That means they can add an extra level of quality-control to the edit efficiently.

Even if you’ve written your book in a different program – for example, Scrivener, Google Docs or Apple Pages – place the text in a Word file before you send it to your editor. You’ll get a better-quality book edit, I promise.

2. Number of files
Unless you’ve agreed with your book editor to work serially – i.e. on a chapter-by-chapter basis – create a single master file that contains the full text of your novel.
If you send them 75 separate chapters, all they’ll do is combine them into one file … after they’ve finished weeping with frustration.

Editors want to ensure that your book is consistent – that Kathyrn doesn’t become Katherine, Catherine or Cathryn. There are Word plug-ins that can help them identify problems like this efficiently but they’re only effective if the editor is working with a single file.

The same applies to ensuring that the various elements of your text are formatted consistently. For example, it’s conventional for the first paragraph in a chapter or section to be full-out (not indented). Your editor can use Word’s styles palette to define the appearance of a first paragraph.

Once the style has been set, it’s a case of applying it to every relevant paragraph in the file. If they don’t have a master file to work with, they’ll have to create a new style for each one of your 75 chapters or import that style for the same.

Fiction editors love master files, and they will love you if that’s what you provide.

3. Fonts
You might have decided to use an unconventional font for your book interior. You’re perfectly entitled to use any font you choose ... just spare a thought for your editor’s eyes.

When it comes to the editing stage, stick to something like Times New Roman, size 14. It’s a serif font, which means it’s easy on the eye. The less your editor struggles to read the text, the better the quality of their work.

4. Colours
I recommend you use black text on a white page. Again, it’s about readability.
​
The white text on the coloured blocks below certainly stands out, and the contrast is visually appealing, but for editing purposes it’s a challenge.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to copyedit a fabulous book for an indie author. The pages were black, the text pink. The first thing I asked him – no, begged him – was for permission to change the file’s appearance to something more conventional.

He agreed to save the quirky colourway for the design stage and I was immensely grateful. So was he. I’d have had to increase my price because I would have edited more slowly.

5. Paragraphs
Open any novel on your bookshelf and it’s likely you’ll see a text layout something like this:

Those indented paragraphs are not made using the tab key. Instead, use Word’s ribbon to create proper indents.

To find out how to create a body-text style with proper indents, watch this video tutorial: Self-editing your fiction in Word: How to use styles.

6. Spacing
At line and copyediting stage, don’t worry about how many pages your text covers. Instead, give your editor a file with the lines spaced so that the text is easy to read. Setting the line spacing at 1.25 or 1.5 works well for a font size of 12 or 14.

The line spacing function can be located by right-clicking on text and selecting PARAGRAPH. A window will open. Make sure you’re in the INDENTS AND SPACING tab. Then amend the LINE SPACING field.

7. Chapter headings
Your editor will adore you if you assign your chapter headings with one of Word’s heading styles:

You can even modify the style so that it automatically starts on a fresh page.
Right-click on the heading style, select MODIFY, then FORMAT, then PARAGRAPH. A window will open. Make sure you’re in the LINE AND PAGE BREAKS tab. Check the PAGE BREAK BEFORE box.

Why is this useful?

• It means you won’t need to hit the return button 23+ times to get the cursor to the top of the next page when you begin a new chapter.
• You’ll provide your editor with a quick way of ensuring that all chapters are listed chronologically because they’ll appear in a list in Word’s Navigation menu. If your chapters are numbered, any problems will be easy to identify.

8. Page numbers
In a raw-text work of fiction, there’s no need for page numbers or other headers and footers.
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Word records the page number in the bottom-left-hand corner of the screen of a PC, and that’s what an editor will refer to if they need to direct your attention to a specific page.

If you plan to upload a later version of your file for ebook creation, your page numbers will need to be removed anyway.

If you’re printing, save the page numbering for design stage.

9. Section breaks
I recommend introducing three asterisks (***) to indicate a section break. You can change them at design stage of course, but they’re handy at editing stage because your editor can see that you intend for there to be a section break.

Why not just have a line space? Because sometimes a writer will accidentally hit the return button twice. Your editor will have to spend time working out whether the break is intended rather than focusing on the flow of your text and any errors that need correcting.

10. Pictures/images
If your editor needs to check copy against images and their captions, consider placing these in a separate file.

Images, especially high-resolution ones, will increase the size of your book file massively, and slow down refreshing when the editor saves. And your editor will save once every few seconds.

Sounds bonkers, doesn't it? But the editor who doesn't save regularly is the editor who finds they've lost a precious half-hour's worth of editing because there was a power cut, or a hurricane, or the oven exploded, or whatever.

And when they come to email your edited file full of hi-res images, it will be so huge that they'll have to use an external cloud-based transfer service. The file will take an hour to load (unless they have rubbish broadband speed, in which case it will take two or three hours).

They'll do the transfer in the evening so that it doesn't slow them down while they're working, meaning their teenage kid will start moaning and giving them that look because Netflix is buffering or Minecraft won't load, or something equally devastating. Save us, I beg you. 

On top of all that, amendments, deletions, and additions to the text will cause your carefully placed images to shift into spaces you didn't intend. Better to leave image placement to interior-design stage. It'll save you and your editor time and tears.

