It’s important to remember when writing that the way we write is different from the way we speak, and dialogue and descriptive text should reflect those differences. I’m going to talk about dialogue versus descriptive text in a future blog post on this editing hints and tips blog, so keep looking for it, but today, I point it out because I think this mistake of overusing prepositions is because of the way we speak versus the way we write.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that we should not end sentences with a preposition, but that’s not entirely true. The real rule is not to end a sentence or phrase with an unnecessary preposition.

For example:

Where are you going to?
Where’d you get that from?

These two sentences are able to be re-written grammatically correctly as follows:

Where are you going?
Where’d you get that?

As such, the preposition on the end is simply not necessary and should be excluded.

However, this isn’t the only place prepositions are overused. In a recent novel I edited, I had to remove many prepositions that were superfluous, completely unnecessary for meaning or intent.

For example, we really don’t need to ‘stand up’. We only need to ‘stand’. The ‘up’ part is implied. As such, we don’t need to ‘sit down in the chair’, but rather, ‘sit in the chair’. Now, we can ‘stand down’, but standing down has an entirely different meaning than the opposite of ‘standing up’, doesn’t it?

It’s also possible to ‘sit up’, but only if we had been in a ‘down’ or ‘reclining’ position prior.

We also don’t need to ‘patch up holes’, when all we really have to do is ‘patch holes’. We also don’t need to ‘straighten out’ something, when we can just ‘straighten’ it and do the same thing.

Here’s an example pulled directly from a book I edited:

“…had been in the air for at least five minutes…”

Can be rewritten:

“…had been in the air at least five minutes…”

Another overuse of prepositions I frequently see are ‘double prepositions’ to mean the same thing. For example:

“Put that up on the shelf.” (upon would work)

“He almost fell out onto the floor.” (Possible fixes: He almost fell out, landing on the floor. He almost fell out of the chair, onto the floor. I think you get my drift here…?)

Then there’s the unnecessary directional prepositions that are unnecessary because the intent is already clear in the sentence.

Then there’s one like this:

Example:

“Crying with tears of joy….”

Unless the tears are also crying their own tears, this really isn’t grammatically correct.

Rewrite as:

“Crying tears of joy…”

Now, when people are speaking, dialogue, sometimes prepositions like this should be used, for dialect, emphasis, personality quirks, speech patterns, etc. However, in the descriptive text, non-spoken parts, when you make your final edits and proofs of your writing, try to remove any superfluous prepositions.

It will make your writing more concise, stronger and less casual, providing a better experience for your reader and reducing your overall word count of your story in the descriptive text part of your writing.

Any questions?

Love and stuff,
Michy

I’ve written about this before, but after editing this book I did for LBF, I had to mention it again.

Don’t have a character start to do something unless you intend for them to be interrupted and not get to do. Otherwise, just have them do it.

For example, “Cathy started to cry.”

That’s okay as long as you add another sentence to it that says, “Cathy started to cry, but when she saw the other woman, she choked back her tears.”

Otherwise, you should just write, “Cathy cried.”

I’m editing a novel this morning, been working on it for a couple of weeks and am about finished with it, but the novel has the characters ‘starting to’ or ‘beginning to’ do things, but then they never DO them. What the writer really means is that they did it, but that’s not what he’s written.

“Becky picked Gracie up and started to sob with remorse…”

This would indicate that Becky started to sob, but didn’t actually follow through with it.

Change it to: Beck picked Gracie up and sobbed with remorse.

Yes, sometimes we begin to do things and then either choose to stop before we actually do them, get interrupted before we can finish, etc, but if you’re writing, it should be clear if you say ‘started to’ or ‘began to’ to something that you have the character follow through with the action and either DO IT or be interrupted so they can’t do it.

Plus, ‘started to cry’ ‘began to sing’ ‘started to walk’ all are wordy and will increase your word count, while your characters never actually DO anything. They’ll just sit around and START to do things, but never actually do them.

Imagine an entire novel of people starting but never finishing things. Tiring!

Anyway, watch this in your writing. Don’t have people start to do things; have them do them.

Questions?

Love and stuff,
Michy

I’m currently working on two copy edits for a small publisher. I’m almost finished with both, just doing that ‘let it sit’ and one last review.

I love editing. I really do. Especially when the story is really good or when it’s really bad.

