Editing is the most crucial part in turning out any written work. Experienced writers opine that editing may even be more important than writing. Whilst writing is an unbundling of thoughts, memories, imaginations and ideas, editing, on the other hand, organizes these thoughts streamlining them for the third eye. Without editing, those words on paper will continue to remain meaningless. This is what makes the role of the editor so
Okay, so you have read 1502 ‘how to’ books on writing. All of them say the same thing and you still don’t get it. Everyone has an easy, fast, economical way to become the next best seller. Didn’t work, did it? I understand, I really do. I have read those same books, too. But, I found one thing they missed. Every one of them missed the most important thing about
I made a short video course talking about book editing, self-editing, choosing an editor and the editing process. These are some of the things I’ve learned after working in publishing for a decade and helping hundreds of authors be successful. None of these videos is about why you should choose Book Butchers – in fact I urge you to self-edit first and talking about why paying for book editing may
A guided zombie adventure of the most common grammatical mistakes in English English has a lot of rules. Sometimes they can be tricky. So we’ve taken the top 25 most abused grammatical rules and woven them into a zombie narrative. Enjoy! 1. The use of “who” and “whom” Who – subjective pronoun, like “he,” “she,” “it” – acts as a subject. Whom – objective pronoun, like “him,” “her” “us” The
You probably have someone smug in your life who corrects your grammar and catches your typos. Or maybe that’s you, and you need to broadcast your grammatical superiority. Either way, here are a bunch of fun mugs, Tshirts and other things with writing and grammar related themes. Join the contest: if you win, you can choose any of the following. Gifts for Grammar Police (giveaway) “I have my red pen
Insecurity is a common problem among authors. How do you know whether the book is good enough yet? What if people hate it? New authors tend to compare their efforts against well-known writers and literary masterpieces, but keep in mind, even famous authors had their doubts. Here are some of them. JG Ballard and The Wind from Nowhere British New Wave SF writer J.G. Ballard, who wrote the (in)famous
I’m going to be making graphics for each individual rule, plus a big poster of them all. (Also… a zombie version!). For now, here are the common things most people screw up. Even if you know these rules, your brain does funny things when you’re tired or not paying attention; so self-edit and make sure you catch them all. The use of “who” and “whom” Who – subjective pronoun, like
Collectively, Book Butchers edit almost one hundred books a year, and we have decades of book editing experience. But more and more frequently, good editors are becoming “writing coaches” for authors who have never taken the time to learn how to tell a great story. If you’ve never studied the craft – plot, dialog, pacing, story structure, tension and character description, etc. – we’re going to spend the majority
I’m about finished with my first ever full rough draft for my first ever novel. I’ve been an editor for ten years but am now working on my own fiction. Luckily, I’ve done some things right: I plotted exhaustively I went back and added tension, raised stakes, built in conflict I rearranged things so my protagonist has a character arc I hit all the right steps in the right places.
I get a lot of people who email me and ask about book editing. How do you choose an editor? What should you look for? How do you know if they’re doing a good job? Every editor will have a unique approach and style, however all we can do is build on what you give us. Your novel is kind of like a rough sketch of a product design. We’ll