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If you’ve made it through revisions and developmental or substantive editing, it’s time for copyediting. Good copyediting does not come cheap. In a recent rate survey undertaken by the Editorial [...]

Like most things to do with commas, kinda. Do you want to read this series in order? Start here. As we learned in our previous entry, knowing what to do with commas means knowing the meaning of [...]

You’ve written your novel! Well done! Many people sit down at their desk to write a novel and then immediately stand back up to see what’s streaming. But not you! You persevered and you’ve woven [...]

Or: Why your friends aren’t your best first readers. Beta reading is one of the services I provide, and it’s the one that most people haven’t heard of. Here’s what I tell people when they ask: A [...]

Or: How to not waste your time and money. You wrote a novel! Maybe it’s the next great American novel, maybe it’s your first foray into the writing world, maybe it’s your first contemporary [...]

You’ve written a draft of a novel and you’ve revised enough times to know that your story is pretty awesome. What other things need revision? I’ve got a list of four things to look for. When I [...]

Or: Breaking Down Chicago Manual of Style 8.159 In headline-style capitalization, Most Words Are Capitalized. It differs from sentence-style capitalization in which The first [...]

Recently, I sent an email to client where I delicately probed his feelings about the serial comma. He’d written a 15,000-word workbook where he didn’t use the serial comma 95% of the time. But [...]