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Are you using free indirect speech in your writing? This article provides an overview of what it is and how it can spice up your crime fiction.
What is free indirect speech?
In a nutshell, free indirect speech offers the essence of first-person dialogue or thought but through a third-person viewpoint. The character’s voice takes the lead, but without the clutter of speech marks, speech tags, italic, or other devices to indicate who’s thinking or saying what. It’s a useful tool to have in your sentence-level toolbox because:
The table below shows three contrasting third-person narrative styles in action so you can see how free indirect speech works:
It’s also referred to as free indirect style and free indirect discourse.
1. Flexibility and interest Free indirect speech (FIS) is flexible because it can be blended seamlessly with other third-person narrative styles. Let’s say you want to convey information about a character’s physical description, their experiences, and their thoughts – what they think and delivered in the way they’d say it. You could use third-person objective for the description, third-person limited for the experience, and free indirect speech for some of the thought processes. In other words, you have a single narrative viewpoint but styled in different ways. You’re not changing the viewpoint, but rather shifting the distance between the reader and the character. And that can make your prose more interesting. Here’s an example from Val McDermid’s Insidious Intent (p. 14). She begins with a more distant third-person narrator who reports what had been on Elinor Blessing’s mind, and when. Then she shifts to free indirect speech (the bold text). This gives us temporary access to Blessing’s innermost thoughts – her irritation – and her lightly sweary tone, but still in the third-person:
Philip Prowse employs a similar shift in Hellyer’s Trip (p. 194):
2. A leaner narrative FIS is a useful tool when you want to declutter. Direct speech and thoughts are often tagged so that the reader knows who’s speaking/thinking:
With regard to thoughts, there’s nothing wrong with a reader being told that a character thought this or wondered that, but tagging can be interruptive and render your prose overworked and laboured if that’s the only device you use. Imagine your viewpoint character’s in a tight spot – a fight scene with an arch enemy. The pace of the action is lightning quick and you want that to be reflected in how your viewpoint character experiences the scene. FIS enables you to ditch the tags, focus on what’s going on in the character’s head, and maintain a cracking pace. The opening chapter of Stephen Lloyd Jones’s The Silenced contains numerous examples of free indirect speech dotted about. Mallory is being hunted by the bad guys. She’s already disarmed one in a violent confrontation and fears more are on the way. Jones keeps the tension high by splintering descriptions of step-by-step action with free-indirect-styled insights into his protagonist’s deepest thought processes as, ridden with terror, she tries to find a way out of her predicament:
Here’s an excerpt from Lee Child’s The Hard Way (p. 64). Child doesn’t use FIS to close the narrative distance. Instead, he opts to shift into first-person thoughts. Reacher is wondering if he’s been made, and whether it matters:
Some might argue that this is a little clunkier than going down the FIS route, but perhaps he wanted to retain a sense of Reacher’s clinical, military-style dissection of the problem in hand. If Child had elected to use FIS, it might have looked like this: Had they seen him? Of course they had. Close to certainty. The mugger saw him – that’s for damn sure. And those other guys were smarter than any mugger. [...] But had they been worried? No, they’d seen a professional opportunity. That’s all. It’s a good reminder that choice of narrative style isn’t about right or wrong but about intention – what works for your writing and your character in a particular situation. 3. Deeper insight into characters A third-person narrator is the bridge between the character and the reader. As such, it has its own voice. If there’s more than one viewpoint character in your novel, we can learn what we need to know via a narrator but the voice will not be the same as when the characters are speaking in the first person. FIS allows the reader to stay in third-person but access a character’s intimate world view and their voice. It closes the distance between the reader and the character because the bridging narrator is pushed to the side, but only temporarily. That temporary pushing-aside means the writer isn’t bound to the character’s voice, state of mind and internal processing. When the narrator takes up its role once more, the reader takes a step back. Furthermore, there might be times when we need to hear that character’s voice but the spoken word would seem unnatural:
FIS therefore allows a character to speak without speech – a silent voice, if you like. Think about transgressor narratives in particular. If you want to give your readers intimate insights into a perpetrator’s pathology and motivations, but are writing in the third-person, FIS could be just the ticket. Here’s an example from Harlan Coben’s Stay Close (chapter 25). Ken and his partner Barbie are a murderous couple bound together by sadism and psychopathy. Ken is preparing for the capture and torture of a police officer whom he believes is a threat:
This excerpt is from an audiobook. While listening, I could hear how the voice artist, Nick Landrum, used pitch to shift narrative distance. The book’s entire narrative is in the third-person, but Landrum used a higher pitch when presenting the narrator voice. Ken’s dialogue, however, is in a lower pitch, and so is the free indirect speech of this character – we get to hear the essence of Ken even when he’s not speaking out loud. If you’re considering turning your novel into an audiobook, FIS could enrich the emotionality of the telling, and the connection with your listener. A closer look at narrative distance To decide whether to play with free indirect speech, consider narrative distance and the impact it can have on a scene. Look at these short paragraphs, all of which convey the same information. All are grammatically correct but the reader’s experience is different because of the way in which the information is given, and by whom.
Your choice will depend on your intention. Think about your character, their personality, the situation they’re in, which emotions they’re experiencing, and the degree to which you want your reader to intimately connect with them.
Consider the following examples in relation to the table above:
Wrapping up FIS is used across genres, but I think it’s a particularly effective tool in crime writing because of its ability to simultaneously embrace brevity and communicate intimacy. Jon Gingerich sums up as follows: ‘Free Indirect Discourse takes advantage of the biggest asset a first-person P.O.V. has (access) and combines it with the single best benefit of a third-person narrative (reliability). It allows the narrator to dig deep into a character’s thoughts and emotions without being permanently tied to that person’s P.O.V. Done correctly, it can offer the best of both worlds.’ If you haven’t yet played with it, give it a go, especially if you’re looking for ways to trim the fat. Further reading
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
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This article shows you what it might cost to get your novel copyedited or proofread. However, the short answer is: it depends ...
I’ll look at each of these points in turn, then offer you some ideas of what you can do to reduce the financial hit.
First of all though, a quick word on whether you should bother and, if you do, what type of service you should invest in. Do you have to work with a professional editor? Not at all – it’s your choice. That’s one of the biggest benefits of self-publishing. You get to stay in control and decide where to invest your book budget. However, I absolutely recommend that your book is edited ... by you at the very least, but ideally by a fresh set of eyes, and even more ideally by a set of eyes belonging to someone who knows what to look out for. And the reason for that recommendation is because 99.99% of the time, editing will make a book better. We can all dream about first-draft perfection, but it’s pie in the sky for most, even those who edit for a living. I’m a professional line editor, copyeditor and proofreader, and today I wrote a guest blog post for a writer. I wrote, and then I edited ... first for content, then for flow, then for errors. I found problems with each pass. That’s not because I can’t write. It’s not because I can’t string a sentence together. It’s not because I didn’t edit properly in the first round. The reason I found problems is because writing is one process – editing is another:
And the different types of editing attend to different kinds of problems and have different outcomes. Trying to do everything at once is like trying to mix a cake, bake it, ice it, eat it, and sweep up the crumbs all at the same time. Breaking down the writing and editing processes into stages is a lot less messy, and the quality of outcomes is much higher. Still, that has a cost to it, and it’s a cost that the self-publisher will have to bear because there’s no big-name press to bear the burden for them. 
Cost of editing: the individual editor
The independent editing market is global and diverse. Editors specialize in carrying out different types of editing. Some specialize by subject or genre. They have different business models and varied costs of living. And that means that despite what you might read in this or that survey, there is no single, universal rate. Neither is there a universal way of offering that rate:
My preference is to charge on a per-1,000 words basis. My 2018 rates are around £17 per 1,000 words for line/copyediting, and £13 per 1,000 words for proofreading, subject to seeing a sample of the novel. If I’m asked to work on a novel serially, as I’ve recently agreed to, the price goes up to £22 per 1,000 words because of the additional challenges involved and the economies of scale that are lost. So it depends on the parameters of the project. Some editors charge more than me, some less, and some the same. My colleagues live all over the world, and fluctuations in the currency-exchange markets mean that comparisons will yield different results from day to day. 
Cost of editing: industry surveys and reports
Some professional organizations suggest or report minimum hourly rates for the various levels of editing. They’re ballparks, nothing more, for reasons outlined below the table.
ARE THESE RATES REALISTIC?
Do these figures bear any relation to what individual editors charge? Sometimes but not always. Most organizations recognize that these reported prices don’t always reflect market conditions, and they’re right to do so. Many editors and proofreaders, myself included, aim for rates at least 30% higher. Why? Because that’s what it takes for our businesses to be profitable. Editing and proofreading aren’t activities we do in our spare time. They’re careers that enable us to pay the bills. If we can’t meet our living costs, we become insolvent, just like any other business owner. The problem with these ballparks is that they don’t reflect the speed at which an individual works, the complexity of each job, the time frame requested, or the editor’s circumstances. An additional problem is that how these organizations define ‘proofreading’, ‘copyediting’ etc. might not reflect an author’s understanding of what the service involves, or what an editor has elected to include. And then there’s the age-old issue of currency-exchange rates. What might seem a high rate to you one day could turn into something quite different the next, and not because the editor’s or the author’s life has changed, but because of Trump, or the Bank of England, or a hung parliament here, or a banking crisis there. Bear in mind that independent editors are professional business owners, and just like any other business owner they are responsible for tax, insurance, sick pay, holiday pay, maternity/paternity entitlements, training and continued professional development, equipment, accounting, promotion, travelling expenses, pension provision, and other business overheads. 
Cost of editing: turnaround time
The table below gives you a rough idea of the speed at which an editor can work. Again, we’re dealing with ballpark ranges because the true speed will depend on the complexity of the project and how many hours a day the editor works.
Experienced editors have years’ worth of data that enables them to review a sample of a novel and estimate how long a project will take based on the level of editing requested.
The figures in the table above represent a working day of around 5 hours of actual editing. Additional time will be spent on business administration, marketing and training. Here’s how costs might begin to creep up. Imagine you ask your editor to copyedit your 80K-word novel. The editor estimates the job will take 50 hours, or two weeks. You need it in one. If you want to work with that editor, they’re going to have to work 10 hours a day, not 5. That means they have to pull 5 evenings on the trot in addition to their standard working day. That evening work is when they spend time with their families, recharge their batteries, catch up with friends, support their dependents, carry out the weekly food shop, help their kids with the homework ... normal stuff that lots of people do. If you want them to work during that time, it’s probably going to cost you more. For example, I charge triple my standard rate because my personal time is valuable to me – and to my daughter, who will need bribing! 
Cost of editing: the complexity of the project
The more the editor has to do, the longer the job will take and the higher the cost. Some authors might not be aware of the different levels of editing and what each comprises. And editors don’t help – we define our services variously too! For that reason, sometimes it makes sense to move away from the tangled terminology and focus on what each project needs to move it forward. An author might ask for a ‘proofread’ but the editor’s evaluation of the sample could indicate that a deeper level of intervention will be needed ... something more than a prepublication tidy-up. I’ve copyedited novels whose authors had nailed narrative point of view at developmental editing stage, so I didn’t have to fix the problem. I’ve also copyedited novels in which POV had become confused. The sample-chapter evaluation highlighted the problem, and I had to adjust my fee to account for the additional complexity. 
How to reduce your editing costs
So, there we have it – 1,300 words that tell you not what editing and proofreading will cost, but what they might cost, depending on this, that, and everything else! Here are some ideas for how to reduce your costs. GENERAL MONEY-SAVING TIPS
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SAVING MONEY ON DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING Hone your story craft by reading books, taking writing courses, and joining writing groups through which you’ll be able to access fellow scribes! You can critique each other’s work and help each other with self-editing. I recommend these books:
Rather than commissioning a full developmental edit, you could pay for a critique or manuscript evaluation, or a mini edit. Those will help you to identify what works and what doesn’t so that you can make the adjustments yourself. SAVING MONEY ON LINE EDITING Hone your sentence-level mastery, again through books, courses and groups. Some editors offer mini line edits for this stage of editing too. Here, the editor offers a line-by-line edit on several chapters and creates a report on the sentence-level problems with the text with recommendations for fixing them. The author can then refer to the mini line edit and mimic the sentence smoothing and tightening. This kind of service is particularly useful for beginner authors who already know they’re prone to overwriting. SAVING MONEY ON COPYEDITING Learn how to use Word’s amazing onboard functionality, and macros and add-ins that flag up potential errors and inconsistencies. Here are some tools you can use:
SAVING MONEY ON PROOFREADING If you’re working on designed page proofs, there are a series of checks you can take your novel through.
That’s it! I hope this article has given you a sense of what you might have to spend, and how you might be able to save during the editing process.
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Are you looking for literary representation? My guest Rachel Rowlands has some helpful advice on how to find an agent, what to submit and to whom, and dealing with rejection professionally.
Literary agents hold the golden ticket that will get you into the chocolate factory. If you want to get published traditionally, they’re essential.
Getting an agent is competitive, and it isn’t easy, but if you’re stubbornly passionate about your work and don’t give up, it can be done. I hope my journey and what I’ve learned along the way will inspire you and help you. Buckle up, because it’s a bumpy ride. 
Before submitting
The process starts long before you even think about submitting to agents. Write. Abandon projects. Start new projects. Finish projects. Learn about the craft. This can take years. You may even develop a few grey hairs along the way. I’ll rewind a bit and give you an example: I’ve always written stories. I wrote my first ‘novel’ when I was 16. It was about angels of light and darkness and doors to other planets, and it was heavily inspired by Kingdom Hearts, a game I was obsessed with. But I had fun, I loved writing it, and it taught me how to plan and finish something. I wrote three other books before writing the one that led to me signing with an agent – at 27. You need time to develop as a writer, to hone your craft. Your first book most likely won’t be the one that gets you where you need to be. Your second might not either, and that’s okay. No one becomes an expert overnight. Here are some other things that you might want to do before you start hunting for that elusive agent, aside from writing books until your fingers nearly fall off:
Finding and submitting to an agent
Do your research No agent should charge you money – they work on commission. Any agent who wants you to pay upfront is a scammer and you should run far, far away. A great place to hunt for agent details if you’re in the UK is the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. QueryTracker is great, too; it lists agents from all over the world (although some UK-based agents are missing from the database). You can even use it to track your submissions and the replies you receive. Otherwise, I recommend doing your own tracking via, say, a spreadsheet. It doesn’t matter where in the world you’re based in terms of who you submit to – many agents work with foreign co-agents. So, for example, if you’re based in the UK it’s perfectly fine to query both UK and US agents. Follow submission guidelines Every agency has different guidelines – some want you to send a cover/query letter and three chapters. Others might just want an initial query letter. Treat these guidelines as law. Also, be professional in your letter (read Query Shark, a blog on writing query letters, like your life depends on it). Get someone to critique your query letter before it goes out. Don’t make it easy for someone to say no! Don’t send your book to everyone at once Submit to a small batch of agents first, somewhere between 5 and 10. If you get any feedback, rework your manuscript and then send out a new batch. Note, however, that this strategy can be problematic because you won’t always know why an agent rejects a book; it might be purely subjective. Still, you don’t want to exhaust all your options in one go! Try to keep it balanced. Don’t get keyboard-happy and send your book to 200 agents. 
After submission
Be in it for the long haul and be prepared for rejection I submitted two manuscripts over the course of two years, racking up a couple of hundred rejections. It wasn’t easy. The first book I queried got standard, copy-and-paste rejections almost across the board (also known as ‘form rejections’), although two agents did ask to read it. One asked me to send it back after doing some revisions, sometimes called an R&R or a revise and resubmit (sadly it doesn’t mean rest and relaxation). I never heard from that agent again, even after several polite nudges. As for the second book I sent out, there was a flurry of interest. Suddenly, lots of people wanted to read my book. But then … the standard rejections started rolling in. I even had an agent ask to meet me when she was halfway through my book. Then she called and rejected me after she’d finished reading. A phone call from an agent is generally a sign that they want to work with you, so that was pretty crushing. Some days, I wanted to quit because it felt easier than carrying on. But in the wise words of J.K. Rowling, ‘It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously you might as well not have lived at all.’ I kept going. Another agent called me up. We talked revisions. I worked on them for six weeks and we bounced ideas back and forth. She really got my book and what I was trying to do, and she loved my edits. After two and a half years of submitting, five manuscripts, and many I’m-going-to-quit-writing-forever threats, I signed the contract. Don’t reply to rejections Really, don't, unless the agent personalized your rejection and mentioned your book/characters specifically. In that case, feel free to send them a quick thank-you note. Never send sassy or scathing replies like, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing out on’ or ‘Your loss, sucker’, even if that’s what you’re thinking. Vent in private. That’s what writer friends/cats/brick walls are for. If an agent sends you a rejection, but invites you to submit future work, do it! They haven’t slammed the door shut, they’ve left a gap for you – and it means they see potential. Keep their name and email address, and when you have a new project ready, send it to them and remind them who you are. All in all, remember that no project is ever wasted. You’ll learn something from every manuscript, and even if you don’t land an agent straight away, you’ll be making connections and putting your name out there. Treat your rejections as badges of honour because they mean that you’re still in the game, and one day you’ll get to the next level. Good luck! More resources
Rachel Rowlands is an independent editor and an author of young adult books. With her editor hat on, she works for a growing list of publisher and author clients on both fiction and trade non-fiction. She has a degree in English and Creative Writing and is represented by Thérèse Coen at Hardman & Swainson. She can be found at www.racheljrowlands.com and on Twitter: @racheljrowlands.
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you’re not sure what a narrative point of view is, or how to use it effectively in your crime writing, this post is for you.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #93
This is rather a lengthy article so I've created a free PDF ebook that you can download to your preferred device and read at your leisure. Scroll to the bottom of the post and click on the image to access your copy.
