With quite a few extensive review loops under my belt (the reason this blog was so quiet for quite a while), I want to share my tactics, tricks and tips for successful self-editing. Ultimately, the principles and techniques needed for kneading your story into shape also apply to those of us who prefer to self-publish. Authors keen on self-publishing “simply” will have to add a couple of copy-editing and proof-reading rounds, to ensure their manuscripts survive the critical eye of the reader. For authors signed…Continue Reading “The Editing Files–getting your fiction manuscript ready for querying (and self-pubbing)”

In my Pet Peeves I’ll throw light on a wide variety of stylistic and plotting bloopers I come across when critiquing and editing. “Head-hopping” for me tops the list. It’s what I consider to be a pretty understated expression for a writing style guaranteed to bounce me out of a novel faster than you can write “she groaned”. Head hopping describes the practice of shifting viewpoint characters within scenes. I’ll give you an example, a scene featuring two viewpoint characters (i.e. the protagonists through whose…Continue Reading “Pet Peeves #1 – Bouncing heads and slippery Points of View”