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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how to use exclamation marks, and why more than one is too many.
Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 2
Listen to find out more about:
Editing bites
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise discuss the grammar police, how to manage them, and why they're nothing to do with professional editing.
Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 1
Listen to find out more about:
Editing bites
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Not sure if contractions are a good fit for your fiction’s dialogue? Here’s why they (nearly always) work.
Next time you’re in the pub with friends, at the dinner table with your family, or travelling on the bus, do a bit of people-listening. They’ll speak with contractions: you’re, they’re, I’m, don’t, hadn’t, can’t and so on.
Contractions are a normal part of speech. They help us communicate faster and improve the flow of a sentence. Watch the following videos and listen to the spoken words. They feature people with very different backgrounds, sharing different stories, and in situations that demand varying levels of formality.
The people talking have one thing in common: they use contractions when they speak ... most (though not all) of the time. That’s why when we want to write natural dialogue – dialogue that flows with the ease of real-life speech – contractions work. How contractions affect the flow of dialogue Take a look at this excerpt from No Dominion by Louise Welsh (Kindle edition, John Murray, 2017).
Here’s the contraction-free recast. It reads awkwardly, and leaves us unconvinced that what’s in our mind’s ear bears any relation to what we would have heard had this been real speech. And that means we’re questioning the authenticity of the story rather than immersing ourselves in it.
He settled himself on the chair. ‘I do not know where you have just come from, but round here nothing is odd.’ He emphasised the word, making it sound absurd. ‘People come, people go. Sometimes they need something. Sometimes they have got something I need. We trade and they go on their way.’
Contractions and genre Some authors avoid contractions because of the genre they’re writing in. You’re more likely to see this in historical fiction than contemporary commercial fiction but it’s not strictly genre-specific and is more an issue of authorial style. Here’s an excerpt from a contemporary psychological mystery, The Wych Elm (Penguin, 2019, p. 71). Tana French uses contractions in the narrative and dialogue. The speech sounds natural; the narrative that frames it is informal.
Compare this with Our Mutual Friend (Wordsworth Editions, 1997, p. 235). Dickens, writing literary fiction in the 1860s, still uses contractions in dialogue, although he avoids them in his more formal but wickedly tart narrative.
Now look at Ambrose Parry’s The Way of All Flesh (Canongate Books, 2018). The authors (Parry is the pseudonym used by Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman) don’t avoid contractions completely but the sparing usage does give the dialogue a more archaic feel. Here’s an excerpt from p. 259.
I doubt anyone would be surprised when I say that the setting is 1847. And so it works. However, if the novel were set in 2019, there’d be a problem. We’d consider those characters unrealistically pompous and the dialogue overblown. Contractions, pace and voice The decision to use or avoid contractions is a tool that authors can use to deepen character voice. Specific contracted forms might enable readers to imagine regional accents, social status and personality traits such as pomposity. P.G. Wodehouse is a master of dialogue. Bertie Wooster is a wealthy young idler from the 1920s. Jeeves is his savvy valet. The dialogue between the two pops off the page and Wodehouse uses or avoids contractions to make the characters’ voices distinct.
You can see it in action in The Inimitable Jeeves (Kindle version, Aegitus, 2019).
In Oliver Twist (Wordsworth Classics, 1992, p. 8), Dickens contracts is not (ain’t) and them (’em) to indicate the low social standing of Mrs Mann, who runs a workhouse into which orphaned children are farmed.
Contractions and their impact on stress and tone You can use or omit contractions in order to force where the stress falls in a sentence. Compare the following:
By not using a contraction in the second example, the stress on ‘cannot’ is harder. The change is subtle but evident. With can’t the mood is one of disbelief tempered with a whining tone; with cannot the disbelief remains but the tone is angry. Here’s another excerpt from The Way of All Flesh (p. 140). The speaker is a surgeon, Dr Ziegler.
