A BLOG FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

Is your dialogue pushing your novel forward or making the reader feel like they’re eavesdropping on a mundane conversation at the bus stop? Here’s how to ensure your dialogue pops.

What good dialogue isn’t
Good dialogue is the icing on the cake of a well-structured novel. Bad dialogue will mar a well-structured narrative and bury a story that is barely hanging in there. Before we look at what makes great dialogue, let’s look at what dialogue isn’t: 

3 components of effective dialogue
‘Dialogue should be the character in action,’ says John Yorke in his must-read Into the Woods (p. 151). Yorke’s talking about the art of screenwriting but the advice is just as pertinent for novelists. I recommend you read it even if you have no intention of writing for the screen because it’s a masterclass in storytelling, whatever the medium.

When we stop thinking about dialogue as words spoken – as conversations – and instead frame it in terms of characters, we create something that’s fit for a novel.

​What does your dialogue tell readers about who your characters are, how they’re feeling, and what their motivations are?

Unreliable dialogue
What a character expresses through dialogue need not match their true voice, mood or intent. Unreliable dialogue is powerful precisely because it jars the reader by masking the truth (which the characters themselves may even have buried).

Imagine this scenario: John has been kidnapped by Jane. They met in a club where she spiked his drink. He started to feel unwell and she offered him a ride to the Tube station. He never made it. He’s been held captive for several days, during which time he’s been physically abused and deprived of food. He’s frightened out of his wits, and weak to boot.

The dialogue between John and Jane could go as follows: John raves and rants, telling Jane her behaviour is monstrous, that Jane’s going to pay for her actions and that he’s going straight to the police as soon as he’s escaped. Jane responds in fury, telling John he deserves it all and how there’s no way he’ll ever escape.

Or the dialogue could be unreliable. John might be polite, sycophantic even, as he thanks her for the water she provided, compliments her on her appearance, or asks her about her life. Through that speech, we are shown his desperation. It’s about keeping her on side and calm in order to save himself.

And Jane’s verbal response might be chipper, seductive even. Through that dialogue, we are shown her psychosis.

The result is a sinister verbal exchange that allows us to explore the inner workings of the characters’ minds without it being forced down our throats via an all-to-obvious narrative that’s centred around the viewpoint character.

Breaking free of viewpoint limitations
Most novelists opt to hold third- or first-person narrative viewpoints. That means the story in a chapter plays out through one person’s perspective.

When authors drop viewpoint, readers end up playing a game of narrative table tennis in which they bounce from one character’s head to another. We know who everyone is (voice), what everyone’s feeling (mood), and what everyone wants (intention) all of the time. Readers become disengaged because they don’t have time to immerse themselves in any one character’s experience.

Good dialogue allows writers and readers to break free without head-hopping. Through dialogue, readers can intuit the voice, mood and intention of multiple characters, yet the singular narrative viewpoint remains true throughout. That keeps the reader engaged and the writing taut.

Purposeful dialogue in action
Here’s an excerpt from Lee Child’s Never Go Back (pp. 457–8). I chose it because I’ve also seen the movie, which allowed me to compare my experience of the screen dialogue (and the advice Yorke gives) with the novel’s, and because there are no action beats, only two speech tags and no narrative. It’s just dialogue between a teenage girl and Jack Reacher. 

WHAT WE LEARN

• Viewpoint: Reacher is the viewpoint character. However, through the dialogue, readers are able to access information about him and the teenager.
• Voice: Both characters speak in a no-nonsense fashion. Reacher might think he holds the balance of power, given his job and age, but the girl’s streetwise tone suggests she thinks otherwise; they’re equals.
• Mood: Reacher is calm (we’d expect nothing more) and measured, but there is emotional engagement; he seems keen not to give too much away (probably in respect of the fact that he’s talking to a child, perhaps his daughter). As for the girl, she’s almost disinterested. I imagine her stuffing fries into her mouth, as focused on her food as she is on the conversation ... until she thinks her mother might be in trouble. Child doesn’t tell us, but I can see her in my mind’s eye, mouth full, looking at him, just a twitch of alarm registering in her expression. There’s almost a sense of the traditional mother/daughter relationship reversed; this is a kid who’s used to looking after herself. There’s movement in this dialogue; the speech is infused with its own action beats.
• Intent: Reacher wants to find out who the mother is. This exchange is all about building trust with the girl in order to achieve that. The girl needs someone she can turn to because bad people are watching her and her mother. She wants to know how Reacher might know Candice; Reacher wants to keep the possible sexual encounter and his resulting paternity to himself. The girl’s not stupid and picks up on his vague inference to a sexual encounter. As the conversation and the chapter close, Reacher and the readers discover that Candice and our protagonist have never met, and that the girl can’t be his daughter.   

This is characters in action, expressed through speech. Child makes every line count towards the chapter denouement. If he was tempted to introduce narrative and action beats that ensured we’d get it, it doesn’t show. In fact, they would have been interruptions and slowed the pace. Instead, he trusts us to do the work because the dialogue gives us everything we need.

Here’s an excerpt from The Poison Artist by Jonathan Moore (pp. 244–5). I chose this because of the contrast between Kennon and Emmeline’s speech.

WHAT WE LEARN

• Viewpoint: Even though Emmeline isn’t the viewpoint character, we get to access her transgressor headspace through the dialogue, and the result is powerful and sinister.
• Voice: Kennon doesn’t say much, but what he does say is what we’d expect from a trained inspector, though it’s offered quietly. Emmeline, however, is pathologically measured. We’re left in no doubt that she’s dangerous.
• Mood: We sense Kennon’s fear and desperation through his truncated, whispered speech. There’s almost exhaustion in play. Emmeline, in contrast, is seductive (offering him a drink as if she were hosting a dinner party). Given the torture in evidence, her dialogue is obscene.
• Intent: Kennon is trying to save himself, Caleb and the twitching man, but he’s playing by the rule of law, warning Emmeline that he will fire his gun. Emmeline wants to finish her game, and her desire to play is evident in her speech. Of course, this may be unreliable; it could be masking a deep-seated fear that she’ll be harmed or killed.

