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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise demystify (and stand up for) one of the most misunderstood pieces of punctuation – the semi-colon.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 5
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Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat with Tim Storm about the concept of unearned writing, and how to craft prose that's authentic and plausible.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 4
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Resources related to the show
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat about 4 features of written language that are often thought to be Americanisms but aren’t!
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 3
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Mentioned in the show
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Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk with linguist Rob Drummond about grammar pedantry, peevery, youth language, and non-standard language in context.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 2
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Mentioned in the show
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Denise and Louise talk about how to use question marks in fiction and non-fiction according to convention.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 1
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Mentioned in the show
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here's how to use quote marks (or speech marks) according to publishing convention in your fiction writing. The guidance covers both US English and UK English conventions.
In this post, I cover the following:
What quote marks are used for Quote marks are used in 3 ways in fiction:
Character dialogue Quote marks show that we’re reporting what someone else is saying or said. Each new speaker's dialogue should appear on a new line and include opening and closing quote marks.
To distance the narrator from what's being reported The tone of the distancing rendered by the quote marks will depend on narrative intent. Perhaps the voice is sarcastic. Or the author might want the reader to suspend belief by indicating that a character considers a word or phrase unreliable. Imagine the character is saying so-called or supposed or allegedly before the word in quotes.
'What about your friends? Didn't they help?' Molly said.
Peter almost laughed. The last time his 'friends' had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife. A word of caution: Don't be tempted to differentiate distancing terms in the narrative from dialogue by using an alternate style. If there are double speech marks around the dialogue, there should be double marks around the distancing words.
NON-STANDARD (USING DOUBLES AS BASE STYLE)
"What about your friends? Didn't they help?" Molly said. Peter almost laughed. The last time his 'friends' had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife. STANDARD (USING DOUBLES AS BASE STYLE) "What about your friends? Didn't they help?" Molly said. Peter almost laughed. The last time his "friends" had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife. To denote song titles and other works Quote marks are also used to identify certain published works such as song titles and book chapter titles. So, for example, if a writer is referring to an album or book title, this is rendered in italic. However, when it comes to a song on an album, or a chapter in a book, it's conventional to use quote marks.
Jamie pulled the vinyl from its sleeve. The White Album. His favourite. Well, 'Back in the USSR' anyway. He'd never admit it but he didn't much care for the other songs.
Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue There's one occasion where it's acceptable to omit the closing speech mark in dialogue: same speaker, new paragraph. So, if you want your dialogue to take a new paragraph while retaining the current speaker, use a quotation mark at start of the new line but omit the closing one at the end of the previous paragraph.
Single versus double quote marks There’s no rule, just convention. There are lots of Englishes: US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, etc. Each has its own preferences and idiosyncrasies. Focus on which English your audience will expect, and punctuate your writing accordingly. Whichever style you choose, the main thing is be consistent.
If you choose double quote marks, use the correct symbol, not two singles. Straight versus curly quote marks Curly quote marks are more conventionally known as smart quotes. It’s conventional in mainstream publishing to use smart or curly quotation marks, not unidirectional ones. 
Changing straight quotes to smart quotes is one of the initial clean-up jobs an editor will carry out when they start work on a file. To prevent the problem occurring from the minute you begin typing:
If you’ve pasted material into your book from elsewhere, or you didn’t check autocorrect options before you began typing, there might be some rogue unidirectional marks in your file. To change them quickly, do a global find/replace:
The closing quote mark in relation to other punctuation In fiction, punctuation related to dialogue is placed similarly whether you're writing in US or UK style: within the quote marks. Here are some examples:
However, there's a difference when it comes to distancing or cited works. Note the different placement of the commas and full stops in the US and UK examples. In US English, the commas come before the closing quotation marks; in UK English, they come after.
When not to use quote marks There are 2 issues to consider here:
Thoughts CMOS at section 13.43 says you can use quote marks to indicate thought, imagined dialogue and other internal discourse if you want to. However, I recommend you don't. For one thing, I can’t remember the last time I saw this approach used in commercial fiction coming out of a mainstream publisher’s stable. But the best reason for not putting thoughts in quote marks is because it might confuse your reader. The beauty of quote marks – or speech marks – is that they indicate speech. Let them do their job! Emphasis It can be tempting to use quote marks in your writing to draw attention to a word or phrase, but it’s rarely necessary and could even have the opposite effect to what you intended. It works instead as a distancing tool, as discussed above. If you’re tempted to use quote marks for emphasis, imagine saying the sentence out loud, and making air quotes with your fingers as you speak. Would your character/narrator say it like that? If the answer's no, leave out the quote marks. Italic will work better. Or recast your dialogue so that the reader can work out where to place the stress themselves. Summing up If in doubt about how to use quote marks for your book, consult a style manual. I recommend the Chicago Manual of Style, the Penguin Guide to Punctuation and New Hart’s Rules, all of which offer industry-standard guidance.
Fancy listening instead?
If you'd prefer to listen to the advice offered here, Denise Cowle (a non-fiction editor) and I chat about how to use quote marks in all types of writing on The Editing Podcast. You can listen right here or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Story-level critiques focus on the big picture – plot, pace, characterization, voice. Line critiques evaluate a book at a micro level, focusing on sentence construction, word choice, and readability. Here’s an overview of what to expect.
Story first ...
Think of your book as a construction project. First you lay the foundations and build the walls – writing and redrafting to ensure the structure of your storytelling is sound. It’s where you and your editor (if you have one) focus on the big-picture stuff such as:
At this macro stage, you might end up adding, deleting or shifting sections of your prose. Some authors do their own structural editing because they’re good at it and have studied story craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek professional help, either because they’re at an earlier stage of their authorial journey or because they feel they’re too close to the book to see the problems. One thing’s for sure – there’s no right or wrong way. Every writer has to make their own choices. If a full, done-for-you developmental (or structural) edit isn’t the path you take, you might still decide to work with a specialist editor who analyses your book and provides a detailed report on its strengths and weaknesses at story level, and offers suggestions about how to improve your writing. That’s where story-level critiques come into play. You might also hear them called manuscript evaluations and manuscript assessments. 
Line level second ...