Parry’s dialogue doesn’t just evoke a historical setting. The style of the speech affects the tone too. The voice is compassionate, the mood stoic. However, the lack of contractions renders the tone precise and careful. On p. 142, Raven – a medical student turned sleuth – talks with the matron about medical charlatanry:
Using there is forces the stress on is, and in consequence the tone is resigned. With there’s the stress would have fallen on worse, and we might have assumed a more conspiratorial tone, as if she were about to divulge a secret. Contractions and narration style If you’re wondering whether to reserve your contractions for dialogue only, consider who the narrator is. Let’s revisit Tana French (p. 1). The viewpoint character is a privileged man called Toby, the setting contemporary Dublin. What’s key here is that the narration viewpoint style is first person. It is Toby who reports the events of the mystery; the narrative voice belongs to him. His narration register is therefore the same as his dialogue register – relaxed, colloquial – and the author, accordingly, retains the contractions in the narrative.
For sections written in third-person limited, the narrative voice would likely mirror the viewpoint character’s style of speaking. However, if you shift to a third-person objective viewpoint, where the distance between the characters and the readers is greater, the narrative might handle contractions differently to dialogue. It's a style choice you'll have to make. Guidance from Chicago Still a little nervous? Here’s some sensible advice from The Chicago Manual of Style, section 5.105:
‘Most types of writing benefit from the use of contractions. If used thoughtfully, contractions in prose sound natural and relaxed and make reading more enjoyable. Be-verbs and most of the auxiliary verbs are contracted when followed by not: are not–aren’t, was not–wasn’t, cannot–can’t, could not–couldn’t, do not–don’t, and so on. A few, such as ought not–oughtn’t, look or sound awkward and are best avoided. Pronouns can be contracted with auxiliaries, with forms of have, and with some be-verbs. Think before using one of the less common contractions, which often don’t work well in prose, except perhaps in dialogue or quotations.’
Evaluate the sound Here are three ways to help you evaluate the effectiveness of contracted or contracted-free dialogue: 1. Read the dialogue aloud: Is it difficult or awkward to say it? Does it sound unnatural to your ear? Do you stumble? Does it feel laboured, like you’re forcing the flow? If so, recast it with contractions. If the revised version is smoother, and the integrity of the setting is retained, go with the contracted forms. 2. Ask someone else to read the dialogue: Objectivity is almost impossible when it comes to our own writing. If the plan is that no one but you will ever read your book, write your dialogue the way you want to write it and leave it at that. If, however, you’re writing for readers too, and want to give them the best experience possible, fresh eyes (and ears) will serve you well. You could even give your readers two versions of the dialogue sample – one with contractions and one without – and ask them which flows better and reads most naturally. 3. Head for YouTube: Dig out examples of speech by people whose backgrounds, environments and historical settings are similar to those of your characters. Watching characters in action will give you confidence to place on the page what can be heard from the mouths of those on the screen. Summing up Whether to use contractions or not in dialogue is a style choice. There are no rules. However, a style choice that renders dialogue stilted and unrealistic is not good dialogue.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Fresh eyes on a piece of writing is ideal. Sometimes, however, the turnaround time for publication precludes it. Other times, the return on investment just won’t justify the cost of hiring a professional proofreader, especially when shorter-form content’s in play. Good enough has to be enough.
Here are 10 ideas to help you minimize errors and inconsistencies. 
Checking our own writing rarely produces the same level of quality as a fresh pair of eyes. We see what we think is on the page, not what is on the page. That's because we're so close to the content.
I'm a professional editor and I know that when I don't pass on my blog posts to one of my colleagues there are more likely to be mistakes. It's not that I don't know my craft but that I'm wearing a writer's hat. Sometimes, getting pro help isn't an option. So what can you do to minimize errors and inconsistencies? Here are 10 tips.
Style guides help you keep track of your preferences, including hyphenation, capitalization, proper-noun spelling, figures and measurements, time and date format.
2. Use a page-proofs checklist
This pro-proofreading checklist helps you spot and identify layout problems in designed page proofs (hard copy or PDF). It’s based on the house guidelines provided by the many mainstream publishers I've worked for.
3. Run PerfectIt
PerfectIt is affordable software that takes the headache out of consistency checking. And because it’s customizable, it will help you enforce your style preferences and save you time. It’s a must-have tool for writers and pro editors.