This, too, is characters in action, expressed through speech. Moore draws us deep into the transgressor’s mind – even though she’s not the viewpoint character. Her dialogue, juxtaposed with Kennon’s exhausted near-silence, generates a powerful scene that oozes with sickly tension.

Here’s a third example from Harlan Coben’s Run Away (pp. 68–9):

WHAT WE LEARN

• Viewpoint: Simon is the viewpoint character but through Ingrid’s speech we learn how she uses her professional mindset to manage stressful situations. 
• Voice: Simon’s voice is emotional and verbose; Ingrid’s is precise and clinical.
• Mood: Simon’s disgust and distress are evident. You can almost feel the words falling out of his mouth. Ingrid’s speech exudes clinical detachment. She’s in doctor mode.
• Intent: Simon wants to unload. Ingrid wants to understand.

Again, through speech we see the characters in action. The contrasting voices and moods show us Simon and Ingrid’s different intentions. There’s no need for more than a peppering of supporting narrative.

Summing up

1. Make your characters’ speech count. Use it to show who the character is (voice), how they feel (mood) and what they want (intention).
2. Play with unreliable dialogue if it will enhance our understanding of characters’ emotions and motivations. Those deliberate juxtapositions will deepen our engagement.
3. Realistic everyday speech, while authentic, is dull, invasive and will disengage your reader. Remove it! 

​Free dialogue enrichment tool
To help you think about your characters' voices, moods and intentions, and how these will enrich your dialogue, download this tool. It's a fillable PDF with ready-made examples and space for you to record your own decisions. ​

Not every reader can stomach violence in fiction, and not every writer wants to go the whole hog with it. Here are two ways to approach it: compressed reporting after the fact; and showing it all as it happens.

Compressed reporting after the fact
Reporting the outcome of violence after the fact can be a superb alternative to detailed descriptions that might upset or sicken authors and their readers. This technique is used on the screen too. 
​
In Series 5, Episode 3 of Line of Duty (BBC1), the perpetrator breaks into the home of a core character’s ex-wife. The transgressor proceeds to torture the victim. There’s a drill involved and lots of screaming. It’s gross. Well, it would be if we saw it. But we don’t. All we see is the outcome.

The ex-wife lies in a hospital bed, bandaged from head to toe. We glimpse patches of skin, her flesh swollen and angry. Her face is physically untouched though trauma is etched into it. And even the slightest movement results in a whimper and a wince; despite the medication, she’s in pain. All we know so far is that something awful has happened to her but we don’t know what.

The scene cuts to two police officers listening to an audio file of the torture. Now we hear the drill and the screams. The officers play a little of the audio then switch it off and express their horror. A phone conversation with the victim’s husband ensues and we discover a little more about what’s been done to the woman. They finish the call and discuss the crime between themselves. Then the audio’s back and we hear a few more snatches. Off again, and there’s more analysis.
​
It’s a powerful rendition of extreme violence that protects viewers from the gory detail but leaves us in no doubt about the suffering that’s been endured.
This method can work just as beautifully in a novel. It’s not that the violence is diminished but that we access less of it.

Harlan Coben’s Run Away (Century, 2019, pp. 68–9) provides an excellent example. Aaron, a corrupt and possessive junkie, has been murdered. Coben elects not to show us the violence as it plays out. Instead, we learn what happened via a later conversation between Simon and Ingrid.

Two things stand out about this scene:

• The question that Simon asks Ingrid (‘Do you really need the details?’) is the same one Coben’s asking his readers. He decides to give us just enough to shake us up, but not so much that we’re hurling into a bucket. The ellipsis is a well-placed pause that forces us to do some of the work. Overall, it’s lean but rich. The author doesn’t over-egg it for the sake of grossing us out.
• The violence is not diluted, yet Ingrid’s clinical detachment – she’s gone into doctor mode – gives us a breather and contrasts with Simon’s higher emotional state. The dialogue acts as a framework within which the horror is divulged; but it also gives us insights into the characters’ personalities. In other words, it’s not all about the murder.

​Cosies are a subgenre that bend particularly well to compressed after-the-fact reporting. Yes, people get hurt and die in grisly ways but most of the horror is left to the imagination.

Here’s an example from Emily Brightwell’s The Inspector and Mrs Jeffries (C&R Crime, 2013, pp. 1–3):

Brightwell focuses on the impact of the poison on the body; unlike in the Line of Duty screen example, there’s nothing that tells us about the suffering endured. That’s the cosy way.

And as with the Coben example, the implied violence is balanced by dialogue that unveils character personality. It’s not just the readers who shy away from the horror; Inspector Witherspoon does too. We also learn how he’s perceived by others in the scene – as a bumbling buffoon who can’t see the obvious. This sets the scene nicely for Mrs Jeffries’ more capable intervention later on in the novel.

Showing it all as it happens
Some acts of violence – such as fight scenes – work best when we’re shown everything as it plays out. Rendering a fight after the fact (as in the examples above) would destroy the dramatic tension.

Still, a fight scene needs to hold the reader’s attention. That means paying attention to pacing and providing just enough stage direction to enable the reader to understand the choreography.

This extract from The Poison Artist by Jonathan Moore (Orion, 2014, pp. 244–5) appealed to me because it avoids high-octane, kickass tropes. Rather, the author captures the transgressor’s mysterious sensuality in the violent narrative. Her psychotically calm speech and composed movements have an ethereal quality. In sharp contrast, the protagonist’s actions are punctuated with sentence fragments that elevate the pace and introduce tension.

Moore, like Coben, doesn’t overwork it. The scene never drags even though the pace changes depending on who we’re watching.

Here’s a high-octane example from Robert Ludlum’s The Matlock Paper (Orion, 1973/2005, pp. 268–9). Ludlum never bores us, just tells us straight. The pace is quick and every word counts.

