#AmEditing
I am honored to receive such kind words from one of my amazing clients! Providing balanced feedback that highlights strengths and boosts confidence is my priority. 📝💪
Being responsive and supportive throughout the editing process is crucial to me. It's a joy to work with talented authors! 🌟✨
Together, we create impactful stories! 📚💖
#WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmEditing #EditingServices #FantasyAuthor
Is it just me, or proofreading is still more efficiently done by handwritten annotation? (I do it on my tablet when I have the luxury of time.) I'm also able to better focus on the task.
There is a golden rule among editors: do no harm. What does this mean? It means we correct grammar and improve flow, and offer suggestions about character or plot, but above all, we work to ensure an author’s voice and vision remain intact.
Learn more about why this is my guiding principle as an #editor: http://www.jenniferdinsmoreditorial.com/blog/guiding-principle-as-an-editor
#AmEditing #Copyeditor #Proofreader #WritingCommunity #EditorsOfMastodon
I tell ya, #colleagues who are also #friends are just the best. ❤️🧡💙💜 #AmEditing #Bookstodon
How do you feel about the "rule" that "only" should go right before the thing it modifies?
For example, the rule would say this is wrong:
➡️ The words are only capitalized if they are part of a name.
The rule says it should be written like this:
➡️ The words are capitalized only if they are part of a name.
A detailed stylesheet is the best teaser/blurb for any book. I'm not sure why this manuscript needs to detail how sudoku numbers are styled but I'm excited to find out.
Are you an author, or don't know where to start? Experienced authot can help!
I run manuscript assessment and other writing services. And I am running a quick sale... so maybe leap now? Drop me an email, let's discuss - first discussion free!
Details on my website
#amwriting #Editorial #creative #booktoot #novel #writerofmastodon #amediting
Editing is essential, but it shouldn't feel inaccessible. Each author has unique needs, which shouldn't be a barrier to getting quality editing. Communicating your needs with an editor fosters support and enhances the value of the process. ⛏️📚 https://www.ajeditorialservices.com/post/making-editing-accessible
#editing #writing #writers #accessibility #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmEditing
“Working with Jennifer is a dream. She helped shape the story into what I wanted from the start ... Her attention to detail is impressive, all while keeping her hand on the essence of the story. A very balanced approach.” -- Douglas Gardham, author
#AmEditing #Testimonial #EditorsOfMastodon #WritingCommunity #AmWriting
How do you keep track of your story world? Details like hair/eye colour, or names of background characters?
A style guide is one of the most important tools in my toolkit, so I'm sharing my template! Get yours when you sign up for my newsletter: http://www.jenniferdinsmoreeditorial.com
#AmEditing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #EditorsOfMastodon #WritingCraft
Help me out here... If you have a single person hanging out with a couple, are they a third wheel or a fifth wheel?
I've always said fifth wheel because a fifth wheel is superfluous. A third wheel is a tricycle, which is a perfectly legitimate mode of transportation. But two critique partners, without talking to each other, just corrected me. Have I been wrong all this time?
cc/ @grammargirl
It can be hard for editors to read for fun, but I've found it helpful to remind myself of a few things:
1. There will be errors.
2. The author's, editor's, or publisher's style choices may differ from mine.
3. I'm not being paid to mentally edit. I'm there to enjoy the story.
Remember that in fiction, especially in dialogue, we can get away with bending the guidelines of standard punctuation usage.
A falling intonation marks a statement. A rising one, a question. Use the punctuation to guide readers to the correct understanding of those "questions that aren't questions" or "statements that are questions."
"Did they do that? Or did something in the process make them change their minds."
That question isn't a question at all. A period clarifies.
Back back back back back . . .
Sometimes, a word appears so many times in a few sentences in a row, my best option is rewriting. That might also mean altering sentence length, paragraph breaks, and dialogue tags.
Not often, but when it happens, I deal with it.
And, as always, the client gets the final say. Sometimes they rewrite my rewrites. I'm sure that sometimes they stet it all.
::shrugs:: It's their work. Not mine.
Morning, word people!