What is narrative point of view? Point of view (POV) describes whose head we’re in when we read a book ... from whose perspective we discover what’s going on – and the smells, sounds, sights and emotions involved. There can be multiple viewpoints in a book, not all of which have to belong to a character. And to complicate things, editors’ and authors’ opinions differ as to which approach works best, and what jars and why. In this article, I’ll review the most-oft-used POVs and show you examples from published crime fiction. I’ll also explain why I think they’re effective. POV can be tricky – it’s probably the one thing I see beginner authors stumbling over the most. My aim is to keep the guidance as straightforward as possible, not because I think you should only do it this way or that way, but because most people (myself included) handle complexity best when they start with the foundations and build up and out. Why should you bother nailing POV? Pro editors and experienced writers agree on one thing: it’s worth the beginner author’s time to understand POV so that they can make decisions about which to use, where, and why. Consider the following:
Narrative point of view in action 
I’ve used the following books to explore POV in crime writing:
1. Third person This viewpoint comes broadly in two forms – limited and objective. I’ve placed it first on the list because:
THIRD-PERSON LIMITED This is a deeper POV. We get to sit in a character’s skin – experience what they see, hear, feel and think. That provides an immersive experience for readers. It’s as if we’re them. 
For almost a minute that was that. Shirley could feel her watch ticking; could feel through the desk’s surface the computer struggling to return to life. Two pairs of feet tracked downstairs. Harper and Guy. She wondered where they were off to. (Dead Lions, p. 17)
His mum pushed past him, bringing a cloud of thick night air seasoned with salt and something he couldn’t place. A perfume perhaps, but not his mother’s normal scent. (Time to Win, p. 321) The voice is distinctive. The narrative will convey the viewpoint character’s way of speaking and thinking. For example, if character X is sweary, that can be reflected in the narrative rather than just in their contribution to dialogue. However, it’s called third-person limited for a reason. Strictly speaking, what that character can’t see or know shouldn’t be reported. In the above examples, we’re left with questions – of destination and the origin of a smell. Third-person limited is effective in crime writing because the author doesn’t want to give everything away at once. The limitations over what can be known, and therefore divulged, allow the writer to control the unveiling of information via the viewpoint character. Recommendation I recommend you stick to a single character's POV per chapter or section to avoid confusion or interruption. Sometimes an author slips into a different point of view for the space of a single paragraph, or even a sentence. This is especially jarring when the remaining novel is given from the point of view of a single character, whom we have come to regard as our second self. It gives the feeling of a fleeting and unexplained moment of telepathy, an uncomfortable intrusion of somebody else’s thoughts. When the protagonist’s point of view resumes, we move forward into the narrative warily, ready at any moment for a fresh assault on our minds. (Mittelmark and Newman, p. 159)
That’s worth heeding. It means the reader’s trust has been lost, that they’ve been pulled out of the story rather than drawn further into it.
Trickier still is narrative ping pong, where within one section we bounce back and forth between the POVs of Character X and Character Y. Here’s a made-up example that demonstrates how things can go wrong. 
Jan ran down the road, her lungs screaming for air. She snatched a glance over her shoulder, hoping to Christ that Melody was behind.
‘You okay, Jan?’ said Melody. She’d barely got the words out – her throat was on fire. All she wanted to do was stop, breathe, devour that bottle of water in her backpack bouncing hard against her spine. ‘We’re here,’ said Jan. Thank God. Tears of relief stung her eyes. She’d been worried that Mel wouldn’t be able to keep up. Guilt niggled. Would she have gone back for her? She wasn’t sure. The problem with this kind of setup is that it ‘alienates the reader from both perspectives. She is unable to identify with either because there’s no telling when it will be yanked away’ (Mittelmark and Newman, p. 161). In other words, the reader has been prevented from immersing themselves in the character's version of the story. Stay in the head of one character per chapter or section and you’ll make your writing life easier. THIRD-PERSON OBJECTIVE This is a useful viewpoint for the author who wants to convey descriptive information – height, weight, facial expression, environment. Developmental editor Sophie Playle asks us to imagine ‘a floating camera following the characters around.’ Here’s an example from David Baldacci. 
Amos Decker trudged along alone. He was six-five and built like the football player he had once been. He’d been on a diet for several months now and had dropped a chunk of weight, but he could stand to lose quite a bit more. He was dressed in khaki pants stained at the cuff and a long, rumpled Ohio State Buckeyes pullover that concealed both his belly and the Glock 41 Gen4 pistol riding in a belt holster on his waistband. (The Fix, p. 3)
The objectivity allows the writer to explore detail what would be unnatural for a character to deliver in their own voice. The narrative voice is neutral. We’re not accessing thoughts, opinions and emotions with an objective POV, just the stuff that any onlooker could see, hear or smell. In crime fiction, that can be useful because the reader will be forced to reach their own conclusions as to the reasons for or motivations behind a particular event or behaviour. In other words, it’s mysterious. However, it can be distancing if overused. We don’t get under a character’s skin. It’s harder to understand what motivates them unless they express it through dialogue. Dialogue is great as long as it’s not dull. Real-life conversations are sometimes littered with mundanity but we don’t want that cluttering a novel. Furthermore, real conversations don’t usually express emotion in the way that prose does. Recommendation Use third-person objective POV to create suspense, to make your reader wonder, and ask their own questions, and to provide scene-setting information, but blend with a limited viewpoint for deeper emotional engagement. In the first paragraph of the example below, Baldacci uses third-person objective to give us background facts. In the second, he switches to limited to explain the character’s feelings. It's a lovely fusion. 
His size fourteen shoes hit the pavement with noisy splats. His hair was, to put it kindly, dishevelled. Decker worked at the FBI on a joint task force. He was on his way to a meeting at the Hoover Building.
He was not looking forward to it. He sensed that a change was coming, and Decker did not like change. He’d experienced enough of it in the last two years to last him a lifetime. He had just settled into a new routine with the FBI and he wanted to keep it that way. (The Fix, p. 3) 2. First person First-person narrative POVs are the most intimate, the most immediate, and the least flexible. The reader is privy to an individual character’s thoughts, emotions and experiences, all told through a distinctive voice. We can only see, hear, smell and feel what the character sees, hears, smells and feels, and are compelled to move through the story knowing only what they know, and at their pace. However, used throughout an entire novel, from on character only, it can be draining for the reader. There’s no way of taking a breather, particularly when only one POV is offered. This POV is particularly effective in crime fiction when an author wants to offer a distinct transgressor narrative that explores the predator’s twisted psyche intimately, and in a way that enables the reader to understand their motivations – what’s making them think and behave so monstrously. Here’s an example from I See You (p. 176). 
Now that you know what I do, you’re intrigued, aren’t you? You’re wondering what information I’ve collected about you; what’s listed on my ever-growing website. You’re wondering if you’ll be stopped, like this girl, by an attractive stranger. You’re wondering if he’ll ask you out for dinner. [...]
Life’s a lottery. He might have something entirely different in mind for you. Mackintosh punctuates her third-person narrative (a police officer’s) with this first-person viewpoint of an anonymous predator, though she keeps the narratives distinct by giving them their own chapters. The chapters given over to the transgressor provide a rich sense of cat and mouse when juxtaposed with the more distanced police-procedural storyline. Note how the predator-narrator in the above example bends their perceptions into a warped reality – there are no maybes here; they’ve decided that this is the way things are and justify their actions accordingly. And because Mackintosh is using the present tense for her first-person narrative, she’s able to retain tight control over the unveiling. We’re right in the now of the novel. It’s deeply suspenseful, but emotionally demanding to read. For that reason, these chapters are usually shorter. In The Word is Murder, author Anthony Horowitz is one of the characters! The viewpoint is first person (his), but most of the novel is set in the following two tenses: the past (I did, I saw) and the past perfect (I had been approached, I had first read). We’re not confined to now. That’s important because it means the story doesn’t drag. The author himself is almost like Playle’s floating camera. We see the protagonist – the detective (Hawthorne) who solves the crime – through Horowitz’s eyes as he accompanies him to interviews with suspects and on visits to crime scenes. The author-character offers his own theories, even pursues his own lines of investigation, and interjects with stories about his life and career. This adds interest but, ultimately, it’s the detective who grounds the crime story; it’s through him that we access the procedural elements and the answer to whodunnit. 
They’d used blue and white tape to create a cordon which began at the front door and blocked off the stairs. I wasn’t sure how they would deal with the neighbours on the upper and lower floors. As for me, although I hadn’t been questioned, a woman in a plastic suit had asked me to remove my shoes and taken them away. That puzzled me. ‘What do they need them for?’ I asked Hawthorne.
‘Latent footprints,’ he replied. ‘They need to eliminate you from the enquiry.’ (The Word is Murder, p. 208) Recommendation First-person narratives introduce depth and explain motivations, but they can be difficult to sustain when they’re emotionally challenging, as is the case with transgressor and victim viewpoints. Your reader might be given space to breathe if you introduce an alternative, perhaps a detective’s or journalist’s. Playle points out that the opposite problem can occur when the character isn’t ‘interesting enough to maintain a continuous presence.’ Too much I can be restrictive if it doesn’t allow for the telling of other interpretations. That’s why Horowitz’s approach works so well, because he’s often narrating live from the scene with a detective. One last thought: if you’re basing your whole novel in the first person, be cautious about using the present tense throughout. The past might give you more flexibility, particularly if you’re writing action-heavy scenes where, in reality, the character wouldn’t have time to give much thought to the consequences and motivations of their behaviour. 3. Omniscient I’ve given the biggest page space to this because it’s probably the trickiest to master. Omniscient means all-knowing. It’s the most flexible of narrative viewpoints because it gives the reader potential access to every character’s external and internal experiences. It’s also the least intimate. Imagine a futuristic news helicopter. Inside, our roving reporter shifts her camera from one person to another, and one setting to another. She’s also got some serious kit, stuff that enables her to tap everyone’s phones, TVs and computers. But that’s not all; the characters’ brains are bugged too; our reporter knows what they’re thinking. She can see, hear and smell it all! With omniscient narration, the narrator knows everything and isn’t limited to the viewpoint of any single character. An omniscient narration could be written in present or past tense, and use first or third person; they could be a character in the story (like a god or an enlightened person), or they could be an observing nonentity. Completely omniscient viewpoints are difficult to pull off well and have fallen out of fashion. (Sophie Playle)
Mick Herron is the author of the Jackson Lamb thrillers, a series about MI5 officers who’ve screwed up and been sent to Slough House to shuffle paper.
Herron offers a masterclass in effective omniscient POV. He doesn’t use a helicopter or a god though; he uses a cat. He imagines our feline friend sneaking ‘like a rumour’ (p. 9) into Slough House and checking out the various rooms’ occupants. Of course, a cat doesn’t think or behave with intention like a human. The cat can’t possibly know any of the things that we’re told during its wanderings. Instead, Herron uses it as a cheeky tool to introduce the cast, the environs, and the atmosphere of Slough House ... INTRODUCTIONS Dead Lions is book 2 of the series. Herron wants to introduce us to a cast of characters, most of whom appeared in book 1. However, he respects the fact that not all his readers will have read the first book, and that those who have might have forgotten who these people are and why they’re important. The omniscient POV allows him to do the introductions quickly and cleanly, and democratically. None of the characters are explored in depth. Rather, Herron gives us a snapshot of what he wants us to know about them, what makes them tick. 
Louisa would have gone onto her knees, gathered the cat in her arms and held it to her quite impressive breasts – and here we’re wandering into Min’s area of opinion: [...] breasts that are just right; while Min himself, if he could get his mind off Louisa’s tits long enough, would have taken a rough manly grasp of the cat’s scruff; (p.11)
And while our cat would have crossed this threshold as unobtrusively as it had all the others, that wouldn’t have been unobtrusive enough. River Cartwright, who is young, fair-haired, pale-skinned, with a small mole on his upper lip, would immediately have ceased what he was doing – paperwork or screenwork; something involving thought rather than action, which perhaps accounts for the air of frustration that taints the air in here [...] (p. 12) FREEDOM TO ROAM QUICKLY Through the imaginary cat, we’re given the freedom to roam without intrusion. No single character’s feelings or experiences dominate over the others. It’s a form of speedy literary democracy. That roving feline shows us not only key details about each character, but also how they perceive each other. That’s difficult to do with first-person and third-person narration without offering lengthy and interruptive explanations of how the information was acquired. 
But when our cat pokes its head round the door, it’ll find only Ho. The office is his alone, and Ho prefers this, for he mostly dislikes other people, though the fact that other people dislike him back has never occurred to him. And while Louisa Guy has been known to speculate that Ho occupies a place somewhere on the right of the autism spectrum, Min Harper has habitually responded that he’s also way out there on the git index. [...] (p. 10)
It’s a lucky escape for our cat [...] for on this particular morning the nigh-on unthinkable has happened, and Jackson Lamb is not dozing at his desk, or prowling the kitchen area outside his office, scavenging his underlings’ food; nor is he wafting up and down the staircase with the creepily silent tread he adopts at will. He’s not banging on his floor, which is River Cartwright’s ceiling, for the pleasure of timing how long it takes Cartwright to arrive [...] (p. 13) TENSION Finally, take a look at how Herron uses the omniscient to convey a sense of tension that sets up the next scene. The main man, Jackson Lamb, head of ops, is not in residence. And that’s unusual. Rather than hopping from one internal monologue to another, or cluttering the text with dull dialogue in which the various characters express their confusion about their boss’s absence, the omniscient narrator tells us in only 18 words (‘Simply put ...’) that everyone knows he’s absent, and no one knows why. 
[...] and he’s not ignoring Catherine Standish while she delivers another pointless report he’s forgotten commissioning. Simply put, he’s not here.
And no one in Slough House has the faintest idea where he is. (p. 13) The narration throughout this section is distant, devoid of emotion. It’s literally a cat’s-eye view. WHAT OMNISCIENT IS NOT So an omniscient viewpoint can be powerful. However, it needs to be controlled and used with purpose. If we’re accessing one character’s thoughts and experiences, and suddenly we jump to another character’s viewpoint, it can jar the reader. Imagine you’re listening to your best friend tell you about a difficult experience. Even though it didn’t happen to you, her description of the event helps you to imagine the challenges she faced, the emotions she grappled with. You’re thoroughly immersed and emotionally connected. Then someone else barges up to you both and tells you what it was like for them. Your friend butts back in to wrestle the telling back to her. Would the interruption annoy and frustrate you? Would you feel like your efforts to invest in your friend’s story were being thwarted? The impact is the same when it occurs in a book (unless you're using dialogue). That viewpoint ping pong is not omniscient POV. It’s third-person limited gone awry. Recommendation I’d recommend caution. The beauty of crime writing lies in the unveiling, in the immersion, and overuse of an omniscient narrator blocks this. The all-seeing eye can be an effective tool in the purposeful way Herron’s used it at the start of Dead Lions, but used throughout an entire novel it would destroy the tension, and distance the reader from the characters. Summary There’s nothing wrong with experimenting with different narrative viewpoints in crime fiction. Switching can add interest and tension, heighten conflict, and help readers build varying levels of intimacy with different characters. What is important is that authors choose a POV with intention, and recognize the benefits and limitations of their choices. Let's finish with the wise words of domestic noir novelist, Julia Crouch: Choose who is doing your telling very carefully, work with their voices, character, secrets and lies, reliability or lack thereof, and the spaces between different points of view. You can weave a wonderfully rich pattern this way. This doesn’t mean that you have to write in the first person (‘I’) – you can get right up close inside a character’s head by using third (‘she’). A cool, detached, narrator can be helpful, too, but you have to be clear who and what they are, and why they are there. Further reading
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Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Today’s post is about creating tension in crime fiction with sentence length. I look at how overwriting can mar the pace of a novel and frustrate a reader, and how less can sometimes be more.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #93
Around eighty per cent of the books that end up in my editing studio are in the crime fiction genre.
One of the most common problems I encounter is overwriting. That’s not because the authors are poor writers. It’s because they’re nervous writers. It takes a lot of hard graft to put enough words on a page to make a book. Yet it takes an equal amount of courage to remove them ... or some of them. ‘What if the reader just doesn’t get it?’ ‘What if they’ve forgotten what I told them above?’ ‘What if I haven’t provided enough detail?’ ‘What if I just love both ways I’ve said that?’ These are the kinds of questions that result in anxious authors bulking up their prose. In a bid to help you trim the fat, I’m going to explore the following:
Trusting your reader The issue is sometimes one of trust – in the author’s own writing and in the reader’s ability to fill in the gaps. Some genres of fiction lend themselves well to more flowery prose that goes off at a tangent for a moment, a little narrative indulgence for the purpose of artistry or even titillation. Crime fiction, however, is all about the page turn. That doesn’t mean that the description isn’t rich, but there is an expectation of forward momentum. Avid readers of the genre love it for the thrill of the ride. Great characterization is key, of course. We want the protagonist to draw us in, the antagonist to pique our curiosity, and the supporting cast to deepen the picture, but ultimately we want to know whodunnit. And that means we want words that help us understand what’s happening, why, where, who’s doing it, whom it’s being done to, why it’s being done, and how it feels. And we only need to be told once. We might need a little clarifying nudge here and there but we’re capable of extracting a lot with less than you might think. Feisty fragments and snappy shorties If you’re trying to evoke tension in your reader, short sentences and fragments can be very effective. Look at the following examples and notice how the authors keep their narratives lean. Here’s an excerpt from Gone Bad by JB Turner:
Turner gives us just enough to set the scene – when, where, who and what – but no more. He trusts us to fill in the gaps.
He might have given a more detailed description of the forest – its sounds and smells. He might have delved deeper into Cain’s emotions, or helped us to picture the backpack by detailing the colour, make, number of pockets and zips, and where the ammo was being held. He could have told us, word for word, how Cain loaded the gun, how careful he was, which bullets he used. But he doesn’t. Turner leaves it to us to imagine the woods, to see in our mind’s eye the loading of the rifle, and to sense the cold hard determination of the shooter. And the backpack gets no more than a passing mention, because to do more would slow the pace and act as a distraction. And the result is just right – Goldilocks would approve. Now consider the choppy fragments in Jens Lapidus’s Life Deluxe:
Lapidus loves the colon more than any other author I’ve come across! It’s a hard piece of punctuation but it works because the characters we’re being introduced to lead hard lives. They’re always looking over their shoulders, thinking in short snaps, weighing up what’s in front of them ... and what might be behind.