Ludlum keeps the stage direction lean and the pace consistent. But I also love how he introduces the earth and rain into the narrative, but only briefly. The weather doesn’t distract us. The mentions are just enough to ground the violence in a physical environment that can be felt and heard; the men aren’t fighting in white space.
 
Lean is good but not too lean! Omitting the detail would render the scene inauthentic.

Imagine reading this:

​Really? So how did he manage that? Was is that easy? Jack Reacher’s good but he’s human. Readers still need to know how he won the day, how he was challenged, what obstacles he had to overcome. That way we can rally behind him.

​Here’s the real extract from Lee Child’s Bad Luck and Trouble (Bantam, 2007, p. 492). Child gives us the detail, shows us the choreography of the fight, but it’s focused. None of the steps are repeated so we don’t get bored.

​Child uses sentence fragments to accelerate the pace, and polysyndeton to introduce a sense of rampancy. And he deepens our interest by shifting the narrative distance – we move from observers in the wings to right inside Reacher’s head.

Summing up
For showing-it-all violence:

• Provide stage direction and choreography but avoid repetition.
• Play with narrative distance (using thoughts and free indirect speech).
• Experiment with commas and conjunctions (asyndetic and polysyndetic constructions) for rhythmic effect and to introduce tension.
• Alter sentence length and evaluate the impact on pace.
• Don’t forget the environment – will glimpses of it enrich a reader’s experience of the violence?

For reporting-after-the-fact violence:

• Focus on outcomes. Even if we haven’t followed the violence as it occurred, what are the after-effects? Think bodily injury, emotional trauma, and damage to the environment (though consider genre).
• Use dialogue to explore the violence through other characters’ perceptions of and responses to it. Might you introduce contrasting emotions to unveil character traits?
• Keep it short. While a show-it-all fight scene might fall over one or two pages, trust your reader to do more of the work in this case. Give them nudges that enable them to join the dots.

A final word. If your scenes of violence include weapons or specialist fighting techniques, do your research. Some of your readers will know their guns and martial arts. Placing suppressors on pistols that don’t take them or getting your martial arts moves wrong will pull readers out of your story and provide the pedants with excuses to knock stars off your Amazon reviews.

Further reading

• Dialogue tags: How to show who’s speaking
• How to convey accents
• How to punctuate dialogue
• How to use free indirect speech
• How to write novels for readers, not viewers
• How to write thoughts
• Physical description with style
• Playing with sentence length
• Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions
• Using adverbs in fiction writing

If you’re looking for ways to inject some drama into your novel’s sentences, omitting filter words could be just the ticket. Do so judiciously though. Including them can add texture to mood and voice.

What are filter words?
Filter words are verbs that increase the narrative distance, reminding us that what we’re reading is being told by someone rather than experienced, or shown, through the eyes of the character.

Examples include noticed, seemed, spotted, saw, realized, felt, thought, wondered, believed, knew, decided.

I see more extensive filtering in books written by less experienced novelists who’ve not yet learned to trust their characters’ voices, who are uncomfortable about playing with devices such as free indirect style, or who are still learning the craft of injecting drama into narrative.

I’ve taken some examples from published fiction and introduced filtering so you can see the difference, and how by avoiding filter words the writers have brought immediacy to their narratives:

When filter words distract
Filter words – particularly when they’re used as a narrative staple – tap the reader on the shoulder and say, ‘You’re not in this book. Someone else is experiencing this.’ They’re a reminder that doing is being done.

Of course, we as readers know this to be true. Still, there’s nothing like immersing yourself in a character’s journey.

Here’s an extreme example I made up:

The text is horribly laboured – overly cluttered with doing being done. When confronted with a novel filled with filtering, readers will be tempted to skim, which means they might miss something crucial. A worst-case scenario is that they’ll give up because it’s not an enjoyable experience.

​Now let’s tighten it up by removing the filter words:

We’ve lost none of the detail but now the prose is more emotionally immersive. We can better feel John’s predicament because we’re not repeatedly told that he’s doing the doing. It’s narration that feels less narrated.

When filter words add texture
I’m not suggesting you ban all filter words. When used intentionally they have a layering effect that can enrich a novel.

• You might want to pepper your narrative style with some telling filters to mix things up.
• Perhaps the narrative distance in much of the surrounding text is close and you want to ease the tension and pull the reader back.
• You might use filter words to introduce a different mood, for example, more enquiring or deliberative.
• You might even need them so that your prose makes sense – sometimes a character does realize or watch or think something, and we need to know that.
• Filter words can deepen character voice, especially in a first-person narrative.

The Mackintosh example above is in first person. I think my filtered version works; it’s just different. Or perhaps it would be stronger with only one of the filters. Either way, one might argue that it imparts a deeper sense of the character’s scouring the envelope for clues.

I still prefer Mackintosh’s approach because I like my crime fiction on the nose, but the experiment demonstrates that filter words aren’t wrong or right, but rather devices you can use to play with the reader’s experience of your story and the characters moving around within it.

Here’s an example from Philip Prowse’s Hellyer’s Trip, p. 194:

Prowse uses a filter word here: knew. He then follows through with free indirect style to close the narrative distance and take us right inside the character’s head while still maintaining a third-person viewpoint.

So let’s look at what happens when we remove ‘He knew’.

I think the unfiltered version works very well but it does change the feel of the writing. Gone is the sense of deliberation. All four sentences are immediate. To my ear, the rhythm accelerates. And although there’s a feel of telling with the inclusion of ‘He knew’ in the published version, there’s also an increased sense of despondency, as if the character has had time to think this over and arrive at this knowledge.

I mentioned character voice above. Here are two examples from Play Dead by David Rosenfelt:

Rosenfelt’s writing is tight. He never drops a beat. When he uses a filter word it’s with intention. Those who’ve read the Andy Carpenter series will know that this fictional attorney’s voice drips with a delicious acerbity, and the character thinks, acts and speaks with purpose.

​When we’re told he realizes something it’s because the author wants us to have a sense of dawning awareness, not because he couldn’t be bothered to cast the sentence in a way that avoided it.

