The Editing Podcast: Zombie rules we can do without, part 1

2/11/2020

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle talk about zombie rules, and why they have no place in a professional editor's toolbox.

Listen to find out more about

What a zombie rule is
Why split infinitives are not grammatically problematic
Why it's okay to start a sentence with a conjunction

Dig into these related resources

Blog post: Fiction grammar: Is it okay to start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’?
Blog post: What are expletives in the grammar of fiction?
Blog post: Should I use a comma before coordinating conjunctions and independent clauses in fiction?
Podcast: How to manage the grammar police
Resources for proofreading your own writing
Podcast: Linguist Rob Drummond on grammar pedantry, peevery and youth language
Blog post: What's the difference between a rule and a preference? Advice for new writers

Music Credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller 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.

0 Comments

When to indent text: Laying out narrative and dialogue in fiction

27/7/2020

14 Comments

This post explains when and how to indent your narrative and dialogue according to publishing-industry convention.

To indent or not to indent: A quick guide to laying out narrative and dialogue in fiction

The purpose of first-line indents
Each new paragraph signifies a change or shift of some sort ... perhaps a new idea, piece of action, thought or speaker, even a moderation or acceleration of pace. Still, the prose in all those paragraphs within a section is connected.

Paragraph indents have two purposes in fiction:

Readability: They help the reader identify the shifts visually.
Connectivity: They indicate a journey. Indented paragraphs are related to what's come before ... part of the same scene.

First lines in chapters and new sections
Chapters and sections are bigger shifts: perhaps the viewpoint character changes, or there's a shift in timeline or location.

To mark this bigger shift in a novel, it’s conventional not to indent the first line of text in a new chapter or a new section. You might hear editorial folks refer to this non-indented text as full out.

This is standard with narrative and dialogue.
The convention applies regardless of your line spacing.

NARRATIVE LAYOUT
The following example is taken from Part 5, Chapter 2, of Christopher Priest’s Inverted World (p. 287, 2010):

Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
The first line is not indented.
The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

And here's an example from Part 2, Chapter 6, p. 147, which shows how the layout works the same after a section break:

Paragraph 1 is the first in the section.
The first line is not indented.
The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

Even if an author chooses to include a design feature such as a dropped capital (sometimes called a drop cap), it's standard for that letter to be full out, as shown in the following example from To Kill a Devil (John A. Connell, p. 6, Nailhead Publishing, 2020):

Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
The capital letter on the first and second lines is not indented.
The first line of the paragraph that follows it (2) is indented.

DIALOGUE LAYOUT
The same applies even if the chapter or section starts with dialogue, as in this excerpt from David Rosenfelt's Dog Tags (p. 192, Grand Central, 2010):

Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
The first line is not indented.
The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

Body text: dialogue and narrative
The example below from Blake Crouch's Recursion (p. 4, Macmillan, 2019) shows how the indentation works in the body text when there's a mixture of dialogue and narrative.

Regardless of whether the prose is narrative or reported speech, the text is indented.
The convention applies regardless of line spacing.

IMPACT OF LINE SPACING
Even if you've elected to set your book file with double line spacing (perhaps at the request of a publisher, agent or editor), the indentation convention applies. Here's the Recursion example again, tweaked to show what it would look like:

Indenting text that follows special elements
Your novel might include special elements such as letters, texts, reports, lists or newspaper articles. Authors can choose to set off these elements with wider line spacing, but how do we handle the text that comes after?

Again, it's conventional to indent text that follows this content, regardless of whether it's narrative or dialogue. That's because of the connective function; the text is part of the same scene.

Here are some examples from commercial fiction pulled from my bookshelves.

REPORT: The Outsider, Stephen King, Hodder, 2018, p. 252
LIST: Life of Pi, Yann Martel, Canongate, 2002, p. 146
TRANSCRIPT: Snap, Belinda Bauer, Black Swan, 2018, p. 36
RECORD: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline, Arrow, 2012, p. 300

It's not the case that full-out text is never used, or can't be used, but fiction readers are used to conventions. When a paragraph isn't indented, they assume it's a new section, which creates a tiny disconnect.

That's what I think's happened in the example below from Kate Hamer's The Girl in the Red Coat (p. 325, Faber & Faber, 2015). Of course, it took me only a split second to work out that the narrator is referring to the preceding letter, but it's a split second that took me away from the story because I'd assumed I was looking at a section break.

My preference would be to indent 'I touch my finger [...]' because that text is part of the scene, not a new section.

How to create a first-line indent in Word
Let's finish with some quick guidance on creating first-line indents.

Avoid using spaces and tabs to create indents in Word. Instead, create proper indents. There are several ways to do this.

