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How to Find a Trustworthy Book Editor
How to find a trustworthy book editor is a question I see repeatedly on social media. Finding an editor you can trust shouldn’t be difficult, but I know a lot of authors are concerned about being scammed. They are worried that an editor is going to take their money and…
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Reducing Repetition and Redundancy in Your Novel
Make Your Writing Tighter, part 4 How to identify and remove repetition and redundancy in your fiction writing. You might have heard the phrase ‘make every word count’. And you might have heard that ‘tight writing is good writing‘. But what do these phrases actually mean? What constitutes ‘tight writing’?…
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How to Stop Over-Describing in Your Novel
Make Your Writing Tighter, part 3 Newer authors often fall into the trap of over-describing, but how do you avoid over-describing (and generally overwriting) in novels? You might have heard the phrase ‘make every word count’. And you might have heard that ‘tight writing is good writing‘. But what do…
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Get Rid of Then, Before and While in Your Novel
Make Your Writing Tighter, part 2 How to avoid OVERWRITING in fiction novels by looking at excessive timeline nudges. You might have heard the phrase ‘make every word count’. And you might have heard that ‘tight writing is good writing‘. But what do these phrases actually mean? What constitutes ‘tight…
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Stage Direction in Your Novel
Make Your Writing Tighter, part 1 Too much stage direction in your novel can be information overload. You might have heard the phrase ‘make every word count’. And you might have heard that ‘tight writing is good writing‘. But what do these phrases actually mean? What constitutes ‘tight writing’? And…
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What Even is DIALOGUE? What is dialogue in a novel? It’s how you represent the way your characters are speaking. In books, it tends to be encased within either ‘single quotes’ (common in the UK), or “double quotes” (common in the US). There are many rules relating to dialogue and…
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MS Word Shortcut Keys
A list of the most commonly used Microsoft Word Shortcut keys. This post is also available as a download. When you’re in the midst of typing your book, you will find yourself using the same commands over and over again. If each time it takes you a few seconds to…
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Adverbs – good or bad?
Should authors use adverbs? Or do they weaken the narrative?
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What is Dialogue Within Dialogue?
Dialogue is just another word for speech. Generally, dialogue is separated from standard text using inverted commas (also known as speech marks). These can be either single ( ‘ and ’ ) or double ( “ and ” ). Which style an author chooses is down to personal choice, although…
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What is Phonetic Dialogue?
Is it OK to write speech phonetically (phonetic dialogue) to illustrate an accent or lisp? The answer, as with pretty much everything else, is ‘it depends’. There is a time and place for differentiating characters based on how they speak – for example to indicate a different social background or…
