ProWritingAid style guides just got a major update. Choose the suggestions and rules you want to see, and when and how you want to use them. Tips here.

Mactrast Deals: Scrivener 3: award-winning app for writers. On sale.

How to convert documents to e-books the easy way. ZDnet.

19 tools to write, publish, sell ebooks. Practical Commerce.

What the Duet AI side panel can do in Gmail, Google Drive, & Docs [Gallery]. 9 to 5 Google.

10 best Google Docs add-ons you should download.  XDA Developers.

After Quitting Twitter, NPR Chief Has No Regrets

John Lansing, NPR president: In April, we decided that NPR would be the first major news organization to exit what was then called Twitter. We did so because the platform continued to take actions that undermined our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent. In the months following our "Twexit," several other public media organizations followed suit.  It's been 260 days since, and I have no regrets about this decision.

Why? Independent journalism is the backbone of a well-informed society. Our work centers the facts, fuels dialogue, and keeps those in power accountable. NPR quits Twitter.How to Find and Work with an Editor

If you want your book to be the best it can be, then working with a professional editor is the next step, writes author and book marketer Joanna Penn on her website The Creative Penn.

An editor’s job is to take your manuscript and help you improve it through structural changes and story development, line edits, suggestions for new material or sentence refinement, and so much more. Different kinds of editors can help you in different ways from constructing the overarching story to eliminating the final typo.

Editing Is Not One Thing. What Editors Can Do.

What do you mean by "editor?" Many seem baffled by that question. No doubt they are clear about their understanding of what an editor does — an understanding that probably comes from their primary experience in the world of journalism and writing, writes Jacqui Banaszynski in Nieman Storyboard. But to be of any use, I have to know what they need help with, and whether I'm the right kind of editor to provide that help. Do they want someone to help with story focus or even the validity of the core idea? Someone to serve as an involved but hands-off-the-keyboard coach to read and comment on drafts? An editor to wrestle complex information into a cohesive structure? A line editor who can smooth and tighten their writing without destroying their voice? An eagle-eyed copy editor to read behind them for style, syntax, grammar, accuracy? Editing is not one thing.

Should I Hire an Editor? It Depends.

Whether a professional editor might be useful depends on where you are in your drafting process, on your goals for a particular manuscript, and on what type of edit you’re considering, writes Tiffany Yates Martin. Every author seems to define “first draft” differently—from the raw initial “vomit draft” to the first revised version that you’ve taken as far as you’re able to on your own. Judging from your description, it sounds like your first draft is the latter. That can be a great time to seek an editor, if you plan to—but you asked about seeking beta readers at this point, and for my money (literally), that and/or critique partners is where I’d start.

Weak Words to Root Out During Your Revision Process

When you're writing your book, it is common to include a lot of words that you don't need. This doesn't mean you are a bad writer, because everyone does this, writes Jason Hamilton on Kindlepreneur. Additionally, there are so many words that are unnecessary, and many authors don't even know it. As you gain experience writing, you will find that these words feel stale, and there are better words to replace them. Thankfully, using the advice in this article, you can turn weak phrases into good writing and become a better writer in the process. 

Year-end short speculative fiction roundup: an overview of awards eligibility season.

Turn Every Page is brimming with warmth, wit, and heated arguments about punctuation. Film review. Sony Classics film.

Rewriting the past: “You can't change James Bond - he is what he is” says Ian Fleming biographer. Euronews.

Beware of Blurbs - The Millions commentary.

After the Opening and Ending, Make Sure You Focus on the Middle

I recently blogged about the importance of beginnings—that first chapter or so of your novel that gins up your reader’s interest in it and hooks her good, so that she has to keep reading, writes N.L. Holmes in the Florida Writers Association. Then there’s the all-important ending of the book, wherein you take advantage of your last chance to impress and leave a satisfied taste in readers’ mouths. We’ll get back to that in due time. And that’s the thing about endings: you have to get to them. And in order to get to them, you have to go through the middle. For the author, this may be the most difficult part to write. You’ve gotten out of the blocks with a roar, but how do you keep up that momentum? 

When Is a Manuscript Finished Enough to Share with Editors, Others?