Most of the time, Rosenfelt avoids filter words: ‘I’m so pissed …’ not ‘I feel so pissed …’; ‘He spends most of the time …’ not ‘I listen to him …’. However, he chooses to tag ‘I don’t think’ onto the beginning of the final sentence rather than going with something like ‘My silent treatment isn’t bringing him to his knees.’ And, actually, the protagonist’s thinking is what deepens the voice and the immediacy.

Summing up
To keep your prose tight, look out for filter words that tell of doing being done. Then consider whether a gentle recast without them will improve your prose. How does the revised text make you feel? Is the meaning still clear? Is the mood you’re seeking evident?

If the prose feels more dramatic and immersive, you’ve done your novel and your readers a favour. If you lose something in the revision, like voice, mood or intention, reintroduce your filters at the appropriate points.

Adverbs and adverbial phrases sometimes get a bit of a pummelling, and yet they needn’t intrude and shouldn’t be removed indiscriminately. An adverb is no more likely to spoil a sentence than a poorly chosen adjective or noun.
​
Use them purposefully in your writing when they bring clarity, but remove them when they create clunk.

Are there rules? You won’t find any in this article, just common-sense guidance to help beginner writers make informed decisions.

The fiction writer – and the fiction editor – who takes a formulaic approach to the treatment of adverbs is heading for trouble.

A note on form
Not all adverbs end in –ly (e.g. backwards, inside) and not all words ending in –ly are adverbs (e.g. deadly is an adjective and anomaly is a noun).

That’s one good reason not to eradicate all –ly words from your writing.

To work out whether a word or phrase is behaving adverbially, focus on what it’s modifying not on how it’s spelled.

Verb and adverbs – a quick refresher
A verb is a doing word; it describes a physical or mental action or state of being.

An adverb is a word that describes a verb (just as an adjective describes a noun).

​An adverbial phrase behaves in the same way but uses two or more words to describe the verb (or verb phrase).

Clunk: Telling us what we already know from dialogue
Here are four examples where the adverb (in bold) attached to the speech tag is redundant because the information in the dialogue does the same job:

These aren’t rules but guidelines. Test it. Remove the adverb and read the sentence aloud. Is the intention still clear from the dialogue you’ve written? If so, great – you can lose the adverb. If it’s not, can you recast the dialogue? Consider the following:

In (1), dialogue and supporting speech tag seem a little flat. In (2), the adverb helps us to understand John’s mood. In (3), we lose the adverb but the mood intention is supplied by the additional dialogue. In (4), the adverb repeats the mood intention.

None of above four examples is grammatically incorrect, but (1) is possibly underwritten and (4) is definitely overwritten.

Context is everything though. If you’re writing a high-octane crime-thriller scene in which the pace is fast and furious, (1) might just be perfect, (2) and (3) would slow the reader down, and (4) would still be a non-starter.

Clunk: Telling us what we already know from the speech tag
Here are three examples where the adverb (in bold) is redundant because the verb (in italic) provides the same information:

Beginner writers sometimes trip up with double tells in speech tags because they’re trying not to overuse ‘said’. A replacement verb is introduced but the clarifying adverb (which served to give intention to ‘said’) is left intact even though it’s no longer needed.

‘Said’ is a rather delicious speech tag because it’s almost invisible. (For an examination of tagging, read: ‘Dialogue tags and how to use them in fiction writing’.)

Readers are so used to seeing ‘said’ that they slide over it without a glance. And that means they stay immersed in the conversation on the page, which if you’re writing dialogue is exactly where you want them.

Clunk: Telling us what we already know from the verb
Here are three examples where the adverb or adverbial phrase (in bold) is redundant because the verb (in italic) provides similar information in the narrative:

Slips like these can occur because the writer is still learning to trust their reader. They fear there are too few words or that the description isn’t rich enough. And sometimes writers just run away with themselves, so deeply are they immersed in the world they’ve created and what their characters are experiencing.

This is why drafting and redrafting are so important, and why a fresh set of professional eyes can give the writer courage. I hire people to check most of my own writing because I know that even when I’m writing educational non-fiction I’m so desperate to get my point across that I can sometimes end up in a right old tangle!

Self-editing is hard – professional editors know this. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re prone to double tells – you’re only human. Instead, cross-check your adverbs against your verbs to make sure you’re not repeating yourself.

Clunk: Dragging us away from immediacy
Some adverbs like suddenly, immediately and instantly can do the opposite of what's intended. Overuse can make the action less sudden, less instant. I cover this in detail in Why ‘suddenly’ can spoil your crime fiction: Advice for new writers.

In brief, these adverbs can act like taps on the shoulder that prevent the reader from moving through a story at the same pace as the character. The suddenness of the action is told to us first instead of being experienced by us.

Compare these examples. They demonstrate how removing the adverbs can leave the immediacy of events intact.

​Purposeful adverbs
Adverbs, used well, can show motivation, indicate mood, and enrich our imagining of a scene.

I love books that tell it straight because every word pushes me forward. David Rosenfelt is a writer who never disappoints. His Andy Carpenter series features a tenacious lawyer with a dry wit.

The author’s prose is sharp as a knife. Does he use adverbs? Absolutely, though sparingly and they’re always purpose-filled.

Summing up
Use adverbs when they help your reader understand more than they would have without them. A well-placed adverb or adverbial phrase will help you keep your prose leaner because it will nudge a reader towards imagining the action, the mood of the characters and what their intentions are.

If they’re repetitive clutter that add nothing we couldn’t have guessed, get rid of them. If the narrative or dialogue feels flat, head for a thesaurus and find alternative verbs that will bring your prose to life.

Every writer has a process. What works for you might not work for someone else, and your approach might change over time. Here are 6 tips from indie author Kristina Adams that show how changing your writing process to suit mindset and circumstances can help you grow as a writer.

When I set out to publish my first book, I had no idea what I was doing. I made the whole thing up as I went along, absorbing as much advice as I could in the short space of time I had.

I’d set myself a tight deadline – to write, edit, and publish a book in a year – which, when you have no idea what you’re doing and you’re a one-woman band working a full-time job, is pretty insane.