​11. Manual tables of contents
If you've created a table of contents in a Word file prior to copyediting, there's a good chance that a chunk of your page numbers and some of the chapter titles will be wrong by the time your editor has finished. 

Of course, you can pay them to fix these too. But that could add an extra hour's work onto your bill. Worse, you'll be wasting your money because when the book's interior is designed, everything will change again.

I know this because when I proofread for publishers (and that means I'm working on designed page proofs that have been edited multiple times and designed by a professional interior formatter) the table of contents is always messed up.

Sort out your table of contents before you do your final design, not at copyediting stage. It'll save you money, I promise.

12. Manual index
I'm adding this one in for non-fiction writers, just in case you're reading.

If the page numbers against a table of contents get messed up during copyediting, the damage to an index is nothing short of catastrophic.

It's not just the page numbers, but the indexed entries too. Spellings might change, so might compound hyphenation. Some key terms will have been removed or changed. Others will have been added.

Indexing should come after proofreading, ideally, but certainly not at copyediting stage.

Summing up
These are just suggestions, not book law, editing law, any kind of law. However, your editor will love you if you make life easier for them, not because they’re lazy but because they want to focus on making your narrative and dialogue sing rather than formatting text so that it’s readable.

There’s absolutely a time and a place for great interior design, but pre-editing stage is not it. Save yourself the bother and keep it simple.

For more raw-text tidy-up tips, grab this free booklet: The Author’s Proofreading Companion.

Fancy watching a video instead? Here you go!

There's a new podcast in town ... or there will be in January 2019! And it's all about editing and writing for indie authors.

What is it and who is it for?
Editing your book is essential, whether you do it yourself or work with a pro. This podcast will explore ways in which independent authors can make their publishing journeys easier.

If you want to learn how to improve your writing and self-editing with tips, tools and guidance, The Editing Podcast is for you.

Who are the hosts?
Denise Cowle and Louise Harnby are your hosts. We thought it would be fun to have two of us talking with each other rather than one of us talk at you. 

Plus, we have different but complementary specialist experience, which means we can cover more topics with authority.

​Why should you bother listening?
Because we really do know what we're talking about!

• We're experienced professional editors who've edited millions of words in fiction and non-fiction.
• We're Advanced Professional Members of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders.
• We're champions of independent publishing, although we both have extensive experience of working with mainstream publishers too.
• We provide training for fellow editors to help them improve their skills and grow their editorial businesses.

We have a lot in common! Having said that, our editing passions have gone in different directions. Denise is a non-fiction editor while Louise is a fiction specialist. That means we can ensure the episodes are balanced, and of value to indie authors regardless of subject or genre.

What we'll be talking about
We currently have over 50 topics lined up for discussion. Here's a selection that will give you a flavour of what's in the pipeline:

• The different levels of editing and the order of play
• The benefits of working with a professional editor
• How much pro editing costs, and how you can save money
• Self-editing tools
• Style manuals: what they are and how you should use them
• Common problems in beginner writing and how to solve them
• Sample edits: costs, benefits and evaluation
• Style sheets: what to include and how to use them
• Working with editors from other countries: benefits and challenges
• Zombie rules: why what you were taught at school isn’t necessarily best for your writing.
• Spelling variations
• Formatting guidance based on industry standards
• The editing you need if you're working with an agent
• Publishing lingo explained

When and how often will we air?
Season 1 of The Editing Podcast will air weekly from January 2019.

Each season will include 10 standalone episodes of complementary topics. That means you can listen to them when you want and in the order of your choosing. 

You'll be able to access the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, our Libsyn podcast page, and both our websites.
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Get in touch or subscribe
We’re really looking forward to making your writing and editing life easier! To stay in the loop, visit The Editing Podcast’s Facebook page and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And if there's a problem you'd like us to solve on the podcast, get in touch.

If you're a first-time writer, working out which editorial services you need help with and what you can do yourself can be tricky. Is proofreading enough or do you need additional assistance? A key question is: How does your reader dance?

Here's a free PDF booklet that covers the key issues. In it, you'll find guidance on:

• The different levels of fiction editing: developmental editing, line editing, copyediting and proofreading
• Which services you might need: including thoughts from Silo series author Hugh Howey
• Your readers' perspective: are they free-wheelers or pedants, and how might this impact on reviews and sales?
• What's possible at proofreading stage: why your proofreader isn't a magician

Click on the image below to get your free copy.

What is flash fiction and can its creation make us better writers and better editors?

​In July 2018, I wrote my first piece of flash fiction and submitted it to the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival’s flash fiction competition. Here’s what I learned.

What is flash fiction?
Think of a tiny story that packs a large wallop … that’s flash fiction. It’s not always called that. Some call it micro fiction, others nano fiction. I’ve also heard it called the shortie, short-short and postcard fiction.

How long is it? There’s no consensus other than it’s short ... very short. Some types of flash fiction have established word counts – the dribble with 50 words, the drabble with 100 words, and Twitterature – ­­no more than 280 characters. If Twitterature seems like a challenge, imagine writing it when the character-count limitation was 140!

So what are the key components and what can they teach writers of longer-form fiction?