Usually, I do developmental editing, substantive, where I look for plot problems, character consistency, weak dialogue, etc. This publisher is the first one I’ve ever done copy editing for. The difference between developmental and copy editing is that with copy editing, another editor has already worked with the author and did the big edits and rewrite suggestions. By the time it makes it to copy editing stage, I should only have to look for any glaring errors, typos, misplaced or missing commas…. the ‘little’ stuff. It’s a little more extensive than a proof but not nearly as intensive as a full edit.

I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy copy editing after years of doing full editing. I wasn’t sure I’d like getting copy after another editor had had a hand in the manuscript either. I wouldn’t want to find something major and feel I was correcting the other editor.

Fortunately, this publisher has some good editors on staff, at least the ones getting these two manuscripts were good, and the only things I’ve really found are simple things. A few misplaced modifiers, a couple of dangling participles, and mostly a lot of misplaced or missing commas. It makes the editing go fast and the reading go faster. I’m enjoying it.

I’ve been asked a lot by people about how to get into editing for a career. For me, I actually sort of fell into editing by mistake. I was hired to write something for a small publishing company – just a little ad copy for a book of theirs. While I was reading the excerpt for the book to be used in the ad copy, I found many mistakes in the copy. I very professionally and carefully pointing those out to the publisher and asked them if they would like me correct those editing issues before doing the copy.

The managing editor then reviewed the manuscript, which was supposed to already be edited, and she found it was poorly done, asked me if I’d like to review it for a set fee, and so I did.

Then I figured after that, if a publisher liked my work, maybe I could do some editing on the side. That’s when I started bidding on editing projects on Elance. Believe it or not, that first year I bid projects on Elance, I’d say 80% of my income came from editing ebooks for clients. Then, someone who knew me from a message board, she made a recommendation to a friend of hers, who just happened to be a managing editor at a small publishing house, and that managing editor asked me, desperate for an editor, if I would take on a project.

Shortly after that, I was so busy with editing requests from small to mid-sized publishers, I couldn’t find the time to do them all!

Sometimes, it is who you know. Never, ever underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising and networking, because it was recommendations from managing editors that got me all the beginning editing gigs I received.

That all said, you don’t HAVE to know someone to get started editing. If you have an eye for detail, if you always find errors in documents and books you read, then you might make a good copy editor, and small publishers usually look for copy editors.

Copy editing is the place to start. Full or substantive or developmental editing (all the same names for the same things) requires a bit of a different skill set. It takes a little talent and experience and practice to keep story lines consistent and cohesive, look for character consistency, plot out a scene in your head and make sure it works.

But copy editing can be done by just about anyone with a skill for looking for detail, reading for content, and catching those little mistakes most people just skim over and miss.

You can get some experience with editing by bidding on editing jobs on the freelance bid sites, like guru.com and elance.com and odesk.com. These jobs are usually pretty low-paying jobs, but they will get you feedback and references that you can then use to write letters of introductions to small publishers, asking them if they need copy edit services. Offer to provide a sample edit so they can see how you perform, and give them your contact information.

You can find a list of publishers on Preditors & Editors to get your started. These are legit publishers of all sizes. Remember, big publishers will likely have in-house editors, so your best bet is to find the small publishers and go with them.

What can you expect to earn? Well, every publisher I work with is different. Some play a flat-rate. Most pay a % of sales, or editor’s royalties. The lowest I’ve ever made editing a book for a royalty-paying publisher was $60. Yeah, it was the first book I ever edited for a publisher, and it should have been more, but the previous ownership of the publishing company never paid out what I was owed, nor did they send royalty statements.

on average, over the life of the book, you can hope to earn anywhere from about $300-2500 bucks as an editor. If the book makes it big, you can hope to make a lot more. Be sure to read the contracts you will sign carefully. Most of my contracts state that if the book is bought out for movie rights or bought out by a bigger publisher, I get a % of the buyout. One really successful editing book could bring in some four and five figure payments.

Mostly though, it sets up a residual income, paying every quarter, for previous work done. That is the one thing about editing for a job. You will do a lot of work upfront and probably won’t get your first small payment until at least six months later. That part of it sucks, but it is industry standard.’

What doesn’t suck is, if you can find the time to fit a copy edit or full edit in at the rate of at least once per month, by the end of about a year, you’ll be getting a nice little payment every quarter, and every new book just keeps adding to that. After a couple of years of doing this, that income could be quite substantial, for doing no additional work.