A lot of what I suggest in edits is slight changes to dialogue. If a certain phrasing clunks in my head, I try out others until I find the one or two that roll smoothly, and I suggest that as the change along with a comment to the effect of "I hear X say it this way" or "I hear this in my head."
It's always up to the client to accept or reject. I'm just suggesting changes to improve readability, comprehension, and flow. Clunky phrasing slows readers down. #AmEditing
Are you looking for an editor but are unsure where to start? Feeling a little overwhelmed?
Here are 3 tips to finding vetted professionals and selecting the best editor for you: http://www.jenniferdinsmoreeditorial.com/three-ways-to-find-an-editor
I’m starting #CIEP’s training course introduction to copy-editing this afternoon. I’m probably the only person to take this course after passing the intermediate course but, holy crap, that course was hard. I’m self-taught and apparently the way I approach everything is wrong.
Wish me luck!
Hey @edibuddies and other copyeditors, do you miss the ACES biweekly chats?
I know I do. Luckily, my friend @carolinavonkampen decided to do something about it. She is holding a #NotACESChat this Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET about working from home with #StetPets.
TO is not DO.
Fingers move quickly. Brains even more so. Tiny words will trip you up every time. It's far easier to mistype "to" for "do" than "exhibit" for "execute.:"
BEGIN is not BEING.
Plurals of proper names can be tricky.
"Jacobses" looks weird, but it's the correct plural of the surname "Jacobs."
"Jacobs's" is the singular possessive, not a plural.
Morning, word people!
MONDAY! Back to work after a week away (not away-away, just not here). Time to see whether I can finish this project by the 15th, which is my internal goal. There's no hard deadline, but I'm expecting a short DE project on that date.
And so, kids . . . #AmEditing #HardKnocks #SCMarvaCollins
My MC is crossing a threshold of sorts, and it’s absolutely sureal. The anomaly this little passage depicts has to be one of my favorite elements of this story! Trippy+unsettling+magical!🙌🏽 #WritingCommunity, are there any uncanny places or boundaries in your WIP?
#amediting
#indieauthors
#urbanfantasy
#writers
#blackauthors
#blackwriters
#fiction
I have an opening starting 5-June for a Line or Developmental Edit. Those start at $0.009/word (USD).
I need this slot filled so I'm offering 10% off to the first person to book.
Email: liana.brooks1 at gmail
Me, working on my spin-off #WIP: There isn't any scientific evidence that this could be true/how it works...
Also me, for the work I #amEditing (and will be #querying): ya, so, trauma can have mass & can open tiny wormholes, given the right Olympus mutation. obvi.
Just the reminder I needed to take myself a lil less seriously today 😄
#AmWriting #WritingCommunity #WritersofMastodon #Writing #Writer
So #Microsoft just forced me to "upgrade" my #OfficeSuite, and it is so irksome to have all these new flashy bells and whistles thrust upon me and none of the actual improvements that I could have suggested if they'd asked.
Like, why is there still no ability to personalize the default view in Word so I don't have to reset the zoom to 125% every day?
But thank the editing gods that at least I figured out how to turn off that miserable "#ModernComments feature.
Whenever I find an especially tricky or sneaky error, I tend to point at it on my computer screen excitedly. As if it would run away should I take my eyes off it.
Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, and Collins all hyphenate "long-term" as an adjective, but not "longtime."
They are close to each other in my acknowledgements, and it looks weird:
"My long-term writers" and a paragraph later "my longtime friend."
I need "long-term." I could maybe use a different word for "longtime," but nothing else (e.g, "good," "dear") is quite right.
I may make a house style decision here and hyphenate "long-time." What do you think, @edibuddies?
Just me, or when you take a Monday off, you gain like three Tuesdays?
Less than 24h to book your place at the CIEP conference using the early-bird discount. If you haven't, this is your reminder.
I've finally booked mine. Am very sad that I'll be joining online instead of in-person though.
Anything you can do to cheer me up?
I need to think of a new first chapter for this book because, according to some useful feedback I recently received, this is likely what has been holding me back. This is not easy. Oh, and if anyone wants an update about my employment problems, I'm actually not sure what's going on at the moment, so I'm going to refrain from commenting for now.
Hmm...new first chapter
Where should my story begin?