Lapidus dares to trust us, dares not bore us. And because of, rather than despite, the short sentences and fragmented prose, reading the scene is an immersive experience for the reader. I recall a sense of taut fatigue as I read this book, like I was right there, ever watchful, on my guard. This author’s deliberate punctuation choices and choppy style mean the word count is reduced but the tension is heightened. He doesn’t pad his narrative with purple prose and stage direction. Like Turner, he trusts us to do the work. Damage by dilution Consider your own writing. Leave your draft alone for a few days. Then return to it and see what happens if you take a more reductive approach to a scene. It's all about balance at the end of the day. Not too much but not to little. Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman write:
I’m not suggesting you remove information the reader needs to know, but asking you whether there is material your reader doesn’t need to know, material that might bore them or hold them back.
Neither am I suggesting you avoid creating emotive scenes that are high on tension. Rather, might you build this tension with shorter, tighter sentences that demand your reader do some of the work? And I’m not suggesting you should limit every sentence in your book to five words – not at all. I’m suggesting that you might use this technique when you think it would work, when it would push your reader forward, when fewer words – the right words – would work as well or better than more, especially if you know you tend to overwrite. Letting go of what you love For some authors it’s not about trust, but about not wanting to let go. Perhaps you found two delicious ways to say the same thing and now you can’t bear to cut either. Or you constructed a stunning paragraph but it’s interrupting the conflict or the action. In The Magic of Fiction, veteran editor Beth Hill says:
Hill asks authors to grab ‘the liberty to cut words as freely as you added them’ and then to enrich what’s left.
It’s tricky for some beginner writers, I know, but repetition and interruption mean there are redundant words in your writing. And to make your novel sparkle, you need to let go of them because they’re not adding something new, they’re not in the right place, or they’re in the way. Take courage. Try it with and without. You might be surprised.
Cited works and further reading
If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit the Self-publishers page on my website. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Today, I discuss the negative impact that just one word can have on narrative tension: Suddenly.
I’m not suggesting writers eradicate it, but rather use it judiciously and with intention. 
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #92
I edit a lot of crime fiction written by beginner and emerging authors. I’m an avid reader of the genre too. Reading a genre isn’t enough to make anyone an expert in it, but it does afford the editor plenty of opportunities to see it written well, and to experience it as a punter ... to ask: Why do I like that? What is it about that scene that works so well? What’s hooking me here?
There’s one word that great crime writers put on the page with care – suddenly. However, many new or developing writers struggle to leave it out. Two reasons for overuse stand out:
I’ve grabbed a handful of crime fiction from my own bookshelves, and taken examples from these books to show how suddenly-free writing can be more immediate and immersive. 1. Countering wordiness Some developing writers record every nod, every furrowed brow. All that mundane stuff happens in real life. And in the movies we get to see it played out onscreen. That doesn’t mean it all needs to go into a novel. Readers don’t behave like viewers. When I’m watching a film I expect to be spoon-fed to a degree – dialogue, facial expression, action, and a healthy dollop of incidental music to tell me who’s feeling what and why. The reason it works with film is because a chunk of that stuff happens simultaneously, and even I, impatient soul that I am, don’t get bored. When I’m reading a book, my brain works differently. I don’t want all that stage direction. Too much of it distracts me and that’s when I’m most likely to lose interest. When a new writer hasn’t learned the art of crafting the story so that there are just enough nudges to keep the narrative rich, but not so many that it becomes tedious, suddenly rears its head. Suddenly becomes an apology for overwriting – an exciting reward for sticking around. Only it doesn’t work. It’s just one more word on the page that the reader doesn’t need. Solution: Keep your crime writing lean Not every writer wants to strip their writing back to the bare bones but ask yourself whether you’ve introduced a sentence with Suddenly purely to reengage the reader. If so, tighten up the preceding narrative so that you don’t lose them in the first place. Less is sometimes more. Example Here’s a scene from Tell No Lies by Gregg Hurwitz, featuring the protagonist, Daniel Brasher (p. 393):
A less experienced writer might have been tempted to overwork the preceding description and the line conveying Daniel’s anxiety ... and that could have led to a Suddenly barging its way onto the starting blocks of the final sentence to drag the reader out of the protagonist’s head and back into the external action. It could have gone like this:
He was ushered through the door into a small, dank, grey windowless room with a stall terminating in a shield of ballistic glass that looked onto the mirror image of a facing stall. Only a steel table and two chairs furnished the room. A coaster-size speaking hole in the glass rendered jailhouse phones unnecessary.
He waited, counting the seconds, working to stay calm. Sweat dripped from his forehead, ran down his back and soaked his shirt. He massaged his temples to stave off the growing panic and raked a clammy hand through his damp hair. Just relax, he thought. You’re in control. Suddenly, a metallic boom announced the opening of an out-of-sight metal door ... Instead, Hurwitz has given us just enough to know that our protagonist is fretful. We hear the metallic boom in the same moment Daniel does. We imagine how it might make him jump. There are 58 words instead of 114. And the writing in the shorter, published example is tighter, the tension higher. The boom comes suddenly, but Hurwitz doesn’t tell us so. He doesn’t need to. 2. Redundancy – the verb’s already done the work Even those novice writers who’ve conquered their noisy narrative can still be tempted to nudge unnecessarily with suddenly. I see this most often in the following scene types:
Certainly, writers who use suddenly are doing so with good intention – to give the reader a now-nudge. However, in most cases it’s unnecessary to convey immediacy and adds nothing to the narrative. In the above examples, the immediacy is rendered perfectly with the verbs launched, dawned, lit up, exploded, trilled and slammed. By adding suddenly into the mix, the reader is pulled out of the story, as if the author has tapped them on the shoulder and whispered, ‘Hey, you, something big’s coming. Just so you know. Right then, as you were. Carry on reading.’ That’s an interruption – the opposite of what the writer intended. Now the reader’s no longer moving at the same pace as the character. They’re one step ahead rather than immersed in the moment. Solution: Test the sentence out loud Say it first with suddenly, then without. Ninety per cent of the time, the slimline version will work better. When that’s the case, hit the delete button.
Published suddenly-free examples Here are some published examples for comparison. None of the authors felt the need to nudge the reader into immediacy.
The Barclay example is particularly interesting. The narrative point of view in this chapter is that of the antagonist. From his perspective, the violence is almost mundane, which renders the scene all the more horrific for the reader. A now-nudge in this paragraph wouldn’t have been just superfluous; it would have countered the perversity of our tension being heightened through being forced to immerse ourselves in Cory’s psychosis. When suddenly works a treat Suddenly-free isn’t a rule. Don’t ban it from your novel! There are times when it works beautifully:
In this made-up example, the inclusion of suddenly subtly changes our perspective of Pip’s situation. There's a subtle immediacy to his discomfort has emerged only now, that in the seconds before he’d watched bu not felt threatened. And so it’s not that suddenly does or doesn’t work. Rather, it depends on the writer’s intention. Your turn ... how do you maintain tension with minimal interruption? Are there particular adverbs you use with caution? If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit the Self-publishers page on my website. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Crime fiction falls into a range of subgenres. Knowing where your novel fits helps you understand what readers expect, which published writers you can learn from, and how you might stand out.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #91
If you'd prefer to watch a video, scroll down to the bottom of the article.
This article provides an overview of some of the established subgenres, though the list isn’t exhaustive.
There’s crossover certainly and, depending on the commentator, crime fiction gets chopped up into subgenres variously. I’ve elected not to focus on inverted-detective fiction, heists and capers, LGBTQ mysteries, feminist crime fiction, or romantic suspense, but these subgenres and more all have their place in the market. One thing’s for sure: ‘Crime fiction is never static and never appears to be running out of ideas,’ says Barbara Henderson. Two more reasons to know your subgenre If you’re going it alone, one of your publishing jobs will be to help your readers find your book. When you upload to Amazon, Smashwords or any other distribution platform, you’ll need to decide which BISAC headings to place your book under. And if you’re going down the traditional publishing route, identifying your subgenre(s) will help a literary agent understand which publishers have a best-fit list and where in a bookstore your novel will be shelved. If the fit isn’t obvious to you, it could be harder to convince your agent that your book’s marketable. Ultimately, though, it's the writing that needs to be top-notch, not strict conformity to one or another subgenre. These days, it's probably harder to find crime fiction that isn't fusion of subgenres!
Cosy crime fiction
If much of today’s crime fiction seems gritty, even gratuitously violent, and that’s not the way you want to write, fret not. Cosy crime is alive and kicking (though gently).
Publishers are rushing to bring “lost” golden-age authors such as Annie Haynes back into print, and to repackage the likes of Margery Allingham and Francis Durbridge. (Alison Flood)
What distinguishes the cosy? Murder yes, but leave out the gore, the pain, and depressing social commentary. Your protagonist might well be flawed but no more so than anyone else in the novel, and your readers will embrace your hero’s quirkiness with a skip in their step. That doesn’t mean the cosy isn’t tight on plot and well-paced action that drive the novel forward. Contemporary readers want fantastic mysteries with twists and turns that will keep them guessing. Cosies can be liberating for the playful crime writer who wants to explore the genre with non-traditional characters placed in non-traditional settings:
Classic detective – the Golden Age and beyond
RD Collins locates the start of the genre with Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue. It found its feet with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and entered into a Golden Age in the 1920s with Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, among others.
The Golden Age introduced ‘rules’ for the genre. Reba White Williams summarizes these as follows:
See also the quote further down from Otto Penzler about locked-room mysteries – no cheating with doubles and magic! Today’s authors must abide by the same rules, no matter whether their tales are set in Oxford with Morse, LA with Bosch, or Reykjavik with Erlendur.
Hardboiled crime fiction
Los Angeles had never been written about. California had been written about, a book called Ramona ... a lot of sentimental slop. But nobody in my time had tried to write about a Los Angeles background in any sort of realistic way.
That’s a quote from Raymond Chandler in conversation with Ian Fleming in 1958. Chandler’s response was to write crime fiction that was gritty, depressing, violent, cynical and seedy. Hardboiled crime writing, as it came to be known, pulls no punches. The protagonists aren’t invulnerable superheroes. And the environments within which they operate are those of contrast – urban decay and tourist hotspots, hope and corruption. If your crime writing falls into this category, don’t set an amateur protagonist sleuth alongside foolish law-enforcement officers who have neither brains nor access to detection resources. Hardboiled isn’t pretty but it’s rich in believability. Plots are fattened with complex characters, social commentary and, of course, murder. Says Matthew Lewin on the contemporary hardboiled crime fiction of James Lee Burke and James Ellroy:
There is a fury and desperation in this new writing that touches on the violence and depravity of our time as well as the grace and beauty of the best in human nature and the physical world.
Think Harry Bosch. Tim Walker refers to his creator Michael Connelly as ‘the modern Raymond Chandler’. ‘Connelly says he still sees it as a duty to acknowledge the social climate in his novels’. Think also Rebus; Ian Rankin, like Connelly, fuses hardboiled with police procedural masterfully. With hardboiled, even when the crime is solved, your readers won’t expect to close the book feeling that everyone will live happily ever after.
Historical crime fiction
Popular series feature CJ Sansom’s Shardlake, SJ Parris’s Giordano Bruno, Susanna Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner, and Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael.
The genre is as interesting for its criminal investigations as for the lessons in social history afforded to the reader. And because the reader needs to understand the historical setting, these novels are often long. Sansom’s Dark Fire comes in at a whopping 600-plus pages. I have the hardback version and I’m sure I bulked up my biceps just carrying the book from Waterstones to the car park. If historical fiction floats your writing boat, be prepared to put in the research. Many of your readers will know their history so you’ll need to dig deep. It’s no accident that the protagonists in these novels are curious renegade monks, lawyers, scholars and the like. The criminal justice system as it exists in our era bears little resemblance to that in these bygone days. Consider the following:
Some historical fiction is cosier and shorter. Consider David Dickinson’s Lord Powerscourt and Emily Brightwell’s Mrs Jeffries. These Victorian mysteries offer plenty of intrigue and good old-fashioned murder, but we’re spared the grisly details. Don’t be surprised to see this lighter crime fiction splashed with a dose of humour as the authors cast their gaze over the social-economic and gender disparities typical of the era. Still, if the Regency or Victorian cosy is your bag, you’ll still need to gen up on period details.
Legal and medical crime fiction
Courtrooms, labs and hospitals make for great crime fiction, and ‘lawyers and doctors make effective protagonists since they seem to exist on a plane far above the rest of us. Although popular, these tales are usually penned by actual lawyers and doctors due to the demands of the information presented,’ writes Stephen D. Rogers.
Here are some examples:
That old trope of writing what you know comes into play here and it’s a good reminder that using your own specialist knowledge to bring authenticity to your crime writing makes good sense. And if you’re not a former cop, doc or lawyer but you have friends who are, be sure to pick their brains. In particular, research the role of your legal or medical protagonist and ensure that the powers of investigation you assign to them are appropriate for their location. Even if you’re pushing the boundaries of existing science, to give your reader the best experience the foundations will need to be solid.
Locked-room crime fiction
The crime scene is that of a moving train, a secluded and heavily guarded house, an aeroplane, a single-track road with only one way in and one way out ... less whodunnit, more howdunnit.
A locked-room novelist is the illusionist of crime writing, the creator of ‘impossible’ fiction. And yet not so impossible as it turns out, as our brilliant protagonist gradually reveals all. Take care though. No cheating is allowed with locked-room crime. Says Otto Penzler:
The solutions to none of these locked room murders and thefts have supernatural elements and there is no cheating about hidden panels, long-lost twins, waking from dreams or hallucinations. No, they are deduced by detectives, who explain all to the incredulous characters and the baffled reader.
Well-known examples include:
The artistry of the locked-room mystery lies in the author’s ability to deliver a reveal that doesn’t rely on a device that doesn’t exist in real life, that doesn’t require information to be deliberately withheld from the reader, and isn’t so obvious as to be deducible at the beginning of the story. I recommend The Locked-room Mysteries, Penzler’s superb anthology for aspiring locked-room crime writers who want to see masters at work. It's huge – over 930 pages – and heavy, but literally worth its weight.
Police procedural
If you’re writing a police procedural, your in-depth research will need to be top-notch. The angle you take will be determined by your protagonist’s skills. Examples include:
Procedurals are notable for their thoroughly researched and authentic rendering of detection, evidence-gathering, forensics, autopsies, and interrogation procedures in order to solve the novel’s crime(s). Wowser tools and tech don’t come at the cost of strong characterization though. Rhyme is paralyzed following an on-scene accident. Cooper is recovering from the breakdown of her marriage. Rebus has a history of trauma dating from his former military career. Wallander has diabetes, and his daughter attempted suicide in her teenage years. These in-depth backstories provide complexity and conflict – a kind of layering that fattens the plot without complicating it. I find Cooper a little whiny, Rebus grumpy, Scarpetta arrogant, Wallander depressing. That doesn’t stop me falling in love with them though. In fact, flawed characters can balance the sterility of the procedural details. And you, the writer, might find a protagonist with foibles more enjoyable to write. Mankell did:
It’s quite true that I don’t particularly like [Wallander]. But then I think most writers would say it’s more interesting to write about a person you don’t like. I’m quite sure Shakespeare enjoyed writing Iago much more than he did writing Othello. [...] It’s much better to have something between you and your main character that grates.
Spy thriller
When it comes to spy stories, your protagonist is a spook, the nation’s safety the hook. It’s a race against time – against a larger-than-life antagonist – in order to save, well, everyone. The plots are usually complex and the action high-octane.
‘When you’re writing spy fiction you have one overriding goal: to keep the reader turning the pages,’ says Graeme Shimmin. Here’s some great advice from Kathrine Roid: Don’t wing it when it comes to plot:
A spy novel needs to be thought out beforehand, even more so than novels of most genres. Unlike, say, a quest fantasy, where plot points can be shuffled or cut out or added without too much trouble, everything needs to be compactly connected to the main plot. (Unplotted) whims simply do not have a place.
If you’re wandering into spy-fi territory, you’ll have a little more freedom to play with gadgetry. If you’re keeping it real, do the research. Know your guns and your gear so that your protagonist doesn’t end up more tactifool than tactical. But old on a mo. Your spy crime fiction doesn’t have to be a sprint like Robert Ludlum’s or Clive Cussler’s. Mick Herron is one of my favourite writers. The pace might be a little gentler but the brooding narrative is utterly believable. His Jackson Lamb series features the ‘slow horses’ – MI5 agents who’ve messed up and been put out to graze in the backwoods of inactive service. Herron’s crime isn’t spy-fi – there are no wacky gadgets to get Lamb’s crew out of a fix. The characters are vulnerable, disgruntled, and bored ... until there’s a crime and Lamb suspects the spooks. It’s a fine example of character-driven writing with attention to detail on Service procedural and detection legwork.
Private eye and amateur sleuth
The private-eye tradition crosses subgenres: from cosy to hardboiled to classic thriller.
Telling your story through a point-of-view character who works outside law enforcement has its advantages: your protagonist can behave and move in ways that a detective can’t, at least not without risking their job. On the other hand, your sleuth won’t have access to the wealth of contemporary resources available to the police. And take care not to make your amateur’s successes depend on witless professionals. Certainly, every organization/service has its fools and bad apples, and crime fiction is the perfect tool with which to explore police and state corruption, but contemporary readers are unlikely to engage with a novel whose chief investigator is an oaf.
Transgressor/noir
If this is your bag, you’ll go where others fear to tread. Whodunnit is still in the mix, but whydunnit is close behind.
It shares the grit of hardboiled but is distinctive for its focus on the narratives of the transgressor (Eoin McNamee: Resurrection Man), the victim (Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), or both (Lippman: I’d Know You Anywhere). The authors who do this subgenre best seem almost to be able to channel their characters’ psychosocial conflict, and dig deep into the predator–prey relationship. And even when the detective is the protagonist, they’re less superhero than anti-hero, troubled by demons, working despite – rather than within – an establishment as troubled as them (James Ellroy: LA Confidential; Antonin Varenne: Bed of Nails). Says Penzler in ‘Noir fiction is about losers, not private eyes’:
There are no heroic figures in noir fiction. [...] The noir story with a happy ending has never been written, nor can it be. The lost and corrupt souls who populate these tales were doomed before we met them because of their hollow hearts and depraved sensibilities.
Regional variants – e.g. Tartan, Scandinavian, Emerald – that represent the landscape, culture, idiom, and social and political identity of their settings have emerged to international acclaim.