1. Brevity – making every word count
Keeping things tight is one of the biggest challenges faced by many of the beginner novelists I work with.

Overwriting usually occurs because the author hasn’t yet learned to trust their reader. Will that single adjective be enough? Maybe another sentence that says a similar thing would be in order, just for clarification …

Often, it’s not a reflection of a writer’s ability to write, but about confidence. Getting the balance right comes with experience and not a little courage. A line editor can help with overwriting – they bring fresh eyes to the book, and can advise on what can safely be removed without damaging flow, sense, rhythm and tension, and in a way that respects style and voice.

Flash fiction helps writers practise the art of precision in the extreme. And when it comes to self-editing your novel, you can ask yourself this: ‘If this were a short story and my word count was restricted, is this the way I’d construct this sentence?’

The answer might be ‘No, but I’d be missing an opportunity to enrich the narrative and the dialogue in a way that’s best for my book.’ That’s a great answer. Still, the flash fiction writer is forced to be disciplined, and when it comes to writing longer works, that discipline will get you used to thinking in terms of making sure every word counts, and comfortable with removing those that don’t.

A limited word count also encourages writers to experiment with literary devices such as free indirect speech, sentence fragments, action beats, and asyndeton, all of which can facilitate brevity but enrich tension, immediacy, mood and rhythm. 

2. Structure – shaping the story
Stories need structure. No writer wants to get to the end of their novel only to realize that the denouement occurred ten chapters earlier. Sophie Hannah calls it ‘story architecture’, which I think is both a practical and a beautiful way of thinking about how a writer helps their readers experience a novel.

There are different ways to shape stories but the most common is the three-act structure. First, the beginning or hook that draws us in. Second, the middle where the confrontation takes place. This is where we come to understand the characters’ motivations and the conflict or obstacles in their way. Third, is the end where the denouement or resolution occurs.

Says Julia Crouch, ‘If you have any storytelling bones in you at all, you will more than likely, even subconsciously, end up with a structure like this.’

How does flash fiction help? Do you even need to worry about structure when you’re writing such a short piece of work?

Absolutely! No one will enjoy an 80,000-word novel that’s poorly structured. The same applies to 800 words. The only difference is that with flash fiction they’ll lose interest quicker.

Flash fiction is a story form in its own right. It’s not about pulling an excerpt from a longer-form piece of writing. Flash must have structure – a beginning, a middle and an end. Something must happen to someone or something, and readers must leave the story feeling satisfied, that the story is complete, that they’ve been on a journey, albeit a short one.

Without structure, it will descend into nothing more than an extract.

Perhaps flash is akin to poetry – squeezing big ideas into small spaces. That too, though, is good practice for the novelist, because it encourages writers to think about the discipline of shaping, and the journey that the reader will be taken on.

3. Strong endings – surprises and twists
There’s nothing more disappointing than a book that hooks you into turning page after page only to sag into a giant anti-climax.

‘Endings are so important to the reader and you will never please everyone,’ says Nicola Morgan. ‘Readers do want the end to feel “right”, though. They have spent time with these characters and they care what happens to them.’

How and when novelists decide to tie up all or most of the loose ends will depend on style, genre, and whether the book is part of a series, but there must be some sort of closure so that your readers aren’t left hanging.

Flash fiction is a challenge to write, but it’s a challenge to read too, particularly for those who love to get stuck into a world and the characters who move around within it.

It’s therefore an excellent format in which to practice packing a final punch, even if that amounts to just one or two sentences. This form of writing also allows writers to play with readers’ expectations of resolution in quirky ways.

You might decide to evoke a laugh, or a shudder, or shock, or a sense of poignancy, but the reader should feel something such that even though you’ve only written a few hundred words the story is memorable.

Here are some additional tips that you might consider if writing flash fiction appeals.

Flash fiction tips #1: Seek immediacy
Which tense will you use?

At the time of writing, I’ve written eight flash fiction stories, none of more than 900 words. In all but two I instinctively opted for the present tense. I didn’t notice my predilection until I reread them one after the other. It made me reconsider the two I’d framed in the past tense. I decided to see what would happen if I changed them.

I learned something. My narrative tension loses its piquancy when I write in the past. That’s not to say I wouldn’t use the past if I were writing a novel. However, for flash fiction, there’s no time to lose! I’m trying to close the distance between the reader and the viewpoint character so that the former is quickly immersed in the tiny world I’ve built.

The opposite might be true for you; there are no rules. But if your flash is flagging, don’t be afraid to experiment with tense and evaluate the impact.

Flash fiction tips #2: Characters and viewpoint
Given the space available, keep the story tight by sticking to one viewpoint character.
It’s easier to create immersion if you allow readers to get under the skin of a single person’s experience. That doesn’t mean there can’t be other characters in the frame, just that we see these others through the viewpoint character’s eyes.

You’ll likely need to omit anything about the character that isn’t necessary to drive the story forward. Novels include descriptions of the characters’ appearance and personality so that we can better visualize them and understand their motivations.
With flash, consider focusing only on those unique physical and emotional traits that nudge the reader towards the big reveal.

Flash fiction tips #3: Use the mundane
Play the what-if game. Take an object, or place, or personality attribute of someone you know, and ask what the story might be in another universe.

