At one of our weekly meetings, Dr. Tupper mentioned to me an email that he had fielded that questioned our “editorial severity” as compared to the large publishers. This naturally made me raise an eyebrow in concern and some measure of offense given the degree of effort we put into our work. He went on...Read More

Lately, I’ve noticed a large problem with understanding pacing. The last three manuscripts I’ve read have started obscenely slowly. I had one book that took ten chapters to have the main character leave home and get to his new house. Needless to say I nearly fell asleep. Part of the problem with pacing is that...Read More

I get quite a few queries every day and more than half of them seem to not read the website that we post. It’s frustrating as an editor to have people send you things without essential information. The reason that the process asks so many questions is that we require specific information to not only...Read More

I’ve come to see that there seems to be a lot of confusion about what will impress an editor and while I can’t speak for every editor out there, I can certainly speak for myself and I hope that it might give some insight into what you should consider when you are making contact with...Read More

The first, and most important, thing to know about writing a query is to follow the guidelines that the publisher gives you. If your query letter does not follow the required format and contain the required information, it will show that you are not able to follow instruction and that you don’t care enough to...Read More

Every writer approaches organizing their writing differently, however every successful writer needs to first organize it. One of the problems I’ve seen with submissions is that oftentimes the work – while interesting and potentially good – needs explanations made and needs to have the pacing and flow worked on. The best story can become a...Read More

The tempting tome of torpid turbulance! If having a large and varied vocabulary is gold in writing then an over-reliance on a thesaurus is lead: worthless unless you’re making bullets out of it. Some authors attempt to use a thesaurus to compensate for what they feel is a lack of large or impressive words. But...Read More

One of the things I’ve noticed in editing is that the biggest stumbling block many writers have is research. Particularly with pieces that are not about the modern era. The old adage of “write what you know” is actually a good idea, but in the context of writing about something you can expand “what you...Read More

I’m learning a lot about editing and the process thereof. The longer I do this, the more I become aware of many of the common errors that writers make and the more I realize that writers tend to be very fickle! Of course, it’s only natural that they should be protective of their work, it’s...Read More

Well, I suppose I’ll start with the beginning. I’m sure you can gather that my name is Beth. Or Elizabeth. So long as you don’t call me Liz, we’ll get along fine. Introductions, introductions. These things are always so hard. I’m 25 and graduated college about two years ago with my degree in history, a...Read More