A quick note on subgenre fusion
Your book might well fall into what Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish calls genre syncretism: ‘the hard-boiled detective story, the police procedural, Gothic fiction and the psycho-social novel’. She offers Rankin’s Rebus novels as an example.
Consider also China Miéville's The City & The City. In this novel, two locations occupy the same physical space. At heart, it's a police procedural, but there's a speculative/fantasy take on the hardboiled tradition: the shiny surfaces of one city butt up against a grubbier alternate, yet residents of each are legally bound to 'unsee' each other. As such, Mieville incorporates a subtle commentary on state authoritarianism, surveillance and corruption into a murder investigation. Genre syncretism can help your work stand out, but take care to recognize the conventions of each so that the core subgenre elements are all done well. No reader will thank you for promising a fusion of hardboiled and police procedural if both are half-baked. Good writing trumps everything. I hope you find this useful and wish you sleuthing success on your crime-writing journey! And there's that video I promised for those of you who'd prefer to watch or listen.
Further reading
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
How do you get fiction editing and proofreading work? This post offers some pointers for newbie freelancers, and experienced editors looking to shift specialisms.
1. Start with baseline training
To be fit for working in any editing discipline, fiction or otherwise, training is the foundation. Even if you’ve been devouring your favourite genres for years, you need to understand publishing-industry standards. This isn’t about snobbery. It’s about serving the client honestly and well, especially the self-publisher, who might not have enough mainstream publishing knowledge to assess whether you’re capable of amending in a way that respects industry conventions. It’s about the reader too. Readers are canny, and often wedded to particular genres. They’re used to browsing in bookshops and bingeing on their favourite authors. They have their own standards and expectations. One of our jobs as editorial professionals is to ensure we have the skills to push the book forward, make it the best it can be, so that it’s ready for those readers and meets their expectations. And so if you want to proofread or edit for fiction publishers and independent authors, high-quality editorial training isn’t a luxury: it’s the baseline. What kind of training you need will depend on what services you plan to offer. 
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Courses
I recommend the Publishing Training Centre and the Society for Editors and Proofreaders for foundational copyediting and proofreading training. I’m based in the UK, and those are the two training suppliers I have experience of so I’m in a position to recommend them. That doesn’t mean that other suppliers aren’t worth exploring. Rather, I don’t recommend what I haven’t tested. Keep an open mind. Check a range of suppliers and their course curricula. Then choose what suits your needs.
If you want more information about how the PTC and SfEP courses compare, talk to the organizations’ training directors. 2. Decide which fiction editing services you want to offer Some beginner self-publishers don’t understand the differences between the different levels of editing, which means they might ask for something that’s not in their best interests (e.g. a quick proofread even though the book hasn’t been critiqued, structurally edited, line- and copyedited). It’s essential that the professional fiction editor is able to communicate which levels of editing they provide, and recommend what’s appropriate for the author. That doesn’t mean the author will take the advice, but the editor must be able to articulate her recommendations so that independent authors can make informed decisions. 
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3. Invest in appropriate specialist fiction training
The next step is to gain skills and confidence with fiction editing and proofreading work. As with any type of editing, the kinds of things the editor will be amending, querying and checking will depend on whether the work is structural, sentence-based or pre-publication quality control. When deciding what specialist fiction editing courses to invest in, bear in mind the following:
Courses and reading Explore the following to assess whether they will fill the gaps in your knowledge. Check the curricula carefully to ensure that the modules focus on the types of fiction editing you wish to offer and provide you with the depth required to push you forward.
This isn’t a definitive list but it’ll set you on the right track. 
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4. Get in the right mindset
Fiction editing requires a particular mindset for several reasons: Style and voice We’re not only respecting the author, but the POV character(s) too. The fiction editor who doesn’t respect the voices in a novel is at risk of butchery. Being able to immerse oneself in the world the writer’s built is essential so that we can get under the skin of the writing. If we don’t feel it, we can’t edit it elegantly and sensitively. Intimacy Non-fiction is born from the author’s knowledge. Fiction is born from the author’s heart and soul. If that sounds a little cheesy, I’ll not apologize. Many of the writers with whom I work are anxious about working with an editor because they’ve put their own life, love and fear into the world they’ve built. A good fiction editor needs to respect the intimacy of being trusted with a novel. If that doesn’t sound like your bag, this probably isn’t for you. Unreliable rules At the recent fiction roundtable hosted by the Norfolk group of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, guest Sian Evans – an experienced playwright and screenwriter – talked about how punctuation in screenplays is as much about ‘the breaths’ the actor is being directed to take as about sentence clarity. These ‘breaths’ exist in prose. They help the reader make sense of a sentence ... not just grammatically, but emotionally. And so the addition or removal of just one comma for the sake of pedantry can make a sentence ‘correct’, or standard, but shift tone and tension dramatically. The fiction editor needs to be able to move beyond prescriptivism and read the scene for its emotionality, so that the author’s intention is intact but the reader can move fluidly through the world on the page and relish it. All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that if you want to get fiction editing work, and keep on getting it, you’ll need to embrace rule-breaking with artistry! Fiction work requires us to respect both readability and style. The two can sometimes clash so gentle diplomacy and a kind hand will need to be in your toolbox. 5. Read fiction If you don’t love reading fiction, don’t edit it. And if you don’t love reading a particular genre, don’t edit it. Editing the type of fiction you love to read is a joy, and an advantage. If you read a lot of romance fiction, you’ll already be aware of some of the narrative conventions that readers expect and enjoy. I started reading crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers before I’d hit my teens. I turned 51 in March and my passion for those genres hasn’t waned. That stuff makes up over eighty per cent of my work schedule too. Here’s the thing though – my pleasure-reading has supported my business. I get to see first-hand how different authors handle plot, how they build and release tension, how they play with punctuation, idiomatic phrasing, and sentence length such that the reader experiences emotion, immediacy and immersion. And that helps me edit responsively. Honestly, reading fiction is training for editing fiction. In itself, it’s not enough. But professional training isn’t enough either. Love it and learn it. 
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6. Learn from writers
If you want to understand the problems facing the self-publishing author community, listen and learn. Join the Alliance of Independent Authors. Even lurking in the forum will give you important insights into what self-publishers struggle with an how you might help. Take advantage of online workshops aimed at beginner writers. Penguin Random House offers regular free online webinars via The Writers' Academy. Experienced writers and instructors take you on whistle-stop tours of setting, dialogue, characterization, point of view, crime fiction writing, children's books and a whole lot more. Listen to published novelists’ stories. My local Waterstones hosts regular author readings/signings. I’ve seen Garth Nix, Jonathan Pinnock and Alison Moore speak. In April 2018, Harry Brett is chairing a session on how to write crime with Julia Heaberlin and Sophie Hannah. In May, fellow editor Sophie Playle and I are attending 'Why Writing Matters', an event hosted by the Writers' Centre Norwich in association with the Norwich & Norfolk Festival. And Jeffery Deaver's coming to town too. Ticket booked! These workshops cost from nothing to £12. That's a tiny investment for any fiction editor wanting to better themselves. 
7. Get in front of publishers
The best way to get publisher eyes on your editing skills is to go direct. Experienced fiction editors are sometimes contacted direct but sitting around waiting to be offered work never got the independent business owner very far and never will. Experienced ... but not in fiction If you’re an experienced editor or proofreader who already has publisher clients but they’re in a different discipline (e.g. social sciences, humanities) you’ll likely have built some strong relationships with in-house editors. Publishing is a small world – in-house staff move presses and meet each other at publishing events. It might well be that one of your contacts knows someone who works in fiction and, more importantly, will be happy to vouch for your skills. With specialist fiction training, you’ll be able to leverage that referral to the max. So, if you have a good relationship with an in-house academic editor, tell them you’d like to explore fiction editing and ask them if they’d be prepared to share a name and email and give you a recommendation. Newbie If you’re a new entrant to the field, it’s unlikely that a cold call to HarperCollins or Penguin will be fruitful. The larger presses tend to hire experienced editors with a track record of hitting the ground running. There are two options:
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8. Be visible online
There’s no excuse for any twenty-first-century professional editor to be invisible. There’s no one way to visibility – take a multipronged approach. Directories If you’re a member of a national editorial society, and they have a directory, advertise in it as a specialist fiction editor/proofreader. If you’re not a member, become one. It won’t be free, but running a business has costs attached to it. If we want to succeed, we need to be seen. That doesn’t land on our plates; we must invest. If your society doesn’t have an online directory, lobby for one to be set up and promoted. I’d go as far as to argue that a professional editorial society that isn’t prioritizing the visibility of its members isn’t doing its job properly.
Create content for indie fiction authors Any self-publishing fiction writer looking for editorial assistance is more likely to think you’re wowser if you help them before they’ve asked for it. Create resources that offer your potential clients value and you’ll stand out. It makes your website about them rather than you. And it demonstrates your knowledge and experience. Doing this might require you to do a lot of research, but what a great way to learn. Don’t think of it as cutting into your personal time but as professional development that makes you a better editor. And think about it like this: Who would you rather buy shoes from? The shop where the sales assistant tells you all about her, or the shop where the sales assistant helps you find shoes that fit? It's no different for authors choosing editors. I have an entire Self-publishers page dedicated to resources for fiction authors. I’m not alone. These fiction editors have resource hubs too: Beth Hill, Sophie Playle, Lisa Poisso, Kia Thomas and Katherine Trail. There are others but I’m already over the 2,000-word mark! 
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Shout out your fiction specialism
Shout your fiction specialism from your website’s rooftop. Why would a fiction writer hire someone who doesn’t specialize in fiction when there are so many people dedicated to it? 
Related reading
Here are some additional articles that you might find useful if you're considering moving into the field of fiction.
Good luck with your fiction editing journey! And one final thing ... here’s a PDF booklet you can download. That way, you can review the guidance on getting fiction editing and proofreading work at your leisure, and on your preferred device. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here's the fourth part of my audio-book creation series. In this article, professional voice artist Ray Greenley discusses distribution options, the importance of having your manuscript edited prior to narration, and briefing your voice artist or producer. Here's Ray ...
Distribution decisions
So you’ve listened to your auditions, you’ve researched your potential producer and think they’re the one for your book, and you’ve come to an agreement on payment terms. There are a few other bits you’ll need to work out before you can offer the producer a contract. One is whether you want to distribute exclusively through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for a higher share of the royalties from sales (royalties are 40% of sale price), or non-exclusively, which means you can set up distribution yourself through other platforms, but you’ll get a smaller share of royalties from sales through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes (royalties are 25% of sale price). Note that if you want to do a Royalty Share or Hybrid contract on ACX, you MUST do exclusive distribution. There’s some other information you’ll need to work out with the producer:
Different producers work at different paces; and many will have other books already waiting to be recorded. They might be able to start on your book right away and have it done in a week or two, or they might be scheduling out months in advance. Talk to your producer and let them know if you have any schedule in mind, but be ready to be flexible. Once you have those dates, you can offer the contract, and when it’s accepted you’re almost ready to go! There’s just one more thing you need to do, and that’s provide the producer with your final, ready-to-record manuscript. 
Editing your manuscript
Now, I promise this isn’t just me sucking up to my gracious host, but please, for the love of all that’s good and holy, make sure your manuscript is edited and proofed by someone who knows what they’re doing. It makes the project many times more difficult when we have to struggle through bad grammar, missing punctuation, and poor formatting. In some cases (as happened with me early on), we can’t do it and the contract has to be canceled. If you find a producer who you like working with and does good work for you, then you’ll want to build that relationship into something ongoing. Handing them a manuscript that they can barely get through isn’t going to help. And while those grammar errors may seem innocuous enough on the page to your eyes, they’re VERY hard to hide in audio. Now, we producers know enough to not expect perfection. We can handle a reasonable number of errors in a manuscript. But in the end, it’s best for you, for us, and for your readers to get your manuscript properly edited, so please do it before sending the manuscript to us. 
Briefing your producer
From here on out, it sort of depends on you and the producer. One thing that’s often very handy for a producer is to get some additional information about the characters in the story, including:
Also, if your book has words that your producer might have a hard time finding pronunciations for (particularly with made-up names in science fiction or fantasy books), having a key is really helpful. It’s really important to get this sort of information as early as possible while the producer is preparing to narrate the book, but before they’ve actually hit ‘record’. None of that stuff is vital; if you picked your producer well, they’ll be ready to handle all of that on their own. But having some guidance can definitely help. In the final article, we'll look at evaluating the first 15 minutes and production approval. Until then ... Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you're thinking about self-publishing a book, there 's something you need to know about prepping your prose before you go public: Proofreading is the last thing you need.
Begin on the starting blocks
When I say proofreading is the last thing you need, I mean it literally. Proofreading is the final stage in the editorial process prior to publication. The self-publisher who moves straight from writing to proofreading is trying to win the race by starting on the finish line. And unless you’re an extraordinary self-editor, you’ll be disappointed because it’s likely your book won’t be ready for market. Retain control but mimic the mainstream The beauty of self-publishing is the control you have over the process – you get to write the book you want on your terms. This means:
Still, the mainstream publishing industry knows a thing or two about producing books, and so they should – they’ve been doing it for long enough. And in their production world, proofreading comes last. This isn’t because it’s less important than the previous stages of editing, or easier, or quicker, but because it’s the final quality-control check to pick up what the interior designer, copy-editor, line editor and even a developmental editor missed – anything from an inconsistent character’s name to a misplaced apostrophe, a missing page number to a misspelled word, a rogue paragraph indent to an incorrectly formatted reference. This staged approach to editorial production, carried out by fresh, specialist sets of eyes, increases the likelihood that when the book hits the shelves – even the digital ones – most of the errors will have been fixed. If you mimic the mainstream publishing industry when you self-publish, you reach for the same bar. The different stages of editing When it comes to the different stages of editing, things are complicated by the fact that there are no universally applied terms used within the publishing industry or by the thousands of independent editors and proofreaders. However, what the industry doesn't disagree on is the order. Here's a framework to help you visualize the process: 1. SHAPING
This is the big-picture work that focuses on stuff like structure, plot, pace, narrative point of view and characterization. Terminology varies but look out for the following: developmental editing, content editing, substantive editing, story editing or structural editing.
2. SMOOTHING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on flow, form, readability and engagement. You might hear it called line editing or stylistic editing.
3. CORRECTING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on correct and consistent spelling, grammar, punctuation and layout. It might include fact-checking, too. It’s usually referred to as copyediting.
4. VERIFYING
This is the quality-control stage that picks up anything missed beforehand. This is where proofreading comes into play. If working on designed page proofs, the proofreader will also be checking that the layout matches the brief.
Be realistic: artistry versus wizardry Some new writers think that hiring a round of proofreading will be enough to make their book ready for market. It comes as a shock, not least to the wallet, when they realize what mimicking the mainstream publishing industry will entail. However, I promise you this – a proofreader will not be able to fix 14,000 spelling, punctuation and grammar errors, strengthen the narrative arc, and omit all the wordiness – all in one pass – and hand the file back to the writer with a guarantee of perfection attached to the invoice.
8 tips for self-publishers on a budget Here are some ideas that will help you make the tough decisions. Click on the image to save and download your own copy of the infographic. 
Last but not least … the proofreader One pass is not enough. Proofreading is an essential part of the self-publishing process, but it’s only one part. Staged editing isn’t cheap – ask any mainstream press – but it’s the surest way to professional self-publishing that turns discerning readers into fans. And fans won’t just buy this book; they’ll buy every book you’ll ever write. Related reading
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you think there's no place for macros in fiction editing, think again. My friend Paul Beverley has collated a core group of macros that will have any fiction line editor, copyeditor or proofreader drooling! Self-publishing authors will love them too!
I don't use all of these (every editor has their preferences) but some of them are staples and save me oodles of time! 
Some of the macros apply when you’re looking at the whole text of a novel, while others are selective ... for use while you’re editing line by line. Bear in mind that they're designed to be used with MS Word files.
Macros that work with the whole text These macros are ideal near the beginning of the edit, when you’ve put together the whole book in one single file, and you want to look for inconsistencies. ProperNounAlyse searches the novel for any words that look like proper nouns; it counts their frequency, and then tries to locate, by using a variety of tests, and pairs of names that might possibly be alternative spellings or misspellings, e.g. Jayne/Jane, Beverley/Beverly, Neiman/Nieman, Grosman/Grosmann etc. 
FullNameAlyse is similar to ProperNounAlyse, but it searches for multi-part names, Fred Smith, Burt Fry, etc.
ChronologyChecker is aimed at tracing the chronology of a novel. It extracts, into a separate file, all the paragraphs containing appropriate chronology-type words: Monday, Wednesday, Fri, Sat, April, June, 1958, 2017, etc. This file is then more easily searchable to look at the significance of the text for the chronology. WordsPhrasesInContext tracks the occurrence of specific names through a novel. You give it a list of names/words/phrases, and it searches for any paragraphs in the novel that contain them. It creates a separate file of those paragraphs, with the searched element highlighted in your choice of colour. CatchPhrase searches your novel for over-used phrases and counts how many times each phrase occurs.
Macros for when editing line by line
FullPoint/Comma/Semicolon/Colon/Dash/QuestionMark/ExclamationMark These macros change he said, you know ... into he said. You know ... or he said: you know ... or he said – you know ... and so on. FullPointInDialogue and CommaInDialogue These two macros change “Blah, blah.” He said. into “Blah, blah,” he said. and vice versa. 
ProperToPronoun
This macro looks along the line to find the next proper noun, deletes it and types ‘she’. But if you then type Ctrl-Z, it changes it back to ‘he’. MultiSwitch You give this macro a list of changes that you might want to implement: Jane Jayne Beverley Beverly that which which that When you click in a word, and run the macro, it finds your alternate and replaces it. It also works with phrases and can also provide a menu of alternates: he said he opined he shouted he voiced she said she opined she shouted she voiced 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you're looking for an online network of fiction and creative nonfiction specialists, the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals (AIPP) is worth checking out. I became a member earlier this year after being drawn to the organization's global outlook and creative niche.
My guest today is AIPP co-founder Crystal Watanabe. Here's what she has to say ...
