Show the story. Tell the ride through the countryside.

Show the emotions. Show the setting. Show the complexities of your mind. Show this. Show that.

Oh, before I forget, tell that ride through the countryside. Tell that little backstory through dialogue. Tell the oral history.

When does one use tell? Should I always show? At what point is it too much show and not enough tell?

Show. Show. Show. Tell. Tell. Tell. It can seriously do your head in.

Understanding the difference between the two is one thing. Striking a balance between them to keep your reader engaged is another. For the moment, let's focus on the first issue.

The Book Doctor is in the house!

There is a term that has been bandied around the internet and is starting to make the rounds of conferences and writing forums. It's a term that describes that type of person whom one might want to hire during the early stages of a manuscript's life (or later stages if a book is struggling to gain reader engagement). The term: Book Doctor or Plot Doctor. It's an interesting buzz term. However, I have encountered other terms that also refer to the same type of editor.

Book Doctor = Manuscript Assessor = Developmental Editor

Yep, you read that right, folks. Book Doctor is just another term for a developmental editor. And guess what... That's exactly the type of editor that I am.

So, what does a Book Doctor or Developmental Editor actually do?

Refueling the Writing Muse

This #NaNoWriMo, don’t focus just on word counts.

As the clock clicks over into November 1st, writers around the world will embark on the NaNoWriMo challenge.

No doubt, some of you are wondering what NaNoWriMo is. Well, as a writer, you commit yourself to writing 50,000 words in one month — you commit to writing a complete first draft of a novel. For some, it is a daunting goal, but as someone who has taken part in every NaNoWriMo and CampNaNoWriMo event since 2014, I can tell you that it's worth the challenge and effort.

Every year, without fail, there will be a few who work at insane rates, pumping out 50,000 words within the first few days. Some even achieve this within the first 24 hours. No, I'm not exaggerating. Within my home region, there is always at least one, frequently two or three, with another two or three who hit 50,000 words within the first week. However, I actually feel sad for the ones who rush to pump out those 50,000 words in such a short time, because in my opinion they have totally missed the point behind NaNoWriMo.

The real goal of NaNoWriMo is to spend an entire month writing your novel, aiming to complete it. If you finish early, you go back and flesh out some of the scenes. And if hit 50,000 words early but still haven't finished the novel, you keep going until you've written the words The End. You write every day, forming a habit for writing that will carry you through into December and beyond.

How important really is grammar?

When I tell people that I'm a freelance editor (including other writers), they instantly assume that I'm a copyeditor, with a keen interest in working on the grammar and punctuation of my clients. I'm not surprised that writers often jump to that conclusion. Majority of editors that I encounter actually ARE copyeditors. However, what is the point behind looking at the appropriateness of a given word in a sentence when on page 152 the bad guys are setting up the bomb that will level the city, and the good guys find the bomb and disarm it by the end of page 154.

This may sound incredibly odd coming from a professional editor, but in all honesty, grammar takes a backseat to story and character.

Nonfiction writers who write fiction need to retrain their brains.

There are some out there who believe that writing is just writing. If you have training in writing of one nature, surely you can write other stuff too. Well...

There are certain aspects of writing that hold true no matter what type of writing you do. The rules of grammar, for example, don't care if you write fiction, a scientific paper, or a cookbook. However, there is a massive difference between all three of those particular types of writing.

It is becoming increasingly common for those who have nonfiction writing backgrounds to shift into the fictional realms. Let's face it, we have big imaginations and we want to share that with the world. Rightly so. Our stories should be told. However, nonfiction writers, you need to retrain your brains if you are serious about pursuing fiction.

The Rush-The-Process Dish

Over a year ago, I jokingly reported about some of the flavours of the Rush-The-Process dish. I’m talking about those scenarios where writers are in such a hurry to submit their work for publications that they skip vital steps in the editing or publication process.

In that post, I spoke about the ones who only have family and friends looking at their work, not other writers or editors. I spoke about the ones who take editorial reports and stick to the most basic of rewrites. Then there are those who submit to agents and publishers unfinished works, only to go into full panic mode when they get the request for fulls. And my personal favourite: upload to Amazon without editing at all, because they supposedly can’t afford it.

But there are some other flavours to this Rush-The-Process dish that also requires some attention.

There’s a reason for the standard manuscript format

In this day and age, many submissions are handled through email. Agents and acquisition editors will often look at the submissions sent to them on an electronic device, commonly a computer or tablet screen. For many submissions, the initial contact is contained in the body of an email (no attachments). If additional materials are asked for, agents and editors expect things to be in the standard manuscript format. Yet, agents and editors will still look at those added materials using electronic devices.

So, if everything is now electronic, why must we format our manuscripts using a format that was devised back in the day when everything was printed? Well, believe it or not, the standard manuscript format is very specific for a reason.

Developmental Editors are NOT Copyeditors

When I tell people that I'm an editor, the first response that I typically get is something along the lines of, "You must love spelling." It's amazing how many people assume that editing is just looking at the punctuation and grammar, perhaps finding typos. However, this proofreading type of editing is the final stage of the process. Before you get to that point, there are so many other aspects.

I have written about the stages of editing before, posting the below info-graphic about when you need to seek those external eyes and what type of external eyes you need. However, I still encounter many who are confused about what editing really entails.

The Who, What and When of Editing

In this week's post, I thought I'd elaborate on the two main categories of professional editors that you'll likely encounter, and why BOTH are vital to the health (and success) of a story. I'm talking in particular about developmental editors and copyeditors.

Trick from the Editor’s Hat: A List of Crutch Words

You spend hours, days, even weeks editing. You're struggling to get through it — but don't give up. Writing a story is easy; shaping it into something worth reading is where the true talent of the writer lies.

Here is just one of the many tricks that I employ when editing both my own and clients' writing.

CREATE A SPREADSHEET OF CRUTCH WORDS

While writing, we often have a list of words that we'll fall back on when we can't think of another word to write. Sometimes, we don't even realise that we're doing it. It's not until our critique partners, beta readers, or editors point it out to us that we see the repetitive word glaring at us.

"How could I have missed that? It's as obvious as the nose on my face."

Well, it's quite easy to miss things when you don't know that they're a problem. However, the solution is surprisingly simple.