Once the foundations and walls are in place, it’s plastering time – smoothing at sentence level to ensure that a reader’s journey through the pages is satisfying. In a sense, it’s still structural work but at a micro level. This is where you (and your editor if you have one) focus on nuances such as:
Again, some authors do their own line editing because they’re good at it and have studied line craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek help. If a full, done-for-you line- and copyedit isn’t an option, a line critique could be just the ticket. A line critique, like its story-level sister, is an assessment or evaluation of your story but at sentence level. Your report will include examples from your novel that show what’s holding you back. You’ll also be offered suggestions on how you can fix any problems identified. Then you can implement what you learn throughout the rest of your book. 
Critiques are about learning, not criticizing
Some authors are nervous about critiques. Pro editors get it – it can be tough to put your book in the hands of another and ask them to tell you what’s working and what’s not, especially when you’ve put in so much hard work. The thing to remember is that a critique (whether at sentence or story level) is not about criticism. It’s about identifying strengths and weaknesses, and offering solutions so that you can move forward to the next stage of your publishing journey with confidence. And critiques are a long-term investment. They enable you to improve your self-editing skills. That’ll save you time and money further down the line because anyone else you commission will have less to do. The line critique: the process and the report What follows is an overview of the way I handle line critiques. Every editor has their own process, but the basic principles will be similar. 1. The service: Mini line critique Authors email a Word file comprising, say, 5K words of their novel. It’s in a writer’s best interest to include a section that includes both narrative and dialogue. That way we can assess whether both are working effectively. Furthermore, if there are multiple viewpoint characters in the novel, and different viewpoint styles and tenses have been used, a sample that represents these choices will enable us to provide a report that evaluates the success of those decisions. 2. First readthrough The first stage of the process is a complete readthrough of the 5K words. It’s not about micro-level reporting, not yet. Rather, we’re getting a sense of the author’s writing style, the characters’ voices, and the flow of the narrative. 3. Second pass: Identification tagging We go back to the beginning and start the analytical process, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s line craft. We work through the sample, tagging sections of the text with Word’s commenting tool. The author won’t see these tags – they’re just a tool that allow us to locate the sections we’ll pull from the text and into the report for demonstration. The text in the image below has been blurred in order to respect confidentiality, but you can see the tagging process in the margins of just one page of one of my reports. 
TAGGING IN A MINI FICTION LINE CRITIQUE
4. Writing the report
Now that we’ve tagged the sample, we can create a report. My line critiques are usually between 20 and 30 pages long, depending on the length of the text samples I’m pulling in and offering recasts for. Each report is divided into sections that address the strengths and weaknesses of the following: NARRATIVE
DIALOGUE AND THOUGHTS
TECHNICAL ELEMENTS
FORMATTING
The tags in the sample allow editors to search for and locate the text we want to use as examples of good practice and to highlight areas with improvement potential. Here’s an example of one of those sections (I’ve disguised the identifying traits of the original in order to respect the author’s confidentiality):
CLARITY OF NARRATIVE VIEWPOINT
What worked You held narrative viewpoint well and I commend your decision to separate the two viewpoint characters with chapters. This ensured the narrative voices remained distinct. Using a present-tense second-person POV for your transgressor and a past-tense first-person POV for your protagonist worked extremely well. Have you read Complicity by Iain Banks? He does the same thing! It’s effective because it makes us wonder whether that first-person narrative is reliable, though you don’t give the game away until the denouement, which I loved. The second-person POV also lent a rather creepy voyeurism to the transgressor chapters, and though these were demanding to read, you did give your readers plenty of breathing space with the contrasting protagonist chapters. Nicely done! What could be improved Your protagonist narrative was laboured at times because of the abundance of ‘I’. Overusing this pronoun can lead to an overly told narrative in which the reader is forced to experience everything via the character’s experience of it. This can be distancing. I’m not suggesting you remove every instance of ‘I’ plus the verb – not at all. Instead, consider toning it down and removing some of the filter words so that the reader can experience some of the doing with the character rather than through the character. Here are two examples and suggested fixes:
Notice how I’ve suggested removing ‘I saw’, which feels redundant given that we already know that Marcus is looking up, and only tells us of more seeing being done. Instead, you can focus the reader’s attention on the immediacy of what’s seen once the looking up’s happened: the movement of the shooting star. That allows you to show readers what Marcus sees rather than telling them.
Notice how in the original there’s a lot of telling of what ‘I’ did. I like your use of a strong verb to introduce tension – ‘scuttled’ – but that tension dissipates with the more distant told narrative that follows. There’s telling of sound, smell, and realization. I’ve suggested you tighten up the paragraph by retaining the original anchor in which Marcus hides; perhaps follow that with a shown narrative that, again, allows the reader to experience the sounds and smells at the same time as Marcus rather than through his ears, nose and brain’s doing hearing, smelling and realizing. Recommendation Bear in mind that a first-person narrative, by definition, puts the reader in the character’s head. If you keep that in mind, you’ll save yourself a lot of work because you’ll need fewer words on the page. Have a read through all the protagonist chapters and consider where you can tighten up the prose in order to limit some of the telling of doing being done. You can still anchor the first-person viewpoint with ‘I’ in places, of course, but you might recast some of writing that follows with shown action. 5. Wrapping up and emailing the report When the report is complete, we save it as a PDF and email it to the author. PDF is the tool of choice for many editors because it can’t be edited. If the client wishes to refer back to it during future writing projects, they can do so safe in the knowledge that nothing’s been accidently removed. Summing up If you want to hone your line craft and polish your book at sentence level, but a full line- and copyedit is beyond your budget, consider a more affordable alternative: the line critique. Think of a critique as another form of authorial development, of book-craft study. And what you learn from your critique won’t be something you can apply just to the current book. It’s a tool you can use with every story you write thereafter. And here’s a free booklet that outlines the various levels of editing. Just click on the cover to get your copy (and, no, you don’t have to give me your email address!). 
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
It doesn’t matter a jot to me which kind of English an author wants to write in. What does matter is their readers' expectations and perceptions, and being consistent.
This free booklet shows you how to stay on track. 
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Macros enable us to edit faster and more consistently. For professional editors, that means a higher hourly rate, a more consistent output, and a happier client. If you want to use macros but don’t know where to start, read on.
Which macros, and when and why?