The power of private networking Being a freelancer can be an amazing experience. You get to work at home, you have no commute, you can work in whatever clothing you like, and if you’re an introvert, you really don’t have to talk to anyone. That said, with those wonderful benefits usually comes the inevitable problem. Or worse, an irate client. Ask any editor who has been in business for longer than a year whether they have a Client from Hell, and the likely answer is yes. After all, we’re in the business of pointing out other people’s flaws. It’s a touchy subject for many. Usually when something like this occurs, the foremost thing on a freelancer’s mind is to feel lost. Like you’re alone, and no one but you has been through such a terribly stressful ordeal. This is where networking becomes an invaluable resource. There are many networking options open to people working from home: Twitter, Facebook, Facebook groups, LinkedIn, and forums. But oftentimes these methods of communication are open to the public, and if there’s one thing to learn about airing frustrations online, it’s that you never know who is silently reading your negativity and judging you for it. This is where more private modes of communication come in handy, and to find the most relevant and helpful discussion and advice on any problems that come up, a professional organization is more often than not the best place to go. When I had my first problem client, I’ll admit, I was sobbing on my couch, feeling awful and alone. After I wiped my tears away, I went searching for people like me, and I ended up at the Editorial Freelancers Association. I joined, began interacting, and learned a lot from other members. But at the same time, I wasn’t sure the EFA was exactly what I needed. The AIPP – focusing on fiction and creative nonfiction I work primarily in fiction, and I found myself skipping over a number of discussions pertaining to a variety of other editing fields. In the end, I helped cofound the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals (AIPP) with fellow editors Anne Victory and Nikki Busch in 2016. Starting an organization is no easy feat, but nearly two years later, we’re still growing. The AIPP is dedicated to freelancers who work primarily in fiction and creative nonfiction, including both self-published authors and authors hoping to submit their manuscripts to traditional publishers. Our membership includes but is not limited to:
Membership benefits and fees In addition to a wealth of wonderful benefits (discounts on Merriam-Webster, PerfectIt, Deposit Photos, 17Hats, FreshBooks, and more), the AIPP has introduced a new lower membership fee in 2018. Applying to the AIPP is just $45, including a nonrefundable $10 application fee. Renewal is just $35 per year. Whether you’ve recently opened your business or have worked on more books than you can remember, the AIPP may be the right organization for you. Our members praise the sound advice given when problems arise and in general enjoy the feeling that they’re not alone. Click on the button below to find out more about the AIPP. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
So should you include a podcast transcript? And if you do, should you edit it? Here’s my take.
Writers don’t just listen to podcasts; they create them as part of their author-platform mix. Not all podcasters include transcripts (though I think they’re a good idea) and not all transcripts are created equally.
Some are rough and raw, some are smoothed, and some are edited to within an inch of their life so that they read more like blog posts. What is a podcast transcript and why should you have one? A podcast transcript is a written version of your audio file. Many people glance at a transcript before they listen to a podcast because they want to know what the key discussion points are. Skim reading allows us to digest large chunks of written content quickly. We get to pick and choose what to ignore and what to focus on. Skimming isn’t about deep comprehension but about getting a feel for what’s on offer. People are busy. Podcasts are great because the audience can consume the content while doing other things. That’s great if the listening takes place on the school run or the dog walk. However, that won’t be the choice for all your book-buying audience. Some will want to engage with your podcast, and only your podcast. Those listeners need to know whether you’re worth their time. We can’t skim a podcast (or a vlog) but we can skim a transcript. The transcript is therefore more than a written record. It’s also the key that unlocks the audio engagement door. Given that it’s a representation of what’s said in the podcast, should you edit it? A better question is, what are the consequences if you don’t? Here are four. 1. Eyes before ears – visible content counts If your listener is already fan, a sloppy transcript is unlikely to put them off because they probably won’t even read it – they’re there for you and your audio. But if they’re new, and deciding whether to commit to listening, the written word might well determine whether they leap on board or jump ship. If the first thing someone comes across on the podcast landing page looks and reads like a dog’s dinner, what does that say about the likely quality of the audio content? In reality, the audio content might well be outstanding, but the podcaster isn’t judged on that until the audience has decided to hit Play. It’s the visible content on the page that counts. 
2. But it’s all about the audio, isn’t it?
Imagine you’re doing a presentation to a roomful of your author peers. You build your presentation around the problems you’re trying to solve for your audience, create a great slide deck, and rehearse like billy-o so that you’re on top form. On the day of the speaking engagement you turn up ahead of time so that you can check that all your equipment and supporting materials are fit for purpose. Before you go on stage you do some breathing exercises to relax your throat – you want your voice to be clear and engaging for your listeners. You look the part. You sound the part. And you’re a writer in a roomful of writers. That’s all that matters, right? After all, it’s a face-to-face speaking engagement. The problem is, you haven’t brushed your teeth for three weeks and your breath honks. If you were one of those presenters that likes to be front and centre, the first row would be in trouble. But you’re a walker. You like to engage with your audience – a little bit of up close and personal. It’s not the first row that's in trouble. The whole room is at the mercy of your Wookie mouth. Shame, because no one’s interested in your stunning insights, your top tips for how to overcome writer’s block, fact check, or edit the first draft, never mind that what you tell them could make their lives a hundred times easier. All anyone’s thinking is Stay back. A sloppy podcast transcript is like bad breath. It focuses your potential audience’s attention on the wrong thing and risks putting them off before the audio fun’s even begun. 
3. Standing out
Podcasts are increasingly popular tools used by business owners, marketers, writers and hobbyists to communicate with their clients, fans and friends. And a lot of podcast transcriptions are sloppy. All the effort, and the budget, goes into creating great audio. In ‘How to build a web presence that outsmarts, outperforms and outlasts the search engines’ (Summit on Content Marketing 2017), Stoney deGeyter talks at some length about being excellent in everything we do so that we’re not battling with search-engine algorithms and rankings. He advises focusing on extraordinary engagement that makes our audience/customer journey as easy as possible. Good advice indeed. So why not stand out and create a top-notch podcast transcription?
That way you give people nothing to complain about and everything to rave about. Word of mouth is more likely to kick in. And with it, audience growth, engagement, advocacy and book sales. Certainly, some people won’t care if your transcript is a mess. It’s not them you have to worry about though. It’s about those who do care, those who judge you negatively because they think you don’t give a damn. Which leads us to the biggie. 4. Wordy people need to do wordy well You’re a writer. Given that your podcast is part of your author platform, the last thing you want to do is give anyone the impression that your writing is poor, even if you’re using audio as an engagement tool. If a famous chef was promoting her new recipe book in my local Waterstones and the canapes made me want to hurl, certainly I’m not going to buy her book. But, much worse, I’m not going to book a table at her restaurant. The biggest problem for the author with a sloppy transcript is not that no one will listen to the podcast but that no one will buy her books. 
How much should you edit?
It’s your choice but bear in mind that the goal is to encourage the listener to engage with the audio and buy your books. The podcasting author has to strike a comfortable balance between rigorous word-for-word accuracy and readability. Here are some guidelines:
Ideas for you to steal Even if you don’t include a transcript, consider the following:
If you decide to hire someone to create and edit your transcript for you, take a look at this article from my copywriter pal Gudrun Lauret: Why Not to Use Cheap Transcription Services. And here's a cautionary note that Tim Lewis posted on my Facebook page: 'Honestly, transcripts are a right PIA but you are right: they are well worth doing. Something for amateur podcasters to be careful with is that many automated transcription services such as Trint (and the free services) really struggle with anything that isn’t a standard US or UK accent, and if they don’t get to pretty high accuracy you will spend longer fixing it than the length of the interview. I use rev.com which is human-based (but more expensive). Even that’s not perfect though.' Here are some examples of what others are doing: Tim Lewis, Begin Self-Publishing Podcast Tim’s transcripts are gently smoothed to aid readability, indicate who’s speaking, and include a brief content summary. He increases visual engagement by introducing eye-catching quotes from the show. Here’s an example from the episode I did with him on fiction editing. 
Julie Anne Eason, The Successful Author Podcast
Julie Anne doesn’t include transcripts but she does provide detailed overviews of each episode’s content, additional related resources, eye-catching quotes from the show, and a bullet list of key themes. 
Wesley Chu, Piper J. Drake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, Writing Excuses
The hosts have an index of smoothed transcripts available in a separate menu. They offer a summary of the show, a pick-of-the-week related resource and a writing prompt (mini homework!), and subject tags so listeners can access related content (a really neat and useful addition that’s common on blogs and works very well in this setting too). 
I'll be digging deeper into author podcasting in a forthcoming blog. I hope you'll join me for that!
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Here are 5 ways to use audio to promote your book and create engagement with your readers.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #88
‘Listening is active. At its most basic level, it’s about focus, paying attention.’ Simon Sinek
Does sound still engage? It does – audiences still absolutely love sound because they can do something else at the same time. Food for the time-hungry!
I’ve deliberately not included audio books or podcasting. They’re both valuable ways of delivering your book and the story of your publishing journey, but need scaled-up levels of expertise, planning, equipment, time and money. I’ve also excluded options that involve video – we’ll look at them in other dedicated resources (e.g. video book trailers, and online video launches). Today is all about sound! 1. Narrate your own sample chapter Narrating a chapter of your book is a lovely way to offer your fans the personal touch – for no other reason than they get to hear your voice. It’s a phonic version of Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’! And it’s a totally different kettle of fish from a full audio book … In Audio Book Production: A Primer for Indie Authors from an Audio-Book Producer, Ray Greenley, a professional voice narrator, explains how easy it isn’t to create a high-quality audio book yourself – one that’s fit for market and done to the highest standards. The equipment, the noise dampening, the time, the fluency, the editing – the author who takes on all of that has a will of iron and more than just a talent for writing. Narrating is, after all, a very different skill to writing. With a sample chapter, though, you don’t need to worry about any of that. It’s a taster, a way for your audience to enter the world you’ve created via the sound of your voice. And because you – the author – are providing all the emphasis and tone of voice, listeners know they’re experiencing the world you created exactly the way you intended it. They’ll even forgive you if you stammer, or mispronounce a word, or stumble halfway through a sentence and have to go back to the beginning. They’ll forgive you if the dog barks, or a siren wails, or your office chair squeaks … because you’re engaging with them, speaking to them. Don’t get me wrong, it has to be listenable. If it’s such poor quality that the sirens, dogs, and stumbles are so frequent that the sample is painful to engage with, you’ll do yourself no favours. But a little blip here and there is fine. Audio samples, like written ones, are gifts from you to your reader. They’re charming, and generous, and your fans will love the fact that you’ve taken the time to record one for them. I asked my own marketing coaches and some of my colleagues what they use to upload audio to their websites. SoundCloud got an overwhelming thumbs-up. There’s a free option, too. A YouTube video with a thumbnail picture would be another option. If you’re uploading natively to your website this could slow down load times so, instead, embed a link and host the content on your YouTube channel. In case your audience clicks through to YouTube, make sure you include all the relevant book-buy links under the video on your channel. Be sure to include captions for those who choose to engage with the sound muted (it happens … a lot!). You don’t need an expensive mic either. I have a Blue Snowball, which works brilliantly, looks charming, and came in at under fifty quid. I chose it because I wanted something decent that would allow me to create video without being encumbered with a headset. However, if you’re just doing audio, you can probably get away with a headset/mic system for under £25. Try different options and see what gives the best results. 
2. Giveaways – usable audio content
For non-fiction, you could take the audio sample to the next level. Give away an audio version of one chapter of valuable, usable content – something your listener can actually solve a problem with. This is a powerful offering and goes well beyond the plot taster of a novel. For example, imagine you’ve self-published a marketing book for small businesses. One of the chapters is dedicated to Pay Per Click (PPC). The chapter outlines the principles behind PPC advertising, and offers guidance on which businesses would or wouldn’t benefit from this strategy, and why. You create an audio version of this chapter – and because it’s something that your target audience can listen to and use to make informed decisions about an aspect of their digital promotion strategy, they’re compelled to buy the written version and extract all your words of wisdom! In this case, you’ve repurposed valuable business content but in a deeply personalized way. 
3. Host a live sound event
Readers love live author events. The Norwich branch of Waterstones has hosted a stack of live author readings. I’ve been to see Garth Nix, Jonathon Pinnock, and Alison Moore. With an audio-only version, you’re recreating the feel of a radio author event because the audience gets to talk to you afterwards and ask questions. Ideally, you’ll want the stream to be recorded so that it’s available as archive content afterwards. Daniel J Lewis, in ‘New live streaming options for podcasters’, says, ‘Maybe you want all the interaction and accountability of live-streaming, but you don't have the technology or bravery for video. That's when an audio-only live stream can be a great choice. It also makes a good option for those with lower bandwidth.’ So what are the options? Mixlr and Spreaker are Lewis’s recommendations for those looking for lower-cost solutions. Another option is using the audio-only option of Facebook Live. This has slightly less flexibility in that all the engagement with your listeners will take place in the comments below. Still, this could have some advantages in that you have a record of what people are asking, and if you don’t have time to handle all the questions, you can join in the written discussion later. Live audio streaming is public and, obviously, live. You don’t get to edit if things go wrong … which is great because it adds emotion and excitement to the event, but requires a little courage. Make sure you have some friends in on the gig who have your back if you’re new to this type of engagement. One of the best things about reader-facing author events is that fans can get a signed copy of the book. In the digital world, this is tricky. How about this as an alternative? Get some promo postcards printed; the front will feature your book’s cover. At the end of the show, invite people to email you with their postal addresses if they’d like to receive a signed postcard with a personal message or dedication. You could team this up with an invitation to join your mailing list so that they don’t miss out on future events. 
4. Broadcast an interview
This requires more effort but it’s worth it because it allows you to talk about the journey of your book and your journey as a writer. You’ll need an interviewer and a script. It’s tempting for the inexperienced sound eventer to think that a script will detract from the flow and authenticity of the broadcast. It won’t. A script ensures everything stays on track, that the questions and answers are remembered, that neither of you ramble off on a tangent or fall off a pregnantly paused cliff. You could do a swap with a fellow author, perhaps someone from your writing group – you interview them and they return the favour. That way you both get to promote your books and share your thoughts on the challenges and joys of writing and self-publishing. Again, SoundCloud is a good option here (or YouTube). 
5. Audio sign-up requests
In ‘9 ways to use audio’, digital marketer Steve Cartwright asks: ‘When your target audience clicks to get more information for your products and services, do you think it would make a difference if you were actually talking to them with your voice to explain what you have to offer?’ Most of you are probably already building your mailing list. Perhaps you include links at the end of your written books, blog articles and website book pages that encourage people to sign up to your newsletter. This is the perfect place to test whether you can increase your sign-rates by using your voice to ask your readers to join the party. If you’re not building a mailing list, consider these wise words of experience from full-time, self-published crime writer Jeff Carson: ‘I have a newsletter email list. This is one of those things I heard people preaching but never did anything about. It took me four freaking books to finally put my email list in place. But I finally did, and that’s when I was finally able to write full time. It only took two days to write and publish a short story, which I give away on my blog as a thank-you if somebody signs up for the new-release newsletter. Now, when I have a new release, I launch the book to thousands of people, versus dropping it into a field of crickets.’ How about doing the same thing, but asking people to join that newsletter with your voice? Other things to consider with audio
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly. How to write children's books: what the experts say A member of my writing library asked if I’d created a resource hub on writing books for children. I hadn’t, so I did! 
Some of the articles and books I’ve listed were published prior to the digital transformations that have taken place in the mainstream- and self-publishing industries, so the technical guidance may be a little out of date. However, the underlying principles behind the craft of writing are just as relevant today as they were a decade ago, which merits their inclusion.
If I’ve missed out something that you think is core reading for children’s book writers, let me know and I’ll add it. The PDF includes links to the following:
Children's Books: Resources on Writing for Young People is available for immediate download. Click on the image below. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
The topic of editing and proofreading rates is always hot in our community. And the 'race to the bottom' especially has been known to garner more attention than an Olympic 100-metre final. So what should we do about it?
Competing with cheap
Here in Norwich there’s a mall. In that mall is a discount store selling techie stuff ... phones, tablets and whatnot. You go into that shop expecting a deal. It’s where people go when they’re price-shopping. Not because they’re terrible people who are always looking for cheap but because the coffers are low. Maybe the car failed its MOT and they had to find an extra seven hundred quid that month. Or they recently lost their job. Or something. In that mall on the floor above is an Apple store selling shiny things for shiny people. You don’t go into that shop expecting a deal. You go in expecting to pay what you have to pay to get the shiny thing you want. It’s where people go when they’re product- or service-shopping. The coffers are flush. The car passed its MOT and the job is secure. Or something. 
All clients are not the same
Now, Apple could decide not to have a store in that mall. It could say, ‘This is ridiculous. No one’s going to buy our stuff when they can get similar products from the shop on the floor below for one fifth of the price. Being in that mall is a race to the bottom.’ But Apple doesn’t say that. Why? Because it knows that the customers who come into the mall aren’t all the same. Some won’t come near its store because the prices are too high. But others – those who are looking specifically for an Apple product, those who are Apple fans, those whose cars passed their MOTs – might pay Apple a visit. If it doesn’t have a store in the mall, Apple knows it will lose the custom of all the people who’d like to buy there but can’t because it’s decided not to set up shop ... and all because it got the hump about the race-to-the-bottom store on the floor below. In fact, Apple doesn’t focus on the store below. It doesn’t care what that store is charging. That store can service the price-shoppers – those customers whose budgets are limited – because those customers are NOT Apple’s customers. Instead, Apple invests its energy in making the service-shoppers – its fans – have an amazing experience ... lots of knowledgeable, passionate staff on hand, a Genius Bar, technicians out back who’ll fix or replace a product in-store or replace it, and lots of lovely shiny stuff to play with while we wait. Apple knows that there’s room in the mall for both types of store and both types of customer. And it’s the same for editors and proofreaders. 
Standing up for the market or hiding behind a curtain?
