What Happens When My Manuscript Gets Edited? Part Three: Developmental and Content Editing
Welcome to the third post of my guide to getting your story edited. I hope this explanation makes the process less intimidating by giving you an idea of what to expect. It might even make you excited to start work on your story’s next draft! Today, I’m going to talk about developmental editing, also known as content or structural editing. Remember, this usually happens before line editing. It gets the story in shape before polishing it sentence by sentence. However, I discussed...
Read MoreWhat Happens When My Manuscript Gets Edited? Part Two: Copyediting and Line Editing
Welcome to the second part of my in-depth look at the editing process! Today, we’re going to look at the kinds of suggestions I make when working directly on manuscripts word by word, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph (the more holistic feedback given in developmental editing will be the subject of my third and final post in this series. Part One, on my editing approach and tools is here.). You may find this serves as a useful checklist for your own self-editing. (I...
Read MoreWhat Happens When My Manuscript Gets Edited? Part One: Behind the Scenes of the Editing Process
Sending your story to an editor—especially if you’re new to the process, but also when you’ve been writing a long time—can induce anxiety and above all, uncertainty. What’s going to happen? What shape will the manuscript be in when you get it back? Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at my editing processes. First, I’ll talk about how I make suggestions. In two follow-up posts, I’ll discuss the kinds of suggestions I most often make. (Here’s Part Two, on line and copyediting, and Part...
Read MoreLay It On Me: A Quick Grammar Guide to Transitive vs Intransitive Verbs
Today’s blog post is a brief explanation of why a sentence may be incomplete without some additional words. It will also help you figure out how to punctuate dialogue and the difference between “lie” and “lay.” (*Originally coined by the writers of The Simpsons, this delightful word for “acceptable” is now recognized by the dictionary!) Sentences can be very simple: a subject does a verb to an object. I(s) knocked over(v) the vase(o). Photo by Diane...
Read MoreCurrent events, constant values
After a few years away, I’ve started to revive this blog and some of my social media as a place to share writing and editing advice and publishing news. Perhaps I’ll also share some personal updates every now and then, but I view this space as mainly professional. I have other outlets for personal expression. I also have other outlets (including in-person action) for my political and social views and values. Rather than write my own account, I generally try to listen to more...
Read MoreBooklovers, it’s a great chance to stock up with the Smashwords End of Year Sale
If you have a to-read list of independent and small press authors, or if you’re browsing for reading material to tide you over the last few weeks of the year, there are great opportunities for deals and quick gifts on the ebook website Smashwords. Tens of thousands of books in all genres are discounted between 25% and 100%, or even entirely free! The sale runs until January 1, so don’t let the time slip by. (In fact, on the authors’ side of things, we recently learned...
Read MoreWhat do you mean? A Quick Grammar Guide to Pronoun Referents and Dangling Modifiers
While editing manuscripts, I often suggest revising sentences for more clarity or precision. A common reason is because the original version of the sentence had a “dangling modifier” or an uncertain “pronoun referent.” These terms might seem intimidating, but they don’t have to be. In this post, I’ll offer examples of what modifiers and referents are, why they matter, and how you can make sure they’re working the way you want them to. I’ll use some terminology for those who find the names of...
Read MoreThe Priority Edit
If you think I’m just going to sweep in here and blog again as if several years haven’t gone by…you’re exactly right. Let’s get to it. (What’s been happening? I’ve been doing a lot of editing work with my head in Word files rather than WordPress. Also living my life, volunteering, spending time with loved ones, taking a few cross-country trips, getting through one bout of COVID that could have been way worse—hurray, modern medicine!—far more watching the news unfold in horror than I’d...
Read More“Ghostwitch”: two thousand words of terror
This an update I actually should have shared over a month ago, but time got away from me. By which I mean, I misremembered “Ghostwitch’s” publication date in the online Two Thousand Word Terrors anthology as August instead of July, and I also have spent the summer in a fugue of work — editing, of course, and some writing, but also preparing for the 2023 Sustainability Fair in Waukesha County. If you’re in Southeast Wisconsin and looking for a fun and informative,...
Read MoreTwo Thousand Word Terrors TOC announced!
My story “Ghostwitch” is one of the 45 short jolts of horror that will appear weekly on the Rooster Republic website. It’s scheduled to go live July 3rd, but until then, to whet your appetite… Ghostwitch “Mad with grief, it’s said. But I’m not.” She looks up from the cast-iron stove, strangely modern in this tiny valley hamlet. Perhaps her trader husband brought it home from one of his trips to the factory towns. “Tea?”...
Read MoreAbout Therese
Therese Arkenberg's first short story was accepted for publication on January 2, 2008, and her second acceptance came a few hours later. Since then they haven't always been in such a rush, yet her work appears in places like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and the anthology Sword & Sorceress XXIV. Aqua Vitae, her science fiction novella, was released by WolfSinger Publications in December 2011.
She works as a freelance editor and writer in Wisconsin, where she returned after a brief but unforgettable time in Washington, D.C. When she isn't reading, writing, or editing (it's true!) she serves on the board of the Plowshare Center of Waukesha, which works for social, economic, and environmental justice.