4. Use find-and-replace in Word
Microsoft Word’s onboard find-and-replace tool enables you to locate and fix problems in your document quickly. This free ebooklet, The Author’s Proofreading Companion, includes a range of handy strings and wildcard searches.
5. Set up styles in Word
Word's styles palette ensures the different elements of your text are formatted consistently. This tutorial shows you how to set up, assign and amend styles. It'll save you heaps of time whether you're working on business documents, web copy, short stories or novels.
6. Trade with a colleague
If you want fresh eyes but budget's an issue, swap quality-control checking with a colleague or friend in the same position. Pick someone who has a strong command of language, spelling and grammar.
Even if they're not a professional editor, they're wearing the hat of the reader, not the originator, and that means they'll spot things you missed. 7. Tools that locate inconsistent spelling
Here are 2 tools to help you locate inconsistent spelling:
8. Run The Bookalyser
The Bookalyser analyses a text for inconsistencies, errors and poor style: 70 different tests across 17 report areas in about 20 seconds, for up to 200,000 words at once. It works on fiction and non-fiction, and for British and American English.
9. Run Word’s onboard Check Document tool
Microsoft Word has an onboard document-checking tool that flags up potential spelling and grammar problems. It's not foolproof (no software is) but it's a second pair of digital eyes that's available at a click.
Go to the ribbon, click on the Review tab, and select the Check Document button. 
10. Read it out loud
Read the text out loud. Your brain works faster than your mouth and you might well spot missing words, grammar flops and problems with sentence flow when you turn the written word into the spoken word!
Word also has an onboard narration tool that can do the speaking for you. There’s a tutorial here: ‘Hear text read aloud with Narrator’.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise explain what a comma splice is, why you should usually avoid it, and how it can add clarity.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 8
Other ways to listen STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform. Don't fancy listening? Here are the nuts and bolts of our podcast chat, based on a transcript from the show. What is a comma splice? When two independent clauses – which could stand on their own as sentences and make perfect sense – are separated by a comma. For example:
Those two sentence above could be separated by a semi-colon, a dash, or a full stop and no one would be breathing grammar rules down your neck: Standard punctuation
However, if you use a comma to separate them, that heavy breathing will come from some quarters: Non-standard: comma splice
Why comma splices trip up readers Some people don’t know what a comma splice is and don’t care. But plenty do, and even if they don’t know what’s it called, they trip up. For those in the know, comma spliced sentences (sometimes) scream off the page for precisely that reason. That's because when readers see a comma they're inclined to think, This is the start of a list. A standard method for showing a reader that they’re coming to the end of a list is to incorporate a coordinating conjunction such as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘though’ and ‘or’. It acts as shorthand for One more item’s coming. Then there’ll be a full stop. And so when only two items are separated by a comma, the reader’s expecting at least one more item in that list. When that third item doesn’t appear and the sentence finishes, the reader is jolted because they've placed the emphasis in the wrong place. Try reading these examples out loud:
Your intonation likely changed as you read the words 'but I think oranges are okay' because you knew you were finishing a sentence. In the second example, you were left hanging after 'hate pears' and likely hadn't placed the stress correctly. These kinds of stumbles are a distraction that, even if only for a split second, pulls the reader out of the writing. Now they’re thinking about where they placed the emphasis, not about our fabulous learning tool, enthralling plot line or groundbreaking academic research. When comma splices can work: fiction Comma splices are probably more prevalent in published fiction, and more acceptable. Sometimes, and with good reason. The comma doesn't always trip up readers. The key is to allow splices to stand when they serve a purpose. Narrative and rhythm Take this example from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity’ and so on. This prose is an experiment in rhythm. The splices work. But something else is going on too – the anaphora. Anaphora is a literary device that uses repetition for rhythmic effect. In the Dickens example, the repetition of 'it was' pulls us along on a beautiful booky wave. Editing in semi-colons or full points would destroy the rhythm and would qualify as an example of editorial hypercorrection. For a more detailed examination of anaphora, read: What is anaphora and how can you use it in fiction writing? Dialogue and mood While a comma splice will stick out like a sore thumb in a piece of academic research or an education textbook, that’s not always the case in dialogue. If the speech is truncated, or there's anaphora in play, a comma might well work. Imagine this scenario in a novel: two characters are having an argument. One says, ‘It’s not me, it’s you’. Strictly speaking, that's a comma splice. There are two independent clauses with a comma. Would it bother you? Probably not. The speech looks and sounds natural to the mind's ear. Changing the comma to a full stop would slow down the rhythm of the character’s speech and affect the emotionality in the dialogue. But most important, readers won't trip up; they'll place the emphasis correctly. And so while emotion and mood have been respected, this hasn't been at the expense of clarity. Summing up
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss en dashes, or en rules, and how to use them in fiction and non-fiction writing.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 7
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Editing bites Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise demystify (and stand up for) one of the most misunderstood pieces of punctuation – the semi-colon.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 5
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Resources
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat about 4 features of written language that are often thought to be Americanisms but aren’t!