Catch an agent's eye
#HaikusByMonica #Haiku #Daily #Poetry #Poet #AmWriting #Writer #Author #AmQuerying #AmEditing #HaikusByAmy
Guess who just made about a dozen or so edits with Tracked Changes turned off?
Luckily, I've just started working on this, so it's easy enough to fix.
Want a full volume of the first 10 years of this cartoon? Find *An Editorial Cartoon* at your favourite online bookseller: https://ivacheung.com/2023/01/hands-and-book-announcement/
One dollar from each book supports the Indigenous Editors Association. #AmEditing
It's June already, somehow. Here's your JUNE CARTOON: https://ivacheung.com/2023/06/machete/ #AmEditing
For the month of May I wrote a total of 14280 words out of 85479 total on the year so far plus spent 13 hours 44 minutes revising/editing #amwriting #amediting
Question for the #WritingCommunity and #edibuddies:
How do you prefer to style the noun "worldbuilding"?
Spell-checking software insists on putting a red dotted line under my preferred version.
Love, love, love this new post from Alex Kapitan (Radical Copyeditor). "Using language consciously and anti-oppressively is rooted in care, not correctness."
https://radicalcopyeditor.com/2023/05/30/conscious-communication-and-the-power-of-language/
#Editing #AmEditing #Writing #WritingCommunity #WritingTips #ConsciousLanguage #InclusiveLanguage @edibuddies
Today’s pet peeve: when writers use “people that…” instead of “people who….” When I’m editing, I will always change it. #amwriting #amediting #migrainebrain #migrainesmakemeprickly
I hacked off 1,000+ words from my edit-in-progress yesterday that were slowing the story down. It also shortened the book by a chapter.
Wow did that feel good!
Today: medium-level edits on an interesting but disorganised chapter. Doing some pruning and making it more coherent #AmEditing
An editing bundle specifically designed to hone and shape your voice! Get a line edit with a discount copyedit. Find out more: http://bit.ly/BundlesForAuthors
#WritingCommunity #Writers #AmEditing #FantasyWriters #EditingServices
My 5yo noticed a missing full stop in one of a few sentences across a spread in a Dr Seuss book he's re-reading. I now have a full-fledged homegrown assistant. Next lesson: it's not all about punctuations. #AmEditing #parenting
In case you were wondering (and I'm sure no one is), Merriam-Webster has entries for "if worse comes to worse," "if worse comes to worst," and "if worst comes to worst."
So pick whichever one makes you happy—unless it's "if worst comes to worse."
#Editing #AmEditing #Writing #WritingCommunity #WritingTips @edibuddies
buy-in --> acceptance
reinvent the wheel --> repeat existing work
low-hanging fruit --> easily solved problems
Idioms and colloquialisms aren't universal. I'm not editing for the author's colleagues at their own institution. I'm editing for a hypothetical (or not) student who doesn't live in the US and needs to understand the study.
Let's talk #beta reading!
... I have a few people reading beta for me, but I know I need a more varied audience. But how do I go about it? I'm already struggling with the idea that I have nothing but my eternal gratitude on offer as payment for the intense labour that is beta reading, and can't get myself to ask people to set aside their own free time for me.
So, help and tips are appreciated! How do you #writestodon do beta reading?
I did it. i sent it off to the editor. It is out of my hands. There is nothing I can still change about it. It is gone! My baby is gone 😭
#AmEditing #AmEditingNoMore #WritingCommunity
Okay, final edits are in. 147,634 words in the end. Now a deep breath, a coffee, and then export it and send it off to the editor, because I think I am at the stage I would make it worse, not better.
Dear #WritingCommunity
When you are thinking word count of your novel, do you count front matter (foreword...) and back matter (afterword, acknowledgements...) to the word count or not?
I am trying to see something.
Background: https://mindly.social/@strangeseawolf/110447846673547637
#WritingWonders #AmWriting #AmEditing
Many thanks to everyone who has responded to my question about URLs in citations and accessibility!
I still need to go through them all, but I can address one thing that is coming up a lot right now:
I know I won't use URL shorteners. A shortening service I used many years ago disappeared, and I lost all those links, so I won't risk that again.