Open the Home tab (1).
Select your text.
Move your cursor to the ruler and select the top marker (2).
Drag it to the position of your preferred indent.
Right-click on the style in the ribbon (3).
Select 'Update Normal to Match Selection'.

Open the Home tab (1).
Open the Styles pane via the arrow icon (4).
Select your text.
Move your cursor to the ruler and select the top marker (2).
Drag it to the position of your preferred indent.
Go to the Styles pane (5) and right-click on the style (6).
Select 'Update Normal to Match Selection'.

Open the Home tab (1).
Open the Styles pane via the arrow icon (4).
Go to the Styles pane (5) and right-click on the style (6).
Select 'Modify' to open the Modify Styles pane (A).
Click on the Format button in the bottom left-hand corner (B).
Select Paragraph to open the Paragraph pane (C).
Make sure you're in the Indents and Spacing tab.
Look at the Indentations section in the middle. Make sure 'First line' is selected under 'Special:' (D).
Adjust the first-line indent according to your preference (E).
Click OK (F).

Create a new style for your full-out paragraphs using the same tools.

If using the ruler, ensure the markers (2) are aligned, one on top of the other.
If using the styles pane, adjust the indent spacing (E) to zero.

If you need more assistance with creating styles, watch this free webinar. There's no sign-up; just click on the button and dig in.

ACCESS WEBINAR

14 Comments

How to show the emotions of non-viewpoint characters

20/7/2020

7 Comments

Non-viewpoint characters have emotions too. But how do we show them without head-hopping? The answer lies in mastering observable behaviour.

What is head-hopping?
When a reader can access the internal experiences (emotions, thoughts, memories) of more than one character in a chapter or section, head-hopping is usually in play.
The exception is if you’re tackling the tricky beast that is omniscient narration. It’s difficult to pull off and rarely used in contemporary commercial fiction.

Here’s an example of what head-hopping looks like on the page. Jack is the viewpoint character and the narration style is third-person limited.

The pebble bounces on the water seven, eight, no, nine times. Best ever, Jack thinks.
Pete weaves through the grass and slumps into a hollow in the dune. His brother’s whoop, the arc of his arm … just like Dad’s when they played skimming stones. Before the accident. Before the world changed. He shakes the memory from his head. Dwelling on that stuff never ends well.
Jack turns away from the ocean, waves and calls for Pete to come down but the crashing surf swallows his words.

Notice the following:

Best ever is Jack’s thought. That puts us in his head, which is fine because this is an excerpt from a chapter in which he’s the viewpoint character. But that means we cannot access what’s going on in Pete’s head – how he is remembering his dad and the accident, and the decision to not dwell on those things.
Look at the physicality too. Jack turns away from the water, which means he was facing it and couldn’t have observed Pete weaving through the grass and slumping into the dune. All he can do is see Pete on the dune after he’s turned.

How to enter a non-viewpoint character’s space without dropping viewpoint
There will be times when you want your reader to enter the emotional and physical space of a non-viewpoint character.

Mastering observable behaviour – showing us what the viewpoint character can see, and their interpretation of that behaviour – is one solution that will enable you to hold viewpoint.

Here’s a recast of the Jack/Pete scene:

The pebble bounces on the water seven, eight, no, nine times. Best ever, Jack thinks.
He whoops and turns his back to the ocean. Pete’s lumbering gait is unmistakable. He weaves through the grass on the dune and slumps into a hollow, mouth set in a hard line, neck hunched into his shoulders, complexion pasty. But he’s out; the sunlight’s on his face. It’s the first time since a month of whenevers.
Skimming stones was something they did with Dad. Before the accident. Before the world changed. Jack shakes the memory from his head. Dwelling on that stuff never ends well. He waves, calls for his brother to come down but the crashing surf swallows his words.

Notice the following:

We don’t leave Jack’s head. I’ve given him the memory of their dad and the accident, and the decision to not dwell.
I’ve changed the order of movement. Jack turns first so he can observe Pete’s journey through the grass and into the hollow of the dune.
Pete’s mood isn’t told (since we can’t access his inner experience). However, it can be shown through the set of his mouth, the position of his neck and the hue of his skin as Jack perceives it. Furthermore, we can infer that he’s been struggling to deal with the accident through Jack’s relief that he’s at least outside for a change.