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 3
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Mentioned in the show
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Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk with linguist Rob Drummond about grammar pedantry, peevery, youth language, and non-standard language in context.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 2
Other ways to listen STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform. Listen to find out more about ...
Mentioned in the show
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Denise and Louise talk about how to use question marks in fiction and non-fiction according to convention.
Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 1
Other ways to listen STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform. Listen to find out more about
Mentioned in the show
Ask us a question The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button. Music credit ‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here's how to use quote marks (or speech marks) according to publishing convention in your fiction writing. The guidance covers both US English and UK English conventions.
In this post, I cover the following:
What quote marks are used for Quote marks are used in 3 ways in fiction:
Character dialogue Quote marks show that we’re reporting what someone else is saying or said. Each new speaker's dialogue should appear on a new line and include opening and closing quote marks.
To distance the narrator from what's being reported The tone of the distancing rendered by the quote marks will depend on narrative intent. Perhaps the voice is sarcastic. Or the author might want the reader to suspend belief by indicating that a character considers a word or phrase unreliable. Imagine the character is saying so-called or supposed or allegedly before the word in quotes.
'What about your friends? Didn't they help?' Molly said.
Peter almost laughed. The last time his 'friends' had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife. A word of caution: Don't be tempted to differentiate distancing terms in the narrative from dialogue by using an alternate style. If there are double speech marks around the dialogue, there should be double marks around the distancing words.
NON-STANDARD (USING DOUBLES AS BASE STYLE)
"What about your friends? Didn't they help?" Molly said. Peter almost laughed. The last time his 'friends' had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife. STANDARD (USING DOUBLES AS BASE STYLE) "What about your friends? Didn't they help?" Molly said. Peter almost laughed. The last time his "friends" had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife. To denote song titles and other works Quote marks are also used to identify certain published works such as song titles and book chapter titles. So, for example, if a writer is referring to an album or book title, this is rendered in italic. However, when it comes to a song on an album, or a chapter in a book, it's conventional to use quote marks.
Jamie pulled the vinyl from its sleeve. The White Album. His favourite. Well, 'Back in the USSR' anyway. He'd never admit it but he didn't much care for the other songs.
Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue There's one occasion where it's acceptable to omit the closing speech mark in dialogue: same speaker, new paragraph. So, if you want your dialogue to take a new paragraph while retaining the current speaker, use a quotation mark at start of the new line but omit the closing one at the end of the previous paragraph.
Single versus double quote marks There’s no rule, just convention. There are lots of Englishes: US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, etc. Each has its own preferences and idiosyncrasies. Focus on which English your audience will expect, and punctuate your writing accordingly. Whichever style you choose, the main thing is be consistent.
If you choose double quote marks, use the correct symbol, not two singles. Straight versus curly quote marks Curly quote marks are more conventionally known as smart quotes. It’s conventional in mainstream publishing to use smart or curly quotation marks, not unidirectional ones. 