I love editing. I really do, especially when they are good stories. If you’re interested in being an editor, the first thing you should do is learn how to use Track Changes in MS Word. Read and practice and get it down perfectly. After that, do some cheap-o work on some bid sites, or get some individual writers to hire you who are willing to give you references, and then send letters of introduction to the publishers you find asking if they are hiring editors. Worst they can say is no.

Lastly, several of the ‘self-publishing’ companies have ‘talent pools’ from which their clients can choose for editing services. Places like Trafford.

After you have a few ‘published’ credits under your belt, that is, books you edited that have gone on to be published, then you can start selling your services on your own website to authors who are looking for editing prior to submitting to a publisher or writers who are choosing to self publish.

Just a quick FYI, since I get asked this a lot: No, I don’t hire editors to work under me. I did do that in the past, and I have decided that is not the direction I want to go. No, I don’t give references or recommendations upon request. If I’m familiar with your work AND have worked with you, I will offer you a recommendation by referring you to someone I know, but please don’t ask me. I know too many aspiring writers and editors, so I don’t make recommendations or references for anyone unless I’ve worked on a professional project with that person and am completely familiar with their work. Don’t mean to be ugly, but I never want to be accused of playing favorites or being the reason someone does not get a job.

Anyway, if you want to edit, I highly recommend it, provided you can mee
t
deadlines and have an eye for detail. It can be fun, exciting and feels great to be a part of a finished product when that book goes on the shelves. I love working with the authors and the publishers and I’m proud of my career as an editor.

If you have any questions about editing, please ask them in the comments if you can, so others can benefit from the answers too, otherwise, holler at me and I’ll see if I can point you in the right direction for the answers to your questions.

Love and stuff,
Michy

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I received a question the other day in email about when to use a hyphen between two words, and why sometimes a hyphen is used with the same two-word phrase while other times it is not. That’s what today’s post will be about: when you hyphenate two words and when not to hyphenate.

Generally speaking, you’re going to hyphenate two words that come together before a noun and act together as ‘one’ adjective to describe the noun. When the same two words are not being used as a joint adjective to describe a noun, they are not hyphenated.

Example:

Freelancing is a full-time job for me. I work full time as a freelancer.

See, in the first sentence, ‘full-time’ is acting as one adjective to describe the noun ‘job’. In the next sentence it is not describing a noun directly, so it is not hyphenated.

Now, this doesn’t mean that every time you use more than one adjective to describe a noun in front of the noun that they should be hyphenated.

Example:

Please bring me the soft, red quilt.

You wouldn’t write this ‘soft-red quilt’, because soft and red are two different adjectives that are both accurate – the quilt is soft, the quilt is red. With ‘full-time job’, though, the job is not full and time, but rather ‘full-time’.

More examples:

I am self employed. This means I am a self-employed contractor.

The book was well worn. The well-worn book was for sale.

This is a time-tested theory.

Again, the check on this is two-fold: 1) do the two words come before a noun and act as an adjective to describe the noun and 2) if they do come before the noun and act as an adjective, could each word be used separately to describe the noun? If the answer to the first one is yes and the second one is no, you need a hyphen.

The book cannot be ‘well book’, but it can be a ‘well-worn book’. The theory cannot be ‘time theory’, but it can be a ‘time-tested’ theory.

And there you have why sometimes a hyphen is used for some two-word combinations but not for others.

Any questions?

Love and stuff,
Michy

It has been a long time since I’ve entered a writing contest. Working as a freelance writer, I’ve found that getting paid was more important to me than winning used to be, and so I focused more on the paying markets and left the contests alone. However, when I first started writing fiction semi-professionally, I used to enter contests all the time. I still think entering contests is a great way to get your name out there and get some recognition for your writing, particularly for fiction contests if the majority of your writing has been online or has been nonfiction. I even wrote a blog post about contests not too long ago, in case you missed it.

It’s important to find legitimate contests to enter though. For example, don’t enter an anthology contest unless you know who the publisher is going to be, and particularly if there is an entry fee. Always check it out with the publisher before sending money to anyone claiming to be an editor for an anthology. MOST legitimate anthologies that are already set up with publishers won’t charge a fee for the ‘contest’ (think Cup of Comfort or Chicken Soup), but some do run contests with entry fees and prizes. My own forum does a short story anthology contest that gets printed in a book, the first book coming out in February 2009.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say two things 1) I’m entering the Writers Weekly 24-hour Short Fiction Contest and 2) ask if you are entering!