I’ve seen the question posed (in various forms) on social media sites that writers frequent. “I just finished writing my story. Can I send it ‘as is’ to my editor?” writes Anne Hawkinson for the Florida Writers Association. Or it might be something like, “How much editing do I need to do before I send my story to beta readers?” A writer may consider the story done when the last sentence is typed, but let’s explore some practical, cost-saving steps that are worth taking before handing off a finished story to anyone.

Why 'sensitivity readers' are causing such a stir in the publishing world. CBC news.

Reporter Shares Apps, Tips and Tricks for Writing, Publishing

Working remotely in the Covid era has led to a host of unexpected benefits for journalists. But one of the major downsides has been spending less time with colleagues talking shop. Here are a handful of fun apps and tools that Rob Tornoe uses in his reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Editor & Publisher magazine of Wesley Chapel. He hopes you find them useful, possibly even making an assignment or two that much easier.

icture Books Are Jewels in the Literature World, All in 500 Words

Picture books are jewels in the world of literature; artistic, fun, informative, and full of heart-shine. One important aspect is that they are short, writes Shutta Crum for the Florida Writers Association. Many publishers insist on less than 500 words. Yet they must have characterization, plot, setting, theme, and mood—all the same things a 90,000-word novel has. The other thing they must do is grab and retain the interest of young minds. Those minds are racing at phenomenal speed. It’s a tricky business to get that young reader.

How to Use Color in Your Writing

The world you create for your characters is bound to be full of color—it’s everywhere you and your character(s) look. Sight is a powerful sense, so you want to make the most of it, writes Anne Hawkinson for the Florida Writers Association. As a writer, the tendency might lean toward using your favorite color, simply naming what your character sees (the green tree), and move on with the rest of the story’s narrative. Hang on! Don’t let the power of color fade away into thin air! Let’s explore the influence that color has in a story (and to make things a bit more challenging for me, I’m not going to use my favorite color—red).

Podcast: How Setting Goals Helped Propel Author to Success

Marc Reklau used to work in a book printer watching thousands of books get made. It was only when he got fired after ten years that he decided to write his own eBooks, and has since passed seven figures in earnings. He attributes that success to the Self Publishing Formula courses, Launchpad and Ads for Authors. It was when he actually applied the same self-help strategies he wrote about in his books to his own writing business that he started seeing the life-changing effects he’d hoped for. But it hasn’t all been straight sailing. He pulled his books out of Kindle Unlimited because Amazon unexpectedly closed his account, and now publishes wide. Tune into this week’s episode of the Self Publishing Show to hear more from Marc, including how goal setting works, using positivity to encourage personal development, why some of his habit-based content is a recurring feature across different topics, and why authors shouldn’t overlook the Spanish-reading US market.

Writing Short Stories Can Help You Test Ideas for Your Novel

Writing short stories can help establish your credentials as a fiction writer. It will give you much-needed exposure to editors, literary agents, and readers. Some publications will even pay you for it. You know what else a short story can do for you? It can serve as a vehicle for experimentation when you’re writing a novel, writes author Cindy Fazzi in Writer's Digest.

Ten outstanding short stories to read in 2024. Longreads.

This LA flash-fiction star thinks novels are “saggy.” Her own debut proves her wrong. Los Angeles Times.

What's a writing style guide? Early in my writing career, I discovered a troubling truth about those arguments I’d had in my adolescence about spelling, commas, pronouns and other conundrums of the English language: No definitive tome rules over all of English. Read more from Dana Sitar.

Janet Fitch on writing with all the senses. Lit Hub.

Inviting nature onto the page. CrimeReads.

Defining the 12 character archetypes. No Film School.

Adam Plantinga on law enforcement, thrillers, and writing communities. CrimeReads.

How to write a memoir: Examples and a step-by-step guide. Writers.com

The most shocking first lines of mystery novels. BookRiot.

It's time to rewrite the rules of historical fiction. Esquire.

Older women make the best sleuths and spies (and criminals). CrimeReads.

Novels examining the true crime industry are a critical part of understanding its problems and popularity. From Kate Brody. CrimeReads.

My first thriller: Lisa Gardner. CrimeReads.

A celebration of reporters in cozy mysteries. CrimeReads.