Mastering observation
Mastering observation enables writers to retain viewpoint but not be restricted by it. Think about how non-viewpoint characters will move in a way that reflects their internal experience, or what they will look like. Here are a few examples:

What the non-viewpoint character feels but cannot be told because we’re not in their head	What’s visible and audible to the viewpoint character
Pain	They grimace; clutch a part of their body; wince; howl
Shock	They jump back; gasp; stumble; put a hand to their chest
Nervousness	They fidget with a zipper; pick at their nails; shred a beer mat; stutter
Embarrassment	They blush; avoid eye contact; their breathing is shallow; they speak faster than usual
Nausea	Their complexion is tinged a different colour; they gag or retch; their voice is flat

Summing up
If you’re writing in a third-person limited narration style, consider what the viewpoint character already knows, what they can observe in relation to a non-viewpoint character, and what they could infer from those observations. That will determine what they can report.

What they report can still allow readers to access the internal experience of the non-viewpoint character through a back door. And while that report will be biased, it will be immersive.

7 Comments

How to use reflexive pronouns in fiction

13/7/2020

4 Comments

Himself, herself, myself, themself ... check the usage of pronouns in your fiction. You might just be overworking them, such that you’re stating the obvious, modifying the pace, and reducing tension.

Questionable usage
Reflexive pronouns can act as double tells by stating the obvious, and mar pace and tension.

Stating the obvious

Max grabbed a fistful of dandelion leaves and shoved them into his mouth. Needs garlic, he thought to himself.
Jenny wondered to herself about the dream – it had been so real, as if she’d had full control. And yet …

When it comes to internal musings, authors can ditch the reflexive pronouns. Thoughts take place inside a person’s head and, by definition, are offered only for the thinker – unless there’s telepathy going on in the novel!

Moderating pace and reducing tension

Max ducked, rolled himself over the floor and grabbed the Browning. Fired out two shots. Both hit home.
Ali sprinted down the street and swung herself into the shadows.

These are high-tension scenes. Max is in a shoot-out; Ali’s escaping danger. Every word stretches out the sentence. And as the sentence length loosens, so does the tension.

Look what happens when we remove the pronouns:

Max ducked, rolled over the floor and grabbed the Browning. Fired out two shots. Both hit home.
Ali sprinted down the street and swung into the shadows.

The sentences shorten, the pace increases – and so does the tension.

Usage that works
We shouldn’t omit all -self pronouns. There are occasions when a sentence works better with them. Sometimes they’re essential.

Clarity
In some cases, the pronoun is necessary for clarity. The reader can’t be sure of what the verb’s object is without it. In the examples below, removing the pronouns could leave the reader with questions: Ashamed of what? A promise to whom? Stop what? Consider whom an expert?

Ordinarily, she’d have been ashamed of herself, but there was no guilt – not this time.
I made a promise to myself never again to lose my rag over something so inconsequential.
He couldn’t stop himself; it took five minutes to demolish the chocolate egg.
I consider myself an expert, and no one will convince me otherwise.

Emphasis
The pronoun can be used to emphasize the person being discussed. Omission would leave the sentence grammatically intact but change the mood and pacing. In this case, it’s a judgement call on the author’s part.

Sarah told me so herself.
The queen herself told me.
John hadn’t been the only one having a hard time. I myself had been suffering from anxiety at the time.

Sense
Some sentences don’t make grammatical sense without a reflexive pronoun. Remove them and the writing leaves more than questions: it’s unreadable.

She had to defend herself from that monster – no two ways about it.
Cass doused themself in perfume.
Why shouldn’t he call himself the King of Hearts? Who cares if it sounds daft? Daft is good.
He dragged himself to the top of the stairs.

Reflexive pronouns: mood versus clutter
At the top of this post, I offered examples of how -self pronouns can reduce tension. There will be occasions when an author wants to do exactly that.

I was trying to make a new life for myself. That’s all there was to it.
I was trying to make a new life. That’s all there was to it.

There’s a more staccato feel to the second version above that might jar if the author’s seeking a contemplative mood.

Still, too much self-ing can make even a stress-free scene overly wordy so it’s always worth thinking about whether a leaner version would be more immersive and get the reader from A to B faster.

In the first version of the triplets that follow, the pronouns introduce a chilled-out sense of laissez-faire to the movement. In the second I’ve omitted them. And in the third, I’ve ditched the mundane movement and focused on the essential beat.

He found himself a chair and sat down.
He found a chair and sat down.
He sat down.

Maxie busied themself with the coffee machine and settled down to read the letter.
Maxie made a coffee and settled down to read the letter.
Maxie read the letter.

She got herself up and called Mel.
She got up and called Mel.
She called Mel.

It’s always worth an author spending a little time on thinking about how much micromanagement of a scene is necessary.

Will the reader care about the chair discovery, or that Maxie had a hot drink while they were reading the letter, or that the protagonist was no longer on the sofa when she called Mel?