If you decide not to make yourself visible in particular directories or other online spaces because you know there are colleagues charging what you consider to be unacceptably low rates, and you think no one will hire you because you’re charging more, you’re assuming that all clients are the same. But they’re not. Some clients will have low incomes or busted cars that need expensive repairs, and they will be attracted to the discount editors. Some will have more flexible budgets and will be focused on finding the right-fit editor first and foremost. Price will not be the clincher for the latter group. However, clients can only commission services from an editor whom they know exists. If you have the hump about the race to the bottom and have decided not to join the party, you’re not standing up for the editorial market. All you’re doing is hiding behind the curtain, making yourself invisible to those clients who would have liked to work with you if they’d been able to find you. And don’t forget that Google is the biggest directory of all. There’s no other online space with more editors in it. Some of them are cheap as chips. Has that stopped you having a website? No. The same logic should apply elsewhere. How to be the Apple editor Of course, we can’t have it both ways. If we don’t want to compete with discount editors then we need to get attention in a way that shifts the client’s focus away from price. Expecting to benefit from the same footfall as the discount editor without offering a compelling alternative is just wanting to have our cake and eat it. We need to stand out for some other reason. We need to make the client think: That editor looks perfect for me, seems to get me, is really generous and knowledgeable. I hope she’s available and that if I save up I can afford her. Sure, the price-focused clients aren’t going to touch us with a barge pole. But that’s fine because we’re not targeting them; we’re targeting the service-focused clients. To be the Apple editor we need to present potential clients with an amazing experience – a story that says we have solutions, that we have their backs, that we can help them achieve their goals ... a story that persuades them we’re worth waiting for and worth paying for. It’s about the words we use to convey our understanding of our clients’ problems. It’s about the images we use to convey our professional values. Blurry headshots with our mates or kids in them won’t do. It’s about how we instil trust. Telling them that we know our stuff – that we have the skills, the knowledge and the experience – is one thing. Showing them with free resources and a knowledge base that helps them more easily walk the publication path ... that’s quite another. 
Time well spent on standing out
Every minute we spend worrying about what other editors are charging is a minute in which we could be building our own compelling brand identity and creating our own valuable resources, stuff that helps our potential clients feel we’re the right fit. Every directory that we don’t advertise in because we think it’s a race to the bottom is another tick on our invisibility list. If you’re invisible, it doesn’t matter how high your prices are. No one will hire you. Not because your prices are too high but because you can’t be seen. Being invisible is of no economic value to any editor or proofreader. So charge what you want to charge. If you want to compete on price, go ahead. If you want to compete on compulsion, go ahead. The compulsion route isn’t easy. It means investing time and effort in standing out – all that content marketing stuff I bang on about! It means thinking deeply about how every word of your directory entries and every page of your website helps a potential client and makes them feel that you’re just too wowser to ignore. All that hard graft pays off though. You can sit beside the cheaper editors without fear. You can let them have the price-shoppers while you work with those who can afford you. Just like Apple and the discount store, we’re dealing with two different markets. The idea that your business could be undermined by a colleague charging way lower that what you deem to be acceptable is, says Jake Poinier, ‘nonsense. Creative freelancing is a market, and only you can establish the value you bring to it. I don’t view the low end of the freelance rate scale as my competition’ (Stop worrying about freelancers who undercharge). I agree with Jake. Honestly, there’s room for everyone. Don’t waste your valuable time on the issue. Instead, build your business, your brand identity, your visibility and your value. Therein lies success. Want a reminder of this article? Download this free ebook to your preferred device. Just click on the image to get your copy! 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Yolanda is a self-published author who wants to build a fiction proofreading and copyediting business. In this Q&A I consider the steps she should take to get her editorial business off the ground and fit for purpose.
Says Yolanda:
I am a fiction author located in U.S. and I've been self-publishing for almost 6 years under various pen names. I still work full-time (over 20 years in the administrative field), however I would like to start a freelance career as a fiction proofreader/copy-editor. I am a certified legal proofreader but outside of my day job & my own books I don't have experience proofing. I intend to use freelance job sites & my connections with self-published authors to build my portfolio. As far as blogging, I'm not sure what I would discuss since my focus is fiction & I'm not an expert yet to give other proofreaders advice. What would be my next steps to transition from fiction author to fiction proofreader/ copy-editor for self-published authors as far as getting my business up & running, classes (if any), pricing, etc? Hi, Yolanda! Thanks for your question. I’ve broken down my advice as follows:
Training I think you’re wise to consider training. It’s essential that your knowledge of grammar, spelling and punctuation conventions is top-notch. If it’s not, you won’t be able to correct your clients’ files to industry standards. I'd recommend that you search for a grammar brush-up course as a first step. That will enable you to discover whether your technical knowledge is on point and if there are any weaknesses that you need to attend to. Here are a couple of options for you to consider:
Fiction work does require an empathetic hand because editors and proofreaders are often faced with the dilemma of how to amend such that we remove errors and improve readability but respect narrative voice and flow. However, it’s only when you know what a problem is that you can decide whether to fix it! Training is absolutely the right place to discover your weak points. Better that than via a disgruntled client. Your second step should be to undertake professional editorial skills training. This will be of particular use to you because it'll move you into the editing mindset and away from the authorial one that you're used to. I appreciate that you've self-edited, but editing one's own work is a very different proposition to offering professional services to paying customers, as you clearly realize. Professional training will also enable you to determine the level of intervention that each type of editing requires. In turn, that will help you avoid scope-creep and undercharging. Especially when proofreading, knowing when to leave well enough alone is an art in itself! Here are some reputable US-based programmes to consider:
Services
You’ll need to develop a service model that differentiates between the different levels of editing. Many self-publishing authors don’t know the differences between proofreading, copyediting, line editing, and developmental editing. Many editors' definitions vary too. And so while the lines are often blurred, especially when we compare different independent editors’ service descriptions, professional training will help you clarify how you'll describe your services so that your clients understand exactly what’s on offer. You can see some examples of how I’ve tackled definitional issues here:
I’d advise taking a look at a range of editors’ websites to familiarize yourself with the breadth of services on offer and the way your future colleagues describe these. There’s no right or wrong. Rather, it’s all about clear communication and helping the client understand how you can solve their problems. 
Visibility
Blogging needn't necessarily be your primary content platform, though I think it works well for editors and proofreaders because our wordy clients are comfortable with wordy information! Even if you don't concentrate on vlogging or podcasting, at least think about how you can introduce audio-visual material into your marketing mix in order to stand out and offer your audience alternative ways to get what you're offering. You don’t need to focus on colleagues either. Far from it. Fifty per cent of my content is created for beginner authors. I’d recommend you consider using your experience as a self-published author of fiction to guide potential clients on how to navigate their own publishing journeys. Think about what their problems and questions might be. Think about what your own problems and questions were! For example, you mentioned having used a pen name; that would be an interesting topic to any beginner author wondering whether they should publish under their own name. Great content marketing solves problems. If you decide to blog, offer fantastic value by helping other writers solve their conundruns using all your knowledge and experience ... the rough and the smooth. Everything you’ve learned on your own journey has the potential to help others. Don’t forget that your experience of self-publishing can be used as a unique selling point that makes you stand out. Combine that with high-quality training and you’ll be on the way to building a compelling online presence. Consider how you might make your content visible beyond the blog (or vlog or podcast) by creating a resource hub that makes what you’ve created accessible via different pages on your website. It’s my belief that having an individual, standout online fingerprint is essential for those entering the editorial freelancing market. There’s too much competition out there to create a website that looks just like everyone else’s. So do focus on your marketing so that over time you can be as discoverable as possible. Here are a few examples:
Pricing
Many national editorial societies have guidelines or suggested minimums for what editors should charge. I look at these but don’t use them to determine my own rates because they distract me from the important things than any pricing model needs to take account of. These are:
In relation to your needs, it matters little if the Editorial Freelancers Association thinks that $30–50 per hour is a common and acceptable rate for copyediting if you need $70 per hour to keep the bailiffs from the door. With that in mind, when you start to think about pricing, work out first what you need to earn as a minimum to make your business viable. That’s your baseline. From there you can work upwards to what you want to earn and what your clients will bear. Self-publishing authors aren’t a homogeneous market when it comes to writing skill, genre or budget. Some will be shopping for an editor whose fees are lower than that which you need to earn. Others will be prepared to pay more than you want to earn. Yet others will sit somewhere in the middle. It’s not only the budget that will vary; your authors' locations will too. And so if your potential client is based in Sweden, it’s likely that what $40 will buy in Sweden is not the same as what it will buy in the US. Since the cost of living varies from country to country, what an American client thinks is a high rate might seem an absolute steal to the Swede. And that’s another problem with professional association pricing tables – they focus on the domestic market whereas your potential market lies well beyond the sovereign state in which you reside. That’s why it makes more sense to build your pricing model on your own needs rather than some notion that there’s one universally applicable rate (or range) for editing or proofreading. There isn’t. There’s some excellent detailed guidance on editorial rate-setting from Rich Adin on the American Editor blog. Start with the following: Sign-off I hope all that gives you a few ideas for how to move forward, Yolanda, and I wish you well on your editorial business-building journey! There’s plenty more information on my blog in the following archives: Money Matters, Marketing, Starting Out and Training. Dig into that and start connecting with other editorial pros online. There are lots of us on Facebook (the Editors’ Association of Earth is a good place to start), Twitter and LinkedIn ... and beyond! See you there!
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Sharon is a self-published author who’s improving her self-editing skills with professional editorial training. However, she’s worried that her chosen course isn’t worth the money she’s paying.
Says Sharon:
Dear Louise, I am a self published author. I am trying to improve my skills on proof reading and copy editing. I am doing a course for [training provider redacted]. Can you give me any advice, are courses a waste of time and money. What do you advise me to do please help, many thanks Sharon
Hi, Sharon! Thanks for your question. I’m more than happy to guide you. My view is that there are several issues to consider:
After I’ve discussed these issues, I’ll offer you my recommendation on how best to proceed. Pro courses: what they do I believe that professional editors and proofreaders should undertake professional training to ensure that they’re fit for purpose ... just as an engineer, a plumber, a teacher or a doctor does. And while the course you mention isn’t one that I’ve done, the provider is recognized and respected by many UK editors and proofreaders and publishers. Let’s have a quick look at some of the key modules:
Here’s a brief summary of the differences between copyediting and proofreading as defined by the UK publishing industry. The two skills are different (though the terminology does tend to blur outside the mainstream). Says the Society for Editors and Proofreaders: Copy-editing is to ensure that whatever appears in public is accurate, easy to follow, fit for purpose and free of error, omission, inconsistency and repetition. This process picks up embarrassing mistakes, ambiguities and anomalies, alerts the client to possible legal problems and analyses the document structure for the typesetter/designer. 
Assumed prior knowledge
The most important thing to recognize is that professional proofreading and editing training providers assume a level of proficiency in regard to the student’s existing sentence-level language skills. The courses are not designed to teach people standard spelling, grammar and punctuation (SPaG). Rather, they’re designed to help those who already have a solid grasp of SPaG to mark up, or directly amend, written materials in a manner that respects professional publishing conventions and the client’s brief and style. And while your course does include a module to help students assess whether their language skills are up to scratch, comprehensive grammar and punctuation training is not its focus. Your needs and the course’s intention: Is the fit good? There’s nothing wrong with your course’s syllabus. For someone who wishes to build an editorial business, and has an existing appreciation of conventional SPaG, the training is right on track. For that person, the course is not a waste of time or money. It’s a wise investment that will ensure they’re fit for purpose when they begin copyediting and proofreading for clients. However, I don’t think that course is the right fit for you. It’s teaching you skills that are not, for the most part, relevant to your immediate requirements. Instead, I think you should focus on strengthening your grammar and punctuation. See more below in ‘My recommendation’. 
The limits of self-editing for pro self-publishers
A word of caution! I’m a professional copyeditor and proofreader. I blog regularly and know as well as anyone that self-editing has its limitations. Most of us, no matter how strong our language skills, cannot self-edit our own work as effectively as we’d edit another’s. That’s because we’re too close to our own writing; we see what we want to see on the page rather than what’s actually there. Carrying out several checks at intervals can help eradicate most errors but perfection is unlikely. It’s for that reason that I pay a colleague to proofread my blog posts before I publish them (with the exception of these Q&As, which I publish quickly because a reader’s asked for help and I don’t wish to keep them waiting). And even if my pro editor doesn’t find any literal errors, it’s unusual for them not to offer several improvements to the sentence flow for the purposes of clarity and engagement. And so once you’ve developed your SPaG skills, you’ll be able to remove many of the errors in your books, but not all of them. And it’s likely that a professional line or copyeditor will be able to help you smooth the text in a way that improves the flow of your narrative and dialogue. I realize that budget is an issue for some self-publishing authors. Nevertheless, I recommend commissioning professional editorial services if the author can afford it. Professional editors hire pros; so should pro authors if they want to mimic the standards that traditionally published authors strive for. Not doing so will mean that errors, inconsistencies and structural problems might still be evident to the paying reader. At the end of the post, I’ve included links to some resources that discuss the different levels of editing and the order of play, in case you (or other readers) need some additional guidance. 
My recommendation
I commend you for seeking to develop your editing skills, Sharon. Self-editing is vital; the more you can do, the more money you’ll save when it comes to investing in professional editing! However, I think you’d be far better off investing in training that’s dedicated to teaching English-language grammar and punctuation standards. Start by searching online for grammar courses run by your local college or university. Before you enrol, speak to the course supervisor and explain what your problems are. That way you can ensure that the course is a good fit. Developing these skills will really help to drive your sentence-level editing forward. If your budget allows for it, consider seeking the assistance of a developmental or story editor before you start worrying about the detail. A manuscript evaluation or critique will help you deal with any big-picture issues before you spend time on the nitty-gritty. Sentence-level editing (by you or a pro) without prior structural assessment can be rather like trying to build a house on boggy ground – even if the walls look pretty at the outset, it won’t be long before cracks appear! Now it may be that you’re already attending to story craft. In which case, my apologies. Still, the advice will serve other indie authors who are wondering about the order of play. I hope my response helps you decide on where to go next. Thanks again for your question. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments if you want to follow up on anything I’ve mentioned. Resources
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Most of the writers who ask for my help have elected to self-publish. Our conversations don’t leave me feeling conflicted. The writer has a problem and we focus on whether I can solve it, when they want me to do this, and what it will cost.
But every few months or so, the discussion becomes complicated and my initial response is novel-length. Why? Because my writer wants me to copyedit or proofread prior to agent submission. 
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #87
It’s high time I put my thoughts and findings down in one place. If you’re a writer or an editor (especially a beginner) who’s feeling flummoxed, here’s some direction.
Editing prior to submission: First principles Here are four things that writers and editors should be mindful of at the outset:
What problems do editors solve?
An editor, broadly speaking, is someone who helps prepare written material for publication. However, that prep doesn’t happen in one hit. Think of it like a Sunday roast – if you start cooking the carrots at the same time as the meat, you’ll end up with a tender joint and a pile of orange mush … or sweet veg and something that belongs in a field not on your plate. The editorial process is not so different – there are lots of things to do but the order and timing of each stage is critical. If you’re a writer and you’re considering hiring an editor prior to submission, think first about what’s worrying you and what might scupper your submission:
All of the following are types of editor but their intentions (and the outcomes) are different:
Some editors offer all of these services, some only one or two. Those who offer multiple stages might do a couple at the same time (e.g. line editing and copyediting) but I know of none who offer all four simultaneously. 
Let’s revisit our list of seven problems and match them with an editor:
Bear in mind that editors customize their services – what one person includes in a copyedit might be restricted to another’s line edit. Don’t be afraid to ask for specifics so that you have a mutual understanding of what’s included. ‘But I don’t know what my problems are.’ It’s all very well for experienced agents and editors to say you need X but not Y, but that doesn’t necessarily help the author.
Fair enough, but what if we’re not talking about a few typos? What if we’re talking about a novel that has a wonderful plot, is beautifully paced and features enthralling characters but, line by line, the narrative is overwritten and so fraught with grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes that it’s frustrating and unpleasant to read? All the good stuff is buried beneath the blunders. On the flip side, let’s imagine that a writer decides to make sure the book’s in tip-top condition at sentence level but the characters are one shade of grey and the plot’s plopped. In both cases, there’s just too much for an agent to do. And that’s why the yes/no approach to the question of whether a writer should seek professional editorial help prior to submission is problematic. Agent Steve Laube sums up the issue nicely: Our agency consistently sees proposals that are okay, but simply not written at a level that is needed to break into the market. Agents are not freelance editors so there is only so much we are willing to do to fix a project. I have said it this way, ‘If I get something that is 90% ready, I can take it the rest of the way. But if it is only 80% ready I will kick it back to the writer with a rejection. We are looking for the best of the best.' (‘Should You Hire a Freelance Editor?‘) 
Finding out whether you’re ready – the order of play
So how do you find out whether you’re 90% there? I had intended to visit my Sunday Roast metaphor but Jane Friedman says it so much better: [N]ever hire a copyeditor until you’re confident your book doesn’t require a higher level of editing first. That would be like painting the walls of your house right before tearing them down. (‘Should You Hire a Professional Editor?’)
I couldn’t agree more. Recall the types of editors I listed above in ‘What problems do editors solve?’. I deliberately staged them because there’s a hierarchy. The hierarchy isn’t based on importance but on logic.
There’s no point in having a line editor and copyeditor tighten up your narrative if the point of view is a catastrophe; nor is it worth spending hundreds of pounds to ensure that your dialogue is punctuated according to industry standards if the characters giving voice to those words are under-developed. With that in mind, start with the big picture – a manuscript evaluation, critique or a mini developmental edit. This kind of work involves a specialist editor reviewing your book and identifying strengths and weaknesses. It’s not a full-on fix but it will show you how to move forward so that you can improve the book before you submit. As editor Sophie Playle points out: Agents and publishers are most interested in a great story that’s told well (it’s all about that ‘unique voice’) and that they can take an educated gamble on selling. The writing can be polished at a later stage, but story, voice and market potential are the key things here. (‘Where is Your Budget for Book Editing Best Spent?‘)
Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary concurs:
An editor who can help you structure your story, develop characterization and voice, and iron out major problems could be a good idea, if you see yourself as an apprentice learning your writing craft. […] A line editor, who’s all about punctuation and small-scale phrasing, probably isn’t worth it. At the point of submission, agents and editors are looking more at the story as a whole. (‘Should You Hire an Editor Before Querying? Agents Weigh In!‘)
If you’re an experienced writer, that might be enough. If the evaluation identifies major problems, you might decide to invest in a full developmental edit, but at least your decision will be informed.