Shop Talk: A year of writing advice and stories from the trenches. CrimeReads.

Sherlockian collaborations and the joys of fandom. CrimeReads.

Advice to Writers: Avoid the Spume of Too Much Info, from Meigs Glidewell

From member Meigs Glidewell: Authors Graham, Loh and Schmidt are members of a coalition, called the Friends of Attention. The group emerged from a symposium at the 2018 São Paulo Biennial that was supposed to be about art but, Graham said, “ended up becoming this super-intense conversation about attention and politics, about civic fragmentation and Cambridge Analytica and the pernicious effects of new ‘big data’ attentional regimes. We had folks there from Poland and Turkey and Hungary and the U.K. and, of course, the US. And there was a sense of mounting concern around these dynamics. A bunch of us threw our hats in the ring, and said, ‘Let’s try to do something here!’”

In their essay, the three authors now invite the rest of us to join the revolution against what they memorably call attention-fracking: “pumping vast quantities of high-pressure media content into our faces to force up a spume of the vaporous and intimate stuff called attention, which now trades on the open market.”

An ode to and newspaper stories newsprint on the screen. CrimeReads.

Fictionalizing real trauma as a means of healing. CrimeReads.

Why bother to write if no one is ever going to read it? Tony DuShane in FilmCourage.

Is the internet making writing better? The New Yorker.

Anna Quindlen wants you to get a good life. Publisher's Weekly.

The delightful encounters of historical crime fiction. CrimeReads.

Can you name these famous short stories based on their descriptions? New York Times.

Irish short-story master Claire Keegan's new book So Late in the Day. LA Times.

Claire Keegan's “stories of women and men” explore what goes wrong between them. NPR.

The strange history—and even stranger future—of digital deception. Next Big Idea Club.

Review: The Florida novels of Charles Willeford. Reason.

Who owns the phrase "rich as f–k"? One book publisher is getting sued over this very question. Ask Penguin Random House. The Messenger.

The case for a credits section in books. The Atlantic.

The 15 best literary adaptations of 2023. Lit Hub.

Top 3 lessons for anyone thinking about publishing a comic book - Stephen L. Stern. Film Courage.

The best crime and suspense anthologies of 2023. CrimeReads.

Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: a 95-year love triangle | Duke University School of Law commentary.

How to edit a series of crime novellas with 30 different authors and come out the other side feeling grateful. CrimeReads.

Why Write Historical Fiction? 5 Pros and Cons

History can seem daunting when trying to weave it into your fiction. In this post from April 2023, author Liz Trenow shares 5 pros and cons of writing historical fiction that gets to the point. Why do I write historical fiction? History, as taught at school, was boring. But when I discovered historical fiction, I loved the way it opened up worlds I knew little about, led me into researching eras of history, even took me traveling to find out more. When I decided to try my hand at writing a novel it was obvious that historical fiction would be my genre—and it can be yours too, so long as you are passionate about it.

The mainstreaming of historical fiction. Esquire.

(Don't) watch your tongue: why swearing is fun. Lit Hub.

The best and worst tropes in murder mysteries. BookRiot.

If the logline doesn’t work the story doesn’t work – Jen Grisanti. FilmCourage.

Ed Park on panoramic storytelling. Lit Hub.

Writing “Women of a Certain Age.” A roundtable on crafting older female characters in fiction. Lit Hub.

How to Write with Muscular Metaphors

Shutta Crum: It’s about time we got around to talking about metaphors—the big sister/brother of similes. Metaphors have more muscle than similes, and less tact. Rather than using a qualifying word such as “like” or “as” between two comparisons, metaphors just blurt out that one thing is another. Sure, tougher sibling Metaphor can be a bit rude, but it does its job quickly and without a lot of extraneous verbiage. More commentary by Shutta in the Florida Writer newsletter.

Notes from a nonfiction writing workshop. Nieman Storyboard.

How to Take A Story Idea from Concept to Finished Novel

Writer’s Relief tips: Brainstorm and plan. From meticulous plotters to adventurous pantsers, every writer can benefit from brainstorming! Committing the little spark of your novel to paper or a computer document can help you determine if you have enough raw material to fully develop the idea. Of course, it’s okay to stray from your original concept if a better option presents itself as you write. More tips here.

