Category: The Editor’s Hat

Advice for writing and editing, along with some thoughts about working with editors.

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To US English or to UK English? Is that really the question?

Frequently, I find myself in the middle of a conversation talking about whether something should be written in US English or UK English. Sometimes, it's related to how something is punctuated (and yes, there is a difference between the two for some punctuation rules). Sometimes, it's in regards to whether a story would work better written in one versus the other—normally focused on whether a story set in the UK should be in UK English. And sometimes, it's connected to the frustrations that those around me have with Americans who don't understand that UK English is different to US English.

Within these conversations, I find myself becoming a bit of a broken record, asking the same questions over and over again. And it all comes down to one idea…

Who is your target audience?

So, let's break this down and really look at why understanding who your target audience is will determine which variant of English you use.

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Guilty

It’s a typo! They happen.

If there is one constant within the world of publishing, it would be that typos happen. It doesn't matter how many times you go through a piece of written work, there will always be something that's missed. You could have six different sets of eyes on it, and things still slip through. And the longer that piece of writing is, the more likely that errors get missed.

To complicate matters, you might have the cleanest copy on the planet, but errors creep in during typesetting too. At every stage of the writing/editing/publishing process, there is an opportunity for an error to be introduced—and for that error to get missed.

It happens.

I'll be the first to grant you that when a piece of writing is riddled with typos and grammatical errors, it's frustrating to read. However, I have said it time and time again: if a story is gripping, most readers will be willing to overlook the odd typo or grammatical error.

As writers, we need to accept that typos WILL happen.

As editors, we need to accept that we're NOT perfect.

However, there are some people out there who are Grammar Nazis from hell and will publicly shame you for making innocent typographical errors. It's because of these jerks (and that's what they are) that many writers and editors despise the idea of blogging. They're afraid that their writing might be torn to shreds because of those innocent mistakes. But what the Grammar Nazis forget is that mistakes happen.

The production schedules for a blog are tight. Certain steps within the editing process are sometimes missed. The thorough care that we give our novel writing is not given to this short piece that is going to go up on the web within hours. Newspaper articles are much the same in that respect. Mistakes creep in, it's the nature of the beast. But when the public shaming starts…

***Breathe… Just breathe…***

I think it's time to put reality back into the blogging world and remind a few editors that we're only human.

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Woman reading on a tablet

Is it literary, commercial, or upmarket? Publishing industry terms explained.

The publishing industry is filled with terms that seem to mean one thing to the industry but something entirely different to everyone else. For the writer who is just entering into the publishing scene, this barrage of new terminology can leave us confused, staring at the word forever trying to discern its meaning.

Three of those words for me were literary, commercial, and upmarket. There really isn't a simple definition for these three terms as they apply to the nature of the narrative used within a story. Here's hoping that today's post can clarify it for at least some writers.

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Shapeshifter: A Literary Term Defined

There are times when the terminology seems to confuse the hell out of me. Sometimes, it’s because the odd term is completely new to my ears. At other times, it’s a term or phrase that has an obscure reference that I spend forever trying to work how such an odd term could mean that. And there are those terms that have a common meaning within pop culture that seem to be at war with the literary meaning.

The term shapeshifter is one of those terms that falls into the last category.

While pop culture would have us believe that the term shapeshifter refers to someone whose physical appearances change, the term actually refers to their behavior.

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The Traditional 3-Act Structure: Part 1

Most writers have a natural instinct when it comes to story structure and plot. We do so much reading, or we see so many movies, that understanding pacing is just part of our makeup. Even new writers, still learning their craft, have this instinct.

We know that if we have action scene after action scene, eventually we need to have a calm scene that gives us the chance to breathe. We know that there needs to be those moments of reflection, looking at what has happened. But if we spend too much time dwelling on the past, we'll need an explosion to get things going again.

And there will also be those moments when a character decides to risk all and just go for it—damned the consequences.

As writers, we follow a story structure with the instinct of knowing where the rise and fall in the action needs to be. However, when something is off in the pacing of a story, that's when all the discussions come out about one of countless number of story structure models out there and the analytical tools associated with it.

As a developmental editor, it is my job to look at story structure and pacing on the macro and micro levels. If pacing is off, for whatever reason, I delve into the mechanics of a manuscript and tear that structure apart to find out why things don't work. Much of what I do on this particular front is instinct, simply because every story is different. However, there are some commonalities within the beats of a story, which has given rise to models like the traditional 3-act structure.

In today's post, I want to start breaking down what is involved in the traditional 3-act structure. There are three posts involved in this series, with each post focusing on a different act.

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