Tag: Editing

Ed’s Casual Friday: Safire Rules, and so are you.

William Safire
William Safire on language

Today, in an effort to pad the length of my Friday column, I will be reproducing NY Times political / language columnist William Safire‘s Rules for Writers. Whoops, I mean I’m doing it to make a point…yeah.

  • Remember to never split an infinitive.
  • The passive voice should never be used.
  • Do not put statements in the negative form.
  • Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
  • Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
  • If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
  • A writer must not shift your point of view.
  • And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember,
    too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: Safire Rules, and so are you.”

Who Knew?

Author Carolyn Steele

Writing a decent book takes work apparently, I’m gobsmacked. No, really. I mean, you go off for a couple of years Having Adventures, you blog about it as you go, then you tack the blog posts together and call it a book…that should be enough, right?

Then, when you send the book to your favourite editor he writes back, “This is just a series of events.” Well, duh, that’s what I wrote, it’s what happened. He goes on to tell me stuff that should only apply to fiction writers, and moreover, the sort of fiction writers who haven’t read Lin’s Breaking the Rules series. “People like to read about conflict and resolution, you need some more structure and direction and a lot more internal motivation. This has to be about your psychological journey.” Continue reading “Who Knew?”

Ed’s Casual Friday: An Indie Prayer

Dearest Digital Gawd, now available as gif, jpeg, or bit map,

Give me this day a couple uninterrupted hours,

As I swore to myself I would have this chapter done Tuesday, and now it is Thursday.

No wait, it’s Friday. How did I lose a whole day and this thing still isn’t done? Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: An Indie Prayer”

Speaking of editing and editors….

Why we need editors

Ah, whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of that red-lined script, or take arms against a sea of denial, and by opposing it end them? To fear the edit… I hope the bard forgives me.

Fear the edits. Oh yeah, I know that one. Let’s face it, an editor is there to tell you what you did wrong – you misspelled this, didn’t use that right. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can be tough to swallow for anyone. When I was traditionally edited I used to literally feel sick, or turn to a large glass of wine, in order to get through them. And that’s the first sign of a bad editor. Stay with me on this… because this blog isn’t about picking on editors. Continue reading “Speaking of editing and editors….”