Editor and writing coach Lisa Poisso offers three additional reasons to hire an editor prior to submission:
The right mindset to working with an editor
Literary agent Rachelle Gardner has the following advice on mindset: Using a freelance editor can be a great idea – if you use it as a learning experience. You need to do most of the work yourself. I think it’s wasted money if you’re counting on someone to fix your manuscript for you. The point is to get an experienced set of eyes on it to help you identify problems and figure out how to fix them. (‘Should I Hire a Freelance Editor?’)
Gardner’s referring to big-picture work here – developmental editing. She nails two important points:
And here’s Nicola Morgan (Write to be Published, p. 179): [I]f you are thinking of getting a professional editor to perfect your work before submitting it, you are treading a tricky line.
Gardner and Morgan remind us that if you hire an editor for book one, submit and get a publishing contract, you’ll need to do it for your next book, and the one after, and so on. Over time, you’ll become less dependent on an editor as your novel craft grows, but it won’t happen in one book.
So, let’s take a quick breather and summarize:
Finding the right editor – what to tell and what to ask
Talk to more than one editor so you can get a feel for what’s on offer and whether they’re a good fit. An editor will need to know the following:
This information will help the editor work out whether their services are appropriate for you.
Answers to these questions will help you to work out whether their service offering matches your goals. 
Through the editor’s lens – mindful pre-submission support
Should editors work with writers submitting to agents even though a publisher will likely take a book through the editing process? It depends. If you’re a specialist developmental editor who understands story craft and what makes a book attractive to agents and publishers, then yes, absolutely. You can be part of that learning process that Gardner and Morgan discuss, someone who helps the writer put their best foot forward in a competitive market. What about if you’re a sentence-level specialist like me? I think we need to tread mindfully.
I don’t take a yes/no approach to this. Sometimes I accept the work and sometimes I advise the author to take another path. Here are four short case studies featuring writers who asked me for copyediting prior to submission: Case study A The sample was beautifully written (to my copyeditor’s eye) – engaging from the get-go. I could see clearly how I’d amend the minor spelling, grammar and punctuation errors but they in no way impeded the book’s readability. I would have loved to copyedit that book but I cautioned the author to hold off, do some research into her chosen agents’ requirements and consider a critique first. She took my advice. Case study B The sample was gorgeous – moved me to tears, in fact. However, English was the author’s second language and the book was severely impaired at sentence level. I was able to identify how I’d smooth and correct the narrative but advised her on the order of play and recommended higher-level editing first. She insisted that the structural work was complete, that she’d gone as far as she wished, and that she’d self-publish if she was unsuccessful in securing representation. I did a sample edit, we agreed terms and I spent a blissful month line editing and copyediting for her. Case study C The sample was problematic – I couldn’t get under the skin of the thing. The writing seemed flat, like a textbook rather than a work of fiction. The spelling, grammar and punctuation needed a little work though the errors didn’t impede readability. I could have copyedited that book but it wouldn’t have made any difference – even though I’m not a developmental specialist, I knew the book wasn’t agent-ready. I gently advised the author of my concerns and suggested some structural-level options (and colleagues who could assist him). Despite my advice, he expressed a preference to go ahead with copyediting. I declined, wished him well and walked away. Case study D The sample was strong – the author had worked intensively with an agent to knock the book into shape. He was looking for a once-over to check for howlers, sloppy punctuation, gaping plot holes and a general tidy-up. His agent had recommended he commission a copyeditor to give him the best chance of securing a publishing contract. I didn’t hesitate to quote. But I'm an indie author. Why is agent submission relevant? Even self-publishers can benefit from agent submission. The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) partners with Toby Mundy Associates (TMA) agency to sell translation and other subsidiary rights for self-published authors. Says Mundy: An agent can help develop new markets, maybe in English-language territories where self-publishing isn’t delivering good results or in translation. They can help with career planning and development. And they can help develop hybrid models, combining indie and traditional publishing. As Orna Ross, ALLi Director has said elsewhere, “Being a successful indie author means doing whatever is best for your book(s), within the bounds of what’s possible at a particular time. Sometimes that’s self-publishing, sometimes trade-publishing, often a mix of both.”
Even if you're self-publishing, the right agent will be able to help you with specialist support.
Summing up There’s no right or wrong when it comes to an editor and an author working together prior to submission. What’s crucial is that the decisions made are informed – based on an understanding of the different levels of editing and the order of play. That applies to authors and editors. Authors need to focus on the big picture first, then follow up with sentence-level work if the problems are severe enough to frustrate an agent or a publisher. Editors need to be transparent about their specialist skills and mindful of the author’s preferences, but also be prepared to walk if they believe that their input would be without purpose.
Think you might like to revisit this advice? Feel free to download the booklet below!
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly. How to write about thumb safeties, silencers and machine guns: The art of firearms in fiction20/11/2017
This is the third in a series of guest posts by my colleague Steve Allen, a soldier-turned-editor who specializes in firearms and military-particulars editing. Here are five more tips to consider when writing about firearms in fiction.
1. Thumb-safety Glock
A thumb safety on a Glock pistol is the most common firearm mistake I see. There is no manual safety on all common models of Glock pistols. Confusing matters even more, for military pistol trials, Glock just released two versions of pistols with thumb safeties. Whether the thumb-safety Glocks will be sold to the public is yet to be determined. 2. Bonus features Here are some additional features mistakes that I see:
3. The sound of silence
Unfamiliarity with suppressors causes frequent writing mistakes. Movies and video games misrepresent suppressor efficacy. Seeing Special Forces (SF) units in the news, in video games and in movies, where every weapon is suppressed, has increased the appearance of suppressors in fiction. In uberguy lit, suppressors are quite common. The movie No Country for Old Men is a horrible portrayal of suppressor use by a criminal. Shooting video games such as Hitman and Call of Duty also fail to portray suppressors correctly. Commonly called silencers, suppressors excel at quieting gunshots. Most suppressors shooting supersonic (greater than 1,126 ft/s or 342 m/s) ammunition reduce the sound of the gunshot to barely below 85 dB, the hearing-protection safety threshold. Suppressors fail to silence the sonic boom or crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. People close by may not be familiar with the crack of a bullet, but something out of the ordinary happened and they are unlikely to react as if nothing occurred. Usually the crack of the bullet is lost in the gunshot. Suppressors sound similar to a loud nail gun or a car door being slammed shut, followed by the crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. To get the ridiculous mouse-fart sound from the movies requires specially loaded, subsonic ammunition. Some guns will not shoot subsonic ammo very well, increasing the likelihood of malfunctions. Despite common perception, with proper paperwork, suppressors are legally owned in most US states. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), very few legally owned suppressors are used in crime. Possessing a suppressor in the US without proper paperwork is a felony. If your hero breaks federal laws, he or she had better have a very good reason. The specific legality in the US of Title II devices, such as suppressors, short-barrelled rifles and machine guns is outside the purview of this article. 
4. Is machine gun – no?
Now we’re onto confusion between what is a machine gun and what is not. As an author, know if your character uses an illegal weapon such as a machine gun. An AR-15 is not a machine gun according to the BATFE. An M-16 is a machine gun. The AR-15 and the M-16 look exactly alike because they’re based on the same gun platform, but with very different internals. The few semiautomatic rifles able to be converted to full auto require extensive firearms knowledge and machining. Converting a legal weapon into a machine gun is generally not worth the cost and effort. Unless required by the story, I suggest staying away from illegally converted weapons. The BATFE ensures that weapons sold in the US cannot be easily converted to machine guns. Easily convertible older gun models are either banned by law or covered under Title II and treated as a machine gun. 
5. I fought the law
If your character possesses an illegal weapon, there has to be a very good reason why. The vast majority of firearms enthusiasts are law-abiding people who would never commit a felony by possessing an illegal weapon. The saying goes, ‘Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six’. Twelve people sit on a jury; six people carry a coffin. If your characters use illegal weapons, they should also understand that there will be severe legal consequences later. There are firearm scofflaws, most of them extremists and felons. Your law-disregarding hero falls into this category. I don’t expect writers to be experts on the myriad gun laws. In the US, the BATFE lists illegal weapons on its webpage. Most other countries have similar law-enforcement agencies; a little internet research goes a long way. Next time, we'll be looking at back stories, toys and shooting skills. Feel free to put your questions to Steve in the comments.
Steve Allen is a retired soldier living north of Seattle, WA, with his lovely wife and daughters, and a neurotic terrier and a goofy black Labrador.
When not editing, Steve wanders the Pacific Northwest on roads less travelled, searching for good books and very cold beer. Email: stevenwordsmith67@gmail.com
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly. How to market your book and build your author platform using a chatbot: Part 1 – Facebook comments13/11/2017
In this series, I’ll show you several ways to use a chatbot to engage with your readers, expand your fan base and put a smile on people’s faces! Today, the focus is on building a bot campaign to market a book on Facebook.
Bots are still a massively underused tool so incorporating them into your book-promotion strategy now will help you to stand out. 
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #86
What’s a chatbot?
In short, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation. I built my own chatbot in August. Yes, it's a computer program but it's helping me digitally with my business so I wanted it to have a face and a name that I could work into my chatbot marketing campaigns. I called it Lulu and asked my friend, illustrator Rachel Holmes, to create the design. I think she did a great job of putting the art into artificial intelligence ... this is what Lulu looks like! Cute, isn’t she? 
Here are a few things you should know about the chatbot tools I’ll show you:
Building your bot My preferred bot-building platform is ManyChat. It’s straightforward to navigate and I appreciate being able to run four simultaneous live campaigns free of charge. There are restrictions with the free version – for example, you can’t automatically transfer subscribers to your mailing list – but you can still do a huge amount without spending a bean. In this article I’m focusing on how to use the Facebook comments growth tool for book marketing. To follow my lead you'll need to have set up your own ManyChat account and linked it to your Facebook Page. The ManyChat Facebook comments campaign Where to find it: Growth tools > New growth tool > Other growth tools > Facebook comments. Potential goals: Pre-launch promotion, fan-base engagement, mailing-list growth, sample-chapter delivery, conversation, landing-page link, and bookstore pre-order. Here’s an image of the fake book I've knocked up for demonstration purposes. In my sample promotion campaign, I’m offering fans the opportunity to enter a free draw. The winner will have their name assigned to a key supporting character. 
Let's see how we can use a chatbot and a Facebook Page to deliver this campaign and achieve the goals outlined above.
The strategy Here's how it works. Facebook wants to keep people on Facebook – the longer people stick around, the more likely they are to click on paid ads. And if advertisers generate leads with their ads, they’re likely to buy more. That means more money for Facebook. Facebook also wants to provide a good user experience because that will encourage more people use the platform. Users who are having a good time will feel informed, engaged, entertained and helped. Facebook's algorithm identifies content that ticks those boxes and prioritizes it. Key indicators are likes, shares, comments and time spent engaging with a post (e.g. when watching a video). The more engagement you create on a Page post, the more Facebook will reward you for your neighbourly behaviour by pushing your content beyond your existing community (friends, followers and likers). Comments are the powerhouse behind this campaign tool. A great way to generate a comment is to offer something in return. I've given away free ebooklets and checklists that help writers with self-editing, and fellow editors and proofreaders with professional development. If you promote your book on Facebook by posting a nice piccy and a link to your website where there’s, say, a free sample chapter, you’re pushing people off Facebook. But if you offer that same sample right there on Facebook, you’re keeping your visitors on Facebook’s land. And so you’ll be rewarded with increased audience reach. ManyChat’s Facebook comments growth tool allows you to do exactly this: a trigger word in the comments tells your bot to deliver your freebie to the commenter via Facebook Messenger. Your fan doesn't have to leave the platform to get the goodies. The offer – ideas for you to steal Your offer must be strong enough to compel someone to comment. Here are some ideas for you to try:
The build There are two core elements to the build – the onboard ManyChat tool and the Facebook post. 1. ManyChat I recommend starting with ManyChat. Here's how to create a campaign:
2. Facebook Page
Now go to your Facebook Page. Create a new post that tells your audience about your promotion and the trigger word they need to write in the comments to get the offer. Including a picture or native video is also a great way to draw attention to your post. Here's a mock-up design of my sample campaign. 
Goal achievement The mock-up I’ve created here is just the tip of the iceberg. You can be far more adventurous if you wish – it all depends on where you want to direct your visitors, the kind of conversation you want to have, and how many levels you add to the messaging sequence. Here are two more ideas:
Here are some additional tactics to consider:
Summary ManyChat’s Facebook comments growth tool is a fun, friendly and effective way to build Page awareness, increase organic reach beyond your existing Facebook community, and generate excitement about your book. In future articles in this series, I’ll walk you through how to use a chatbot to build your mailing list, help people navigate their way around your website, and take action on a landing page. I’ll also delve deeper into how you might use these tools creatively to build your fanbase and get people talking about your books. Until then, it’s goodbye from me and Lulu! P.S. From 1–24 December, Lulu and I will be having a little festive fun on my own Facebook Page. Do drop in to see what’s going on!
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
An editor or book coach can teach you new ideas and techniques, and help you begin the journey of mastering novel craft right from the get-go ... if you're prepared to embrace a growth mindset. My guest this week is Lisa Poisso, a professional editor and writing coach who specializes in helping authors fix the big-picture problems.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #86
I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m not very good. Will you fix my book? If this sounds like the way you tiptoed into your first professional edit, you’re due for a new mindset. An edit is a creative opportunity begging to burst open and drench you with new ideas and techniques.
There’s no better time to reach for growth than when you’re first starting out. You’ll hear a lot of publishing types claim that debut authors need to put in their dues. Write, they tell you, and fail. Write more, and fail again. That’s the apprenticeship process – or so they say. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Hiring an editor or writing coach can be a smart way to accelerate your learning curve. It’s all about the way you and your editor approach your edit. Are you feeding your writing with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? 
The growth mindset
If you’re a first-time author, your debut novel isn’t likely to hit it big. You know that. Editors know that. So you might tell yourself that there’s no sense in paying for a professional edit until readers start buying your books and ‘it really matters'. The problem is this: if your book isn’t very good and nobody wants to buy it, when will it really matter? Enter a new mindset about developing your craft. The fixed mindset, a term developed by Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, keeps your feet stuck to the same two dusty patches of dirt you’ve been standing on for years. With a fixed mindset, you accept that you possess finite abilities capped at a specific level. Editing is about propping up your shortcomings and repairing your inevitable mistakes. But editors can help you achieve so much more. Your editor can show you how to structure a compelling story, beef up the elements that drive your plot, solidify your language, and polish your writing voice. You’ll make strides it might have taken years to struggle through on your own. But that won’t happen unless you decide that developing your craft is worth the time, money, and effort. It won’t happen until you agree that you’re ready to grow. 
Your first edit
A first novel is a learning experience. Authors call them ‘practice novels’ or ‘trunk novels'. They write their hearts out and then lock the results deep inside a file cabinet or trunk. The results aren’t all that different from the canvases artists create to experiment with and practise new techniques. They’re not meant for public consumption. Good on you for finishing your first manuscript. A complete novel is a tremendous achievement – but it’s unlikely that this first effort will become a bestseller. So start writing the next one. If you really want to make a go of this writing thing, you’ll need more than one good idea in a lifetime, right? Whip up the next concept and get it simmering. Meanwhile, seek feedback on the first manuscript from a writing partner or critique group. Give yourself the space to learn as you go rather than pinning all your hopes and ambitions on a single beginner’s effort. And then when you’ve finally written something your test readers and critique partners are giving you good feedback about, consider a professional edit. 
The learning curve
You could keep plugging away for years, feeding book after book to your writer’s trunk. You might gain some confidence and make some incremental progress. But without professional feedback, you might not be able to figure out which parts of your story work and which don’t. You might not be able to spot what passages show a distinctive authorial voice and what parts are still mushy. At some point, it’s time for professional eyes. Send your manuscript to a few editors for a professional assessment. You’re not hiring anyone yet; you’re not paying for a critique or evaluation. All you want is that initial handshake. Every editor performs some sort of brief survey of new projects to help them decide if the project and type of work required falls within their wheelhouse. Ask the editor to flip through, take a peek at a few spots, and see if your work is ready for editing. What strengths and weaknesses do they spot? What kind of editing do they recommend? Would they take you on as a client or do they have other recommendations? If the results are encouraging, use the feedback you’ve gathered to help you choose a compatible editor. It’s time for some editing. 
A learning experience
Even a routine, production-oriented edit is a learning experience. But when you hire an editor who enjoys working with authors bent on growth and improvement, an edit becomes something else altogether: an intense, one-on-one workshop in storytelling and writing. I like to compare your motivations for an edit to the motivations you create for the characters in your story. Your characters’ external, conscious motivations wrap around their secret, unconscious motivations – and the same goes for you. Polishing your manuscript for publication might be your conscious motivation, but with a growth mindset, you’ll come to realize that the real value of an edit lies in the substantial leaps you can make toward mastering your craft. Professional editing is no guarantee that your novel will be publishable in the end. But if you’ve chosen a qualified professional, you can count on acquiring invaluable insights into your writing technique. You can count on a growth experience. 
What’s your writing worth to you?
I’m constantly astounded by the number of new writers who don’t believe that writing is worth the level of commitment any serious hobbyist would give their hobby. A recreational cyclist can easily drop thousands every year on bicycles, riding gear, event and travel fees, club and periodical subscriptions, and more. A collector of anything? The expenditures are obvious. But when it comes to writing, people somehow feel guilty about spending money on classes or craft books or editing to help them develop their passion. Just think how conflicted they must feel if they’re also harbouring hopes of getting published. Somehow, they have to go from beginner to professional with no help – and at no cost. Is a professional edit still worth it even if your book never gets any bites from an agent or sells more than 50 copies on Amazon? If using your manuscript to spring to a new level of skill ignites your creative jets, you’re ready to invest in yourself. You’re ready to turn a growth mindset into growth. It’s that simple. See you on the other side of the edit.
Lisa Poisso works with traditionally publishing and self-published authors to show them how to lift their stories to their full potential. She specializes in editing and coaching for commercial fiction, particularly upmarket and women’s fiction, action-adventure, and thrillers. She’s also a seasoned editor of fantasy, science fiction, and all flavors of speculative fiction.
