Editing and Proof Reading

How to improve your editing process

Writing Tip: The Importance of Word Count

Today’s writing tip is about the importance of word count. Boring word count. How can it matter? Most people don’t even know what it is, and those that do, think it’s just an “aside”. It doesn’t matter.

Or does it?

Let’s get that question out of the way. Yes, word count matters. It is an aside, yes, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. The fact that most readers don’t know about your word count doesn’t say that they don’t care. Knowing and caring about something is different, of course. Some people might not know the technical term. Maybe they don’t even think of it. But if you don’t have a suitable word count, hurry. You’ve got to fix it up, and fast.

But first things first: what is a word count?

Click to continue reading »

Proofreading: Catching Contextual Spelling Errors

Before I start, check out my guest post on Daily Writing Tips: To Outline or Not to Outline, That is the Question. If you just came from there, welcome! Read Creative Writing 101, my beginner’s guide to creative writing. Or just read on…

We all know how annoying it is to catch typos. It’s just not cool. If you make one or two of them, you might get away without anyone pointing it out. If you make loads of them, your credibility suffers.

But this article is not about making typos. It’s about catching contextual typing errors, and if that name sounds too technical for you, don’t fear yet. That’s only a name assigned by Microsoft for a new function in Word 2007.

What does it do?

Click to continue reading »

Editing and Proof Reading – Busting the Myths

So you’ve written a novel. Oh, okay, let’s not use the word ‘novel’. Say anything: short story, essay, just any form of writing. You’ve written the first draft. You think it’s good. You think it’s great. You think it’s wonderful. But it’s not ready to be distributed or shown to anyone else yet. Before that, [...] Click to continue reading »

No Method? No Problem!

[Note: The title of this post has been inspired from one writing book, No Plot? No Problem! I haven't read it though.] Let’s say you’re writing a first draft of a novel. The dreaded first draft. And of course you are writing it very slowly — unless you are an exceptional writer. Then you read [...] Click to continue reading »

Getting Bogged Down in Editing – Help!

Does the edit-as-you-go method work? Or does it not? Is it the best method out there, or the worst? If it does work, for whom does it and for whom it doesn’t? It works, yes. But only for a few people. There are many people for whom it does not work. What they do: Click to continue reading »