Part Two of Self Editing deals with the opening of your book, or ‘The Hook’. What I am referring to here is the way that you intend to grab your reader’s attention, and hopefully, later, keep it. Sometimes, a hook is associated with the trope used in the book – this is common in category …
Category Archive: A Note From the Coach
Aug 01
Freelance Editors and Publishing Houses
Recently, I joined the ranks of Etopia Press – an up and coming publisher in romance and YA – as an acquisitions editor. I am loving them already, and I really think they are going places. But here’s the thing, and I have put a warning in a couple of places on my website about it …
Jan 10
Self Edits, Part 1
Before you decide that your book is finished and you are ready to spend time and money working with an editor I would suggest a round of self edits. This is the real work. If you thought that telling the story the first time was the hard part, you might be in for a surprise. Over …
Dec 07
Let’s Talk Dialogue
There are thousands of rules when it comes to the use of contractions, verb usage and sentence structure in my Chicago Manual of Style. But where do we go to look for rules on dialogue? What do we do when we are writing in the voice of a street tough from New York? Or a …