(I know you can set up your own URL shortening service on your own domain, but that isn't in the cards.)
Dear accessibility experts,
What advice do you have on citations with URLs? Most style guides say to write them out (as in the attached photo), but the accessibility plug-in on our website is throwing an error, and I can see how the URLs would be annoying to people who use screen readers.
I’d love to hear how others handle it!
Hmm, opening it today has it at 148,912... I am concerned...
#AmEditing
Hi, all! I've just heard about a terrific ghost/editing opportunity with a Black writer who is very well connected and has at least two books he needs help with. Any #editor/#ghostwriter in here, preferably #BIPOC, who is familiar with race theory and the hip-hop/rap scene want to be connected? Should also be LA based. Please DM me!
Trying to look on the bright side of still finding typos on what feels like the twelfth editing pass on my book. I can feel especially confident ticking the “I am not a robot” box?
Morning, word people!
The usual has been done. My hibiscus plants are going ham in their pots; there must be at least a dozen blossoms ready to open in the next day or two. I've been careful to remove the spent ones daily.
Someone/thing overturned my bird bath. I rectified that.
Someone/thing is removing river stones from the meditation bowl and leaving them on the bench. Yesterday there was one. Today, two. Will tomorrow be three?
And now that I'm at my desk,
#QuickTip from a #copyeditor:
Apostrophes can cause no end of drama.
In a nutshell: Apostrophes indicate contractions or ownership - NEVER a plural.
Get your apostrophes sorted – check out my blog:
https://www.33southtextworks.com/demystifying-the-apostrophe/
Morning, word people!
Coffee drunk, breakfast made and eaten, plants and feeders tended, coloring accomplished, cat puke cleaned up.
At least that last one isn't daily.
Planning has begun for possibly attending #GameHole in Madison, WI in October. Possibly.
And now, #AmEditing
I don't know if this article is treating readers as dumb (an absolute no-no) or if the writer just badly needs to reach the required word count. 😂🙃
Them: This is an important project we need to push through.
Me: All right, I'll prioritize this. (moves other projects around, works late on this new task)
Me: It's done, please review.
Them: (crickets)
Me, a week later: Hey, you said this was important. Any feedback on my work?
Them: (crickets)
If you establish a nickname for a person or a place, it's a good idea to use that sometimes.
Otherwise, what was the point of telling us it exists?
Seems Atticus only swallowed changes from chapters 1 to 25. Still, will read it all again, just to make sure.
At 148,083 words now, which makes me proud of having been able to axe away so much.
#AmEditing
Great. Some of my changes from the beginning Atticus didn't save. Seems I need to do another read-through. 😬
#AmEditing
At chapter 78. 4 to go. This goes better than anticipated... seems I developed as a writer, going forward.
#AmEditing
Well, after two weeks of absolute IRL madness and my own probably neurodivergent self trying to cope with it in all sorts of weird ways, I am now back at it. Already did some yesterday and will probably finish today.
#AmEditing
I'm delighted that my preference ("spellcheck") won the poll!
In case you're curious, these are some of the major stylebook and dictionary recommendations:
📚 "spell check" (AP Stylebook)
📚 "spell-check" (Dictionary.com, Merriam Webster, OED)
📚 "spellcheck" (Chicago Manual of Style)
My house style is "spellcheck."
I've seen a lot of double-negative style headlines in the last few days.
Please don't make readers parse things like "rejected a bid to stop." Tell us what IS happening.
I have so much going on, folks, and I'm REALLY EXCITED.
Not only will UNDER THE WOLF MOON finally be getting a paperback edition, but I'm planning something big for the release of book three!
If you used to follow me on the fowl site, you might remember a giveaway I had. I created a series of riddles, and the winners got free eBook copies of INTO THE FORGOTTEN FOREST.
The prizes for the next giveaway will be more...tangible! 😁
Learn about the whys and hows of inclusive language...on your own time, with loads of information and ideas to explore! I've made parts of the first two weeks available as samples at the course site, if you'd like to find out more :)
https://heartofthestory.teachable.com/p/inclusive-language-explorations
@edibuddies @bookstodon @writers #WritingCommunity #Writing #Editor #Editing #AmEditing #WritingAdvice #WritingCraft #Writer #QueerWriters #AmWriting
Don't feel you're "doing it wrong" if you edit, and then revert, and then edit differently, and then revert, and then . . .