Which macros should you use? How does the Paul Beverley macro suite fit with an application such as PerfectIt? What should you use when? No one’s the same. We edit different subject/genres, carry out different types of editing, and have different styles of working. There’s no one size fits all. A conceptual approach, however, can help us decide which tools to use. Analysis: Tasks versus goals A task-centred analysis focuses on what we plan to do and deciding what tools will help with these stages. Thus, in the free book, Macros for Editors, I offer smorgasbord of macros that speed up a variety of specific tasks. However, when we look broadly at what we’re trying to achieve, we may discover different ways of working and different tools – new tools, maybe – that can help. One such contribution to this approach is the Alyse suite – analysis-type macros (DocAlyse, HyphenAlyse, etc.) that provide an overview that reports on the likely inconsistencies in a document without our even having to look at the files. 
Computer-aided editing: Teamwork
Think of computer-aided editing as teamwork – you and the computer working together, each playing to your own strengths, with a single aim: to improve communication between author and reader. A computer brings the following to the team:
On the downside, it lacks the ability to look beyond the data. It has no idea of meaning, significance, attitude, feelings – only humans can provide that. Mechanics versus meaning Editors spend a lot of time eliminating inconsistencies in the following:
This is the mechanical side of editing. Editors also spend a lot of time focusing on meaning. It matters little how consistent a document is if the meaning is clouded. Obscure the meaning, and communication between the author and reader is impeded. Using macros and related applications enables the editor to delegate some of the mechanical work to the computer – those mundane data-led tasks – and focus their minds on communication. A possible workflow Here’s one way it might look:
Here are the macros you might use in that workflow:
If you’re a PerfectIt user (see the Intelligent Editing website), you could use that instead at stages (3) and (5). Or continue to use FRedit for (3) but use PerfectIt for (5). The latter is a possible best-of-both-worlds approach if you like the idea of having two different tools, each working to spot errors that the other might have missed. False positives False positives are to be expected with any computer tool. We can reduce them by refining the FRedit changes list and PerfectIt’s style sheets. For best effect with global change macros, apply them to one chapter at a time, making adjustments that will make it more effective in succeeding chapters. Summing up To access all my line-level and analysis macros, download the free book. You can also watch almost 100 video tutorials on my YouTube channel. And if you want to know more about PerfectIt, visit the Intelligent Editing website. Please feel free to email me with suggestions and/or questions about macros.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. Editorial training without borders: Should you bother with international editing conferences?9/10/2019
Does your editorial conference budget include provision for travelling abroad? If it doesn’t, here's why you might want to consider it and what you need to factor in to make it viable.
I’m a Brit who’s been to three editorial conferences in the past 12 months. Two of them required me to pack my passport.
First up was the one day mini-conference hosted by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders Toronto Group. I travelled to Canada in early November. I bought a new winter coat for the occasion because Toronto in November is cold cold cold. The weather foxed me – it was balmy – but the conference was everything I expected. Brilliant. Nine months later, I headed for Chicago, this time for the Editorial Freelancers Association meeting. The sunshine came as promised, not just on the lake shore but in the Swissôtel, too, where the conference took place. I received a lovely welcome and had a ball. Three weeks after that, I was learning again, but this time in the UK. The annual Society for Editors and Proofreaders conference took place at Aston Business School. Rain threatened but never arrived, and the meeting was smashing. Three different conferences. Three different countries. And one thing in common ... The delegates were international. And that’s the thing about the editorial community – we’re from everywhere, and our conferences reflect that. Still, attending conventions, especially those abroad, means an investment in money and time for the professional editor, so why bother? 
Being an editor isn't a national occupation
Our clients don’t all live where we live. Take me. I’m a Brit but I’m not an editor of British novels. I’m an editor of novels written in English ... or I should say, Englishes. And as all pro editors know, there is more than one English. And while those Englishes come with variances in spelling, punctuation, grammar conventions and idiom, all of that can be learned and understood. And that's one of the pulls of international conferences. What better way to hone your craft than by spending time in the places where those Englishes are spoken and written, and hanging out with the people who speak and write them? 
Other factors to help you decide
Here are some ideas to help you decide whether to cross the border for your editorial training: 1. Look at the conference programme Are there sessions on aspects of editing, or the business of editorial work, that you can’t access elsewhere? For example, take a look at the 2019 Toronto SfEP mini-conference programme (Wednesday, 6 November). You can learn how to identify the missing parts in a fiction narrative, how to use macros, how to master templates, how to edit indexes, and how to tackle fast-turnaround editing. There’s also an optional pre-conference workshop on raising rates. 2. Who's speaking? Are the presenters offering learning opportunities that will be easier to learn face to face? Or perhaps there are keynoters or after-dinner speakers you’d be unlikely to meet otherwise. At the 2019 SfEP conference in Aston, bestselling crime-fiction author Chris Brookmyre , linguist Rob Drummond, and broadcaster/writer David Crystal were all on the schedule. We learned hard ... and laughed harder because all three make what they teach memorable through humour. 3. Can you leverage being an international speaker? Think about whether speaking at editorial events beyond your borders is something you can leverage professionally and that will pay back your investment in the long run. Some of our potential clients value knowing we have international speaking experience because it reflects a global trust in our specialist knowledge. 4. Is an honorarium available? If you’re prepared to speak on a specialist topic, you might qualify for financial support. Of course, this depends on the organizer’s budget and the value they think you’ll bring to the conference, but editorial societies are increasingly recognizing the benefits of international speakers in view of the global nature of our community. Don't assume that assistance isn’t available. Even a contribution to flight, accommodation or meals might be the tipping point for your saying yay rather than nay. 5. Can you buddy up to reduce costs? If a flight’s involved, you’ll have to bite the bullet. If you can drive across the border, however, you can share the cost of travel. And how about sharing a room? I did this with my podcast pal Denise Cowle at the 2018 ATOMICON marketing conference. We halved our costs. And neither of us snored. Promise. We’re talking about doing ACES in a couple of years. Being Airbnb buddies will be one way we’ll make it viable. 6. Find out who else is going Face-to-face networking is powerful. Spending time with international colleagues could lead to referrals that will earn you a return on investment further down the line. And if you have books, courses or other training materials relevant to your editorial colleagues, you could reach new markets when you take the time to put yourself in front of your audience and speak at an international event. We’re much more likely to buy from those we trust, and while online networking is great, and the online editorial community is vibrant and generous, nothing beats getting in front of people, talking with them face to face, when it comes to building relationships and trust. 7. Cost it out and save up Work out what it’s going to cost. It’s all very well my talking about the benefits of international networking and learning, but I’m not going to pretend there isn’t hard cash on the line here! Costing it out is the first step to creating a savings plan. That way you can prepare ... if not for this year’s meetup then for one a year or two down the road. Start with the basics:
Summing up International conferences require more planning and a bigger investment of time and money, but if you’re canny about your preparation, think in the long term, and use them as opportunities to speak, they’re hugely beneficial. Where will you go next? Maybe I'll see you there!
