Inventing Reality Editing Service

Nurture Your Books runs interview of me

Nurture Your Books featured me in an interview that ran Thursday. In the interview, you can learn my top editing tips for writers, if I ever silently edit books in my head when reading outside of work, and whether or not editing ever gets boring for me. Special thanks to Bobbie Crawford and Nurture Your Books for the article. You can read the full interview online.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Five Great Quotations about Revising

“Writing is like digging yourself out of a pile of crap but then the pile covers you again and you have to write your way out of it again.” - Charles Bukowski

“The first draft reveals the art; revision reveals the artist.” –Michael Lee

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” - Saul Bellow

“Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.” - John Steinbeck

“I suppress in my prose any language which calls attention to itself.” - Jerzy Kosinski

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

8 Simple Tips for Self-Editing Your Writing

• Watch for consistency errors in your story  
• Six useful tips for self-editing your book  
• Avoid using ALL CAPS in your writing  
• Don’t smother writing with your red pen  
• What to look for when revising your manuscript 
• Fix scene by employing black box analysis
• Learn some literary devices 
• Read for a solution 
• BONUS: "It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly." – C. J. Cherryh

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

How To Write Well: 7 Essential Self-Editing Tips

• How to self-edit and revise your fiction story 
• Set your story aside  
• Revise by deconstructing  
• Make use of beta readers  
• Missing typos? Try editing old-fashioned way  
• Don't trust spellcheck, your junior high-aged editor 
• When editing, always remember your audience 
• BONUS: "Proofread carefully to see if you any words out." – Anonymous 

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

4 Levels of Editing Explained

• Different levels, types of editing exist   
• Proofreading most basic – and final – kind of edit  
• Copy editing intended for book near completion  
• Substantive edit needed early in writing process  
• Developmental edit guides author through writing 

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Five Great Quotations about Revising

“It is always easier to edit what has been written than to write what has not been started.” - Cody McLain

“(Set aside your manuscript for six weeks). With six weeks’ worth of recuperation time, you’ll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listen - if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us.” - Stephen King

“Second draft is really a misnomer as there are a gazillion revisions, large and small, that go into the writing of a book.” - Libba Bray

“A man’s grammar, like Caesar’s wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.” - Edgar Allan Poe

“Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.” - Terry Pratchett

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Corpus Christi, Texas, or a small town like Hell, Michigan, I can provide that second eye.

Five Great Quotations about Editing

“To write is human, to edit is divine.” - Stephen King

“You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.” — Margaret Atwood

“I apologize for the length of this letter; I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” - Blaise Pascal

“Everything you write must be read aloud. Once all the context items are in place, this is the final test for any written piece...” - Jiro Adachi

“The best time to hire an editor is when you have completed your manuscript...The closer to finished the writing work is, the more thorough and cost-effective the editing process will be.” - Kit Cooley

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

12 tips for revising your own manuscript

During the process of writing your novel or nonfiction book, you’ll probably spend a lot of time revising the manuscript. Catching every error in one reading is unlikely, but you can reduce the number of drafts you eventually write simply by following some editing tricks. Here are some common ones used by writers and editors alike.

Before you read
• Set aside the draft – Let a couple of days pass between the writing and the editing. This helps “distance” you from the writing process so that you can look at the piece more objectively.
• Reacquaint yourself with writing craftsmanship – While waiting to edit, read a book about the craft of writing. Doing so will give you some ideas of what to look for when editing as well as some solutions for how to solve the issue.
• Turn off the distractions – Turn off the television, email and music with lyrics then read the manuscript in a place where no one will interrupt you.

Editing strategies
• Switch to paper – People read words on a computer screen slightly differently than they do words on paper. Editing a printout of your manuscript can help you spot errors you might have missed by editing onscreen.
• Read the manuscript aloud – When you have difficulty saying a sentence aloud, others likely will have difficulty reading it. Reading aloud also forces you to go slower, increasing your chances of catching errors.
• Look up from the manuscript – Every page or so, take your eyes off the screen or printout, otherwise you run the risk of glazing over what you’re reading.
• Use spell and grammar check – While you never should rely solely on spell check to proofread your piece, don’t disregard the tool either. It can find typos that will have you slapping your head wondering how they got past you.

What to look for
• Watch for words used too many times – Any time a word is repeated within a sentence and in consecutive sentences, you probably need to rework the passage.
• Seek and destroy adverbs – Words ending in “ly” usually can be dumped. Use a stronger verb to get your idea across.
• Use active voice – While not every sentence needs to be in active voice, passive voice generally is overused in early drafts.
• Ask “What is ‘it’?” – Do you know what “it” refers to (its antecedent) in a sentence? Often writers unconsciously use “it” to quick write a sentence so they can keep up with their own thoughts of what the next sentences should say.
• Identify point of view shifts – This mainly applies to fiction. Like passive voice, jarring point of view shifts are common in early drafts. Fix them early in the process to save a lot of rewriting later.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Denver, Colorado, or a small town like Dewey Beach, Delaware, I can provide that second eye.

Developmental edit guides author through writing

Authors who haven’t started penning their book and need guidance through the writing process typically need developmental editing.

This generally includes:
• Selecting concepts that a book will focus on
• Helping organize the book’s structure and its various elements
• Encouraging authors to maintain a writing schedule and to complete the manuscript by deadline
• Providing substantive editing to drafts of “completed” chapters

Most self-published authors don’t work with a developmental editor. Instead, they rely on fellow authors or colleagues to bounce ideas off of. If going with developmental editing, you will need to work with an editor who you feel comfortable with, as the process will be lengthy and you will receive a lot of suggestions with which you may not agree.

That’s an expensive route for those self-publishing books. Most self-published authors can do the developmental and substantive editing themselves with the help of fellow writers or colleagues. They definitely need copy editing and then a proofreading of their formatted book by an outside source, though. And if a beginning writer, having a substantive edit done until you become more skilled is a good idea.

During the days ahead, we’ll look more in depth at each these different types of editing.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Copy editing intended for book near completion

One type of editing you can have done is copy editing.

This generally includes:
• Correcting spelling, capitalization, punctuation and obvious grammar errors
• Ensuring the text is clear and understandable (which may involve minor rewriting)
• Checking for potential copyright violations
• Cross-checking for consistent use of references and sources

While copy editing includes elements of proofreading (correcting spelling, capitalization, punctuation and obvious grammar errors), the latter also can focus on formatting issues. At the copy editing stage, your manuscript is still getting in shape to be formatted, so checking such items as the table of contents would be premature.

The manuscript that needs copy editing usually is fairly far along in the drafting stage, though, as major issues such as organization and maintaining a consistent voice have been worked out.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Minneapolis, Minnesota, or a small town like Nothing, Arizona, I can provide that second eye.