Fast-forward to now, and I’ve published four books and have a somewhat better idea of what I’m doing. I’m no expert, but I have come to accept that my writing process changes as I mature as a writer, as I grow as a person, and as my circumstances in life change.

So let’s take a look at what's changed, and what you can learn from my ever-changing writing process ...

1. Planning is your friend
I never used to plan my writing. My dissertation tutor tried to convince me of the importance of planning, but I wouldn’t listen to him. (Pro tip: always listen to people more experienced than you, especially when you’re paying them.)
 
When I started writing a book with multiple points of view and several spin-offs involved, his advice finally sunk in.
 
Now, I don’t write anything without at least the hint of a plan first. Sometimes that plan is simply what the ending will be. Other times it’s so elaborate that there’s no room for missteps.
 
It’s important to plan properly, though.
 
A few years ago, I took part in NaNoWriMo. I was so excited that I’d planned my novel weeks in advance. When I went to write it in the October, I discovered – to my horror – that I hadn’t planned it very well at all. The Big Reveal scene was described as ‘Poppy finds out who the murderer is’. That was it. I’d spent all that time planning but hadn’t actually worked out the most important detail in a crime novel. Insert face palm here.
 
The draft ended up being all over the place. I forced myself to hit the NaNoWriMo word count, but hated the piece so much that I almost quit writing fiction all together. (Another lesson learnt: don’t force yourself to finish a piece that you really, really don’t like any more. Not unless there’s someone else’s money on the line.)
 
You don’t need to know every step along the way when you plan. I like to see it as akin to planning a journey: you know the destination and what stops you’ll make along the way, but you don’t know the other cars, the scenery, or the people you’ll come across.
 
Planning is your friend, folks. It doesn’t dampen the creativity; it just stops you from digging yourself into a massive hole.

2. Listen to your body
This may seem like an odd thing to say in a post about writing, but as someone with six chronic health issues, I really do need to listen to my body.
 
Too much stress exacerbates my fibromyalgia, which then means I’m too tired and in too much pain to function. It’s therefore imperative that when I start to feel weak, the pain gets too much, or the room starts spinning, I go to bed and close my eyes.

Sometimes that rest is a couple of hours; other times it’s days. Either way, if I didn’t rest, I’d end up in a much worse state and wouldn’t be able to write or publish at all.
 
So many people come to me and say, ‘I feel tired all the time’. If you fall into this category, I have three pieces of advice:

1. Listen to your body. It’s telling you to sleep, so sleep. Lack of sleep does nothing but make you more ill.
2. Talk to your doctor because chronic tiredness can be a sign of anything from a vitamin D deficiency to chronic fatigue syndrome.
3. This is the perfect time to write! When you’re half asleep you’re too tired to self-edit, which means you’re less critical of your ideas. You should never, ever write and edit as you go along because these are two very different skills that require very different mindsets. The one upside to being tired all the time is that your brain just doesn’t have the attention span to write and edit. It’s easier for you to tap into your subconscious, making it easier to write and harder to be critical.

3. Abandon your book (just for a while)
It’s amazing how many things you can spot when you’ve taken a break from working on something. The longer you leave something in the drawer for, the more you’ll spot and the easier it is to work through any issues that you may or may not know about.

I didn’t have much time to do this when working on What Happens in New York, but with more recent books I’ve written a first draft, then gone on to write another first draft of something else before going back to it. This means I’m working on first drafts while in a writing mindset; then I can switch to an editor’s mindset.

Switching rapidly between writing and editing can be difficult, which is why I like to do them in bulk for longer projects. It strengthens my skills in both as I’m in that mindset for longer. It also means I’m less likely to overthink things during the crucial (but ugly) first-draft stage.

4. Ask for help
My local writing community has been pivotal to my growth as a writer. Whenever I get stuck on a particular issue, there’s always someone who can help. I have one friend in particular who’s brilliant at fixing plot holes, and so when I was unsure of something in my most recent book, she was the first person I went to. She helped me to figure everything out, and suddenly the book wasn’t so intimidating any more.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a support network. Even if your support network doesn’t consist of other writers or editors (although it helps), having people in your corner that you go to for help when you need it makes a huge difference to your growth and your confidence as a writer.

If you don’t have access to a physical writing community, there are plenty available online. Facebook, Twitter, and even Second Life have writing communities, and there are a plethora of websites that are dedicated to writing, too.

​5. Be realistic with deadlines
When I set myself a 12-month deadline to publish What Happens in New York, I had no idea how much work was involved in self-publishing (unless one has a budget that far exceeds my monthly salary). Had I known, I would’ve set myself a different deadline.
 
I ended up rushing a lot of processes early on and making rookie mistakes that make me cringe when I look back on them.
 
Nowadays, I don’t put anything up for pre-order until the book is in a state that I’m happy with and only requires one last read-through to check for any niggling issues that might have been missed.
 
Having a public deadline definitely helped to motivate me. Had I not had it, I may well have kept procrastinating, coming up with an abundance of excuses why I shouldn’t hit the ‘Submit for pre-order’ button.
 
These days I don’t make my deadlines quite so public – I tell a few close friends that I know will hold me accountable instead. These are both fans of my writing and fans of me, which encourages me to keep going while also offering moral support when things go wrong.

6. Accept that you know nothing
The less you know, the more room you have to grow.

The more room you have to grow, the more you can succeed.

Everyone knows something that you don’t know, which is why it’s important to take advice from as many sources as you can. If someone has said something mean, acknowledge it, then ignore it. But if someone offers constructive criticism, take some time to think about their comments. It may be hurtful, but often the greatest pain comes from the greatest truths. 

No one likes their writing to be criticized, but it’s the only way you’ll improve as a writer. 

If those comments come from your target audience, it’s especially important to listen since they’re the ones that will download your book. If they don’t like something, they’re the ones you really need to pay attention to before you do something that could dampen your sales. 

As time goes on, you’ll learn the difference between constructive feedback and someone who's just got an axe to grind and you just happened to be their unfortunate target. 