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
If your characters seem or appear to be doing or feeling something – probably, maybe, perhaps – then you might be using half measures to express a good chunk of that action or emotion. Uncertainty can drag a story down. Here’s how to edit for it at line level.
In fiction, tentative language can lead to the following:
Authors sometimes introduce tentative language into a novel because:
Tentative language: words to watch out for I’m not suggesting you remove every tentative word; some might be deliberate and necessary. More likely, you’ll be checking that your prose isn’t rife with them. Still, these little blighters can slip in accidentally and it’s worth taking the time to root them out and decide whether to give them space on your page or remove them. Here are some of the words (or word groups) to watch out for:
When there’s a problem, it can sometimes be fixed with a simple deletion, or a stronger verb. When viewpoint, tension and reader immersion are at stake, more intervention might be required. How to fix it without dropping viewpoint I see the likes of seemed, appeared, and looked as if creeping frequently into line editing projects for less experienced authors because they want to hold viewpoint. Hats off to them – I’ll take a seemed over a head-hop any day of the week! Still, there might be a better fix. Here’s a framework you can use to recast in a way that removes the uncertainty but keeps the narrative alive.
In the examples below, I’ve used this framework to craft a shown narrative rather than an assumed one. The original text is based on real examples that have been adapted to respect confidentiality.
EXAMPLE 1
Luke peeked around the headstone. The hooded man seemed frustrated.
Luke can’t know for sure how the other character is feeling, and the author covers this with seemed. That’s all well and good; removing it would flip the reader from Luke’s internal experience to the hooded man’s.
The sentence is flat though. Yes, we readers are still in Luke’s head but it’s not a particularly interesting space. There’s no tension in our observations from his hiding place. Here’s how the fixing framework helped me recast in a way that shows readers the hooded man’s assumed frustration, as seen by Luke: Luke peeked around the headstone. The hooded man glanced at his watch and swore under his breath. His foot lashed out, knocking over a grave vase. The stagnant water stunk and Luke wrinkled his nose.
In the revised version, we see the hooded man’s emotion through his action. That helps with the flatness but also with narrative distance; we stay close to Luke because we experience not only what he sees but also what he smells. It’s more immersive.
EXAMPLE 2
Thom turned and tripped over the blind guy’s white stick – Mikey, someone had called him. He looked at Mikey, who seemed almost to be picking out Thom’s facial features in his mind.
Thom is the viewpoint character so we can’t know what’s going on in Mikey’s head. And that means we can’t just remove the tentative words and change the verb to picked.
But there’s a problem. If Mikey were the viewpoint character, his imagining Thom’s face would make for an interesting narrative. However, it’s Thom’s head we’re in. In this case, the assumption seems off, too big to believe. When I listen to someone speaking, I tend to use my eyes to focus on their mouths; my friend with restricted vision tends to move his head so that his ears are more in play. Sighted people in his company need to be aware that his eyes don’t focus directly on a speaker even though he’s fully engaged. If we place this experience within the fixing framework, we can imagine Mikey’s physicality and the effect on Thom, the viewpoint character. Thom turned and tripped over the blind guy’s white stick – Mikey, someone had called him. Mikey tilted his head, gaze off-centre, ear trained on Thom’s blustered apology.
In the revised version, the assumption is gone. Instead, readers are shown what Mikey does and what Thom experiences. Viewpoint is intact, and the clunk has gone.
How to fix an insecure narrative voice In the examples below, the tentative words have crept in because the authors are still developing the confidence to make every word count. Useful tools of the trade include deletion, stronger verbs, smoother recasts, and free indirect style. The fixes below are suggestions only, offered so you have an idea of what to look out for and how you might tackle the solution. The approach you use will depend on your writing style and the mood of the scene. When tentative language creates a flat sentence In these examples, the tentative mood is justified but the sentences are rather flat. We need to inject tension.
When tentative language creates a woolly sentence
In these examples, the tentative words relate to viewpoint characters’ experiences. The uncertainty introduces distance because it pulls the reader out of their experience. It makes us say, ‘Why the lack of commitment? Doesn’t the viewpoint character know?’ Once more, I’ve used real examples and adapted them to disguise the originals.
When tentative language works
In these examples, the tentative words work. They show the reader that the viewpoint character is guessing. She glowered as if to say, You really think there’s enough meat on that plate? Mark glanced at the blue car. There were two people inside, neither familiar. Might be undercover cops, but he legged it anyway … just in case. A haze hung in the air – maybe brick dust from the fallen building or ash from the fire. It stung his eyes and irritated his throat. The news knocked the breath out of her. Jamie had seemed happy the last time they’d met. Ecstatic even, what with the new job, the kayaking holiday, that girl he’d met the week before. She combed the beach for Ben’s blue sun hat, pushing the unthinkable to the back of her mind. Thought it through. Probably with Mark at the rockpool. The café maybe. Or the groyne or the dunes. Her head spun left, right, left again. Summing up As soon as a writer or editor begins line editing fiction, subjectivity comes into play. It’s rare that there’s a right or a wrong way. With that in mind, don’t ban tentative language in your prose; just watch out for it. It may well have the right to be there, though it shouldn’t trump tension or add clunk. If removing it messes with viewpoint, use the fixing framework to craft an alternative shown narrative.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this bonus episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat about 10 things an author needs to tell an editor about so that both parties can work out whether they're a good fit.
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The links above take you to The Editing Podcast website but you can catch up with any of the episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podchaser, or your preferred app. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
What do people say about your editing and proofreading business when you’re not in the room? Whatever it is, that’s your brand. Here’s what happens when you show who you are by talking about the problems you solve for others.
You’ve got work coming in but your analytics make you wonder whether you should be getting more requests to quote, given the volume of traffic.
Or perhaps you’re a new entrant to the field and have just begun to think about who you want to work with and what your message is. Do yourself a favour and take a look at your branding. Is it on track?