Changing straight quotes to smart quotes is one of the initial clean-up jobs an editor will carry out when they start work on a file. To prevent the problem occurring from the minute you begin typing:
If you’ve pasted material into your book from elsewhere, or you didn’t check autocorrect options before you began typing, there might be some rogue unidirectional marks in your file. To change them quickly, do a global find/replace:
The closing quote mark in relation to other punctuation In fiction, punctuation related to dialogue is placed similarly whether you're writing in US or UK style: within the quote marks. Here are some examples:
However, there's a difference when it comes to distancing or cited works. Note the different placement of the commas and full stops in the US and UK examples. In US English, the commas come before the closing quotation marks; in UK English, they come after.
When not to use quote marks There are 2 issues to consider here:
Thoughts CMOS at section 13.43 says you can use quote marks to indicate thought, imagined dialogue and other internal discourse if you want to. However, I recommend you don't. For one thing, I can’t remember the last time I saw this approach used in commercial fiction coming out of a mainstream publisher’s stable. But the best reason for not putting thoughts in quote marks is because it might confuse your reader. The beauty of quote marks – or speech marks – is that they indicate speech. Let them do their job! Emphasis It can be tempting to use quote marks in your writing to draw attention to a word or phrase, but it’s rarely necessary and could even have the opposite effect to what you intended. It works instead as a distancing tool, as discussed above. If you’re tempted to use quote marks for emphasis, imagine saying the sentence out loud, and making air quotes with your fingers as you speak. Would your character/narrator say it like that? If the answer's no, leave out the quote marks. Italic will work better. Or recast your dialogue so that the reader can work out where to place the stress themselves. Summing up If in doubt about how to use quote marks for your book, consult a style manual. I recommend the Chicago Manual of Style, the Penguin Guide to Punctuation and New Hart’s Rules, all of which offer industry-standard guidance.
Fancy listening instead?
If you'd prefer to listen to the advice offered here, Denise Cowle (a non-fiction editor) and I chat about how to use quote marks in all types of writing on The Editing Podcast. You can listen right here or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
It doesn’t matter a jot to me which kind of English an author wants to write in. What does matter is their readers' expectations and perceptions, and being consistent.
This free booklet shows you how to stay on track. 
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
You have a choice when it comes to tense in your fiction’s narrative. Here’s an overview of the tenses you’ll most likely be working with, and some guidance on the benefits and challenges of each.
The present tense
Here’s an overview of the present tense, with basic examples:
The present is immediate, and that right-nowness forces the reader to stick close to the viewpoint character. We’re in the moment with them. That’s why it appeals to some fiction authors, and why others find it restrictive. With second-person viewpoints, the present tense is intensely voyeuristic, invasive even. Here’s an excerpt from Iain Banks’s Complicity (p. 60). This is a transgressor narrative with a difference – the narrator is anonymous, at least until later in the novel:
And in this example from a later chapter (p. 90), we’re back with the protagonist. Here, the main narrative tense is present. The viewpoint is first-person:
The next day I scrounge a Lambert & Butler off Rose in the Foreign News section, smoke it at my desk and get a real hit off it, then feel disgusted with myself and vow that’s the last one I’m going to smoke.
RECOMMENDATION The present tense is great if you want to shorten the distance between the reader and the viewpoint character. Present tense works particularly well for short fiction because space is limited. I use it often in my own shorts and flashes because it enables me to pack an immersive punch quickly. However, it’s tricky to manage if there are multiple viewpoint-character chapters or sections, all operating in the present tense. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the timelines so that the reader’s clear on what ‘now’ really means. If your plot twist hinges on deliberately duping them via your use of tense rather than story craft, you’ll break their trust. The present tense can also be tiring for readers because it’s emotionally immersive. If you’re writing a novel, you might consider using it only for certain viewpoint characters – your transgressor or victim, for example. In Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh mixes it up: the Anna-viewpoint chapters are set in first-person present; the Murray-viewpoint chapters are third-person past. The past tense Now let’s turn to the past tense, starting with some basic examples:
The past tense is the choice of most contemporary commercial fiction writers. What’s interesting is that readers are so used to this style that they can still immerse themselves in a past-tense narrative as though the story is unfolding now. Here’s an excerpt from T. M. Logan’s 29 Seconds (p. 73). We’re given a past-tense narrative with a third-person limited viewpoint (Sarah’s):
WHEN PAST TENSE FLOPS – UNDERSTANDING PAST PERFECT Less experienced writers can end up in a pickle when referencing events that happened earlier than their novel’s now. The crucial thing to remember is that when we set a novel in the past tense, anything that happens in the story’s past will likely need the past perfect, at least when the action is introduced.