What if that old door in your friend’s hallway didn’t really go to the downstairs loo? What if that scribble you found on the inside of a library book had a more sinister connotation? What if your neighbour wasn’t quite who you believed them to be? What if your best mate’s boring job was just a cover story?

Sometimes the most wonderful clues to the theme of a shortie are hidden in plain sight.

4. The editor turned fiction writer – lessons learned
Writing and editing are two very different arts. I don’t believe that a good fiction editor must be a fiction writer. I do, however, think we need to understand the core components of fiction writing and what makes a book work, and be able to place ourselves in the shoes of the author and the reader.

Still, I’m (now) one of many fiction editors who also write fiction. Some of my colleagues have publishing contracts. Some are self-publishers. Some have agents, while others are seeking representation. Some of us write our fiction purely for pleasure.

​There are many roads, but we all agree on one thing: it has been good for us to sit on the other side of the desk – to be the writer, to be the one being edited. 

Louise reading 'Zeppelin'. Crime writer Elizabeth Haynes looks on.

The short story I wrote for Noirwich 2018 was a challenge for two reasons:

1. I’ve written non-fiction – several books, materials for online courses, this weekly blog, guest articles for magazines and newsletters, essays during my university days. But I’d not written fiction since I was in high school, and back then I wasn’t being judged on it.
2. The brief was to write 500 words of crime fiction related to Norwich or Norfolk. The last time I wrote anything with fewer than 500 words was when I constructed the bio on my website!

The amazing thing is that I made the final shortlist of three.

That, however, presented a new challenge. I was invited to Noirwich Live where the winner would be announced by New York Times bestseller Elizabeth Haynes. Would I read my story ‘Zeppelin’ to a roomful of people, mostly complete strangers?

The audience comprised fellow amateur writers, teachers of creative writing, published writers including Haynes, Merle Nygate and Andrew Hook, and most important of all, my daughter Flo and dear friend Rachel.

My knees might have been trembling as I took to the floor, but I got the job done and thought about what I’d learned from the experience.

Sharing takes courage
Writing fiction is one thing; sharing it with others is quite another. Even tiny fiction like mine. For some of us, it takes courage, especially when massive doses of newbie impostor syndrome are flowing through one’s veins.

And this is exactly how many of my author clients feel. Sometimes I’m the first person on the planet to see their work when they’re done with it. My experience enhanced my already deep respect for them, because now I know how it feels to share my fiction with others.

Editing is an honour
My own small venture has taught me what a privilege it is to be chosen by an author to edit for them. When they choose me or one of my colleagues, they take a leap of faith. They place trust in us to treat their words with respect and help them move forward towards their publishing goals.

Fiction is intimate
The nine stories I’ve written to date are really short. I’m at the beginning of my fiction writing journey. I have a lot to learn. But those stories are precious to me. Every one of them contains a bit of me, or of someone I care about, or someone or something that has made a mark on me in some way. They are not fact, but they are not completely made up either, and that infuses them with a level of intimacy.

In other words, fiction writing is personal.

It’s important that the fiction editor takes all of that into their editing studio and remembers it at every touchpoint of the project – an amendment, a query, a summary – and never forgets to say thank you.

​Further reading

• Julia Crouch. Five tips for keeping your readers gripped. Noirwich. 2018.
• Louise Harnby. 3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction
• Louise Harnby. Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions
• Louise Harnby. Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?
• Louise Harnby. Zeppelin: Shorts and Flashes. 2018
• National Centre for Writing
• Nicola Morgan. Write to be Published. Snowbooks. 2014
• Noirwich Crime Writing Festival

Dialogue tags – or speech tags – are what writers use to indicate which character is speaking. Their function is, for the most part, mechanical. This article is about how to use them effectively.

A dialogue tag can come before, between or after direct speech:
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• Dave said, ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say.’
• ‘That,’ said Dave, ‘is the last thing I expected you to say.’
• ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say,’ Dave said.​

​​
Placed in between direct speech, tags can moderate the pace by forcing the reader to pause, and improve the rhythm by breaking up longer chunks.

Rather than give you a bunch of zombie rules that you’ll want to break about two seconds after you’ve read them, here are three guidelines to bear in mind when thinking about which tags to use, which to avoid, and when you might omit them altogether:
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1. A good tag doesn’t trump the dialogue.
2. A good tag doesn’t repeat what the dialogue’s already told the reader.
3. A good tag doesn’t impair how natural the speech sounds.

Why said often works best, and when it’s not enough
The speech tag said  ‘is a convention so firmly established that readers for the most part do not even see it. This helps to make the dialogue realistic by keeping its superstructure invisible,’ say Mittelmark and Newman in How Not to Write a Novel (p. 132).

I agree, and I recommend you embrace it! If someone’s told you to avoid repeating said, head for your bookshelf and take a peek inside some of your favourite novels for reassurance.

If you deliberately try to avoid said, you run the risk that your writing will reflect that intention. If your reader is focusing on your avoidance, their focus is not where it should be – on your story.