Brand blurriness
I spent the first five years of my freelance career specializing in proofreading for publishers, first in the social sciences, then in fiction. Over time, my client base began to shift. Now, I do sentence-level editing exclusively for indie fiction authors. Here’s the thing, though. For a long time, my website and directory entries didn’t reflect this shift. And while the content on my blog began to reflect my passion for supporting self-publishers, especially beginner writers, you wouldn’t have known this from the way I communicated my business mission in the rest of my marketing materials. I was playing safe. I was nervous. I was getting a lot of visitors to my website and a lot of requests to quote. However, only about 25% of those requests were from my target audience – the indie authors. And while the other 75% was work I always referred elsewhere, I felt safe having that as an option. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That was my mantra. I had enough work that I wanted to do, and plenty of offers to quote for work that I didn’t want to do. Still, I spent a lot of time sending work elsewhere. And I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that a lot of effort was going into marketing that ended up as jobs in other people’s hands. Why not just make things leaner? 
Discovering the problem
I found my courage and decided to make some changes. I amended the lead text on my page to make it clear that I was a fiction specialist. And I readied myself for losing the 75% – those requests to quote that had made me feel all warm, cosy and safe for so long. Over the next three weeks the numbers plummeted. Most of those students, businesses and academics stopped getting in contact. But things were leaner. I was spending less time sending work elsewhere that I didn’t want to do anyway. I became more efficient, more productive, more focused. I was using my time wisely. I was streamlining my business. I felt great, right? Honestly? I’d lost my safety net. And I didn’t feel great at all. I reminded myself that I’d been fully booked for the past two years without having to dip into that 75%, so I should just relax. As you were – that was my new mantra. It’ll be fine – that was my other new mantra. Stop overthinking things – yet another new mantra. Louise Harnby | Mantra Queen is what I should have changed my business name to. I took a look at my home page, my directory entries, my business cards, and I noticed something. All the passion I felt about championing my target clients was missing. My branding was off. 
Making the message about the client
I completely overhauled my home page, resources page, my SfEP directory entry, my Reedsy profile, even my blog, so that everything started to work together in harmony. Now I’m telling my target client group about what makes me tick but in a way that focuses on solutions to their problems. It’s all about them, not about me. Here’s what I learned. Even if you’re findable, when your message doesn’t make your client feel like you get them, then you’re doing a lot of marketing work for a poor return. And even if that return is enough to keep your schedule full, it’s not giving you as much choice as you could have if your message was on point. 
Getting in the right gear
Being findable but having a weak brand is like driving along a motorway at 70 miles an hour in second gear. The car has to work really hard to get you where you want to go! Getting the branding right is like slipping into cruise-control. Here’s what happened when I rebranded:
Sorting out our branding is the most powerful gift we can give our businesses. If we don’t understand our own brand values, we can’t expect potential clients to. Make sure yours are evident at every touchpoint of your editorial business.
If you want to learn how to do it, my online course Branding for Business Growth will teach you what you need to know. I created this course specifically for editors, because I'm one and I know what the challenges are. For a shorter course on building trust with ideal clients, try To Visibility and Beyond.
To find out more about either of these courses, visit the Courses page.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk to Laura Poole about the importance of fact checking.
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Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this bonus episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk to editor Maya Berger about editing erotica.
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Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Denise and Louise talk to Beth Hamer, a professional proofreader and the Society of Editors and Proofreaders’ conference director. Beth chats about how to organize a successful editorial conference.
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STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform. Summary Find out more about:
Related links and resources
Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
You have a choice when it comes to tense in your fiction’s narrative. Here’s an overview of the tenses you’ll most likely be working with, and some guidance on the benefits and challenges of each.
The present tense
Here’s an overview of the present tense, with basic examples:
The present is immediate, and that right-nowness forces the reader to stick close to the viewpoint character. We’re in the moment with them. That’s why it appeals to some fiction authors, and why others find it restrictive. With second-person viewpoints, the present tense is intensely voyeuristic, invasive even. Here’s an excerpt from Iain Banks’s Complicity (p. 60). This is a transgressor narrative with a difference – the narrator is anonymous, at least until later in the novel:
And in this example from a later chapter (p. 90), we’re back with the protagonist. Here, the main narrative tense is present. The viewpoint is first-person:
The next day I scrounge a Lambert & Butler off Rose in the Foreign News section, smoke it at my desk and get a real hit off it, then feel disgusted with myself and vow that’s the last one I’m going to smoke.
RECOMMENDATION The present tense is great if you want to shorten the distance between the reader and the viewpoint character. Present tense works particularly well for short fiction because space is limited. I use it often in my own shorts and flashes because it enables me to pack an immersive punch quickly. However, it’s tricky to manage if there are multiple viewpoint-character chapters or sections, all operating in the present tense. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the timelines so that the reader’s clear on what ‘now’ really means. If your plot twist hinges on deliberately duping them via your use of tense rather than story craft, you’ll break their trust. The present tense can also be tiring for readers because it’s emotionally immersive. If you’re writing a novel, you might consider using it only for certain viewpoint characters – your transgressor or victim, for example. In Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh mixes it up: the Anna-viewpoint chapters are set in first-person present; the Murray-viewpoint chapters are third-person past. The past tense Now let’s turn to the past tense, starting with some basic examples:
The past tense is the choice of most contemporary commercial fiction writers. What’s interesting is that readers are so used to this style that they can still immerse themselves in a past-tense narrative as though the story is unfolding now. Here’s an excerpt from T. M. Logan’s 29 Seconds (p. 73). We’re given a past-tense narrative with a third-person limited viewpoint (Sarah’s):
WHEN PAST TENSE FLOPS – UNDERSTANDING PAST PERFECT Less experienced writers can end up in a pickle when referencing events that happened earlier than their novel’s now. The crucial thing to remember is that when we set a novel in the past tense, anything that happens in the story’s past will likely need the past perfect, at least when the action is introduced.