To read more about the contest, you can go here: http://writersweekly.com/misc/contest.php

It’s only $5 bucks to enter. The biggest downside to it is they don’t accept PayPal. I really wish they would, because I think more people would enter if they did. They do take debit and credit cards though.

They do the contest quarterly and the good news in a way is that they limit the contest to 500 entrants, so there’s less competition! I’m not sure if they get 500 actually participants each time but I do know the competition is probably fierce. The prize is $300 for the first place winner, plus lots of other prizes and gifts too.

The premise is, they give you a theme on a certain day and you have exactly 24 hours to write a short story to that theme, edit it and submit it, and then hold your breath until they determine the winner.

It’ll be fun!

Come on, give it a shot! Competition can bring out the best in us all, and I’ll tell you this, having only 24 hours to write it up, that really evens the footing somewhat with newer writers and seasoned writers, since we all have to ‘rush’ to get it done. I must admit, I miss the thrill of writing contests that I used to enter so often. It’ll be fun to do one again, especially one with such a fast deadline!

We’re discussing it on my board today and getting ready for it this weekend.

Are you going to enter?

Good luck to those who do!

Love and stuff,
Michy

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I don’t know, maybe it’s because I really put myself out there, but I tend to get a lot of flack from anonymous folks when writing online, particularly for content sites. I suppose I could understand it and accept it if the flack was actually about something I said about freelancing or about writing in general and someone thought I was wrong. I mean, I’ve disagreed with people about writing before, even on my forum, and it’s always been civil and I’ll gladly discuss it.

Shoot, even if not civil, I have no problems with someone pointing out a potential error in my advice or thinking, especially if it helps someone else or corrects a misconception I have. I’ve been doing this a long time now, and I’ve learned that if I allow myself, I can learn something new, different and better every day. Sometimes, someone correcting me and making me do some research into it leads me to things that I should have known, teaches me things I wished I’d known earlier, or confirms that I was, after all, correct.

So while I have no issues with questioning my writing or my thoughts on writing, what I do not understand is why people take it to a personal level and attack me as a person, when they know almost nothing about me. These are people I’ve never talked to privately, who never frequented my board, who never commented on anything I’ve ever written, and then one day, wham, I’m slammed with nasty comments. Usually anonymously.

Why?

I wonder at times why people say and do the things they do.

You’d be amazed, I think, if you knew some of the ugly comments I receive on some of the things I write, whether it’s a blog post or on a content site I write for. Interestingly enough, I don’t write controversial things – these comments are really just personal attacks on me, my character, my potentially questionable lineage, my appearance, etc. Very rarely are the comments about the writing or the opinion itself.

What bothers me the most is when people take that anger, jealousy, hatred and ugliness and move it from my comments to someone else’s writing, but make it about me. For example, Donald Pennington wrote a sweet little poem about me, and he linked it to an interview he did with me. While the majority of the comments were overwhelmingly favorable either to Donald, myself or to both of us, that poem did receive several nasty comments. Besides Don’s writing, I’ve had other people who I have commented on their writing online get nasty comments or downrating or emails about me. It was so bad at one point, I stopped commenting on other people’s writing, so the negativity that follows me in the comments doesn’t taint anyone else’s writing.

I’m really not an authority of any sort. I’m simply a writer who has had moderate success in freelancing and I have chosen to share my experience with others, hoping it might help them with their freelance writing careers too. Putting myself out there to do that, I do put myself on the slab, so to speak.

It’s a personal philosophy of sorts. I believe: you are what you help others become.

I want to be a successful writer, so I help others become successful writers. I’ve coached lots of writers, but two in particular now regularly make more money than I do from freelancing. Of course, I’m not freelancing nearly as much as I used to. I’m more focusing on my fiction writing. Still, it pleases me to no end to see them being so successful and loving what they do.

See, I’m nothing special. Nothing spectacular. I’m just me, and I do what I do, and I try to share that with others so they can take from it what they will. Me being successful in no way takes away from anyone else’s success, and no one else succeeding takes away from my own success. There is more than enough abundance for everyone in the world, and that includes the freelance writing world.