Perhaps. If that stuff’s central to driving the novel forward, to reflecting mood, to grounding the character in the environment, the pronoun and the stage direction might be necessary. If it’s clutter that can be removed without damaging reader engagement, lean up the scene!

Summing up
Use reflexive pronouns when they’re necessary for clarity, sense and emphasis. Otherwise, consider leaner prose that focuses on what the reader needs to know to move forward in the story.

4 Comments

Fiction copyediting for indie authors: Are you fit for purpose?

29/6/2020

0 Comments

Want to copyedit fiction for indie authors? Even if you have extensive experience of working for publishers, there are skills and knowledge you might need to acquire before making the shift.

Publishing has its own language
Fiction copyediting means something specific in a publishing company. It’s usually (there are always exceptions to the rule) the corrective work that focuses on spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency and logic.

It’s important work – meticulous and detailed. It stops a character giving birth two months before she got pregnant; it spots when your protagonist’s eyes have changed colour; it flags up the trigger safety that doesn’t exist on the model of gun being described.

In the wider world, ‘copyediting’ can mean all sorts of things. It will include all of the above but might include a deeper level of stylistic work.

Some editors will use different terminology to describe their services, such that this middle-level editing – further down the chain than developmental or structural work but higher up than the prepublication proofread – is more intense.

Some editors even include developmental/structural work in their ‘copyediting’ service because their target clients fall into one or both of the following categories:

aren’t familiar with all the levels of editing
are more likely to search for terms such as ‘copyediting’ and ‘proofreading’ even though the big-picture elements of their story might also need some work

The mismatch between language and need
Some editors work only for publishers. Some work only for indie authors. Some work for both.

That messy publishing language becomes problematic when everyone’s using one term – ‘copyediting’ – to mean different things.

Plus, none of us knows what we don’t know.

If an editor has copyedited fiction only for publishers, and then moves into the indie-author market, there’s a risk that their knowledge and skills match the needs and expectations of mainstream publishers, but not those of indie authors.

Many indie authors are self-publishing for the first time. They’ll expect a professional editor to know what they don’t. But a fiction copyeditor, just by virtue of having done something called ‘fiction copyediting’ as defined by publishers, might not know how to handle the stylistic issues in a book.

That doesn’t mean they’re a bad editor. It means they have a specific skill set that might not be what the indie author needs or asks for.

Case study

GOOD EDITOR; BAD FIT

The author
Jo Pennedanovel is navigating the independent publishing world for the first time. She’s never gone it alone so she’s working from scratch – writing, finding editorial support and a cover designer, building a promotion strategy, and learning about sales and distribution platforms.

The brief
Jo knows that more than a proofread is required, but she’s happy with the big-picture aspects of her novel. She needs something in the middle: ‘copyediting’, she’s heard it called. So that’s what she looks for.

Jo goes online and searches for a copyeditor, finds someone who has over a decade’s worth of experience of copyediting fiction for some of the big-name publishing houses.

If that editor’s good enough for them, they’re good enough for Jo! Jo hires the copyeditor for her book.

The outcome
Jo’s a professional and takes her writing seriously. She knows there will be outstanding glitches that were missed at copyediting stage, so she hires another editor to proofread her book. All well and good so far.

The editor fixes the outstanding proofreading glitches but notices the following:

There are over 300 viewpoint drops – most are small but still glaring to him because, well, he’s studied line craft.
The prose is sometimes laboured and repetitive – not because Jo’s a poor writer but because she’s immersed in the storytelling rather than the minutiae.
A plethora of speech tags tell of mood that’s already been adequately conveyed in the excellent dialogue.

The fix
The proofreader could ignore all the line-craft issues. After all, he’s not been commissioned to do this work and it will cut into his hourly rate. And anyway, shouldn’t the previous editor have fixed this stuff?

Still, he’s committed to editorial excellence, wants a cracking book in his portfolio, and would like to work with that author again, so he decides that ignoring these problems isn’t an option.

He could do one of the following:

Flag up the issues in a report but elect not to solve each individual problem.
Go the whole hog, offer suggested recasts so Jo can fix the problems easily, and write off the extra time as a marketing expense. Maybe he can persuade Jo to hire him for the copyediting stage next time.
Halt the proofread, go back to Jo, explain the problem and try to renegotiate the project brief.

I’ve done all three in my time. My choice was based on the author, my schedule, and the connection I felt with the project. There’s no wrong or right, just informed decision-making.

What’s gone wrong in the editing process?
So what went wrong in that case study? This problem arises because of flawed assumptions about language and responsibility.

Language
The author and the editor are using the same language to describe different outcomes.

