I’m a professional fiction editor. And for me, there’s a single guiding principle behind every editorial decision I make. It’s simply this: I must be able to justify every edit. We editors adopt the same mantra as doctors: ‘First, do [...]
For a change, I thought it’d be a fun to share a few things about me, so you can get to know me better. We can navigate our editor-author (or student-teacher) relationship with the utmost professionalism, but at the end [...]
It’s that time of year again. Time has a habit of getting away from us, and I find it useful to take stock of all the significant moments that have made up my year and take a moment to think [...]
A few weeks ago, an email dropped into my inbox. It was a past client, letting me know the manuscript I had line and copy-edited for him around eighteen months ago was now a fully published novel. It's always exciting [...]
I know that you know the answer to this question: it depends. It depends on the writer, and it depends on the novel. Even so, you’re curious. How does your writing speed compare to that of other authors? Are you [...]
I have a complicated relationship with money, but then I suspect most of us do. I’ve never had a great deal of it. I don’t come from a wealthy family. I worry about my future and whether I’ll be able [...]
If you want to be a published author, you have two main options. You can either self-publish or you can work with a traditional publishing house. Most publishing houses don’t consider unsolicited manuscripts for publication. Instead, they’ll let literary agents [...]
In a nutshell … nope! Developmental editing is very different to copy-editing and proofreading. Developmental editors help authors shape their stories (addressing things like concept, plot and structure, pacing and character development; and stylistic and technical execution, such a deciding on [...]
I’d planned to publish my reading log for 2017 at the end of last year or beginning of this year … You know, when it actually made sense to do so. But time got away from me, so I’m taking [...]
Asking for feedback while writing is a tricky thing. Because it takes so long to write a novel, it makes sense that you’d crave some positive feedback to inspire you to keep going. After all, when you’re starting to doubt [...]