In the end ...
Everyone’s writing process is different. That’s part of what I find most fascinating about writing. I love hearing how different people write in different ways. I have some friends who plan their books in so much depth that they only need one or two edits. I have others who love editing but can’t stand first-draft stage.

What really matters is that you find a writing process that works for you. Your writing process will change as you grow, and as your circumstances in life change. That’s natural. When you accept that, it becomes a lot easier to get your writing done.

It also means you’re kinder to yourself, which means that you’re more relaxed. When you’re more relaxed, you can write better because you’re not putting too much pressure on yourself. Then, when you write better, you achieve more. And in the end, isn’t that what we all want?

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how long it takes to complete an edit – whether you’re doing it yourself or working with a professional – and how to plan ahead.
​
And check out the cheeky bloopers that Denise included of me messing up my words! I’ll get my revenge!

Click to listen to Episode 12

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Summary of Episode 12
Listen to find out more about editing time in relation to:Word count

• Complexity of the project
• Level of editing being carried, including referencing, style-guide adherence and fact-checking
• Publishing imperfect written content
• Working with agents
• Collectives and agencies: fast turnaround, high quality
• The length of the editing day
• Scheduling editing in advance, and allowing time to deal with queries

Editing bites

• Self Publishing Journeys (podcast hosted by Paul Teague)
• ELT Teacher 2 Writer

Plus:

• Writing for business. When is good enough, enough?
  
  

Ask us a question
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• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss location and whether where your editor lives actually matters.

Click to listen to Episode 11

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Summary of Episode 11
Listen to find out more about:

• Local, regional and national knowledge
• Face-to-face meetings
• University policies
• Spelling, idiomatic and dialectical variance
• Pronunciation problems
• Communicating with global audiences
• Refining searches for editors
• Financial transactions
• The type of editing being carried out
• Times-zone advantages

Editing bites

• Oxford Dictionaries Online
• Urban Dictionary

Ask us a question
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Other ways to get in touch

• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how to find an editor if you decide you want professional help.

Click to listen to Episode 10

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Summary of Episode 10
Listen to find out more about:

• National editorial societies
• Google and other search engines
• Writing networks
• Social media
• Refining your search by subject/genre specialism: editor portfolios
• Refining with sample edits
• Refining with testimonials

Editing bites

• Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
• Alliance for Independent Authors (ALLi)

Other resources

• SfEP Directory of Editorial Services
• ALLi roundtable: Louise, Denise & co on editing
• ALLi roundtable: Louise, Denise & co on editing for profit

Episode transcripts
You can access transcripts of all the episodes via Denise and Louise's websites:

• Denise Cowle
• Louise Harnby

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.

Other ways to get in touch

• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss the order of play for the different levels of editing, and some ideas about how you can keep costs down.

Click to listen to Episode 9

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Summary of Episode 9
Listen to find out more about:

• The different levels of editing
• The order of play – when to do what
• Who else can help – beyond the pro editor
• Planning ahead
• Getting comparative quotations for the job
• Honing story craft
• Manuscript critiques or evaluations
• Learning through example – commissioning mini edits
• Word’s onboard tools, macros and add-ins
• Style sheets

​
Editing bites

• PerfectIt (consistency-checking software)
• Proofreading checklist (free PDF booklet)
• Ask A Book Editor (Facebook group)

Other resources

• A nifty little proofreading and editing macro: ProperNounAlyse (blog post)
• Creating your own style sheet (scroll to bottom of blog post)
• Free downloadable style-sheet template (scroll to bottom of blog post)
• How do I find spelling inconsistencies when proofreading and editing? TextSTAT (blog post)
• How Not to Write a Novel (Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman)
• Self-editing your fiction in Word: How to use styles (video tutorial)
• Should a writer hire a freelance editor before submitting to an agent? And should editors accept the work? (blog post)
• The different levels of editing: Proofreading and beyond (blog post)
• The Magic of Fiction (Beth Hill)
• Using proofreading macros: Highlighting confusables with CompareWordList (blog post)
• Write to be Published (Nicola Morgan)

Episode transcripts
You can access transcripts of all the episodes via Denise and Louise's websites:

• Denise Cowle
• Louise Harnby

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.

Other ways to get in touch

• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

You don't need a lot of equipment to create superb audio content. A fellow book editor and I recently recorded 5 episodes for our podcast with nothing but a couple of mics, a splitter and our cell phones. Here's how to do it.

Mobile podcasting at ATOMICON
Denise Cowle and I were at ATOMICON, a one-day digital marketing conference hosted by my two favourite marketers, Andrew and Pete.

The venue was the Assembly Rooms in Newcastle. 300 business owners, all with an interest in being visible online, gathered from near and far to learn, and have a good laugh doing it – Andrew and Pete don’t do anything without putting a smile on people’s faces!

Creating content ... while learning about creating content
In January, Denise and I launched The Editing Podcast. We're both experienced book editors and we use our knowledge and experience to make indie authors' publishing journeys easier by offering writing and editing tips, tools and guidance.

Our target audience is anyone who writes. That means we’re creating audio material related to fiction and creative non-fiction, business, education and academia.

We tackle editing issues from the viewpoint of print and digital publishing because we recognize that our listeners work in a variety of formats and use a range of platforms to distribute their writing.

Now, we'd already planned to invite guests onto The Editing Podcast in Season 2 and beyond, but ATOMICON was too good an opportunity to miss.

​Since some of the 300 delegates had published books – fiction and non-fiction – we thought it would be great to hear their experiences of the editing and publishing process so that other indie authors might understand the various approaches taken and the challenges faced.

The question we asked ourselves was could we do it on the fly? The coffee breaks were short, the venue busy, and the atmosphere buzzing. That meant there’d be a lot of background noise to contend with.