Still, there will be times when you’ll want a tag that tells your reader about, say, the sound quality, the mood of the speech, or the tone of voice. Speech tags aren’t the only way to do this – for example, you could use action beats before the dialogue, or adverbial phrases after your tags – but few readers will complain if you use the likes of whispered, yelled, shouted, muttered or whined. Hissed is one that I rather like, though some writers and editors are less keen.

Even though said 's invisibility makes it harder to overuse, avoid the temptation to place it after every expression. Here’s an example of how it looks when it's been overworked (see, too, the final section in this article, ‘Omitting dialogue tags’):

Showy speech tags and underdeveloped dialogue
Showy tags can overwhelm dialogue. Since you’ve written your dialogue for a reason, that’s where the reader’s attention should be. When the tag is more visible than the speech, it’s a red flag that the dialogue, not the tag, needs enriching:

​Instead, we might amend the dialogue so that it conveys the preaching tone, and leaves the tag (said) with the mechanical function of indicating who’s speaking:

Showy speech tags and double-telling
Some speech tags are just repetitions of what the reader already knows – they double-tell. Asked and replied are two common examples, though these are used so often that they don’t fall into the showy category. For that reason, I don’t think you need to go out of your way to avoid these, though do take care not to overuse them.

Showier examples – such as opined, commanded, threatened – become redundant if you’ve got the dialogue right:

In the first three examples, it’s clear from the dialogue that an opinion, a command and a threat have been given. The speech tags repeat what we already know; we should consider whether said is a less invasive alternative.

In the fourth example, amazing and the exclamation mark (!) tell us that the speaker exclaimed, so again the showy tag is redundant.

It’s a question of style, of course. I’m not giving you rules but suggesting ways of thinking about the function of your tagging so that you keep your reader immersed in the spaces of your choosing.
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Non-speech-based dialogue tags and the reality flop
Even if you decide you do want a more extravagant tag than said, take care when using verbs that are not related to the mechanics of speaking.

Examples include: smiled, gesticulated, ejaculated, thrusted, fawned, scowled, winced, smirked, sneered, pouted, frowned, indicated and laughed.

The physicality of these verbs will jar your reader and they immediately introduce an element of inauthenticity into the prose. They’re great words for describing what other parts of a person’s body can do, but are unsuitable for use as dialogue tags:

Try one of the following instead:

Alternatives to showy speech tags – more on action beats
Rich action beats can complement or even replace speech tags, and are useful if you want to keep your dialogue lean and are tempted to use a showy speech tag. Keep them on the same line as the speaker they’re related to.

Action beats let you set the scene so that the reader can fill in the gaps with their imagination while a character is speaking.

Here’s an example of dialogue with a showy speech tag – moaned:

In the alternative below, the reader can discern the moaning manner in which the speech is delivered because James’s discomfort is shown in the action beat preceding it:

Notice how the action beat is punctuated. There’s a full stop (period) after winced.

Neither of these examples is wrong or right. You might decide that you prefer one over the other. Rather, I’m showing you alternatives so that you can make informed decisions about how to make your writing engaging.

Using proper nouns in dialogue tags
If your fiction is gender binary (and it might well not be) and the genders are known to the reader, you needn’t repeat the speaker’s name every time they appear in a dialogue tag. You can use third-person singular pronouns: he and she. Clarity is everything here.
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Notice how Alexander McCall Smith uses nouns and pronouns in his dialogue tags, and peppers the text with action beats so that the reader knows who’s speaking (The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, p. 125):

​Omitting dialogue tags
If you’re confident your reader can keep track of who’s saying what in a conversation, you can omit dialogue tags altogether. Once more, it’s not about rules but about sense and clarity.

This will work best if there are no more than two characters in the conversation, and even then, most writers don’t extend the omission for more than a few back-and-forths before they introduce a reminder tag or an action beat.

Here’s an example from Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks novel Sleeping in the Ground (pp. 273–4). There are two characters in this scene: Banks and Linda. Robinson omits most of the dialogue tags in this conversation because it’s clear who’s speaking, but he keeps us on track with an action beat and a tag halfway through:

Summing up
When it comes to dialogue, remember the function of the tag: to indicate which character is speaking.

​Says Beth Hill, ‘These tags are background, part of the mechanics of story; they meet their purpose but don’t stand out. They let the dialogue take the spotlight’ (The Magic of Fiction, p. 166).

So, during the self-editing process:

• Check your tags to ensure they’re performing their indicative function rather than taking the spotlight.
• Position them to moderate pace and improve rhythm.
• Take care with non-speech-related tags.
  
• And support your dialogue with action beats so that said can take invisible pride of place.

Cited sources and further reading

• Alexander McCall Smith: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Abacus, 2003
• Beth Hill: The Magic of Fiction. Title Page Books, 2016
• Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman: How Not to Write a Novel. Penguin, 2009
• Louise Harnby: How to punctuate dialogue in a novel (article)
• Louise Harnby: How to punctuate dialogue in a novel (videos)
• Peter Robinson: Sleeping in the Ground. Hodder & Stoughton, 2017

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Editors on the Blog is a monthly column curating some of the best posts from the editing community – articles written by editors and proofreaders for colleagues and clients alike.

My thanks to this month's contributors!

