A roundup of revision tips

Posted on 03/31/2020 at 11:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Organization — it's not just for your house during the safer-at-home movement. Creative writing mentor Rosie O'Neill shared four ways...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing, Joanna Penn, Plot / narrative

What to expect from a peer critique, professional editor, and more

Posted on 03/26/2020 at 10:11 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Feedback on your novel can come from a variety of sources, both amateur and professional, and can address any number...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing, Jane Friedman

Louise Harnby: Watch out for head-hopping

Posted on 03/06/2020 at 10:30 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

So many misunderstandings could possibly be averted if, in real life, we were able to hop into other people’s heads....

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Characters, Editing, Louise Harnby

Ask yourself these 5 questions about your novel

Posted on 02/11/2020 at 10:07 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

If you liked the excerpt from Kris Spisak's new book, The Novel Editing Workbook, that we shared last week, we...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Characters, Editing, First lines and first chapters, Writer's Digest

Louise Harnby: Are you layering your story too deeply?

Posted on 02/09/2020 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

When your story is told through third-person limited point-of-view, consider looking at how many layers the reader must dive through....

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing, Louise Harnby, Plot / narrative

10 qualities of an effective book coach

Posted on 02/07/2020 at 11:02 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

One method for bringing in extra income that we haven’t discussed on the newswire yet is book coaching. Author and...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing, Joanna Penn

Should your characters act, or plan to act?

Posted on 02/05/2020 at 12:30 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Authors are reminded that the reader must be in the head of their viewpoint character. But editor Louise Harnby has...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Characters, Editing, Louise Harnby

How much editing is too much?

Posted on 12/09/2019 at 11:20 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Poet Paul Valery once said, “A poem's never finished, only abandoned.” But how do you know when to abandon your...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing, Writing advice

A five-step approach to revising your book's first draft

Posted on 12/07/2019 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

What does your first-draft revision process look like? If you don’t have a particularly clear answer to that question, you...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing

Refresh your memory on proper quotation mark usage

Posted on 11/13/2019 at 10:04 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

You know how to use quote marks, right? Sure, but maybe not as well as you think. Editor and proofreader...

Categories: Behind the scenes

Tagged As: Editing, Louise Harnby