writing-reposts

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Writing Reposts Posting Schedule.

I will post a total of 80 posts a month on here being divided into two posting sessions with 40 posts each. I will post at 10pm MDT on the first of the month and the last day of the month. To accommodate for this please allow for one (1) hour for this posting schedule so the posts can go up as they’re going to be on a queued publishing schedule.

Note: I may miss a month due to life being busy so to make up for the missed scheduled times, I will post the following month at the same times at 10pm MDT.

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Intro Post

Hello, I am Writing Reposts or WR, as for names, you can call me Mond. Here I repost all types of writing advice and help for writers to assist in their writing journey. Occasionally, I will post some of my own writing advice or tips here when I have something I would like to share when I have time to share it here.

As for a posting schedule I have a post here for when I will be able to post. Due to life being busy at times I might not be active on this page often. However, I will post several posts in a day before becoming dormant again until it’s time to post according to my scheduled time.

Feel free to ask for anything you would like to see here and I will try to find some writing tips and advice for you. My inbox is open so feel free to ask or just say hello!

Happy writing and I hope you can find some assistance on my page for your writing endeavors! ~ Mond

Here are my master lists with everything you would like to find

Master list of posts with links

Master list of posts with links (Mobile)

Note: the master lists will be updated occasionally with more writing help topics found.

Credit to @cafekitsune for the banners

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Publishing

For those who are ready to take the next step in their writing journey by getting ready to be published. Good luck with your writing endeavors!

Publishing tips Tips for getting published

Synopsis How to write a synopsis

What_looks for hat different places look for when you submit your story

Publishers Publishers for authors wanting to be published

Querying All about querying and tips

Self publishing How to self publish

Self publishing mistakes How to avoid self publishing mistakes

Beta reader What are beta readers?

Formatting How to format your book when self publishing

Agents Agents and how to vet them

Look for this What to look for when publishing

Cover design How to get a good cover for your book when self publishing

Publishing myths Myths debunked

Advice Advice for publishing your book

Imprints Publishing imprints

Pen names How and why you should use a pen name

Book deals How to get a book deal

Guidelines What are the submission guidelines when querying

Isbn About Isbns

Editing and editors All about editing and editors

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Editing Tips: The Fix List

When it comes to writing, they say the real work is in the rewriting. While it may take several drafts and years of your life to get to the point of having an entire book written, the work is not over after you type “The end.” You then need to dig back into that manuscript, […]Editing Tips: The Fix List

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Written by Rochelle Deans

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❣️ The fiction you write is valuable and important.

❣️ No one else can write the story you came up with the same way that you would.

❣️ No story idea is totally original, it's okay to tell a story that's similar to another and do it your own way.

❣️ You bring meaning and ideas to your story that no one else would put there.

❣️ No story will ever be liked by everyone and that's okay.

❣️ Its okay to put elements, ideas, themes, characters and events in your fiction that you know some people wouldn't like.

❣️ What's important is that you write YOUR story the way you want to write it.

❣️ Who cares what anyone else says, write your story.

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The second rounds of edits on Hubris should be done within the week, possibly, so I thought this was a good time to talk about the editing process.

When I was picked up by the publishers, I was asked what I was looking forward to the most. My answer was "the editing." The editor was surprised by this, because most people feel disheartened when they get their manuscript back and it's marked up all over the place.

This disappointment is understandable on its face; you thought you had a terrific piece just to find out there seem to be a lot of flaws in your writing. There are a couple of truths about editing, though:

1) In his book On Writing, Stephen King talks about the need to edit your piece thoroughly. He says "Only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says 'oh, well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for.'" Mistakes happen. You should, as he says, try to find as many of them as you can, but it's also true that you can only find so many. You wrote the piece, your brain will automatically change what you're reading to make sense and to say what you want it to after a while. A fresh set of eyes finds many more mistakes because to err is human. No person gets it right the first time.

2) Being a great storyteller and being a grammar expert do not go hand in hand. I used to think my grammar was great until my best friend started pointing out all of the commas I use that I don't need. When I was talking to editor #2 about it recently, he tried to explain where commas go and where they don't and the rules were none I had ever heard of in my life. Grammar rules are abundant and there are multiple schools of thought and style guides to reference when trying to learn. Even editors need editors for their own works, so never feel bad that your work had grammatical issues. This does not reflect on your ability to write a fantastic story in the slightest.

(With that said, if you know that grammar and/or spelling is not your strong suit, definitely do what you can to edit before you submit to a publisher. If your manuscript has too many errors, they may not pick it up because of the time it would take to fix it. Running it through a program like Grammarly will help to clean it up.)