What equipment did we use?
We turned up in Newcastle with our very own micro podcasting studio! It consisted of the following:

• 2 x RØDE Smartlav+ mics; one for us and one for each of our interviewees (available on Amazon for £39.99)
• 1 x RØDE SC6; allows the connection of two mics to one iPhone (available on Amazon for £11.15)
• 1 x smart phone
• 1 x RØDE Reporter app (free via Apple’s App Store, though we could have used our onboard voice recorders)

Total cost: £51.14

That’s a small investment for an audio studio that fits in your pocket! And we can use the equipment over and over.

​So did it work?
Yes, it did! RØDE didn’t disappoint. We plugged in the mics, hit the RECORD button on the Reporter app, and away we went.
​
Our voices come across clearly, and while the background noise of the convention is audible, it doesn't interfere with the conversation. In fact, we think it adds texture to the recordings because listeners can appreciate the atmosphere of a live event.

Who did we talk to?
The following lovely people were kind enough to let us interview them about their book revision and publication journeys:
​

• Tim Lewis, host of the Begin Self-Publishing Podcast and author of Social Media Networking
• Simon Raybould of Presentation Genius and author of Presentation Genius
• Antoinette Oglethorpe, a leadership coach and author of Grow Your Geeks
• Kenda Macdonald of Automation Ninjas, and author of Hack the Buyer Brain
• Kia Thomas, a fiction editor and author of Wings

You can listen to the bonus POINT OF VIEW episodes on The Editing Podcast via your preferred podcatcher.

Editing and publishing the recordings
The recordings are .WAV files that sit in the Reporter app’s library. Download them to your computer or email them to yourself.
​
We edit our audio files in Audacity – this is free, open-source, cross-platform audio-editing software. The dashboard does have something of a NASA feel to it, but it’s easy to learn how to do the basics with any number of free tutorials available on YouTube. 

Here’s one example from by David Taylor: Audacity: Complete Tutorial Guide to Audacity for Beginners.

To upload to most audio platforms, you’ll need to convert the WAVs to MP3s. You can do this in Audacity at export stage.

​Publishing audio content
Denise and I chose Libsyn to syndicate our podcast content because it’s cheap as chips ($5 per month for the basic package) but still enables – post set-up – automatic delivery to the following:

You don’t have to go down that route, of course. If you’re creating audio content more sporadically for the purpose of author book promotion or to communicate your editing knowledge/services, you could go direct to, say, SoundCloud or another free audio-streaming service, and embed the audio on your website rather than going for full syndication. And it won’t cost you a penny.

Why should you use audio?
Audio is a powerful engagement tool because it allows your listeners to hear your actual voice ... your accent, your pitch, your inflection and, perhaps most important, your emotion.

That enables authors to connect with readers, and editors to connect with authors. 

When a conversation takes place, listeners can hear that connection, and enjoy it. Lots of The Editing Podcast's listeners have told me and Denise that they love not just the learning points we share but also the way our friendship plays out on air. It's a richer experience than words alone can provide.
 
Learn how to do marketing better
We had a great time at ATOMICON, and our mobile podcasting experiment was a huge success, with over 300 downloads of the author interviews in the first 2 hours of appearing on air.

​If you’re struggling to be visible online, Andrew and Pete will show you the way. Denise and I are heading back to ATOMICON in 2020. I'm certain we'll be doing more mobile podcasting, too!

​Click on the image below if you fancy joining us.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about about page proofs and the proofreading process.

Click to listen to Episode 8

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Summary of Episode 8
Listen to find out more about:

• Tangled terminology and how proofreading means different things to different writers and editors
• Designed page proofs versus raw-text files
• Defining page proofs
• Where proofreading and page proofs fit into mainstream publishing industry’s production process
• What to look out for at proofreading stage
• Knock-on effects that could damage designed page proofs
• The benefits of professional interior formatting

Editing bites

• The Penguin Guide to Punctuation (book by RL Trask)
• Quick and Dirty Tips (online hub hosted by Grammar Girl, aka Mignon Fogarty)

Related resources
You can download Louise's free proofreading checklist by clicking on the image below:

Check out two of Louise's blog articles about proofreading too:

• Order! Order! Thoughts on proofreading method
• Proofreading designed page proofs: knock-on effects

​Episode transcripts
You can access transcripts of all the episodes via Denise and Louise's websites:

• Denise Cowle
• Louise Harnby

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.

Other ways to get in touch

• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this post, I outline the start of the author–editor relationship – from first contact, to initial discussion, to booking confirmation. My process is personal to my business but it gives you an idea of what to expect.

1. The author makes contact
Clients are welcome to contact me via email, social media, telephone or my contact form. Most use the latter.

My contact form is basic because I want authors to be able to start a conversation with me as easily as possible. The biggest stumbling block is usually the time frame because I’m booked up months in advance. Establishing when they’d like the editing or proofreading carried out is therefore essential, as is the word count. It’s those two pieces of information that will guide me on best fit at this point.

I include a dropdown menu so that authors can quickly choose the service they’re looking for: a full line and copyedit, a mini line critique or a proofread.

I ask for a little information about the project, too. This is where an author can tell me about the genre of their novel and provide a brief summary of the project.

I also ask for a name and email address – nothing more in terms of personal details. An underpinning principle of GPDR compliance requires business owners to collect only necessary data. For me, the name and email is enough to enable me to reply to the query. 

2. The project discussion
Now the author and I begin to talk. The focus at this stage tends to be on time frame, the type of editing required, and the price (subject to seeing a sample). There might be a little back and forth as we get to know each other and agree the terms of the editing project.

If the author sent a sample with their email, I’ll review it before responding. This is the perfect opportunity for me to check that the service they’ve asked for is a good fit for what I think the text requires. It also gives me a chance to get a feel for the writing style ... to see whether I can get under the skin of the novel and give the story the sentence-level pop the author’s seeking.

A sample helps me work out how long the editing will take too. With that information, I can determine the fee. If you want more information about samples, Denise Cowle and I cover this topic in Episode 6 of The Editing Podcast.

I sometimes include links to useful resources on my website if I think they'll help the author decide whether I’m a good fit for them.