THE BUSINESS OF EDITING

• How to minimize cancellations and non-payment for editing and proofreading services by Louise Harnby, published on The Parlour. Louise writes: ‘Every professional editor and proofreader wants to attract best-fit clients who are prepared to commit to a contract of editorial services. For the most part, bookings go smoothly – cancellations, delays, and failures to pay are unusual. Still, editorial business owners need to protect themselves ... just in case.'​​

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​CLIENT FOCUS​: BUSINESS AND OTHER NON-FICTION

• Does your language editor need to know your subject? by Claire Bacon, published on Bacon Editing Blog. Claire writes: ‘Here, I explain why subject-specific knowledge is sometimes – but not always – helpful when it comes to getting your research paper ready for publication. It all depends what you need.'
• Knowing Your Culture – The C Word In Financial Firms by Howard Walwyn, published on Prism-Clarity. Howard writes: ‘Culture in financial services firms is more of a concern to regulators today than some of the themes that have historically preoccupied them. I focus on what culture in financial services firms means.'

CLIENT FOCUS​: FICTION

• Finally – a short blog post! by Lesley Jones, published on Perfect the Word. Lesley writes: ‘Authors sometimes find their writing is padded out with favourite and filler words. This post contains a couple of tips on how to cut them down. Plus a book recommendation!’
• How to punctuate dialogue in a novel by Louise Harnby, published on The Parlour. Louise writes: ‘If the thought of punctuating your novel’s dialogue brings you out in a sweat, let me mop your brow with these 7 tips.'
• Kick-start your own career development program for new novelists by Lisa Poisso, published on Clarity: Tools and Skills for Authors. Lisa writes: ‘The hardest part of breaking into anything new is that you’re not even aware of what you don’t yet know, so dig in!’
• Research tools for crime and thriller writers by Louise Harnby, published on The Parlour. Louise writes: ‘If you’re including authentic technical or procedural information in your crime writing, you’ll be wearing your research hat. Your story should come first, of course. However, be sure to get your facts straight before you decide if and how far you’re going to bend reality.'

EDITING IN PRACTICE

• Proofreading designed page proofs: knock-on effects by Louise Harnby, published on The Parlour. Louise writes: ‘Good proofreading practice means acknowledging that changing one word, or moving one line, can have unintended and damaging consequences throughout the rest of the book if we aren’t careful.'

LANGUAGE MATTERS

• Develop your writing muscle through imitation by Lisa Poisso, published on Clarity: Tools and Skills for Authors. Lisa writes: ‘One of the best ways to stretch your writing skills is to draw inspiration from those who are writing the kind of novels you want to write. What do the authors you admire do best? Can you emulate that?’
• Simple or simplistic? – and other tricky word choices by Helen Stevens and Laura Ripper, published on the School Proof blog. Helen writes: ‘Choosing between two closely related words whose meanings are similar can sometimes be difficult. Here are some commonly confused pairs – with examples of their uses – to help you make the right choice.’ 

Good proofreading practice means acknowledging that changing one word, or moving one line, can have unintended and damaging consequences throughout the rest of the book if we aren’t careful.

If we want to proofread for publishers, packagers and project-management agencies, or if we're checking self-publishers' print-on-demand books, we need to be comfortable with working on page proofs. 

What are page proofs?
The proofreader will usually be asked to work on page proofs. What are they?

​In this case, the proofreader does not amend the text directly. They annotate the page proofs.

You might be required to work on both hard-copy page and PDF page proofs – it will depend on the client’s preference. You'll be looking for any final spelling, punctuation, grammatical, and consistency errors that remain in the text. However, you'll also expected to check the appearance of the text.

Checks will include the following:

• the running heads match the chapter title
• the chapter title matches the entry in the contents list
• the design of the various text elements is consistent (e.g. correct font, text size, use of bold/italic, consistent capitalization, correct paragraph indentation, line spacing, etc.)
• the chapter title drops are consistent throughout
• the text on facing rectos and versos (right-hand and left-hand pages) is balanced
• in-text citations are presented according to preferred style and can be located in the book's references or bibliography
• footnote/endnote markers are present and correct in text and correspond to relevant footnotes/endnotes
• odd page numbers always appear on recto pages
• bad word breaks are flagged
• part titles always appear on new recto pages

​​This isn't a comprehensive list but it gives you an idea of how this type of proofreading goes beyond just checking the text for typos. Click on the image below to access this free proofreading checklist if your client doesn't supply you with one.

What's important here is that every amendment you suggest might have an impact somewhere else. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the amendment; it means, rather, that you need to be mindful of the consequences of your actions – the knock-on effects.

What are knock-on effects?
Professional proofreaders often refer to the indirect consequences of their mark-up as knock-on effects. A useful way of thinking about this is in terms of dominoes because it provides us with the perfect description of what’s at stake.

Imagine you've lined up four dominos: A, B, C, and D. You push over A and it pushes over B. B then knocks over C, which in turn causes D to fall. Domino D’s topple was caused indirectly by Domino A, even though A didn’t touch D.

This process can occur on page proofs and can have serious consequences. The changes we make can, if we’re not careful, impact on the text flow, the pagination, the contents list, and the index.

An example
Here’s an example to illustrate the point. Imagine the publisher’s brief tasks the proofreader with attending to orphans and widows (those stranded single lines at the bottom or top of a page).