Here’s an excerpt from The Wife Between Us (p. 57) by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. This chapter’s primary narrative tense is past (see underlined verb):
When we’re told that ‘She stood’, that’s the novel’s now. But when the narrator recalls events that happened further back in time (bold) – Samantha’s decorating her bed, and the two women’s procuring a rug – these need to be anchored in the past-perfect tense: had, had been. When authors fail to anchor past events in a novel whose now is already set in the past tense, the reader will be confused. RENDERING BYGONE ROUTINE – UNDERSTANDING HABITUAL PAST Now and then, you might want to reference events from your novel’s past that happened routinely or habitually. This is where the habitual past tense comes into play, and the tools are would and used to. This excerpt from The Templar's Garden by Catherine Clover illustrates the usage. The narrative is set in third-person past but the viewpoint character is recalling regular journeys taken earlier in her life:
And in Time To Win (p. 62), Harry Brett uses the simple past and past progressive for the most part, but then Frank, the viewpoint character, recalls something he’d done habitually in former times:
Like the past perfect, the habitual past acts as an anchor, so that readers don’t mix up the reminiscence of a routine event with the novel’s now. To see that confusion in action, replace ‘used to enjoy’ with the simple past: ‘enjoyed’. It reads as if Frank is enjoying driving down South Denes Road right now. If you don’t want to use the habitual past, then an alternative anchor is necessary. Here I’ve added an anchoring clause and changed the tense to past perfect (he’d, or he had):
RECOMMENDATION The past tense is flexible; it’s easier to shift narrative distance (the distance between the reader and the narrator) than is the case with the present tense, though this does increase the risk of flatter writing. Dramatic scenes – fights, escapes, arguments – could end up laboured if the writing isn’t lean and rich. Still, it’s traditional and readers are used to it. No one will get tired of reading in the past as long as the line craft is strong. Do take care, however, with rendering events that have taken place in your novel’s past. Use the past perfect or the habitual past when necessary to ensure your readers know what happened when. Summing up Write in the tense you feel most comfortable with, and that you think readers of your genre will be most comfortable reading. The past and the present both have their challenges and their advantages. The most important thing is that readers know where and when they are in the story. Cited sources
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Round brackets, or parentheses, crop up less frequently than many punctuation symbols in fiction writing, but that doesn’t mean we must ban them. This post explores two ways to make them work effectively.
What are round brackets? This is what they look like: ( ) They always come in pairs, and act as alternatives to paired dashes or commas in fiction. They have other functions in non-fiction writing but I’ll leave that discussion to a non-fiction editor! Compare these examples:
All of the above are grammatically correct, though paired brackets (like dashes) are stronger than commas, and more interruptive to the eye than both commas and dashes, probably because they’re used less frequently and associated more with non-fiction work. Every writer will do well to ask themselves how their choice of parenthetical styling will affect the rhythm and clarity of their prose. Every writer will also do well to ask themselves whether readers will be annoyed by them. Like serial commas, adverbs and the singular they, round brackets rarely pass a reader or an editor without evoking opinion. More on that later. Brackets, full points and capitalization Regardless of which English you’re using – British or American, for example – the rule is the same:
Detective Harnby typed up the report and dumped it on the desk in the chief-super’s office (and what a sty that was).
Detective Harnby typed up the report and dumped it on the desk in the chief-super’s office. (And what a sty that was.)
Danger, Will Robinson! Round brackets in fiction garner strong opinion, usually negative. The most-cited reason I’ve seen – and it’s a valid one – is that they pull readers out of a story. Given that there’s no reason on earth why you’d want to pull a reader out of a story, tread carefully. Still, given that they’re not grammatically wrong, it’s only right that we should consider the ways in which round brackets might work in your fiction. The two I’ve seen most often are as follows:
Round brackets in fiction: Satire For an example of how round brackets can be used for satirical purposes, we need look no further than Dickens. In Our Mutual Friend (Wordsworth Editions, 1997), the viewpoint is omniscient. The scene is an ostentatious banquet hosted by the Veneerings. Dickens uses round brackets to set off narrative asides that poke fun at the guests and show them as the bumptious fools he believes them to be – and wants us to. Here’s an excerpt from p. 11:
A mirror reflects the Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel-of-all-work. The Heralds’ College found out a crusading ancestor for Veneering, who bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought of it),
In other words, the crest is a farce. And one of the diners, a Mr Twemlow, is obsessed over whether he is Veneering’s ‘oldest friend’, though he would never admit to being bothered by such a thing. Dickens’s bracketed snipe (p. 12) leaves us in no doubt about the man’s snobbery; it interrupts the dialogue of Lady Tippins, a frightful show-off whose ‘my dear’ sends Twemlow into a tizzy:
This approach is unlikely to find favour with readers who bought your high-octane thriller expecting a rollercoaster ride. The external narrator’s voice is overwhelming, and in most contemporary commercial fiction it will slow readers down, drag them out of the story, and infuriate them. Round brackets in fiction: Viewpoint shifts Take a look at this example from Stephen King’s The Outsider (p. 252; Hodder, 2018):
The brackets are effective here precisely because they’re interruptive. The narrative viewpoint in this section is third-person; we see the world as Holly, the private investigator, experiences it. Given that it’s third-person, our finding out something that Holly hasn’t considered shifts the narrative distance. Such a shift might jar under other circumstances because it yanks us out of Holly’s head. King, however, is a master of viewpoint, and he writes his characters with a rich immediacy. Still, he finds ways to introduce flexibility seamlessly, and in this case it’s with round brackets to introduce his omniscient narrator. The parentheses allow an external narrator to enter the story just for a moment – an all-seeing eye that tells us what Holly didn’t think – but that voice is cocooned safely within those round brackets, and is gone as soon as the reader’s eye passes over the closing symbol. King’s an experienced writer. If you’re not, I recommend holding a single character viewpoint and steering clear of bracketed interruptions from another narrator. Here are four ways we could recast the King excerpt:
Spaced en dash
With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal – no way was she paying room-service prices. Closed-up em dash With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal—no way was she paying room-service prices. Semicolon With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal; no way was she paying room-service prices. Full point With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal. No way was she paying room-service prices. Round brackets in fiction: Dialogue In Fix Your Damn Book! How to Painlessly Self-Edit Your Novels & Stories (Gift Horse Productions, 2016), James Osiris Baldwin advises never using round brackets in dialogue because they break ‘the fourth wall’. What’s the fourth wall? It’s originally a theatrical term but in our case refers to ‘The conceptual barrier between any fictional work and its viewers or readers’ (Lexico/Oxford Dictionaries). It’s good advice. It makes no sense to give an external narrator space inside a character’s speech. That’s why in the earlier Dickens example, the interruption comes between the speech-marked dialogue rather than within it. Summing up There’s nothing grammatically wrong with using round brackets. Stylistically, however, they could be a misfire. If you use them in your fiction, think care and rare: understand the impact they have on story and viewpoint, and use them infrequently.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Are your hyphens, en dashes and em dashes giving you the run-around? Here’s a guide to conventional usage in UK and US fiction publishing.