3) Every single writer that you love has multiple editors and those editors find mistakes. Don't think that you're the only person that is getting their manuscript torn apart. Every author goes through this, and it's all about taking the time to appreciate that you have a great story that an editor feels is worth their time to polish up. Your work can't go through the editing process unscathed. You wrote down the story as it was in your head and now your editors will clean it up so that others can join you in enjoying it.

Ultimately, the editing process is nothing to beat yourself up about or feel anxious over. I went from 105,000 words down to 101,000 words with the first round of editing, and I'm certain that it will go down a bit further with this next round. That's how much needed to be taken out, and that doesn't include the amount that needed to be put in or changed. The editing process is a great process and you should be excited about how wonderful your story is going to be when it comes out of the whole thing. Enjoy this, because you've created something that others see as having vast potential and are eager to clean up so that your work can be its best self.

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One Crucial Step You Shouldn't Skip in Self-Publishing

You have an idea. You write a book. You publish a book. Hooray! But. . . there’s a step missing. A step that will ensure your book is professional. A step that will keep, rather than turn away, readers. Editing. Maybe you think I’m crazy for suggesting that someone would skip this step. If so, I’m very glad that you would never do this, because the reality is all too many authors are blind to…

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When is your novel really done?

I already know there are areas of the manuscript that need to be tightened and shined. That being said, editing and revising can still be quite overwhelming. So where does one begin?

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The Self Publisher’s Guide to Editing

Self Publishing is an amazing option for so many reasons. You have total control over every aspect of your publishing process and don’t have to rely on others for approval in many areas — such as deciding if your novel is marketable enough to publish in the first place.

One thing to keep in check when you’re self publishing however, is your budget. When a traditional publisher picks up your work they’ll handle much of the financial end of things and you’ll get a percentage of royalties for your end of the labor. But when self publishing, you’re covering everything, so it becomes even more important to pinch those pennies where you can.

Prior to self publishing OR traditionally publishing, you’re going to have to go through the editing process. But it’s a bit different depending on which direction you’re headed.

While traditionally published books will do best with an experienced editor who understands the current literary landscape and can help your book become publisher-ready, the self publishing writer can have a more personalized approach. And so, the question becomes…

Should you edit your own novel?

Well, right off the bat you are going to have to do some level of editing on your own. You should always proofread your novel and check for spelling and grammatical errors along with plot holes and really meditate on what needs to stay, what needs to go, and what needs to be added that you missed when you review your first draft.

But, after you feel you’ve done enough in those areas you’ll be looking to further content editing, copy editing, and line editing.

While you can do all of these things, the primary benefit of an editor is the outside opinion. It is rare that you will not overlook something in your own work because you are simply so close to it! But if you are alright with that sacrifice, then let’s chat about how to edit your own novel.

Content Editing your own novel

Content or developmental editing focuses on the big picture elements of your story and plays a large role in manuscript development. It addresses such things as plot holes, character arcs and pacing.

Plot holes

This is one of the areas in which an outside eye can help. If you do not want to hire an editor though and still have that outside eye, you can reach out to a beta reader or two to do their thing and give you some general feedback.

To find plot holes on your own, I recommend using the read aloud option in Word or getting a text to speech app on your phone so you can hear another voice dictating your story to you. This will allow you to detach a bit and view your novel from a reader’s point of view.

Plot holes can actually be quite the gift if you’re looking to expand your novel’s length — fixing them builds opportunity to explore your world even more!

Character arcs

Lucky for you, there are plenty of resources online about character arcs. While you don’t have to follow a pre-set pattern to a tee, these tried and true methods work for a reason and are likely to help your novel succeed through birthing relatable characters.

If your character is set to have a transformational act, make notes through your novel of when the following points occur:

Inciting incident

Call to action

Defining moment

Awakening

Moment of enlightenment

Death experience

Transformational moment

Climax

Resolution

If you are missing any of these points in your character’s arc, see if you can work it into your novel. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the change it brings about to the novel as a whole!

Pacing

The percentages in this method have been especially useful to me personally as it makes the entire process of pacing quite mathematical. If your opening image and theme building up to the catalyst is 50% of your novel for example, you need to edit that down.

For even more connection with how to pace your novel, check out thesebeat sheets of familiar films where you can see Save the Cat in action.

Copy Editing your own novel

Where content editing may result in expansion of your novel (especially when fixing plot holes), copy editing is for tightening up your work.

Find your trouble words

Let’s start off right away with ‘trouble words’. As defined by Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing these are:

a lot/alot

affect/effect

can/may

further/farther

good/well

i.e./e.g.

into/in to

it’s/its

lay/lie

less/fewer

that/who

their/they’re/there

then/than

who/whom

your/you’re

If your eye catches on any of these, wondering “wait… I thought those meant the same thing” then you’re not alone. You’ve just found your trouble words!