The author thinks of ‘copyediting’ as a middle-ground service between developmental/structural editing and proofreading.
The editor, who works mainly for publishers, considers ‘copyediting’ a non-stylistic type of work that comes after line editing.

What Jo needed was an editor who recognizes that ‘copyediting’ could mean something different in the author’s head – something like: Do what’s required to make my prose sing! I don’t know what those things are, but that’s why I’m hiring you.

What she got was a traditional high-quality copyedit as defined by a different client type. It’s work that she needed, but not all the work she needed.

Responsibility
A frequent fallback position on the editor’s part is this: it’s the author’s fault because they didn’t hire the right service. Jo shouldn’t have commissioned a copyedit when stylistic work was required.

That’s flawed. She hired a professional editor precisely because they’re a professional editor. She wanted them to show her what she didn’t know.

The situation is complicated further by the fact that editors define their services differently. I offer ‘line-/copyediting’. Some of my colleagues offer the same level of intervention but call it just ‘copyediting’. Others offer two distinct services: ‘line editing’ and ‘copyediting’.

Yet others don’t even call line editing ‘line editing’. It might be called ‘substantive editing’ or ‘stylistic editing’.

It is any wonder that an indie author chooses to ignore the tangled terminology and focus on collating a shortlist of editors who have extensive experience of working for traditional industry gatekeepers – publishers?

That works splendidly when the editors have the skills and knowledge to go beyond what a publisher might expect from a fiction copyedit. But it can fall of a cliff when the rigidity of the terminology restricts the depth of editing required.

How can editors help fix the problem?
Editors must take responsibility for the language they use and the skills they have so that they’re fit for a diverse indie-author market. That means learning and educating.

Learn line craft
Fiction editors serving indie authors should learn line craft – the stylistic sentence-level editing that might be required.

If we don’t understand the likes of show and tell, narrative viewpoint, tense, holding suspense, dialogue craft, and so on, we should question whether we’re ready for this market.

And if we do still want to serve this market with publisher-defined copyediting, we must be explicit about the fact that we don’t offer solutions to stylistic problems in prose.

Still, being able to say we don’t offer those solutions means understanding what they are in the first place. Not recognizing them is not an option.

Educate authors
We must go the extra mile to ensure that our online and direct communications with authors explain the different levels of editing and how we define them.

A website that boasts of our achievements but doesn’t show our understanding of the craft of fiction editing doesn’t help a beginner author make informed decisions. It serves only us, not them.

That can lead to disappointment on the author’s part. And disappointment leads to mistrust, not just with the editor who did the work but with the global editorial community in general.

Editors frequently report that editing is ‘undervalued’ and ‘underpaid’. But value and worth have to be earned. So does trust.

When an editor works with an indie author, but doesn’t have the skills to offer what’s required, or is ignorant of the fact that they don’t have those skills, it’s they – not the author – who is bringing down value and worth in the editing industry.

How can authors help fix the problem?
Writers can help themselves too. If you’re an indie author, and you’re not one hundred per cent sure about what you need, do the following:

Author checklist

FINDING A GOOD-FIT EDITOR

Learn about the various levels of editing (there's a booklet below that will help you with that).
Be aware that publishing language is messy. Focus on the what rather than the what-it’s-called. One person’s ‘copyedit’ might look very different from another’s. One person’s ‘line edit’ might be another’s ‘stylistic edit’.
Check more than the editor’s career history. Where they worked is interesting; what they did is critical. Yes, they’ve copyedited a hundred novels for Hodder & Stoughton but what did that ‘copyediting’ include? Is that what you require, or might you need something deeper, more stylistic?
Get more than one sample edit if not-knowing-what-you-don’t-know is in play. That will give you a glimpse of how each editor would tackle your novel; how deep they’d go, and what the problems might be.
Consider their training. Have they learned about, or are they teaching sentence-level fiction editing? It’s only part of the story, but it’s yet another light you can shine to see what lies beneath the glossy portfolio.

CLICK IMAGE TO ACCESS BOOKLET AND FREE WEBINAR

Summing up
What publishers expect from a fiction copyeditor is often very different to what indie authors will want or need.

If you’re an editor who wants to offer sentence-level work for indie authors, think about the following:

The language you use to describe your service.
The indie author’s expectations.

Even if you have an extensive fiction copyediting background by virtue of having worked for a ton of mainstream publishers, there might still be a mismatch between what’s required or what’s asked for and your own definitions and experience.

Be prepared to learn, and to show what you’ve learned when you communicate with indie authors. That’s how we build trust, value and worth.

