Books may well be the only true magic.
—Alice Hoffman, American novelist (b. 1952)
For Writers
… particularly if you’re just getting started, here are some articles you might find helpful. Most are my blog posts, written because I get asked about these subjects over and over.
If You’re Just Getting Started
- If You Don’t Know Where to Start
- Michael Hyatt: Advice to First-Time Authors
- I’ve Written a Book. Now What?
The Kind of Editing I Do
- What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate
- How to Recognize a Professional Editor
- Are You My (Professional) Editor?
- Taking Care of Business
- Parlez-Vous Editing?
- You’re Mine Now (Relationship)
- Breaking Into the Biz
- The Dream Job
- On Job Satisfaction
- If I Can’t Help You, I Won’t Pretend I Can
The Publishing Process
- The Secret Cookie Recipe (Part 1)
- At Last! Astonishing Secrets Revealed! (Part 2)
- Indie Publishing: The Sharpened Stake
- What About Self-Publishing?
- Catherine Ryan Howard: Catherine, Caffeinated on Self-Printing
The Editing Process
- A Copy Editor’s Top 10 Errors
- Act As If You Care!
- A Plague on the House of Apple Pages
- Anticipation (Your Editorial Notes)
- Are You Ready for Some Editing? (First Draft)
- Because I Can (Copyediting)
- Beginners’ Mistakes
- Don’t Celebrate Too Soon
- Editing Is Expensive
- Formatting Your Manuscript for Your Editor
- How to Demoralize Your Editor in One Easy Lesson
- I Am Not Editing Our Conversation
- I Could Tell You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You
- If You Want to Run With the Big Dogs …
- In the Trenches
- Mistakes Were Made (First Draft)
- My Name Isn’t on the Book (Your Editorial Notes)
- Nothing Matters But the Words
- On the Same Page (Style Guide)
- Relax, This Won’t Hurt a Bit
- Scheduling: It’s a Guesstimate
- Style Guide Is Your Friend
- To Err Is Human, to Forgive, Divine
- Track Changes From A to Z
- “Track Changes” Is Your Friend
- The Best Stuff Is in the Margin Notes
- What If You Don’t Like My Book?
- Whole-Picture Editing (Process)
- You Can Lead a Horse to Water
Writing Tips
- Adventures in Editorland (Dialogue Tags)
- All Shall Be Well (Repetition)
- Amazing, My Dear Watson (Word Use)
- Amazing Again, 99 Words for It (Word Use)
- Compound Interest (Compound Words)
- Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Adverb Abuse)
- Dot. Dot. Dot. (Ellipses Use)
- Elements of a Story-Worthy Problem
- Feeling Hopeful (Adverb Abuse)
- First Sign of Insanity? (Inner Discourse)
- Generic Character Nouns Leave Me Cold
- Good Writing, Bad Writing, and Stephenie Meyer
- Handy-Dandy Guide to Theme in Fiction
- Happily Ever After (Romance)
- Harry Potter & the Elusive Age Ranges
- Have You Found Your Voice Yet?
- How Do I Characterize Thee?
- Interrogatory Editing
- Is That a Smirk on Your Face …? (Word Use)
- It Was Not an Historic Event (Word Choice)
- It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Green (Self-Editing)
- Let’s Discuss Slang
- Let’s Talk About (Foot)Notes
- Let’s Talk About Plot
- Let’s Talk (Dialogue Part 1)
- Let’s Talk Again (Dialogue Part 2)
- Little Did She Know About Foreshadowing
- Misery Loves Company (Top 10 Errors)
- My Brain Fart on Telling (Show, Don’t Tell)
- Narrative Questions: Meh.