Terminology
Dashes are sometimes referred to as ‘rules’, especially in the UK. Oxford’s New Hart’s Rules (NHR) refers to the ‘en rule’ and the ‘em rule’ whereas The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) discusses ‘en dashes’ and ‘em dashes’. Both terms are acceptable but I’ll use ‘dash’ in this article. A word on exceptions Take a look at the likes of CMOS and you’ll see plenty of exceptions to the rules, which is why I don’t much like rules when it comes to fiction editing! What I’ve given you here is what I think you’ll need to know most of the time for most of your novel writing. What do the dashes look like? There are four dashes you’re most likely to use in fiction:
Dashes that set off text and replace alternative punctuation The EN DASH and the EM DASH can be used to set off an augmenting or explanatory word or phrase in a sentence that could stand alone without the insertion. Brackets, commas and colons can act as alternative forms of punctuation. Here are some examples that demonstrate how it could be done:
That old dog (the black one) is as sweet as they come.
That old dog, the black one, is as sweet as they come. That old dog – the black one – is as sweet as they come. That old dog—the black one—is as sweet as they come. She knew the name of that old dog – everyone did. She knew the name of that old dog—everyone did. That sweet old dog had a name – Patch. That sweet old dog had a name: Patch. In the UK, it’s conventional to use a SPACED EN DASH. This is not the law, not a rule, not the only way or the right way. It’s just the style that many UK publishers choose, though not all. Here’s an example from my version of Stephen King’s The Outsider (p. 171):
The yard – every single blade of grass seeming to cast a shadow in the moonlight – was empty.
In the US, it’s conventional to use a CLOSED-UP EM DASH. Again, this is not the law, not a rule, not the only way or the right way. It’s just the style that many US publishers choose, though not all. Here’s what King’s sentence looks like when amended according to US convention:
The yard—every single blade of grass seeming to cast a shadow in the moonlight—was empty.
Some style guides even ask for SPACED EM DASHES, though I see this usage less frequently:
The yard — every single blade of grass seeming to cast a shadow in the moonlight — was empty.
I recommend you stick to spaced en dashes or closed-up em dashes in fiction because that’s what your readers will be most familiar with. As for which style you should choose, think about:
If you’re publishing internationally, pick one style and be consistent. Dashes in number spans In fiction, number spans are often written out, though again this is convention rather than a rule that must be adhered to. Number ranges might make their way into emails, texts, letters and reports in your story, and they’re perfect for date ranges. A CLOSED-UP EN DASH between number spans is standard in publishing, whether you’re writing in British English or US English:
Morning registration: 9.30–11.30 (full stops more often used in time styles in UK English)
Morning registration: 9:30–11:30 (colons more often used in time styles in US English) See pp. 86–95 The 1914–18 war was the war to end all wars 07/03/1967–26/06/2019 (day/month/year; standard in UK English) 03/07/1967–06/26/2019 (month/day/year; standard in US English) Note that the en dash means up to and including (or through in US English). CMOS and NHR both recommend using EITHER the closed-up en dash in a number range OR a from/to or between/and construction, but not a mixture of the two:
Read from p. 86 to p. 95 (standard)
Read pp. 86–95 (standard) Read from p. 86–95 (non-standard) The war lasted from 1914 to 1918 (standard) The war lasted from 1914–18 (non-standard) I’ll be there between 9:30 and 11:30 (standard) I’ll be there between 9:30–11:30 (non-standard) Dashes as alternative speech marks The CLOSED-UP EM DASH can act as an alternative to speech marks (or quotation marks) in dialogue in both UK English and US English. Sylvain Neuvel uses this technique in Sleeping Giants and it works because the scenes in which it occurs take place in a secret location with an anonymous (even to the reader) agent running the interrogation. Each speaker’s turn is indicated with an em dash. The agent’s speech is rendered in bold.
Excerpt from the Kindle edition:
—There is no need to get angry. —I’m not angry. —If you say so. You have a problem with authority. —You don’t need a test to work that one out. It can be an effective tool for fiction that’s dialogue driven – almost like a screenplay – but it gets messy when there are more than two speakers in a conversation, and becomes unworkable if you want to ground your dialogue in the environment with narrative (action beats, for example). And, of course, the dialogue needs to be standout because that’s all there is. Dashes that indicate end-of-line interruptions To indicate that a speaking character has been interrupted, use a CLOSED-UP EM DASH, whether you’re publishing in US or UK English. Here’s an example from Mick Herron’s Dead Lions (p. 115)::
‘I got the guys at the Troc to pick it up on Clerkenwell Road. They tracked—’
‘You got the guys—’ ‘Yeah yeah. Catherine got the guys at the Troc to pick them up.’ And another from Linwood Barclay’s Parting Shot (p. 380):
“Ms. Plimpton,” Duckworth said. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Detective Barry—”
“I know exactly who you are,” she said, and reached out and took his hand in hers. Dashes for dialogue interrupted by narrative description Dashes offer clarity when dialogue is broken by narrative description and the speaker hasn’t finished talking. Here’s how it could be rendered in US English using CLOSED-UP EM DASHES:
“We’ve talked about this monstrosity before”—he jabbed at the flock wallpaper—“and I’m telling you, it has to go.”
And if you’re following UK English convention, use SPACED EN DASHES:
‘We’ve talked about this monstrosity before’ – he jabbed at the flock wallpaper – ‘and I’m telling you, it has to go.’
Notice how I’ve also used double quotation marks in the US version and singles for the UK one. Again, this isn’t about being right or obeying a rule; it’s a convention, and one that’s not always adhered to. Consistency is king. Dashes that indicate faltering speech If your character is out of breath, taken aback, caught off guard, frightened, or nervous, you might want to indicate faltering speech with punctuation. There are no absolute rules about how you do this; it depends on the effect you want to achieve. If you want to denote a staccato rhythm, HYPHENS are a good choice. This works for sharper faltering where the character stammers or stutters. If the faltering related not to letters but to phrases, you could use a CLOSED-UP EM DASH (US style) or a SPACED EN DASH (UK style). Ellipses are another option. They're not dashes but they're handy for faltered speech that has a pause in it. You can use these with your dash of choice.