What are thriller authors truly afraid of? CrimeReads.

The mystery of memory and identity. CrimeReads.

Check out what does it mean when someone says “that's just semantics'? How Stuff Works.

Author and teacher Pam Houston on developing a practice of noticing. The Creative Independent.

If a writer makes this mistake the story is over–Steve Douglas-Craig. Film Courage.

5 Steps to Writing Like Stephen King, the King of Horror. The Write Life.

How to Use a Decision Tree to Sharpen Your Stories

Writer’s Relief: Navigating a new story idea can feel like following a blank map. You’re not sure how to get where you’re going—or even where to start. Does your character walk or drive to reach a destination? Should the protagonist face an obstacle head-on or ignore it? Will a scoundrel get a punch in the nose or a kiss? Every choice you make carries weight, so each decision matters. The experts at Writer’s Relief know a writing technique that can help you whittle down your options and improve your focus: Create a decision tree.

Column: So you want to retire and become a writer? Here’s some inspiration from Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times.

Apple’s Journal app has arrived–here’s what’s good and bad. TechCrunch.

Newly minted Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse on the best writing advice he's ever received. Lit Hub.

Lou Berney on the immense appeal of ordinary characters. CrimeReads.

Know yourself better by writing what pops into your head. Scientific American.

100+ vivid verbs that’ll spark life into your writing (+ examples) from Smart Blogger.

How to Work with Artists and Illustrators on Covers

An author spends months and years on the words in her story. She spends a week or three and a stingy amount on the book cover and image of that product.

This is the story of two book covers for books I edited and published at Pelican Publishing Company. More importantly, this story illustrates over two dozen tips I’ve compiled for authors who want to publish the best possible cover, from Mark Mathes.

Working with artists. 

How to Use Google Maps in Your Book

Google Maps are easy and accessible and customizable.

There is a 5000-copy limit yet it is not likely that Google would pay attention to.

Before you or an artist starts with design, it’s important to decide how many maps, the regions, style and the type of info. Tips from Mark Mathes.

Before you start a map. 

Book Browsers Eye Your Cover, Title, and Book Summary

Overwhelmingly, what made respondents willing to “give a new author a try” (other than a trusted recommendation) was the book’s cover and title: in other words, their first impression, writes Barbara Linn Probst. That didn’t mean they would end up loving the book or even finishing it, only that it would motivate them to pick it up, open it, and purchase it. Together, cover and title were mentioned more than all the other reasons combined: it accounted for 50% of responses, with some people adding a note to apologize for “judging a book by its cover.”

Many people added another reason: the short summary description that told them what the book was about. Recommendations on Goodreads and Amazon reviews were of intermediate importance. Many people explicitly said that they “didn’t trust” reader reviews, which they considered to be too subjective, not necessarily corresponding to their own taste, and suspicious—authors asking their friends to post excessively glowing reviews.

https://www.janefriedman.com/give-unknown-author-chance/

How to Format Your Manuscript. 10 Tips Your Editor Wants You to Know

Unless you prefer your friends to be story nerds or those who lean toward obsessive-compulsive tendencies when it comes to grammar, you shouldn’t necessarily seek to befriend your editor. However, you should seek to do everything in your power to be a professional friend of your editor. One of the simplest ways to do that — which too many authors fail to consider — is formatting. I know, writes Blake Atwood in The Write Life. With the greatest of respect for book designers and internal formatters, formatting isn’t exactly the sexiest of topics for an author to consider. You’d much rather paint a new world on the canvas of your book than talk about unadorned, 12-point Times New Roman.

AutoCrit Offers Video Series on Self-Editing

AutoCrit, the publishing service, recently launched the last of our team's live streams for 2021 – the concluding episode of its self-editing crash course, After the Draft.

This intensive series is free to view right now on the AutoCrit YouTube channel, bringing you three hours of end-to-end guidance that we hope you find useful for your next manuscript.

Perhaps you might even decide to adopt this approach for yourself!

⇒ Watch Part 1: First Steps and the Developmental Edit

⇒ Watch Part 2: The Simple Line Edit

⇒ Watch Part 3: Intensive Editing

Part III also includes a brief rundown of the steps from parts I and II, so feel free to start there if you wish to dive right in.

