Artificial Intelligence Editing Services: The McDonald’s of Literature
Ah, the modern world! So many new technologies that make our lives easier! Some of the most interesting emerging services provide manuscript editing powered by artificial intelligence. A good example is ProWritingAid, which analyzes your text and not only flags … Continue reading
ChatGPT: The Race to the Bottom
An artificial intelligence (AI) software service called ChatGPT made its debut in November, 2022. The service is able to produce text that is grammatically correct and designed to respond to a prompt or question. For example, if you say to … Continue reading
Avoid Repetition in Your Writing!
As an editor, on of the most common problems I see in the writing of my valued clients is needless repetition. This manifests itself in either of two ways: Repeating the same idea more than once, or repeating words that … Continue reading
The Importance of the Topic Sentence
Writing is a form of communication. Its structure is linear, like a path. That means the reader intakes the first word, remembers it, and then intakes the next word. As the reader progresses through the words, sentences, and paragraphs, the … Continue reading
Developmental Editing: It’s All About Baby Steps!
Clients will often send me a finished manuscript of 40,000 or 60,000 words, which, for various reasons, they’re not happy with. A non-fiction manuscript may be outdated, not well organized, incomplete in its arguments, or just plain boring. A novel … Continue reading
Short Story, Novelette, or Novel: All About the Word Count
Written works of fiction come in all lengths as measured by the word count. This is simply the number of words in the document or book. When you’re writing on your computer, word processing applications such as Microsoft Word will … Continue reading
Love Those Oxford Commas!
Among grammarians and writers, the so-called Oxford comma has long been the subject of much debate. Some see it as superfluous, while others say it’s indispensable. The comma – Oxford or otherwise – and other punctuation marks have their genesis … Continue reading
Why Do People Who Use a Ghostwriter Need to Hire a Second Ghostwriter?
On Upwork the other day I saw a job posting entitled “Book Edit/Rewrite.” Part of the job description read, “I’m looking to hire a ghostwriter/editor to rewrite my completed manuscript. Rewrite would include add, delete, and recreate scenes. I worked with … Continue reading
Computerized “Beta Reader” Services – Beware!
In the publishing industry, a “beta reader” is a human being who reads your unpublished book and provides feedback, not unlike a book review. Beta readers are subjective, and can provide only their opinion, but they can be very useful … Continue reading
Beyond Grammarly – How a Pro Editor Will Elevate Your Book Above the Ordinary
In the past few years, various software applications have emerged that automatically correct basic issues of spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The most popular is Grammarly, an online grammar checking, spell checking, and plagiarism detection platform developed by Grammarly, Inc. First … Continue reading