Of course by no means does this include all trouble words, but it’s a good start. Personally my trouble word (as I’m reminded of regularly by my editor) is ‘led’. I just can’t stop writing ‘lead’! 😅

Find your crutch words

What words do you use over and over again? I’m constantly saying ‘a little’ in my writing. Once you listen your words read aloud you will REALLY pick up on these. Locate them, and do something about it. You don’t want your novel to sound clunky and repetitive. Another good tip is to make sure you’re not using the same word in the same sentence or even paragraph. This is called ‘tautology’ and is jarring to the reader.

Thesaurus.com is out there, and it exists purely for your use. So use it!

Check for consistency

Do you spell a particular term differently every time you use it? You’re going to want to make it uniform. Words such as daycare often wind up switching from day-care to Day Care to daycare all in the same novel!

Other words that are commonly inconsistent include:

Organise/organize

Centre/center

Focussed/focused

Recognise/recognize

Analyse/analyze

Pick one, and stick with it! And of course, make sure you’re sticking with one voice and tense as well. In some cases, a switch can be pertinent to the story, but make sure if you’re doing this it’s intentional and you don’t leave in any accidental switches.

Additional Tips

Before this becomes an entire course, I’d like to list in point form a few more suggestions for your copy editing process. If you’d like to see more blogging on copy editing, please leave a comment below saying so!

Remove adverbs that weaken your copy (When I finish writing I snap my laptop shut. I do not shut my laptop quietly.)

Choose positive over negative (After reading this I want you to keep each point in mind as you edit. Another blogger may not want you to make any editing mistakes as you revise.)

Check transitional phrasing to see if it’s necessary (in order to, begin to)

Line Editing your own novel

Working sentence by sentence, line editing takes a deep dive into your prose, focusing on how to use language and communicate with your reader. Sound similar to copy editing? Not quite.

Line editing is the most meticulous of your three major novel editing types as you are looking at small pieces of your writing rather than larger concepts and errors.

Before starting on any editing, it’s a good idea to let your book rest a bit as another way to detach from the words you’ve put down on the page. After a couple of weeks or a month you can get back in there and tear things up!

Check for passive voice

While this can be applied to copy editing, it’s perhaps an even more useful check to do as the first step in your line editing process. Best of all, there’s an app for that making this a minimally daunting way to ease into your detailed edit.

Grab that Thesaurus

This is it friends — if you were keeping an eye out for tautology and crutch words in your copy editing process you can get rid of every last one of them through line editing. Grab your thesaurus or head to Thesaurus.com and tighten on those lines. By the end of your line edit every paragraph should be wonderfully unique from the one before it.

Grab your Dictionary, too

Did you throw a word in thinking it would sound good, but if someone asked you to define it you’d mumble your way through? Make sure you know for sure what you’re saying in every sentence.

If you’ve done your job right, when you finish your line edit, your novel will be consistent and concise while retaining its creativity!

Invest your time or invest your money

When deciding whether or not to do the full edit of your self published novel, it comes down to what you’re able to invest: time, or money. Now that you’ve had a glimpse into the world of editing, you can see why editors charge for their services and how valid that charge is.

There are many things in the literary world that you can do yourself, and this is one of them. But you do risk sacrificing quality, experience, and that outside viewpoint especially if you’re new to the game.

Should you choose to edit your novel, all the power to you! It’s a commendable choice and I'm behind you 100%.

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A common “too-long” manuscript is 120,000-words, roughly 480 pages (based on the traditional 250 words per page format). You can cut 4800 words if you delete just ten words per page.

Ten words is nothing—it’s one sentence in most cases, and even in polished and published novels you can still find one sentence per page that can go and not lose anything.

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What to Do After Writing a Book: The Do’s and Dont’s - by J. D. Edwin…

What to Do After Writing a Book: The Do’s and Dont’s – by J. D. Edwin…

on The Write Practice: If you’ve finished writing a first draft, you’ve accomplished something huge. You’ve brought your book idea to life and should be proud of yourself! But once the celebration dies down, you might experience a moment of silence as you look at your finished manuscript. You wonder: What comes next? Maybe you’re not sure what you should do next, or maybe you have an idea of all…

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Lydia Yadi is a Commissioning Editor at Penguin Random House and Novlr evangelist who has published four Sunday Times bestsellers. She commissions smart-thinking, personal development, business, and psychology books, and acquires for the Penguin Business and Penguin Life imprints.

This insider’s guide will give you a great introduction for a head start in getting your non-fiction book in front of a publisher, but if you’d like to go into more detail, you can join Lydia’s Complete Guide to Writing Your Non-fiction Book Proposal course, on Novlr!

A foolproof checklist for your non-fiction book proposal

Here’s what every great book proposal should include:  

Positioning Statement

Brief Summary

Chapter Breakdown

Target Audience

Author Biography

Competing Books 

Promotion and Marketing

Specifications: Timings, Word Count, Format