Writing with Jennifer

Before the COVID hit, I spent some time working for a small publishing company. I went into it as a writer, not knowing what publishing was all about. I learned a lot. For example, there are approximately 7 million kinds of paper (Okay, I might be exaggerating, but it's a lot!) My job was to help walk authors through the process from start to finish. Here are a few things I learned that are crucial to writers.  You need editors.  I spoke to so many writers who told me that their manuscripts were "already edited." None of them were right. That's because most people have not invested in a professional editor, and editing is often still needed even after a professional has been over the work.  At a minimum, you need a couple of different types of editors on your team. A developmental editor is one who looks at plot, consistency, story flow, character arcs, and other literary elements of the work. That person may also notice spelling and grammar issues, but that's not...

Great writers need great tools. Here are some that I use often. Grammarly Proofreading for spelling and grammar is essential. No matter how much education you have in editing and no matter how many times you've looked over your own work, you are likely to miss something. That's where Grammarly comes in. No, it's not perfect and it doesn't replace a human proofreader. But it's a helpful tool.  Hemingway Editor Simply paste in your work, and you'll get instant feedback about passive voice, adverbs, and how hard your work is to read. You'll also get insight into the reading level of your writing. The site is free to use online, but you can also pay $19.99 to have it downloaded to your desktop.  Omni Writing Calculator If your writing goals are overwhelming you, a site like this can help. This calculator tracks how many words you need to write each day in order to meet your goals. You set the goal and the date, and the calculator will tell you what you need to d...

There are some writers out there who live for line editing. They find it all kinds of satisfying to go word by word through their own work, or someone else's, with a fine-toothed comb picking out filler like headlice.  I am not one of these writers.  However, I can confidently say that line editing is a must. When I'm finished with this blog post, I'll go through it one time quickly. I'll change some words here and there, and I'll look for typos. I probably won't question whether I've used the most concise phrases or most effective and efficient words. The result will end up being very typical of the way I talk, rather than a highly polished piece of communication.  If I was writing something I was expecting to send to a publisher, it would be a different story. Words matter a lot in those cases, both in terms of what gets left in and what gets taken out.  I read an article this morning on The Write Life that struck me as a great place to start when you lin...