0 Comments

The Editing Podcast: 18 writing-craft blogs for editors and authors, S4E7

18/5/2020

0 Comments

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise chat about 18 blogs for authors and editors that offer guidance on various aspects of writing craft.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 7

Listen to find out more about:

ALLi blog: Alliance of Independent Authors
Ann Handley blog
Articles: The Writer’s Digest
Articles: Tim Storm, Storm Writing School
Bacon Editing blog: Claire Bacon
Bookbaby blog
Clarity: Lisa Poisso, Editor and Book Coach
Denise Cowle Editorial Services blog: Denise Cowle
Helping Writers become Authors: KM Weiland
Jane Friedman blog
LibroEditing blog: Liz Dexter
Liminal Pages blog: Sophie Playle, Fiction Editor
The Creative Penn blog: Joanna Penn
The Editor’s Blog: Beth Hill
The Itch of Writing: Emma Darwin
The Editing Blog: Louise Harnby, Fiction Editor
The Radical Copyeditor blog: Alex Kapitan
The Subversive Copyeditor blog: Carol Saller

Editing bites and other resources

Cult Pens
Stein on Writing, by Sol Stein, Non Basic Stock Line, 2007

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

0 Comments

How to run and grow an editing and proofreading business. Q&A, Part 2: The Editing Podcast, S4E6

12/5/2020

0 Comments

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise answer more questions about how to run and grow an editing and proofreading business.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 6

Listen to find out more about:

Increasing organic lead generation
Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) and the impact on freelancers in California
The benefits of working with publishers, packagers and project-management agencies
Content marketing: Solving clients problems
Facebook marketing: Ads, chatbots and website pixels
Google ads and sourcing professional expertise
Managing impostor syndrome
Attracting indie genre-fiction authors: content marketing and branding
Getting work with publishers
Ethical promotion to a primed audience
Technical writing and copy-writing
Choosing a business name
Building an editorial business on a tight budget
Using career expertise as a foundation for an editing specialism
Choosing the right training course
Building a marketing strategy
Starting an editing business when we care for young children
Scaling a business: Passive income streams, price increases, training, and premium services
Researching markets and audiences
Making a website visible

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

0 Comments

Writing a content-marketing book. With John Espirian: The Editing Podcast, S4E3

2/5/2020

0 Comments

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise talk to technical writer and editor John Espirian about content marketing, editing and bringing a book to market.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 3

Listen to find out more about:

Content DNA - the book
Developing the book's concept: The shape of you
Writing the book
Tackling the editing process
Cover design and branding
The benefits of a foreword
Content marketing, and why it works
Social media focus and email-list building
Pricing, marketing and sales
Creating an audio book
Finding an audience to use as a springboard for business books
Building a personal brand that acts as a buffer
Targeting clients' problems and offering solutions
What is technical writing?
Who uses technical writers?

Contacting John Espirian

Editing bites and other resources

AgentQuery.com
The Tao of Twitter, by Mark Schaefer
KNOWN, by Mark Schaefer
Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP)
Col Gray, graphic design and brand design: pixels ink; YouTube

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.

0 Comments

10 ways to proofread your own writing

6/4/2020

6 Comments

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.

1. Create a style guide

Style guides help you keep track of your preferences, including hyphenation, capitalization, proper-noun spelling, figures and measurements, time and date format.

If you’re a novelist, use my Style Sheet Template
If you’re a business writer, check out the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) guide Your House Style

2. Use a page-proofs checklist

This pro-proofreading checklist (free when you sign up to The Editorial Letter) 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.

Video tutorial
Written tutorial

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:

TextSTAT: This concordance software generates simple alphabetized word lists that flag up potential problems
ProperNounAlyse: An excellent macro from editor Paul Beverley that highlights potential inconsistencies in proper-noun usage

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’.

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

6 Comments

What are the different types of novel editing?

16/3/2020

2 Comments

There are different types of novel editing: developmental editing, line editing, copyediting and proofreading. Revising in the right order is essential if you want your book to be in the best shape possible.

Feel free to enjoy this blog, and watch the complementary webinar or download the free ebook too.

Developmental editing
Developmental editing comes first. This is big-picture work that involves looking at the story as a whole.

You’ll also hear it called structural editing, perhaps even content editing, and the base components always include plot, structure, characterization, pace, viewpoint, narrative style, and tense.