- Nothing New Under the Sun (Plot)
- Objection! Leading the Witness, Yer Honor. (Show, Don’t Tell)
- Emma Darwin: Over-done, over-written and over here (Overwriting)
- Possible, Not Probable (Research)
- Principle of Chekhov’s Gun (Plot)
- Principle of Occam’s Razor: Keep It Simple (Details)
- Pronoun Abuse
- Return: Starting a New Paragraph
- Ringing True (Details)
- Separating the Women (Women’s Fiction/Romance)
- Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? (Similes)
- Show, Don’t Tell (Dialogue)
- Snicker, Sputter, and Snarl (Dialogue Tags)
- Step Away From the Thesaurus
- Story, Voice, Prose
- The Doctor Is In (When You’re Stuck)
- Tighten It Up
- Time Passages (Hiatus Breaks)
- Unpack This (Word Use)
- Where Have All the Good Names Gone …
- Word Count Matters
- Words I Never Want to See in Your Novel
- You Won’t Get a 2nd Chance (1st Chapter)
- Writing About Guns
Study This series
- A Spool of Blue Thread
- At the Movies
- I’ll Give You the Sun
- Sampling Marilynne Robinson
- The Children Act
- The Sea
- The Summer Before the War
- The Vacationers
- Us
Other Important Stuff
- Be Careful What You Copy and Paste
- Entering the (Writer’s) Lottery (Pitch Contests)
- Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me 1 (Writers’ Groups)
- Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me 2 (Beta Readers)
- How to Let Go
- How Not to Love an Author
- How to Love an Author
- Just Open a Vein (Writer’s Block)
- Just Say No To an NDA
- Legal Issues
- Not All Dictionaries Are Created Equal
- Patience, Grasshopper (Rejection Letters)
- Resources for Mystery/Suspense Writers
- Some Books on Writing Well
- Space Invaders (Double Spacing)
- Stacking the Deck (Hiring an Editor)
- Synopsis: An Idea Is Good. A Plan Is Better.
- Synopsis? Or Marketing Copy?
- They Say It’s Easier to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission
- What You’re Reading Now
- Why Yes, I Can Take 12K Words Out of Your Manuscript
- Why You Need an Izz-Bin (ISBN)
- Your PC Isn’t a Typewriter (Double Spacing)
- You, Me, and Literary Agents
- Jane Friedman: How to Find a Literary Agent for Your Book
- Jane Friedman: The Fair Use Doctrine
- Rachelle Gardner: How to Find an Agent
- Jody Hedlund: Why You Need an Agent
- Writability: Do Your Research (Finding an Agent)
And Please: Do Your Research, Check Your Facts
- No, You May Not Use Brainyquote.com
- The Internet Can Be Unreliable
- Stephen Frasier: Is Snopes.com a Reliable Source? (Yes)
- Barry Popik: The Big Apple (An Etymological Dictionary)
- Garson O’Toole: Quote Investigator
- Bodhipaksa: Fake Buddha Quotes
- Mark Twain: Twain Quotes
- Thomas Jefferson: Spurious Jefferson Quotes
- George Washington: Spurious Quotations
- Mother Teresa: Mother Teresa Did Not Say …
- Wikiquote: Wikiquote
- Bartleby: Bartleby
- Various Quotes 1: Quotenik
- Various Quotes 2: Quote/Counterquote
- Merriam-Webster: Free Online Dictionary
“This copy is awesome! We are even more excited about launching our new site. I am so glad we decided to work with you.”
Josh Goggans
Your article in the MTSU magazine was outstanding. You did a great job with all the personalities you had to interview and work with.
Linda Hardymon
“Note to self: Memorize this list! “Words I Never Want to See in Your Novel. Please.” I love lists like this! Excellent post.”
Michael Hyatt, Chairman
Remind me to have you work on everything I publish from now on.
Michael Hyatt, Author / Chairman
“Thanks for always making so much when we provide so little—when you have no manuscript, etc. I appreciate your willingness to work with me.”
Karen Stoller, Marketing Manager
“You are very, very good at what you do, and I am really enjoying the creative process.”
Todd Hafer, Author
“To [my] editor, Jamie Chavez, who keeps pulling me out of literary ditches and putting me back on the right path.”
Golden Keyes Parsons, Author