Lisa has been a publication editor, journalist, managing editor, content writer, and communications consultant for more than 25 years. She holds degrees in journalism and fine arts and remains a working writer. She’s a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association and a charter member of the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals. Her studio staff includes her industrious editorial assistants – two greyhounds and a staghound. #45mphcouchpotatoes #adoptdontshop LisaPoisso.com | Twitter: @LisaPoisso | Facebook | Pinterest
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Should you edit or proofread pornography? What if it’s erotica? Is there even a difference?
Does sexually explicit written material deserve to be edited? What is it exactly, and what is it not? And if you want to edit it, how do you make yourself visible to its authors? Perhaps you have strict criteria for the types or subgenres of pornography or erotica that you’ll edit. In that case, how can you communicate these to potential clients? Here’s my take. And it is only my take. Some of my colleagues won’t touch the stuff with a bargepole. And those of us who will? Well, we all have our individual boundaries. What is pornography? And what is it not? If only there were a universally accepted definition of pornography. There isn’t, alas. What you consider porn may not be what I consider porn. Or one of us might think a written work is more erotic than pornographic. Others might not even bother making a distinction. And that’s the first thing any editor needs to recognize. The term ‘pornography’ is loaded with subjectivism and preconceptions, many of them heteronormative, so what you’re expecting and what actually ends up in your editing studio could be two very different things. ‘Pornography is notoriously difficult to define, and overburdened with assumptions concerning – at the very least – gender, sexuality, power, globalization, desire, affect, and labour,’ say Rebecca Sullivan and Alan McKee. Oxford offers the following broad definition: ‘Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.’ And broad it is. Too broad, in my opinion, because it doesn’t exclude materials with descriptions or displays of non-consenting performers and minors, which are illegal. What we can say is that definitions are contested – in society, in the courts, and in academic literature. That makes it difficult for the editor who’s asked, ‘Do you copyedit pornography?’ because even if you think you don’t, others might think you do because they have different opinions on what constitutes porn. So what do we do? I think custom guidelines are the answer, particularly if you decide to publicize the fact that you’re happy to edit sexually explicit material. Before we discuss these, let’s consider erotica. 
Is there a difference between pornography and erotica?
If there is a difference, it’s unlikely that the lines of distinction so clearly drawn in your own head will be shared by everyone else you consult on the matter. Echoing Sullivan and McKee, Leon F Seltzer notes the degree to which ‘the criteria used for distinguishing between the erotic and pornographic [are] … steeped in personal moral, aesthetic, and religious values’. And he goes on to say that the erotic ‘doesn’t appeal exclusively to our senses or carnal appetites. It also engages our aesthetic sense.’ Tracy Cooper-Posey’s distinction draws specifically on novel-craft: erotica isn’t ‘only about sex, unlike its gutter-cousin, pornography. At its purest, the new erotic novel is a brilliantly-written story with super-nova sex that compliments the caliber of the writing, and is fundamental to the plot and characters. In other words, if you remove the sex, the story can’t be told.’ And so it may be that if you, the editor, decide a manuscript’s sexually explicit content contains enough celebration of the human form and is written to a high enough standard, or has a good enough plot, then it’s erotica. If not, it’s porn. It seems to me that getting bogged down in the definitions will get us nowhere fast. The terminology is as tangled as that used to describe editorial services (well, maybe not that bad!). If the author’s struggling to write well, but is trying to create erotica, who am I to say it’s porn? And if it’s just sex that aims for nothing but titillation, but it’s written beautifully, artfully, does that mean it’s no longer porn? If your decision is down to the art-versus-smut argument, one thing’s for sure: you’re going to need to see a sample. And if you want to work on only certain types of material, you’ll do well to create some guidelines. 
Creating guidelines to keep you comfortable
Guidelines don’t just help you and the writer decide whether you’re a good fit. They’re also a great way of demonstrating your engagement with the subject and your willingness to have a conversation with a nervous or embarrassed author. What should you include? There’s no one way of going about this; include whatever’s important to you and what you want the author to know. Here are just a few ideas:
Are pornography and erotica worth editing?
‘Even filth needs editing,’ said my colleague Louise Bolotin when she wrote about the issue on my blog back in 2012, and I agree. The porn and erotica writers for whom I’ve worked are as committed to their writing as any crime fiction, thriller or literary fiction author. A client recently told me, ‘I love my writing and with your help I hope it can lead to something else. If we don’t dream, then we don’t create. I’m proud of my stories but this is a whole new world for me, and like anybody who writes, there’s insecurity.’ What was I dealing with? Not plot, no. Seltzer’s and Cooper-Posey’s definitions chimed here. But my client needed a lot of help with punctuation to make the narrative readable. He’d omitted all speech marks, so the dialogue was invisible. There were repetition and syntax problems. But the writing was strong – imaginative, funny, clever, sexy – and in this book at least, I think he had a great turn of phrase (almost poetic at times). The pace was good, the language potent, and the sex appropriately disgraceful. All in all, I think he did an excellent job! Even so, prior to editing, the book wasn’t publishable because it didn’t conform to recognizable standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The reader would have struggled to enjoy the story because they’d have been pulled out of it with every missing full point and speech mark. And that’s my job (and yours) – to help the author help the reader. So, yes, I think pornography and erotica are absolutely worthy of being edited. 
A word on the market
We know there’s a market for pornography and erotica. There are readers with an appetite for these genres, and writers ready to feed it. Those writers need editors to make those stories as good as they can be. If you’re comfortable working on adult material, then you’d do well to make this clear because there seems to be a dearth of professional editors advertising the fact. Here are some numbers generated by searching the UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ Directory of Editorial Services and the Editors Canada Online Directory of Editors using the following key words: 
In both countries, you’ll have the least competition in these directories if you’re prepared to edit porn and erotica (unless your author hyphenates science-fiction!).
Being visible – getting work
If pornography and erotica are genres you want to edit or proofread, approach the issue as you would any other subject specialism. The political science professor will be drawn to editors and proofreaders who make it explicit that they welcome this type of work, have experience of editing the subject matter, and provide resources and guidance that demonstrates that expertise. Pornography and erotica authors are no different. And so:
Anxiety – yours and the author’s
Some editors are keen to take on the work but anxious that it might reflect badly on them. Does being public about your willingness to edit pornography and erotica damage your reputation? I don’t believe so. Pornography and erotica are recognized genres. As long as we present our willingness to edit them with the same professionalism as we’d approach politics or philosophy, science fiction or romance, I see no problem. I and several of my editor friends are open about the fact that we work on adult material and none of us has suffered problems acquiring work. I think that’s down to the fact that we’re all committed to marketing our editorial businesses, and focusing on the value we can bring to the table. That’s what clients concentrate on, not the things that are of no interest to them. The thriller writer cares that I work on thrillers, not that I also copyedit erotica and historical fiction. Editors aren’t the only Nervous Nellies. Some of the writers who’ve contacted me about editing porn and erotica are anxious too. The emails usually start with something on the lines of ‘I feel a little embarrassed about this but …’ or ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but …’ Again, guidelines and resources can help to reassure an author before they send the email. Summing up If you’re happy to edit porn and erotica, go for it. If you aren't, that's fine too. As independent business owners we can choose what material we want to work on and what we don’t. Wanting to edit a particular genre isn’t enough. Make sure your willingness to edit porn and erotica is visible – on your website and in the editorial directories you advertise in. If you don’t say it, you won’t be heard. Further reading
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
This is the second in a series of guest posts by my colleague Steve Allen, a soldier-turned-editor who specializes in firearms and military-particulars editing. Here are four more tips to consider when writing about firearms in fiction.
1. Is it just a gun?
Is is ever just a gun? Yes and no. Any gun is not substitutable at will for another gun. Not all guns share the same features, nor can one gun do everything. Just as mechanics need more than one wrench, some tasks require different guns. All firearms share common basic features but are quite varied, similar to tools. Choose the correct tool for your characters based on the story and situation. Do not give the hero a 9mm pistol nailing bad guys at 900 yards (823 metres). Use a scoped high-power rifle for shots greater than 600 yards (549 metres). A shotgun, even when loaded with rifled slugs, cannot shoot accurately across a valley. Shotguns and pistols are designed for up close and personal. 
2. Terminology tangles
I don’t fault writers for simple and common terminology and vernacular mistakes, unless their target readers would. I ignore basic firearms terminology mistakes as long as the author is clear on intent and meaning. Most people use cartridges, shells, rounds and bullets interchangeably. Referring to a magazine as a clip is usually not a story-killer – unless you’re writing very gun-centric fiction where the character would not make that mistake. Firearms terminology and acronyms are writer-trapping quagmires – avoid them if you can. Establish gun terms early in the manuscript. If your writing feels like you’re trying too hard, your readers will know. Be consistent with your terminology and keep things simple. If you refer to a magazine as a clip, do so throughout the story. Flipping back and forth between terms confuses readers. Use the term assault rifle with care. Know if you will offend your readers by the use of 'assault rifle' or if they will even care. There is no precise lawful definition of what is an assault rifle. Adolf Hitler is credited with creating the term as a propaganda piece during WWII. In the US, assault rifle is generally used by politicians demonizing a particular weapon, hoping to ban by legislation its ownership and sale. 
3. Clip-fed revolvers … and reloading
The revolver reloaded by a magazine is a less frequent mistake, but one I notice occasionally. Revolvers are loaded by stripper clips, speed loaders or loose rounds, not magazines. Know at least the basics of how and with what the guns are reloaded in your story. Reloading a weapon is best kept general, with as few words as possible, before returning to the action quickly. Explaining that your character popped open his revolver, dumped the empty cartridges, then refilled it with loose rounds from his pocket, snapping it closed when full, is sufficient. Better yet, just mention that the character reloaded and let the readers form their own mental images. You don’t need to describe every single step of reloading a gun, because it detracts from the action. 
4. Your hero put what on a what?
Improper use of firearm accessories or impossible accessory attachment is a fairly common mistake. For example – rogue Chinese general assassinates the Chinese president with a suppressed revolver. Frequent mistakes that I see include:
With attachments and accessories, follow the KISS principle. For a writer unfamiliar with guns, KISS means Keep It Simple, Stupid. More is not always better. Complicating firearms in combat can be disastrous for your hero. Next time, we'll be looking at thumb safeties and silencers among other things. Until then, if you have any questions for Steve about firearms in fiction, drop them in the comments and he'll help you out.
Steve Allen is a retired soldier living north of Seattle, WA, with his lovely wife and daughters, and a neurotic terrier and a goofy black Labrador.
When not editing, Steve wanders the Pacific Northwest on roads less travelled, searching for good books and very cold beer. Email: stevenwordsmith67@gmail.com
Access the full 45-page ebook now by clicking on the book image below.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Writing about pain is hard, but there’s no shame in that struggle; it’s difficult to articulate even when we’re experiencing it.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's
Self-Publishing: The Carnival of the Indies #85
‘Pain is […] the kind of subjective and poorly delineated experience that is difficult to express satisfactorily in language […] Indeed, pain shares some of the characteristics of target domains that have received considerable attention in the cognitive linguistic literature. Like LOVE, for example, it is private, subjective [...] cannot be directly observed,’ says linguist Elena Semino.
When researching this article, I was surprised by how little has been written about the art of depicting physical pain in fiction. And, yet, the act of hurting is prevalent in most genres; it deserves as much attention as emotional distress. I've come across a few examples in my sentence-level editing work this year where great writers came a little unstuck, tending towards repetition and overwriting the pain. That was my prompt to delve deeper. I thought it would be interesting to look at depictions of physical pain from within the bubble of novel craft ... and beyond, in medicine and poetry. Here are 5 tips to help you write about physical suffering. 1. Don’t always say it hurts – less is more ‘Pain is something we all go through to a lesser or greater extent. It’s something we all know intimately. Yet it’s so hard to describe and write about. It’s hard to push beyond “it hurts” and not wallow in it and also hold your reader,’ writes Justine Larbalestier. She’s spot on. It’s why some beginner writers’ pain scenes end up either repetitive, overwritten or clichéd. Trust your reader. If a character’s elbow is smashed with a hammer, do we really need to be told that it hurt, that he ‘writhed in agony’, that he was ‘wracked with pain’? Sometimes less is more. Readers are very good at filling in the gaps. Just as we imagine (without being directed to) a character rolling her eyes when she’s frustrated, raking her hands through her hair when she’s downcast, or biting her lip when she’s anxious, so we know that she feels pain when she’s kicked or punched, when she stubs her toe, when she’s stabbed, whipped or bitten. Mick Herron is a master of keeping it lean. It’s not that he avoids mentioning pain, but he weaves experience into its telling that makes the reader think, Yes, I get that. Here’s an extract from Slow Horses: Arms pulled River upright and his body screamed, but felt good at the same time – aching its way out of a cramp. A bottle was pressed to his lips, and water poured into his mouth. River coughed and bent forward; spat; threw up almost. Then blindly reached for the bottle, grabbed it, and greedily gulped down the rest of its contents. ‘Shit, man,’ Griff Yates said. ‘You really are a fucking mess.’ 
2. Consider the type of pain
Commonly understood descriptors can be useful when thinking about pain writing. Semino references the 1971 McGill Pain Questionnaire and summarizes author Ronald Melzack’s categorization as follows:
The first way in which you might use this table is to apply the descriptors to your writing of a character’s pain. These can help you with the shape and movement of it.
Here's a fine example cited by Susannah Mintz. It's a scene from Sharon Cameron's Beautiful Work, where the narrator, Anna, says of her pain: [It is a] beating between my breasts, and a reverberation of beating upward to my collarbone – a low steady hum, close to my body, not touching it. But agitating it. Below the beating, a thick, spikelike pressure was driving down to my belly …. The roof of my mouth was dry. I couldn’t swallow. A harsher beating arose near the surface of the skin in my left breast below the nipple. (84) The descriptors are evident, but Cameron uses them artfully to bring the pain to life; it has intention. It does things to Anna ... it's 'near' her, 'close to' her, rather than within her. In this detached state, the pain becomes a supporting character in the scene. 
3. Focus on pain's consequences
Think about how you might show physical and emotional reactions rather than telling the pain. You could use the descriptors from the table above as nudges as to what those reactions might be. For example, if your character’s pain is crushing, you might express this by showing him struggling for breath; if it’s gnawing, you might have him bent and holding his belly. Back to the hammer and the elbow … what if instead of being told that the character is in agony, we learn that he doubles over, falls to his knees, vomits, or blanches? Perhaps he experiences a white-out, or loses control of his bowels. What about the sounds he makes … or those he doesn’t because he’s rendered voiceless? How does the pain move and what does it look like? Some of these reactions might be brutal, but the injury and consequent pain are themselves brutal and needn’t be shied away from. Similarly, emotional reactions can help with the writing of physical pain. How does your character feel when that hammer hits his elbow? Depressed, frightened, vulnerable, hopeless, despairing, humiliated, angry? In The Poppy Factory, William Fairchild focuses sharply on the sounds and movements his character makes, and shows the hurting through them. Then suddenly you're down and all movement stops like a jammed cine film. You're still screaming but now it's different. It's because of the pain and when you try to get up, your legs won't move. You don't know where you are. All you know is that you're alone and probably going to die. When you stop screaming and look up, the sky is dark and you can't hear the guns any more, only the sound of someone moaning softly. It takes a few moments before you realise it's yourself. In the PDF below, I've included some additional ideas for possible reactions to pain, (based on the nudges from the descriptor table above). There's space for you to add your own. 
4. Acknowledge the limitations of agony
When I’m told that a character is in (physical) agony, my expectations of what she is capable of are changed. I’ve only been in agony a couple of times in my life, and I was good for nothing, rendered almost immobile. Reason left me. So did language. And so just because our protagonist is an MI5 agent with advanced armed-combat skills and interrogation-resistance techniques, there’s probably only so much she can take if she’s in agony. Some genres of writing lend themselves better than others to acute pain tolerance – fantasy and sci-fi, obviously, when world-building rules allow for it; and action/adventure with Jason Bourne-like characters who refuse to go down no matter what they’re subjected to. Somewhere there’s always a line, though – a point where Invulnerable Uberguy becomes unbelievable, laughable. If we’re told he’s in agony but he’s still throwing cool punches, turning roundhouse kicks, evaluating his escape route and planning this evening’s dinner date all at the same time, parody’s not far away. There’s nothing wrong with escapist writing that allows for agony tolerance and superhero-like brilliance as long as that’s your intention and your reader’s expectation. If you’re aiming for authenticity and grit, though, be mindful of pain thresholds, especially what’s possible when your character’s in agony. Agony, drawn realistically, can make us doubt the protagonist’s ability to make it. Why is that interesting? Says K.M. Weiland: ‘A good story should have the power to engage [readers] in a character’s suffering even when they know it’s all going to turn out right in the end. Every time an obstacle shows up between your protagonist and his goal, ask yourself: Is this just something that happens to him? Does he just brush it off and move on? Or does it hit him where it hurts? Does it make him (and readers) doubt his ability to make to the end of his journey?’ 
5. Look at how the poets do it
Milton. Who better? In this excerpt, we’re left in no doubt as to Satan’s physical suffering, and yet there’s no mention of his feeling it. Instead, we see it in our mind’s eye through the effort of his movements (‘uneasy steps’) and the detail in the environment (‘burning marle’, ‘torrid clime’, ‘inflamed sea’) that ‘he so endured’. His Spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great admiral, were but a wand, He walked with to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle, not like those steps On Heaven’s azure, and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire; Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea, he stood and called His Legions, angel forms [...] Which is best? Whether you choose to leave your character's hurt to the reader's imagination, tell it through using commonly understood descriptors, or show it through reaction and environment will depend on your style, genre and intention. If you're in the middle of a fast-paced action scene, Cameron's approach in Beautiful Work might be a distraction for your reader. If you're writing a more introspective scene, Herron's lean approach in Slow Horses could leave the reader wanting. There's no best way of writing about physical suffering. The most important thing is that it shouldn't be boring. Unless your reader has congenital analgesia, they will have experienced pain and know it is anything but tedious. Further reading
Here's your Pain: Type, Shape and Reaction Nudges PDF. Click on the image to download your free copy. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly. |
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