You can access everything on offer via my Writing Resources page but the 3 tools I most often refer to during this discussion phase are:

1. Submitting to agents and working with editors (blog post and booklet)
2. How to prepare your book file for a fiction editor (blog post and video)
3. Which level of editing do you need? (booklet)

3. Booking the editing project
Once the author and I have decided we want to work together, and agreed a price and completion date, it’s time to confirm the booking.

​I ask them to read my terms and conditions (which are designed to protect us both), then fill in the booking-confirmation form (scroll to the bottom of the T&Cs web page if you want to have a look at it).

Receipt of that form triggers me to send an invoice for the booking fee that will secure the author’s slot in my schedule.

4. Preparing for the edit: styles and files
There’s an Author Style Preferences form next to the booking-confirmation form in which clients can register any decisions they’d like me to adhere to during the editing or proofreading process. These aren’t set in stone and can be changed at any time before the editing begins.

Authors are welcome to send me their book file at any time once the booking has been confirmed. My only stipulation is that it arrives 24 hours before editing begins. This gives me time to check that the file can be opened and edited.
​
I hold the files securely in my Dropbox account, which is protected via two-factor authentication.

5. Reminding the author about the start date
I like to give my authors a little nudge at least a week before the start date. Editing will usually have been booked many months earlier and I might not be top of mind if the client is busy with other commitments. A nudge costs nothing and is invariably appreciated by time-poor authors.

If I’ve already received the book file, the reminder is simply a courtesy to let them know I’m about to start working on their project, and to check that the file hasn’t been revised in the meantime. Otherwise, it’s a reminder of the date by which the author needs to deliver the file.

Summing up
Editors work in a variety of ways. The process I’ve outlined here might look very different to my colleagues’. Still, it gives you an idea of what to expect when you get in touch with me. 

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line. In the meantime, help yourself to the freebies. You don’t even have to hand over your email address to access them – just click and grab.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss sample edits – what they are, how they can help, and who they’re useful for.

Click to listen to Episode 6

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Download transcript
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Summary of Episode 6 ...

• Asking for multiple sample edits of the same material
  
• What to expect from sample line/copyedits versus proofreads
  
• Best versus best fit
  
• Pricing: are they free?
  
• Samples and scheduling
  
• Samples and filtering for ‘Frankenstein edits’
  
• Obligations and safe spaces

Editing bites

• Directory of Editorial Services: Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP)
• FutureLearn writing courses (free): Start Writing Fiction (OU), An Introduction to Screenwriting (UEA), Introduction to Forensic Science (University of Strathclyde; crime writers will find this useful).
  

​
Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how to choose the right kind of editor to suit your publishing needs.​

Click to listen to Episode 5

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Download transcript
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Summary of Episode 5 ...

• budget
• writing expertise
• editing expertise
• genre or subject
• personality fit
• time frame
• publishing goals
• audience

Editing bites

• Joel Friedlander’s Self-Publishing: Carnival of the Indies
• Tim Lewis’s Begin Self-publishing Podcast

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how much professional editing might cost if you decide to hire a third party, and what factors could affect the fee you’re quoted.

Click to listen to Episode 4

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Summary of Episode 4 ...

• The cost of editing
• The individual editor in relation to costs
• Prices according to industry surveys and reports you read
• The required turnaround time and price
• The speed at which the editor works and price
• How terminology might confuse quotations
• How complex the project is in relation to price

Plus:

• How editors present fees
• What editing fees have to cover: editing and business overheads

Editing bites

• Everybody Writes: Your Go-to Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content (Ann Handley)
• How NOT to Write a Novel: 200 Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs if You Ever Want to Get Published (Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman)

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise look at why you might want to invest in hiring an editor rather than doing it all yourself.

Click to listen to Episode 3

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Summary of Episode 3 ...

• Working with an editor
• Time restrictions
• Losing your mojo
• Fresh eyes
• Professional training and experience

Editing bites

• On Writing by Stephen King (Hodder, 2012)
• Links to professional editorial societies (worldwide)

Other resources

• Is hiring a developmental editor cheating? (Molly McCowan)
• Why the Grammar Police aren’t cool (Denise Cowle)
• What makes a good fiction editor? (Louise Harnby)

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise demystify publishing language – the terms professionals use to describe the parts of a book – so that you can talk with confidence about your text.

Click to listen to Episode 2

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Summary of Episode 2 ...

• Publishing lingo
• The beginning (or front matter; prelims), the main or body text and the end matter (or back matter)
• Part titles, half titles, and title pages
• Forewords and prefaces
• Acknowledgements
• Pages, page numbers, and folios
• Double page spreads (DPSs)
• Rectos and versos
• Running heads and running feet
• Drop caps or dropped capitals
• Chapter drops
• Appendices and glossaries
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Bibliographies, references, and indexes

Editing bites

• The Chicago Manual of Style
• New Hart’s Rules

Indexing societies

• American Society for Indexing
• Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers
• Australia and New Zealand Society of Indexers
• China Society of Indexers (site in Chinese)
• Deutsches Netzwerk der Indexer/German Network of Indexers
• Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d’indexation
• Nederlands Indexers Netwerk/Netherlands Indexing Network
• Society of Indexers (UK)

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss the different levels of editing, why editing is worth doing, the order of play, and how perfection is impossible in one pass. 

Click to listen to Episode 1

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Summary of Episode 1 ...

• The different levels of editing
• Mimicking the mainstream publishing industry
• Building a fan base
• Shaping: Developmental editing and manuscript critiques (macro/story level)
• Smoothing: Line editing (micro/sentence level)
• Correcting: Copyediting (micro/sentence level)
• Quality control: Proofreading (micro/sentence level)
• The logical order of play
• Making time for several passes

Editing bites

• ‘Which level of editing do you need?’ (booklet by Louise Harnby)
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print (2nd ed.) (book by Renni Browne and Dave King)
• ‘Self-editing a non-fiction book’ (blog post by Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn)
• How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn Your Knowledge into Words (book by Joanna Penn)

Ask us a question
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Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

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

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

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

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

How does all of this relate to fiction writing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think about what you do when you look in a mirror.
​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cited works and further reading

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