English is complicated and can confuse the best of us. Many editors have dog-eared grammar manuals and style books with Post-It notes on the sections we have to double-check every time. One fine point that even experienced editors find hard to memorize is the distinction between who and whom. The …
Tag: Writing
The power of small wins in writing a book
A friend on a writers’ e-mail list shared a link to this wonderful story about persistence: The Daffodil Principle It’s a lovely, inspirational story, but of course my first reaction — I suppose this is true for a lot of people — was to wonder whether such a beautiful garden …
Eliminating the narrator
As we saw last week, the goal of deep point of view is to eliminate the narrator. Which means there are two primary choices for POV, each of which has some subsets: You can have a narrator, or not. In a novel with no narrator, the POV character takes on …
The difference between third person POV and Deep POV
Q: I keep hearing about Deep POV. What is it, and how is it different from what the writing books call third person POV? A: Point of view is one of the most complicated elements of fiction, and POV slips are among the most common errors we see in amateur …
How attending conferences helps your career
Attending writers conferences is one of the best things you can do for your writing career. There are many benefits to attending conferences: Learning in workshops and seminars Pitching to agents and editors Opportunities to get critiques Discovering new resources Befriending other writers This last item may be the most …
How to choose a publisher
One good way to find the right publisher for your book is to find similar books in your topic area or genre, and submit your manuscript to the publishers of those books. When using this method, you do need to ensure that a book very similar to yours hasn’t been …
Why omniscient POV is not recommended
One of the most common errors we see in amateur manuscripts is POV slips, which occur when a writer who means to be writing in character POV includes something the POV character can’t know. For example, if you’re writing from the POV of a starship captain, you ought not put …
What’s ahead for print media
Q: Is there a future for print media? A: There is, but it’s not what most people in the print media business think it is. The biggest obstacle for print media is that by the time news is printed with ink on dead trees, it’s no longer news.
Comma rules, condensed
Misplaced commas are the most common punctuation error I see. We all need help with commas at one time or another. Even experienced writers place them where they’re not needed and omit them where they are.
Fiction Q&A: How long is a chapter?
Q: Is there a rule of thumb for how long chapters in novels should be? Also, how should I place chapter breaks? I try to put them in when I’m writing, but then I wind up moving things around and having to renumber them. It’s kind of a pain. A: …