I come across writers all the time who are bucking "the system" and posting rebellious tweets or Facebook messages about how they'll keep their adverbs in (thank you very much) and how much they hate editors and how much they're keeping very single dang comma. As you may have come to expect from me, I'm...Read More

Queries are a hard part of writing, but there are a few things you absolutely must get correct to avoid being sent the dreaded form rejection letter everywhere. While I'm not saying you'll absolutely be accepted if you avoid these mistakes, your likelihood of acceptance is vastly higher.Read More

As we prepare to launch Insomnia Publishing's newest release, First Favor (the third Sam Archer book), I am kind of reflecting some on the things I've learned about editing, publishing, and writing over the last few years. While I've been a bit quiet on the blog front, I've been very busy on the life front....Read More

Characterization is telling the reader about characters (or even places). It's the meat and potatoes of the "getting to know you" part of the story, and it can be extremely powerful.Read More

Ultimately, just remember that editors are working hard. There's usually sticker shock involved with our quotes, but a good editor works extremely hard for their clients and are doing far more than spell check.Read More

Whether you're writing from first person or third person, you shouldn't write about things your POV character doesn't know. For example, if she doesn't know the person across from her plans to kill her, you shouldn't tell the reader that.Read More

I cannot tell you the number of times I have stumbled across an author who has had issues with facts in their manuscript. And I don’t mean little things. I’ve had authors who tried to flip safty off on revolvers (revolvers don’t have safeties as a rule) and who had someone doing cross stitch in...Read More

You’ll hear in writing courses the world over that to-be verbs aren’t your friends while writing. The biggest reasons for this lie in the fact that many to-be verbs are passive in nature. Even if they aren’t passive voice outright, they’ll lead into passive construction which is just as unpleasant. The difference between passive voice...Read More

I have seen a lot of Facebook questions and posts about passive voice that don’t quite explain it. Almost everyone who knows what passive voice is (or thinks they know what passive voice is) knows it’s bad, but they often have trouble identifying it. Given how prevalent the problem is, I thought I should address...Read More

I have worked with many clients over the years who weren’t clear on this subject, and it led to frustration for everyone involved. As such I decided to write this out as a way to explain what it is we do for you.Read More