Solutions that involve instructing a typesetter to shuffle a line backward to a previous page, or forward to the next page, in order to avoid the widow/orphan might cause one, or all, of the following problems:
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• The repositioning of a line onto a different page automatically forces a reflow of text. Things look fine for the next six pages, but on the seventh page after the amendment was made, a new orphaned or widowed line has now appeared. The previous arrangement of the text prevented this.
• Let’s imagine that the seventh page is still widow/orphan-free. But the reflow of text means that this seventh page now contains a line that appeared on the previous page. This line includes a keyword term that is cross-referenced 130 pages later. The cross-reference is now incorrect.
• The index is being created simultaneously by a professional indexer. It’s not uncommon for proofreaders to never see the index, nor to spot check it. The line that’s been repositioned on a different page contains an author citation that is included in the index. The indexer doesn’t know what the proofreader’s done, and the proofreader doesn’t know which terms are being included in the index. Neither of them knows that the index entry now has the wrong page number attached to it.

In all three cases, the proofreader has prevented one problem but caused others. Consequently, good practice involves more than blindly placing mark-up instruction on any given page.

Thought needs to be given to how the problem can be tackled and the impact managed so that there is no knock-on effect. Spotting an orphaned or widowed line is not enough. We might also have to consider the following:

• Providing additional instructions to the typesetter regarding to how to manage the problem by compensating elsewhere on the page (e.g., increasing or reducing line spaces and page depths, new line creation, etc.) so that the impact of moving one line is restricted to the page where the change has been made and its facing recto/verso.
• Telling the project manager about the suggested line move so that the manager can inform the indexer.
• Looking out for obvious key words or citations in lines that have been moved to check whether they are cross-referenced in the text (having a PDF, even when working on hard copy, is a must in these circumstances).

Summing up
If you’re considering training as a proofreader and want to be fit for the purpose of marking up page proofs, check that your course includes a component about knock-on effects.

Even when we are supplied with detailed briefs about an ideal layout, the publisher client expects us to be mindful of the consequences of our amendments. The proofreader’s job is to find solutions to problems in ways that don’t cause unintended damage.

(An earlier version of this article was first published on An American Editor.)

If you’re including authentic technical or procedural information in your crime writing, you’ll be wearing your research hat. Your story should come first, of course. However, be sure to get your facts straight before you decide if and how far you’re going to bend reality.

Procedure varies between region and country, and when your novel is set will also determine the relevance of the resources I’ve included. Still, even those outside your jurisdiction might spark an insight that drives your storyline further or deepens your characterization

Conversations and ride-alongs
My brushes with the law have been limited to bad parking. Still, I know a few coppers socially, and it’s to them I’d head for procedural guidance in the first instance.

If you know a police officer, a forensic anthropologist, a crime-scene investigator, a barrister, or whatever, ask them if you can pick their brains. They’ll have expert subject knowledge and insights, and your talking with them face to face could be the most powerful tool of all.

If you don’t have existing contacts, ask your friends for theirs or put a call out on social media. A writer recently requested help from munitions experts via the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) Facebook group. Several commenters provided advice and one offered to put her in touch with an expert.

Here’s crime writer Julie Heaberlin discussing the importance of researching and feeling comfortable approaching experts, especially to bring deeper layering to her novels:

In a bid to improve relations between the police service and the public, some larger forces now operate ride-along schemes that allow members of the public to patrol with an officer. In the UK, these include Avon & Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Essex, Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Humberside and Warwickshire Police.

Search online using the keywords ‘ride-along police [your country/state/city]’ and see what comes up.

Watch and read
How about TV and movies? Your favourite crime dramas and fiction might have been meticulously researched. Then again, they might not. In ‘Five Rules for Writing Thrillers’ David Morrell urges writers to do the research but to use caution:

Morrell talks more about how research makes him ‘a fuller person’ and how he learned to fly in order to create an authentic pilot for his book The Shimmer. The expense of a pilot’s licence will probably be out of reach for the average self-publisher. YouTube could be the solution.

There are thousands of hours’ worth of real-life video footage on YouTube. You can learn from experts about how a body decomposes, how an autopsy is carried out, how a forensic sketch artist works, and how to clean up a crime scene.

And there are lectures on the science of blood spatter, computer forensics, investigation techniques, and forensic imaging. You name it, it’s probably there.

Use Wikipedia
Wikipedia is great for any sleuthing writer wanting to track down information about criminal procedure. Do, however, use the primary sources cited in the references to verify the information. In the online masterclass ‘How to Write a Crime Novel’ Dr Barbara Henderson recommends using at least two sources for internet-verification purposes.

Here are some searches to get you started:

• Law enforcement in the United States
• Police officer ranks (international)
• Murder (crime definitions)
• Firearms policy in the UK​

Security agencies

MI5 – the UK’s homeland security service
​Visit the official site of MI5. There’s information on how it handles covert surveillance, communications interception, and intelligence gathering, plus a brief overview of its history since its creation in 1909.

Christopher Andrew’s The Defence of the Realm is the first authorized history of the service. Published by Penguin in 2010, it’s available on Amazon and in major bookstores.