Everyone Needs an Editor. Friends and Family Don’t Count.

Have you heard the one about the editor who walks into a room full of writers?

Editor says, “Does anybody need an editor?”

Nobody answers.

Haha. But that would never happen, would it, asks Al Pessin of the Florida Writers Association.

That actually happened to me when I was an editor in a newsroom and our computer network went down. Folks could write and print, but not share. So, I walked around the room asking that question.

And getting that response. But here’s the truth, and don’t stop me even if you’ve heard this one before: Everyone needs an editor.

And no, your friends and family don’t count, nor do your critique partners. If you want to be a successful author, you need a set of professional, experienced eyes on your work. At least one set. And, sorry, but it’s going to cost you.

Editing Is Not One Thing. What Editors Can Do.

What do you mean by "editor?" Many seem baffled by that question. No doubt they are clear about their understanding of what an editor does — an understanding that probably comes from their primary experience in the world of journalism and writing, writes Jacqui Banaszynski in Nieman Storyboard. But to be of any use, I have to know what they need help with, and whether I'm the right kind of editor to provide that help. Do they want someone to help with story focus or even the validity of the core idea? Someone to serve as an involved but hands-off-the-keyboard coach to read and comment on drafts? An editor to wrestle complex information into a cohesive structure? A line editor who can smooth and tighten their writing without destroying their voice? An eagle-eyed copy editor to read behind them for style, syntax, grammar, accuracy? Editing is not one thing.

Types of editing and what to expect, from Mark Mathes.

Evaluating the Sample Edit and Choosing the Right Editor for You

From Writer’s Digest: It's important to know whether or not an editor is a good fit for you and your work. In this installment of a series about hiring a professional editor, Tiffany Yates Martin shares how to evaluate sample edits before choosing an editor.

Understand Book Genres. Master Your Own to Write and Market Your Book

Authors need to have a firm grasp on all the different genres of books in order to find the perfect home for their own. The tropes and expectations of a book’s genre will inform its content and style during the writing process, as well as fundamentals such as word count. But it’s also central to the marketing of a book, determining its target audience, and those all-important Amazon categories. Get your genre wrong, and you could be waving goodbye to book sales and hello to unsatisfied reader reviews!

How many book genres are there?

Though Reedsy is only covering 35 of the most popular in this post, there are around 50 genres in total — the exact number depends on who you ask. If you take subgenres into account, over on Reedsy Discovery we have 107 different categories, while Amazon has over 16,000!

A Finished Manuscript. Author Asks: Now What?

In Episode 2 of this column, Anita Ramirez writes:  how I completed the manuscript of my first novel in the early days of the pandemic and despite the death of my son. Emotionally drained, I printed my finished manuscript and held it in my hands. The weight of 374 pages was heavier than I had imagined. I knew it wasn’t just paper and ink, but the bewildering contradiction of anguish and joy. Of smiles and tears. Of pride and guilt. I didn’t yet realize that the hardest part of finishing this book was still to come. More on diyMFA.com.

From Pat Gray: In Manuscript Formatting, Don’t Annoy the Editor

Sarasota Fiction Writers officer Pat Gray shares this quote: Don’t annoy the editor. “I keep this quote at my desk,” he says. “The cardinal rule of manuscript formatting, if you haven't guessed it by now, is to do everything in your power to avoid annoying the editor!” 

How to use Word Tracking for editing and revision here. 

How to Use Colons and Semicolons. They Both Show a Relationship.

Do you dread punctuation? Do you look up how to use colons and semicolons every time you dare to put one in a sentence? It’s OK, we won’t judge, writes language and grammar site Word Genius. Even grammarians disagree on the rules regarding semicolons and colons. British and American rules are different, and you’ll often find them swapping colons and semicolons. The one common rule: They both show a relationship.

Root Out These 5 Common Writing Mistakes Before You Publish

Self-editing a piece slated for publishing goes beyond spell-checking your work. These writing mistakes should also be addressed to ensure your writing is clear, vibrant, and effective.