Here’s an excerpt from The Wife Between Us (p. 57) by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. This chapter’s primary narrative tense is past (see underlined verb):
When we’re told that ‘She stood’, that’s the novel’s now. But when the narrator recalls events that happened further back in time (bold) – Samantha’s decorating her bed, and the two women’s procuring a rug – these need to be anchored in the past-perfect tense: had, had been. When authors fail to anchor past events in a novel whose now is already set in the past tense, the reader will be confused. RENDERING BYGONE ROUTINE – UNDERSTANDING HABITUAL PAST Now and then, you might want to reference events from your novel’s past that happened routinely or habitually. This is where the habitual past tense comes into play, and the tools are would and used to. This excerpt from The Templar's Garden by Catherine Clover illustrates the usage. The narrative is set in third-person past but the viewpoint character is recalling regular journeys taken earlier in her life:
And in Time To Win (p. 62), Harry Brett uses the simple past and past progressive for the most part, but then Frank, the viewpoint character, recalls something he’d done habitually in former times:
Like the past perfect, the habitual past acts as an anchor, so that readers don’t mix up the reminiscence of a routine event with the novel’s now. To see that confusion in action, replace ‘used to enjoy’ with the simple past: ‘enjoyed’. It reads as if Frank is enjoying driving down South Denes Road right now. If you don’t want to use the habitual past, then an alternative anchor is necessary. Here I’ve added an anchoring clause and changed the tense to past perfect (he’d, or he had):
RECOMMENDATION The past tense is flexible; it’s easier to shift narrative distance (the distance between the reader and the narrator) than is the case with the present tense, though this does increase the risk of flatter writing. Dramatic scenes – fights, escapes, arguments – could end up laboured if the writing isn’t lean and rich. Still, it’s traditional and readers are used to it. No one will get tired of reading in the past as long as the line craft is strong. Do take care, however, with rendering events that have taken place in your novel’s past. Use the past perfect or the habitual past when necessary to ensure your readers know what happened when. Summing up Write in the tense you feel most comfortable with, and that you think readers of your genre will be most comfortable reading. The past and the present both have their challenges and their advantages. The most important thing is that readers know where and when they are in the story. Cited sources
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Round brackets, or parentheses, crop up less frequently than many punctuation symbols in fiction writing, but that doesn’t mean we must ban them. This post explores two ways to make them work effectively.
What are round brackets? This is what they look like: ( ) They always come in pairs, and act as alternatives to paired dashes or commas in fiction. They have other functions in non-fiction writing but I’ll leave that discussion to a non-fiction editor! Compare these examples:
All of the above are grammatically correct, though paired brackets (like dashes) are stronger than commas, and more interruptive to the eye than both commas and dashes, probably because they’re used less frequently and associated more with non-fiction work. Every writer will do well to ask themselves how their choice of parenthetical styling will affect the rhythm and clarity of their prose. Every writer will also do well to ask themselves whether readers will be annoyed by them. Like serial commas, adverbs and the singular they, round brackets rarely pass a reader or an editor without evoking opinion. More on that later. Brackets, full points and capitalization Regardless of which English you’re using – British or American, for example – the rule is the same:
Detective Harnby typed up the report and dumped it on the desk in the chief-super’s office (and what a sty that was).
Detective Harnby typed up the report and dumped it on the desk in the chief-super’s office. (And what a sty that was.)