Plot: This is the sequence of events that take the reader from the beginning to the end.
Structure: This determines how the plot is organized. Even if B occurred after A, the reader might learn about B before the events of A are unveiled.
Characterization: This is how characters are represented such that we can make sense of their behavior as we journey with them through the story.
Pace: Pacing is about the speed at which the story unfolds. Effective pace ensures readers feel neither rushed nor bored. That doesn’t mean the pace remains steady; a story can include sections of fast-paced action and slower cool-downs.
Viewpoint: In each chapter or section, readers should understand who the narrator is—whose eyes they are seeing through, whose emotions they have access to, whose voice dominates the narrative. It also means understanding the restrictions in play such that head-hopping doesn’t pull the reader out of the story.
Narrative style: Is the narrative viewpoint conveyed in the first, second or third person? The choice determines a narrative’s style.
Tense: Is the story told in the present or the past tense? Each has its benefits and limitations.

3 things you should know about developmental editing

There are different types of developmental edits—full-novel edits in which the editor revises (or suggests revisions) that will improve story; critiques or manuscript evaluations that report on the strengths and weaknesses of story; and sensitivity reads that offer specialist reports on the potential misrepresentation and devaluation of marginalized others.
Different editors handle developmental edits in different ways. One might include an assessment of genre and marketability; another might not. Some editors revise the raw text; others restrict the edit to margin markup. Check what you’re being offered against what you want.
Developmental editing isn’t about checking spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Line editing
Line editing is the next step in the revision process and it is stylistic work.

A strong sentence elevates story; a poorly crafted one can bury it. This level of editing revises for style, sense, and flow.

You might also hear line editing referred to as substantive editing or stylistic editing. Editors will be addressing the following:

Authenticity of phrasing and word choice in relation to character voice
Character-trait consistency and unveiling
Clarity and consistency of viewpoint and narrative style
Cliché and awkward metaphor
Dialogue and how it conveys voice, mood, and intention
Sentence pace and flow, with special attention to repetition and overwriting
Tenses, and whether they’re effective and consistent
Told versus shown prose

3 things you should know about line editing

There are different types of sentence-level edits—full-novel line edits in which the editor revises (or suggests revisions) that will improve the line work; line critiques that report on the strengths and weaknesses of the line craft; and mini line edits in which the editor revises an agreed section of the novel such that the author can hone their line craft and mimic the edit throughout the rest of the novel.
Different editors define their sentence-level services differently. Some include technical checking (copyediting) with the stylistic work, while some do the stylistic and technical work in separate passes. Check what you’re being offered against what you want.
Line-editing stage is not the ideal place to be fixing problems with plot, theme, pace and viewpoint. Fixes are likely to inelegant and invasive.

Copyediting
Copyediting is the technical side of sentence-level work. Editors will be addressing the following:

Chapter sequencing
Consistency of proper-noun spelling
Dialogue tagging and punctuation
Letter, word, line, and paragraph spacing
Logic of timeline, environment, and character traits
Spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, hyphenation, and capitalization
Standard document formatting

3 things you should know about copyediting

Some editors offer line editing and copyediting together in a single pass. That combined service might be indicated by what it’s called, e.g. ‘line-/copyediting’. However, it might be called just ‘copyediting’ even though it includes stylistic work. Again, check what you’re being offered against what you want.
Novel copyediting is best done in a single pass. When an editor works on separate chunks of text, inconsistencies are likely to slip through.
One pass of a sentence-level edit is not enough to ready a novel for publication. Final quality control is necessary.

Proofreading
Proofreading is the last stage of the editing process prior to publication. Every novel, whether it’s being delivered in print or digitally, requires a final quality-control check.
A proofreader looks for literal errors and layout problems that slipped through previous rounds of revision or were introduced at design stage.

Authors preparing for print can ask a proofreader to annotate page proofs. These are almost what a reader would see if they pulled the novel off the shelf. Others ask proofreaders to amend the raw text, either because they’re preparing for epublication or for audiobook narration.

Proofreaders are more than typo hunters. They check for consistency of spelling, punctuation and grammar, but also for layout problems such as (but not limited to) indentation, line spacing, inconsistent chapter drops, missing page numbers, and font and heading styles. The remit is extensive (download a free checklist).

The art of good proofreading lies in knowing when to change and when to leave well enough alone. A good proofreader should understand the impact of their revisions—not only in relation to the knock-on effect on other pages but also to the cost if a third-party designer/formatter is part of the team.

3 things you should know about proofreading

A proofread is rarely enough, no matter how experienced the writer. It’s the last line of defense, not the only line of defense.
Be sure to clarify with an editor what you want and which mediums the editor works with. Proofreading designed page proofs requires an additional level of checking that a raw-text review doesn’t. And some editors work only on raw text, some only on PDF, and some only on hard copy.
Proofreading is about quality control. The proofreader should be polishing the manuscript, not filling in plot holes or trimming purple prose.

