Editing 101 — How to Edit Your Book by Drafts
After hours (months? years?) of painstaking work, you’ve finally gotten to the last page of your manuscript and feel ready to show the world. Congratulations! You’ve made it further than a lot of other writers. Are you ready to self-publish or send it off to an agent? Not quite. There are still quite a few […]
Editing 101 — How to Edit Your Book by Drafts
After hours (months? years?) of painstaking work, you’ve finally gotten to the last page of your manuscript and feel ready to show the world. Congratulations! You’ve made it further than a lot of other writers. Are you ready to self-publish or send it off to an agent? Not quite. There are still quite a few revisions needed for your book. Here are some tips to help you learn how to edit your book.
Writer’s Guide — Show, Don’t Tell
We’ve all heard everyone from English teachers to writing coaches tell us to show, not tell. But what exactly does it mean to show rather than tell?
Writer’s Guide — Structuring Your Plot
Let’s look at how structure frames the plot (in a good way). The plot is the sequence of events in a story that answers the dramatic question. The structure, or narrative structure, is what keeps the events in good order. Structuring your plot correctly is key to a story that reader’s want to continue.
Writer’s Guide — Using Plot to Answer the Big Dramatic Question
Have you ever read a story where you had a hard time figuring out what was going on? Not in an Inception type of way, but more like you can’t figure out what the story is trying to accomplish. What is happening? A well-defined plot describes the main part of the story in which everything revolves. Knowing and answering the big dramatic question centers around the protagonist’s central conflict and keeps the reader interested in your story.
Writer’s Guide — Different Types of Point of View in Writing
Contemplate reading the latest murder mystery on the market. Imagine your emotional response to the story presented from the point of view (POV) of the husband who first stumbled upon the scene of the crime. What about a story from the victim’s perspective as they you (the reader) tell their story? Would your reaction be any different if the narrator was an omnipresent narrator with no direct ties to the characters? The point of view, or voice that tells your story, directly impacts your emotional connection to your story.
How to Determine Word Count and Check Spelling in Adobe InDesign
In publishing, you learn that triple-checking your work in Microsoft Word is just the beginning. Once you have begun putting the document into a document layout program like Adobe InDesign, you never know what changes may occur. As people begin reviewing the manuscript in its final stages, little changes can impact the quality of your document. A newly added caption may have a small typo that everyone misses at the last minute. Here’s how to determine word count and check spelling in Adobe InDesign.
Writer’s Guide — What is a Theme? It’s What Your Story is Really About
“What’s your story about?” As a writer, you have probably been asked that questions many times. Often, writers fall into the trap of stating something like, “science fiction,” or “it’s a mystery novel.” However, they are simply giving the genre and not the theme. What is a theme? A theme simply answers what the story is about.
Anatomy of a Book — 25 Parts of a Book That Every Writer Needs to Know
Every book is unique. The book arrangement shouldn’t be. It’s important that the organization follows standard publishing industry practices. Parts of a book should appear in a standard location in every book. Organizing your book using these rules makes finding things easier for your reader. For example, every book has a front cover and a back cover. Prologues and table of contents are up front, indexes are in the back, etc.
Tips for Using Punctuation Marks in Your Writing
Proper punctuation can make or break the impact of the message you are trying to convey. No matter how long you have been writing, novels or articles, it’s always good to review proper punctuation marks. There are fourteen common forms of marks used in English grammar. Here are the basic rules followed by a downloadable list.