There is nothing worse than reading your published work and finding a huge, glaring mistake you should have caught in editing. Ask me how I know, writes Krystal Craiker for BookBaby. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a blog post, a personal essay, or a novel: there are some mistakes we don’t always catch when we edit our own work.

When Is Your Novel Ready? Here are 7 Self-Editing Steps.

Fiction editor and author Kris Spisak ties together her seven processes for self-editing novels, including editorial road-mapping, character differentiation analysis, reverse editing, and more.

Guide on What to Expect If You Choose to Self-Publish

Are you debating between self-publishing and going with a traditional publisher? In today’s post, we’re starting a three-part series on self-publishing for beginners. Analyze the pros and cons of self-publishing to find out if it’s the right choice for you. And, if you decide to self-publish, you can use this guide to know what to expect, according to New York Book Editors service. Nine questions to help you decide to self-publish.

Pat Gray Shares Classic Style Sheets from the Late Bill Carrigan

From Pat Gray: Hello, everyone, I just ran across this set of style sheets by editor and SFW member Bill Carrigan. What is a bit unique for those of us who have seen these for years is that this set is from 2006/7. Bill was extremely sharp at that time—he was only 86.

Bill worked on these for over two decades, carefully distilling what he considered the essentials of punctuation, grammar and usage. This was one of his passions.

Over the years, he handed out several revisions of the style sheets. As he grew older, he continued to edit the same style guide, hoping to make it perfect, but nothing ever is. These are essentially the same, but, to me, they read a little fresher. I put these into a folder on my desktop. Just a click away. For things like lay and lie, what or which, etc., his work can be quite valuable and time-saving.

Anyway, Happy Holidays from Bill.

Pat

Note from Mark Mathes: We’ll post these periodically over the next couple weeks here. Collect them all!

Commas and semicolons in a series

Special treatment of words

Dialogue

The apostrophe

Comma in a compound sentence

How Thousands of Volunteer Editors Fact Check Wikipedia

In the words of Michael Scott: “Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information.” And, in some ways, Scott isn’t wrong. Wikipedia’s open-access format has seen it become the 7th most popular site in the world, with English language Wikipedia alone counting some ~6.7 million articles in its library. Indeed, despite Wikipedia’s hundreds of millions of users, just ~122,500 have edited pages in the last month, and, of these Wikipedians, a mere 881 admins wield the ultimate power to block, delete, and edit protected content. This means that startlingly few actually add anything to the site: if you make 1 edit, you rank in the top 30% of all Wikipedia users; if you make 10, you’re in the top 5%. But, if you’re serious about becoming a “super editor” you have a long way to catch up. Wiki’s golden boy, Steven Pruitt — or, as he’s known on the site, Ser Amantio di Nicolao — has made a mind-boggling 5.7 million edits, more than a typical month of edits on the entire site (last month saw ~4.7 million).

Figures of Speech: 40 Ways to Improve Your Writing

Figurative speech plays an important role in our ability to communicate with one another. It helps create compelling narratives, and evoke emotion in readers.

With this in mind, this periodic table graphic by Visual Communication Guy groups the 40 different figures of speech into two distinct categories—schemes and tropes.

What’s the difference between the two, and how can they help improve your writing? Commentary and infographic by Visual Communication Guy.

English Is Most Common Spoken Language in the World

English is the most common spoken language in the world, followed by Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and French, then Standard Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese and Indonesian. With over 1.1 billion speakers worldwide, English is currently the closest we’ve come to a lingua franca, a common language that connects people from different backgrounds. However, Mandarin Chinese may one day catch up. The top spoken languages, illustrated by the Visual Capitalist.

Why the Reader Comprehends Visuals, Infographics Faster than Text

From the Visual Capitalist: One reason is that, as humans, we are particularly well-attuned to processing information visually:

--We process visual information 60,000 times faster than text alone.

--65% of us are visual learners.

--We recall images 9x more accurately than information we listen to.

--Our learning can be improved by up to 400% through the use of visual aids.

And when it comes to infographics, we’re thirty times more likely to read it than an article.

So, given how effective infographics are, how can we take advantage?

The good news is that a whole suite of tools now exist for creating infographics quickly and easily, even if we don’t have design skills. Top 10 tools to create infographics.