You're doing it. It's all good. Keep doing it. Sometimes finding the best edit takes a few iterations.
The word "hill" just started looking weird and unwordlike to me. I hate it when that happens!
Would you like to take a little time each week to learn more about inclusive language in lots of different areas? Check out my new course! (And please do boost or otherwise share with folks who might be interested.)
https://heartofthestory.teachable.com/p/inclusive-language-explorations
@edibuddies @bookstodon @writers #Editor #Editing #AmEditing #Bookstodon #WritingAdvice #WritingCraft #Writing #InclusiveLanguage
pouring (to pour a liquid into a glass) ---> poring (to study something intently)
In the month of April I wrote a total of 16190 words for a total of 71199 on the year so far, plus spent 11 hours 4 minutes revising/editing #amwriting #amediting
This morning's news that the BuzzFeed News copy editing newsletter is ending was a big bummer.
I had hoped it might live on since BuzzFeed as a whole still needs copy editing, but no.
If, like me, you use the BuzzFeed Style Guide a lot, save the page to your hard drive so you can access it in the future.
I don't *know* that the page will disappear, but since it has "buzzfeednews" in the URL, I suspect it will.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/buzzfeed-style-guide
@edibuddies #AmEditing #AmWriting #journalism
I've been proofreading a very, very clean manuscript, so imagine my excitement when I got to flag two errors in one day!
That's not sarcasm—it's thrilling to know I've made a small contribution to an already great product. #AmProofreading
I always save the hardest edits for last, and I always hate myself for doing it when I have to deal with them at the end.
I had a tricky editing problem this morning. I had a sentence with an ambiguous pronoun, but I also had tight space constraints:
Such sentences can confuse readers because *they* may not realize you've started a new sentence.
Who is "they"? The readers or the sentences? Although you can figure it out, it's not immediately clear.
I went with this:
Such sentences can confuse readers because *it may not be clear* you've started a new sentence.
Morning, word people!
Be aware that multiple negatives can impede reading comprehension and speed. I'm not saying "Don't use multiple negatives."
I'm saying, think about whether you really need them in a given sentence or clause. Maybe you do.
But maybe not.
Consider "There wasn't anything they wouldn't do" and "There was nothing they wouldn't do."
Neither is more correct than the other. But it will take some people longer to grasp the sense of the first one. Does that matter?
People can get overzealous about deleting every "that" they find in a sentence. Here's why you sometimes need it. https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/when-to-delete-that/
A friend asked me to look at his new website, and I almost wrote to tell him he had a stray comma on the landing page ... until I realized it was a speck of dust on my monitor.
Join us for the YouTube premiere of our March chat with Amy J. Schneider, author of the "Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction," at 4:30 p.m. ET today! Watch it here: http://bit.ly/ThatWordVideo
A client has me thinking about chapters.
Chapters can feel essayistic (coving a topic) or episodic (covering an event). Some writers care most about their length.
I consider their shape & how they make patterns & how the breaks influence a reader's experience.
They're kind of arbitrary like paragraphs--which is fun.
How do you think about chapters?
#WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations
Why mention a specific scientific term for something if it's nothing more than a throwaway mention?
I don't need to know that "heterochromia" is the term for eyes of different colors unless that becomes important later on. Don't let your characters try to impress me with their knowledge as they're just, y'know, looking at someone's dog. She saw its mismatched eyes. Cool. Done. Move on.
If you open a paragraph with a short action beat followed by quoted speech, you don't need a dialogue tag after that speech. We already know who's talking.
She tapped the table with her pencil. "Let's talk about that, shall we?" (We don't need "she said" here. She tapped the table to get our attention as readers as well as that of her fictional audience.)
Some in-house styles insist on capitalization of titles wherever they appear, but a job title is not a proper noun and it's almost never unique. In my mind, lowercase titles project more confidence. Uppercase suggest we are trying to prove something. #rant #words #amediting