Visit The National Archives and type MI5 into the search box. That will give you access to all the files that have been released into the public domain to date.

National Crime Agency (UK)
The NCA is tasked with protecting UK citizens from organized crime. Its website has articles and reports about cybercrime, money laundering, drugs and firearms seizure, bribery and corruption, and trafficking.

I recommend looking at the NCA’s free in-depth but readable reports such as the National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime 2018, which outlines threats, vulnerabilities, the impact of technology, and response strategies.

MI6 (SIS) – the UK’s secret intelligence service
​Visit the official website of the SIS to find out how it handles overseas intelligence gathering and covert operations. There’s a brief overview of the service’s history and some vignettes that illustrate how intelligence officers operate.

Keith Jeffery’s MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949 is ‘the first – and only – history of the Secret Intelligence Service, written with full and unrestricted access to the closed archives of the Service for the period 1909–1949’. If you want historical information, this is a good place to start.
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GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters (UK)
The GCHQ website is worth visiting just to see the building from which it operates in Cheltenham! There’s an overview of GCHQ history, operations, its various operational bases, and how it works with Britain’s other security services to manage global threats.

For a more in-depth study of the service, start with Richard Aldrich’s GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency.

FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA)
The FBI’s website is packed with the usual overview material of how and why, but I think the go-to resources are the likes of the free Handbook of Forensic Services, the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) page, and the training guidance.

​The easiest way to navigate around the site is to head to the FBI home page and scroll down to the links in the footer.
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NSA – National Security Agency
The NSA website is the place to go for twenty-first-century code-breaking information, and there’s a ton of information about cybersecurity and intelligence. Head for the Publications section to get free access to The Next Wave and various research papers. The material is dense but could be just the ticket for building backstories for cybergeek characters.

Police forces
Michael O'Byrne is a former police officer who worked in Hong Kong, and later with the Metropolitan Police (sometimes referred to as New Scotland Yard). Try the second edition of his Crime Writer's Guide to Police Practice and Procedure.

INTERPOL
This is the world’s largest police force with nearly 200 member countries. The Expertise section of its website is rammed with useful and readable information on procedure, technical tools, investigative skills, officer training, fugitive investigations, border management and more.

UK police forces
Police procedure will vary depending on where you live. You can access a list of all UK police force websites here: Police forces, including the British Transport Police, the Central Motorway Policing Group, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence Police and the Port of Dover Police

An Garda Síochána – Ireland’s national police and security service
The easiest way to navigate the Garda’s website is to head for the home page and scroll down to the sitemap at the bottom. There you’ll find links to information on policing principles, organizational structure, and the history of the service. The Crime section is particularly strong on terminology and procedure.

Legal resources
Lawtons Solicitors’ website has an excellent Knowledge Centre filled with articles on parliamentary acts, offences, criminal charges and police procedure. What are the drug classifications in the UK? and Police Station interviews are just two examples.

Ann Rule’s advice on attending trials is aimed at true-crime writers, but you could use the guidance for fictional inspiration: Breaking Into True Crime: Ann Rule’s 9 Tips for Studying Courtroom Trials.

Crown Prosecution Service (UK): The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) website provides detailed prosecution guidance for criminal justice professionals. It is extremely dense, and so it should be; it wasn’t designed for novelists! See, for example, the section on Core Foundation Principles for Forensic Science Providers: DNA-17 Profiling. Still, there’s a wealth of information there for those prepared to wade through it.

​Department of Justice (USA): The DOJ site offers guidance on the role of the Attorney General, the organizational structure of the department, lots of statistical information, and maps of federal facilities.

​Forensics resources

• Forensic Science and Beyond: Authenticity, Provenance and Assurance is a free, huge and fascinating study that includes evidence and case studies of forensic science in relation to cybercrime, chemical weapons, victim identification, pharmaceuticals, nuclear forensics, and more. It’s worth a read for plot ideas as much as procedure.
• The Crime Scene Investigator Network claims to be ‘the world’s most popular crime scene investigation and forensic science website’. It’s US-centric, so whether the procedures outlined there will be relevant to your jurisdiction will be worth checking.
  Still, the site is easy to navigate and avoids academic jargon. There’s information on evidence collection (blood, semen, firearms residue, drugs, fingerprints, fibres, and so on), photography and procedure, and a collection of articles written by crime scene investigators. Well worth visiting, wherever you’re based.
• If you want to know what the UK’s Forensic Science Regulator considers best practice, delve into its current Codes of Practice And Conduct, 2017 and The Control and Avoidance of Contamination in Crime Scene Examination involving DNA Evidence Recovery.
• For additional technical guidance, and to search for more forensics resources, visit the UK government’s Publications and search by keyword. What’s especially useful about these collections is that archived reports are held on file. And that means you can access guidance not only as it stands now, but in the past too.
• The Royal Anthropological Institute has a Code of Practice for Forensic Anthropology that ‘defines the purpose of the forensic anthropology process and the series of steps that must be followed from the time a forensic anthropologist (FA) is notified of involvement in a case until the presentation of findings, whether by report alone or through the provision of evidence in the court room’.​
• There are some interesting insights into human taphonomic research (that's body farms to you and me) in this report: