Author: Judy L Mohr

Open post

How important really is grammar?

When I tell people that I'm a freelance editor (including other writers), they instantly assume that I'm a copyeditor, with a keen interest in working on the grammar and punctuation of my clients. I'm not surprised that writers often jump to that conclusion. Majority of editors that I encounter actually ARE copyeditors. However, what is the point behind looking at the appropriateness of a given word in a sentence when on page 152 the bad guys are setting up the bomb that will level the city, and the good guys find the bomb and disarm it by the end of page 154.

This may sound incredibly odd coming from a professional editor, but in all honesty, grammar takes a backseat to story and character.

Read More

Open post

You Need to Register Your Copyright

Under international copyright law, you own the copyright of a body of work the moment that the work is in a tangible format, i.e., it's in the computer or printed, or handwritten on paper. However, every so often, I come across some blog post or a Facebook group message, or something, where a writer is asking about copyright certificates and the like. Amazon is becoming more insistent on obtaining those copyright certificates, and rightly so.

Too many times, I have encountered some horror story where some honest writer has had their precious work taken down from the Amazon sites because some BLEEP has chosen to claim that they own the copyright. If this happens to you, it falls on you to prove the other person is wrong.

To complicate matters, far too many writers choose not to register their copyright with a copyright authority because of the cost. However, these are the writers that run the risk of finding themselves being the victim of some copyright scam.

All writers want to protect their writing as much as possible, and for the most part, people are honest. It's the shady ones that you need to worry about. Here is where taking a few simple steps can save you.

Read More

Open post

The Rush-The-Process Dish: Volume 2

Over a year ago, I jokingly reported about some of the flavours of the Rush-The-Process dish. I'm talking about those scenarios where writers are in such a hurry to submit their work for publications that they skip vital steps in the editing or publication process.

In that post, I spoke about the ones who only have family and friends looking at their work, not other writers or editors. I spoke about the ones who take editorial reports and stick to the most basic of rewrites. Then there are those who submit to agents and publishers unfinished works, only to go into full panic mode when they get the request for fulls. And my personal favourite: upload to Amazon without editing at all, because they supposedly can't afford it.

But there are some other flavours to this Rush-The-Process dish that also requires some attention.

Read More

Open post

There’s a reason for the standard manuscript format

In this day and age, many submissions are handled through email. Agents and acquisition editors will often look at the submissions sent to them on an electronic device, commonly a computer or tablet screen. For many submissions, the initial contact is contained in the body of an email (no attachments). If additional materials are asked for, agents and editors expect things to be in the standard manuscript format. Yet, agents and editors will still look at those added materials using electronic devices.

So, if everything is now electronic, why must we format our manuscripts using a format that was devised back in the day when everything was printed? Well, believe it or not, the standard manuscript format is very specific for a reason.

Read More

Open post

I’m a gluten for punishment. Autocorrect is a Beast!

Have you ever written a message on your favorite social media site only to have autocorrect kick in? You might have carefully selected the perfect word, but autocorrect thinks it knows better, changing that word out for something that is completely wrong. But it's not just on social media that autocorrect misbehaves. Sometimes, it decides to have a field day within MS Word and other word-processing programs too.

BUT, how many times have you actually just misspelled something but blamed autocorrect? Be honest. You know you've done it at least once or twice.

Today, I thought I'd pay homage to some of the masterpiece moments of autocorrect and just plain bad spelling.

Read More

Posts navigation

1 2 3 … 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 … 39 40 41
Scroll to top