Which type of editing do you need?
Authors need to take their books through all the types of editing. That doesn’t mean hiring third party professionals for each stage. Writing groups, self-study courses, how-to books, and self-publishing organizations are all great sources of editorial support.

If you decide to work with a professional, invest in one who can help you where you’re weakest. You might be a great structural self-editor but prone to overwriting. Or you might have nailed line craft but need help with story development.

And pay attention to the order of play when it comes to revision. Fixing plot holes at proofreading stage might damage previous rounds of editing. That’s a waste of time and money that every writer wants to avoid!

2 Comments

How to use em dashes: The Editing Podcast, S3E9

10/1/2020

0 Comments

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss em dashes, or em rules, and how to use them in fiction and non-fiction writing.

Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 9

Listen To Find Out More About:

Parenthetical use
Indicating a new speaker
Indicating omission
Profanity
Showing faltering speech
Conveying end-of-line interruptions

Editing Bites

The Magic of Fiction, Beth Hill
‘Start here: How to self-publish your book’, Jane Friedman

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

0 Comments

The Editing Podcast S3E7: How to use en dashes

25/12/2019

2 Comments

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

Find out more about ...

Parenthetical use
Indicating number spans
Placement in dialogue interrupted by narrative description
Linking in adjectival compounds
Showing faltering speech
Indicating a relationship/alternative
Profanity

Editing bites

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

2 Comments

The Editing Podcast: Understanding semi-colons

11/12/2019

0 Comments

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

Find out more about ...

What the semi-colon looks like
Separating two independent clauses
Subjects and predicates
Weighting and parallelism
Comma splices
Separating items in a list
Emojis
Objections to the semi-colon

Resources

National Centre for Writing’s podcast
Semicolon: How a misunderstood punctuation mark can improve your writing, enrich your reading and even change your life, by Cecilia Watson
How to use semi-colons in fiction writing

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

0 Comments

The Editing Podcast S3E3: Think it’s American? Think again!

27/11/2019

0 Comments

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!

The Editing Podcast with Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle

Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 3

Find out more about ...

-iz- spellings
serial commas
em dashes
which/that in restrictive relative clauses

Mentioned in the show

Lexico/Oxford: ‘The Differences Between British and American Terms’
Lynne Murphy on British and American English (video)
Free PDF booklet: Visit the grammar and spelling page in my resource library to download this free booklet summarizing suffix variations in American and British English.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

0 Comments

The Editing Podcast: Rob Drummond on grammar pedantry, peevery and youth language

20/11/2019

0 Comments

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.

Listen here ...

Find out more about ...

Correct or conventional – a linguist’s perspective
Better versus standard
Zombie rules, and what we can ditch
Youth language – dumbing down English or enriching it?
Young people's language in relation to identity and language change
Varieties of English in written communication: globalization, national and cultural identities
The internet’s impact on pedantry and peevery
The relationship between knowledge and pedantry
The difference between preferences and judgements
Recognizing our own pedantry and respecting contextually appropriate style
Stepping outside our linguistic comfort zones

Mentioned in the show

Radical Copyeditor blog
‘The Business of Being a Writer, with Jane Friedman’
Rob Drummond Linguistics
TED Talk: 'John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!'
Rob's graph: Linguistic knowledge versus linguistic pedantry

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

0 Comments

A question of question marks in writing: The Editing Podcast

13/11/2019

2 Comments

Denise and Louise talk about how to use question marks in fiction and non-fiction according to convention.

Listen here ...

Find out more about

Direct questions
Indirect questions
How-to statements
Idiomatic phrases and question marks
Double punctuation
Uncertain dates and date ranges
Indicating uncertainty

Mentioned in the show

But Can I Start A Sentence With “But”? by Carol Saller
Making a Point: The Pernickety Story of English Punctuation by David Crystal

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

2 Comments

How to use quote marks in fiction writing

4/11/2019

8 Comments

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
Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue
Whether to use single or double quote marks
Whether to use straight or curly quote marks
Where the closing quote mark goes in relation to other punctuation
When not to use quote marks

What quote marks are used for
Quote marks are used in 3 ways in fiction:

Character dialogue
To distance the narrator from what's being reported
To denote song titles and other works

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.

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), Anthony Horowitz, Arrow 2018

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.

FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

Case study

Author checklist

1. Create a style guide

​2. Use a page-proofs checklist

3. Run PerfectIt

4. Use find-and-replace in Word

5. Set up styles in Word

6. Trade with a colleague

7. Tools that locate inconsistent spelling

8. Run The Bookalyser

9. Run Word’s onboard Check Document tool

10. Read it out loud

2. Use a page-proofs checklist