Hyphens (staccato):
"No. I-I-I mean, not really. It was an accident. I just s-s-saw him standing there and I flipped," Marion said. Closed-up em dash for faltering phrasing (US style): "I can't—I mean I shouldn't—well, it's difficult to know what to do." Spaced en dash for faltering phrasing (UK style): 'I can't – I mean I shouldn't – well, it's difficult to know what to do.' Ellipses for pauses (in conjunction with dashes): 'I can't – I mean I shouldn't – oh God ... you know what? It's d-d-difficult to know what to do.' "No. I ... I mean, not really. It was an accident. I just s-s-saw him standing there and I flipped," Marion said. Dashes as separators HYPHENS are the tool of choice here. They’re short and sharp, and are perfect in fiction when you want to spell out words or numbers:
‘No,’ Louise said. ‘That’s not how you spell it. It’s T-O-M-A-S.’
“That doesn’t make sense. The extension he gave me is 1-9-1-8. Are you sure it’s a five-digit number?” Number separation comes in handy when you want to ensure your reader reads the numbers as distinct digits rather than inclusively. Compare 1918 (nineteen eighteen) with 1-9-1-8 (one, nine, one, eight). Dashes that indicate connection, relation or an alternative We use EN DASHES in place of to and and/or to show a connection between two words that can stand alone and that together are modifying a noun:
They’d nurtured that author–editor relationship for years.
“Those two have had an on–off relationship for over a decade. I wish they’d make their minds up!” ‘I’m going to get the Liverpool–Belfast ferry. There’s one at ten thirty.’ Danny would take the money and Sheryl would get her promotion. It was a win–win. I couldn’t see us winning the England–Brazil match but I put a tenner on us anyway. Just for fun. Amir was an Asian–British scholar and something of a polyglot. ‘Languages float on the wind in my grandparents’ village,’ he once told me. Dashes with adjectival compounds Either EN DASHES or HYPHENS are used here, regardless of where you live. When one adjective modifies another adjective, these words create a compound. If this compound is placed before a noun, it usually takes a HYPHEN for the purpose of clarity. When the compound comes after the noun and a linking verb, the hyphen can be omitted:
He buttoned up a navy-blue shirt.
but His shirt was navy blue. “That well-read woman you were talking about? She’s called Sally.” but “Sally sure is well read, no doubt about it.” Care should be taken, even in fiction, with regard to weighting. Let’s revisit the example of our polyglot Amir. Consider the differences between the following:
Amir was an Asian–British scholar and something of a polyglot. ‘Languages float on the wind in my grandparents’ village,’ he once told me.
Amir was an Asian-British scholar and something of a polyglot. ‘Languages float on the wind in my grandparents’ village,’ he once told me. Amir was an Asian British scholar and something of a polyglot. ‘Languages float on the wind in my grandparents’ village,’ he once told me. Amir was a British Asian scholar and something of a polyglot. ‘Languages float on the wind in my grandparents’ village,’ he once told me. In the first example, with an EN DASH, Amir’s Asianness and Britishness have equal weighting. In the second, with the HYPHEN, ‘Asian’ is modifying ‘British’ and carries less weight. In the third and fourth, where the dashes are omitted, the weighting is ambiguous. The dash of choice (or its omission) can tell us something about Amir’s identity – how he, or the narrator, or the author perceives this – so it needs to be used purposefully. Dashes indicating omission You might want to omit words, fully or partially, because they’re profane, or to indicate that some of the letters are illegible, or to disguise a name. There are several options for managing omission: em dashes, 2em dashes, en dashes and asterisks. Spacing comes into play. There are different conventions for US and UK style. NHR recommends the following for UK style:
To indicate partial omission of a word, and the number of letters that have been omitted, choose the SPACED EN DASH (or unspaced asterisks):
‘The scandal featured a certain Mrs H – – – – –. Can you believe it?’ ‘I told you to p – – – off!’ he said, spittle flying. ‘I told you to p*** off!’ he said, spittle flying. To indicate partial omission of a word with a single mark, choose the CLOSED-UP EM DASH: ‘The scandal featured a certain Mrs H—. Can you believe it?’ ‘I told you to p— off!’ he said, spittle flying. To indicate complete omission of a word with a single mark, choose the SPACED EM DASH: ‘The scandal featured a certain Mrs —. Can you believe it?’ ‘I told you to — off!’ he said, spittle flying. CMOS recommends the following for US style:
To indicate partial omission of a word, choose a CLOSED-UP 2EM DASH:
“The scandal featured a certain Mrs H⸺. Can you believe it?” “I told you to p⸺ off!” he said, spittle flying. To indicate complete omission of a word, choose the SPACED 2EM DASH: “The scandal featured a certain Mrs ⸺. Can you believe it?” “I told you to ⸺ off!” he said, spittle flying. Summing up Using dashes purposefully, and according to publishing convention, will bring clarity to your fiction writing. Think about your audience and what they’re used to seeing on the page, then choose your style and apply it consistently. Consider, too, whether your choice of dash will amplify or reduce the significance (or weight) of your words when you’re using dashes as connectors or modifiers. And if you’re still bamboozled, ask a pro editor. We know our dashes!
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Denise and Louise discuss how to use quote marks (or speech marks) in writing ... and when not to use them.
Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 10
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Summary
Listen to find out more about:
Editing bites
Other resources
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Denise and Louise Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode, Louise and Denise discuss writing and editing for the web with guest Erin Brenner
Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 9
Other ways to listen
Listen to find out more about:
Editing bites
Other resources
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Denise and Louise Music credit ‘‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. The Editing Podcast, S2E8: Publishing with an independent press: In conversation with Salt19/8/2019
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk to Jen Hamilton-Emery, co-director of Salt, one of the UK's premier independent literary publishers.
Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 8
Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!
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Summary
Listen to find out more about:
Find out more
Editing bites
Other resources Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Denise and Louise Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise offer guidance on how to change your editor, and manage the process in a way that ensures everyone comes out smiling!
Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 7
Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!
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Download transcript
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Summary
Listen to find out more about:
Editing bites
Other resources
Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Denise and Louise Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise offer some quick tips on formatting your Word file ... final tidy-ups to get your file in shape, and that accord with mainstream publishing standards. And there's a free PDF that includes all the search strings we talk about (or try to)!
Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 6
Click on the image below to download the free booklet and grab all those search strings we try to explain! 
Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!
Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.
Editing bites
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button Denise and Louise
Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about 10 editing macros that will save you time and improve the quality of your writing.
Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 5
Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!
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Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.
Summary
Listen to find out more about:
Editing bites
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Denise and Louise Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. |