Danger, Will Robinson! Round brackets in fiction garner strong opinion, usually negative. The most-cited reason I’ve seen – and it’s a valid one – is that they pull readers out of a story. Given that there’s no reason on earth why you’d want to pull a reader out of a story, tread carefully. Still, given that they’re not grammatically wrong, it’s only right that we should consider the ways in which round brackets might work in your fiction. The two I’ve seen most often are as follows:
Round brackets in fiction: Satire For an example of how round brackets can be used for satirical purposes, we need look no further than Dickens. In Our Mutual Friend (Wordsworth Editions, 1997), the viewpoint is omniscient. The scene is an ostentatious banquet hosted by the Veneerings. Dickens uses round brackets to set off narrative asides that poke fun at the guests and show them as the bumptious fools he believes them to be – and wants us to. Here’s an excerpt from p. 11:
A mirror reflects the Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel-of-all-work. The Heralds’ College found out a crusading ancestor for Veneering, who bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought of it),
In other words, the crest is a farce. And one of the diners, a Mr Twemlow, is obsessed over whether he is Veneering’s ‘oldest friend’, though he would never admit to being bothered by such a thing. Dickens’s bracketed snipe (p. 12) leaves us in no doubt about the man’s snobbery; it interrupts the dialogue of Lady Tippins, a frightful show-off whose ‘my dear’ sends Twemlow into a tizzy:
This approach is unlikely to find favour with readers who bought your high-octane thriller expecting a rollercoaster ride. The external narrator’s voice is overwhelming, and in most contemporary commercial fiction it will slow readers down, drag them out of the story, and infuriate them. Round brackets in fiction: Viewpoint shifts Take a look at this example from Stephen King’s The Outsider (p. 252; Hodder, 2018):
The brackets are effective here precisely because they’re interruptive. The narrative viewpoint in this section is third-person; we see the world as Holly, the private investigator, experiences it. Given that it’s third-person, our finding out something that Holly hasn’t considered shifts the narrative distance. Such a shift might jar under other circumstances because it yanks us out of Holly’s head. King, however, is a master of viewpoint, and he writes his characters with a rich immediacy. Still, he finds ways to introduce flexibility seamlessly, and in this case it’s with round brackets to introduce his omniscient narrator. The parentheses allow an external narrator to enter the story just for a moment – an all-seeing eye that tells us what Holly didn’t think – but that voice is cocooned safely within those round brackets, and is gone as soon as the reader’s eye passes over the closing symbol. King’s an experienced writer. If you’re not, I recommend holding a single character viewpoint and steering clear of bracketed interruptions from another narrator. Here are four ways we could recast the King excerpt:
Spaced en dash
With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal – no way was she paying room-service prices. Closed-up em dash With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal—no way was she paying room-service prices. Semicolon With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal; no way was she paying room-service prices. Full point With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal. No way was she paying room-service prices. Round brackets in fiction: Dialogue In Fix Your Damn Book! How to Painlessly Self-Edit Your Novels & Stories (Gift Horse Productions, 2016), James Osiris Baldwin advises never using round brackets in dialogue because they break ‘the fourth wall’. What’s the fourth wall? It’s originally a theatrical term but in our case refers to ‘The conceptual barrier between any fictional work and its viewers or readers’ (Lexico/Oxford Dictionaries). It’s good advice. It makes no sense to give an external narrator space inside a character’s speech. That’s why in the earlier Dickens example, the interruption comes between the speech-marked dialogue rather than within it. Summing up There’s nothing grammatically wrong with using round brackets. Stylistically, however, they could be a misfire. If you use them in your fiction, think care and rare: understand the impact they have on story and viewpoint, and use them infrequently.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about adverbs, and how to use or remove them purposefully.
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Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you're a new proofreader or editor, having a global mindset in regard to choosing reference resources is essential for maximizing editorial business opportunities.
Like many of my fellow editorial business owners, I’m often approached by potential new entrants to the field who want advice about getting started. One of the most oft-asked questions is: ‘Which reference resources – style guides, dictionaries and the like – do I need?'
Bear in mind that anyone you seek guidance from in regard to best-fit resources must respect the fact that you might not be from the same place as them, speak like them, have the same potential clients as them, and spell colour/color like they do, or as a client brief asks them to. Centrism, whether from the United Kingdom, the United States, or elsewhere in the world, is useless to you as a new entrant because it’s based on false assumptions about you and your potential clients. 
