You have a highly informative website! Now, about: The best technique for proofreading is to read each sentence backward. Did you really mean what that sounds like? Taking one sentence at a time, I should reverse all the words of the sentence front to back and read the words of… Read more“Proofreading: reading each sentence backward”
Author: Victoria
3 Things I Learned from Henry James
I promised you guys a long time ago that whatever I learned from the fabulous Notebooks of Henry James I would share with you here. I haven’t finished it yet—it’s a heck of a long book, plus I got completely sidetracked by Shirley Jackson’s key to increasing tension over time,… Read more“3 Things I Learned from Henry James”
Making it matter
Seth Godin doesn’t think you should write a book thinking you’ll make money off it. He’s written thirteen. I’m guessing he might know. But you should watch the video he links to, because it is very cool, and everything Taylor says about teachers can be said about writers. What do… Read more“Making it matter”
3 Things to Know About Exposition & Telling
A bizarre thing happened to a client of mine one day. This author is one of my best clients. She’s been writing all her life. She has a fabulous imagination and sees her characters moving and acting and speaking with wonderful vividness. She’s written lots of screenplays, so her dialog… Read more“3 Things to Know About Exposition & Telling”
Understanding agents
We’re talking this month about vetting publishing professionals as you work your way from your original inspiration all the way to actual publication—particularly the role that freelance independent editors play in this journey. A funny thing happened in the publishing industry thirty or forty years ago. We went through all… Read more“Understanding agents”
3 Writers, 1 Conference: a Story of Hope
This is writers conference month here, so a few weeks ago I taught you guys how to get people all riled up at you at a writers conference.Then we discussed what to watch out for in the way of presenters—the bullshitters and the non-bullshitters, part one and part two. So… Read more“3 Writers, 1 Conference: a Story of Hope”
3 Steps to Making Friends & Enemies at Writers Conferences
I don’t really attend writers conferences anymore, because it’s much more comfortable to stay home in my cozy attic office editing the books of the coolest writers on the entire planet—but I have attended a few. And I want to tell you a story today about something that happened to… Read more“3 Steps to Making Friends & Enemies at Writers Conferences”
5 BS Indicators for Writers Conferences
‘Tis the season for writers conferences. And last week I told you a story about something that happened at a conference once. Now this week and next I’m going to re-run these two posts I wrote a couple of years ago about writers conferences for all of you out there… Read more“5 BS Indicators for Writers Conferences”
Interviewing Millicent Dillon
You ask if a man who wrote as Jane did would be more famous? A man, of course, could not write as she did.—Millicent Dillon Over the course of her illustrious forty-year writing career, Millicent Dillon has won five O. Henry awards and been nominated for a PEN/Faulkner. She has… Read more“Interviewing Millicent Dillon”
3 More Things to Know About Exposition & Telling
We talked last week about an alarmingly bizarre piece of writing advice one of my clients got from an agent in response to her requested full manuscript. We also talked about exposition & telling and why they’re pretty much exactly the same thing, even though I know we out here… Read more“3 More Things to Know About Exposition & Telling”