Today’s post is a coda to the series I’ve written over the past few weeks as an in-depth guide to the editing process. We talked about how an editor (or at least this editor) works, what’s involved in line editing and copyediting, and what a developmental or content edit looks at. Now I’ll tackle a…
Tag: editing
What Happens When My Manuscript Gets Edited? Part Three: Developmental and Structural 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…
Lay 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!)…
What 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…
The 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…