Social science ‘styles’ from an international perspective
Here’s a wee case fictive case study. Imagine a new entrant to the editing profession tells me the following:
Based on this, I suggest that social science publishers and academics would be good initial target markets. Does my new starter’s location affect their choice of potential publishers clients? It’s not clear cut. The online world has knocked down those geographical boundaries; you don’t have to spend a fortune to send page proofs to someone hundreds of miles away; you can email them to someone thousands of miles away for the price of an Internet connection. And how does my new starter’s location in the United States more broadly affect what they need to learn in terms of styles and language preferences? Again, it’s not clear cut. I see The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) recommended as the sole must-have resource so often in online discussions about editorial work that I worry that new entrants may fall into the trap of thinking that this ‘bible’ alone will tell them everything they need to know. Super though it is (I love chunks of it for fiction editing), CMOS is not the be all and end all of style guides, because it depends on what a client wants, the subject matter and country-specific language preferences. The California-based publisher SAGE Publications asks that its copyeditors have a thorough knowledge of both the CMOS and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). But note that these are core requirements for SAGE’s US book division. If you want to freelance for the US journal division, you’ll need to add the AMA Manual of Style and The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers to your reading list. (Bear in mind, too, that not all publishers want us to use the most current version of these manuals.) But why stop there? If my new starter can get work with SAGE in California, might it not be sensible to tap its sister office in London? But in that case, our newbie will also need familiarity with New Hart’s Rules, The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and Butcher’s Copyediting. Or what if our new starter decides to target social science academics who are based in the US? They'll need to ask:
Actually, it’s just as likely that an eminent Boston-based scholar will submit to the European Journal of Political Research as to the American Political Science Review, Scandinavian Political Studies, or the Canadian Journal of Political Science. This will impact on what our newbie needs to know. For example:
Location doesn’t determine readership
Where our clients live doesn’t determine where they publish or the location of their intended readership. Given that the editorial freelancing market is competitive, it makes sense to exploit the most obvious opportunities. In the Internet Age, the physical barriers are gone. The only barrier to exploring an international work stream is an inability to appreciate that language conventions and preferences differ according to client (whether that be a particular publisher, a particular independent author, a particular journal), not according to one, and only one, globally recognized set of rules. Honestly – such a thing doesn’t exist; it doesn’t even exist within many countries.
Diversity of geography, language, and preferences
It’s not so much about where we live, but where our clients live and what preferences they have.
If you're a new entrant to the field and are wondering what you need to know, instead of listening to my preferences, familiarize yourself with a number of appropriate resources depending on what your clients want. Perhaps it’s CMOS; perhaps it’s not. And even if it is, ONLY knowing this could mean you're seriously restricting the base of clients for whom you can work, the types of material you can work on, and the geographical locations you can explore. So try the following:
If your world revolves around CMOS, it’s possibly a smaller world than it needs to be. And if your world is smaller than it needs to be, so are the opportunities you're exploring in a market that’s already very competitive. One other item to note. CMOS, CSE, APA, AMA, and the like are style guides; they give you guidance on whether, for example, to close up or hyphenate a compound adjective. They won't necessarily give you extensive guidance on how a word is being used, and whether that usage is considered standard, and in which community. Usage manuals, which give that kind of information, are as important as style guides. Using a style guide or a usage manual alone is an invitation to disaster. 
Out with borders and in with flexibility When you’re the owner of an editorial business you need to learn what your clients want you to learn, whether it’s a manual published by Chicago or Oxford, a house brief designed by a team of publisher project managers, a detailed set of guidelines issued by a European NGO, or a short brief issued by an independent author of fiction. I encourage you to think broadly, globally, and flexibly. If someone tries to guide to towards only one set of ‘rules’, at best their advice will restrict you; at worst it will be just plain wrong or inappropriate. There is, alas, no simple answer to the question of which resources are best. Instead, careful thought and planning centred around client- and skill-focused research is a good first step. That way, you’ll learn for yourself what resources, tools, and knowledge bases are suitable for you, your potential market, and your particular business model. Language usage, styles, and preferences differ – and that’s okay. Don’t let anyone tell y |