What’s my point in writing this? Some of it is cathartic. I’ve really put up with it for a couple of years now, ever since I started writing online. It’s not really any one site, either, though I will say that one of them is worse than the others. I think it’s mostly a core group of people, probably the same people, following me around. Is that paranoid? Maybe, but the proof is in the comments. I even save the emails where they think they are clever by creating free email accounts and emailing me. They all go straight to my attorney, where the headers are easily checked for IP addresses and outgoing mail servers. If ever there were a legal issue I felt compelled to follow up on, I have the ‘evidence’. I don’t think it’ll go that far, but you never know, right?

Anyway, I deal. That’s all you can do. The only other option is to stop doing what I love to do so very much. I couldn’t do that. Ever. But to say it doesn’t sometimes get to me… to say it doesn’t sometimes hurt… well, that would be lying. It does sometimes hurt. It does sometimes get to me.

If you really put yourself out there, it will eventually, at least at some level, happen to you too. Not everyone online is going to like you. People come at things from personal experiences, and you may not know what triggers someone. I can only hope that them spewing their nastiness somehow makes them feel better for having done so, then at least something good has come from it. I try not to let it get me down too much.

You’ll know you’ve arrived as a writer when you get your first nasty comment, attacking you, your character, your picture. Think of it this way… if they are attacking you, it’s probably because they have nothing about your writing they are able to attack!

But it is important to know if you’re going to be writing online for the public to read, it can and probably will eventually happen to you. Someone will tell you your writing sucks. Someone will say your an idiot or stupid or haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Someone will eventually attack you personally and probably professionally. It’s the nature of the beast that is the internet.

When I get really down about it, my best friend and my baby both remind me that the positive far outweighs the negative.

And so it does.

So, if you ever get one of those nasty comments, be proud and excited that you’ve finally arrived! Don’t let it get you down! You won’t please everyone every time, and the fact that someone took the time to make a nasty comment instead of just clicking off and moving on means you did something right – you got their attention, you made them feel something and you controlled their actions by making them feel so compelled to have to leave their nastiness on your writing, blog, or page.

When you think about it that way, and you take the higher road and smile and are proud that you could cause such a reaction with your writing, you win… Plus, controversy of any sort really does seem to bring readers to your writing and keeps them coming back. If you’re paid off page views or residuals, well, then those nasty comments really just show you that someone is helping write your paycheck.

That’s my ramble for the day.

Love and stuff,
Michy

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Today, as often happens, I was contacted about reprint rights on one of my articles. Now, I have four options when I get a request like this.

1) Let them use the reprint at no charge, thank them for their interest, and move on.
2) Let them use the reprint only if they pay a fee for it, thank them for their interest.
3) Let them use the reprint for free, thank them for their interest, and offer them a quick pitch and rate for future content that is unique for their site.
4) Do not grant permission.

In this instance, I sent the following email: (names removed)

Hi XXXXXX,

I can grant you permission to use the article, provided my byline (name) is included on the article as Michelle L Devon, and would prefer a link back to my website at www.MichelleLDevon.com be included as well.

If you can meet those two conditions, please use the article with my full consent, and consider this email written permission to do so.

Thank you so much for asking and wanting to use my content! If you’re ever in need of quality content for your sites, I charge $XX-XX per 300-600 word, keyword specific content, payable via PayPal. Please feel free to keep me in mind for future content needs.

Sincerely,

As you can see, I thanked them, granted permission in writing to use the article (the website they found my article at requires written permission), and set my conditions for using is (a byline and link back to my website – both valuable for a writer, even if you don’t receive payment for it), and I kept it short and sweet, but offered my pitch.

This way, my writing reaches an audience it might otherwise not have reached, I’ve already been paid for the article on the first site, so giving one away for free in exchange for a linkback isn’t such a bad thing.

I don’t usually recommend writers give away their writing for free, but there is a point where, especially with reprints, you have to weigh the benefits of doing so – linkbacks to a site that brings you page views and/or promotes your writing is usually a big plus, and your writing reaching a broader audience means more potential to sell more writing, and then the possibility that since you offered one for free, they can use it, see how it works for them, and if they like the results, they’ll probably ask you to write more for them. So while you are giving the writing away for free, you are receiving a tangible benefit that should equal more money and more exposure in the long run.

Some of my best long-term gigs have come from giving away a free reprint along with a quick pitch.

In the initial pitch, I do not add anything that says, “If you know anyone else in need of quality writing services….” because while I want to pitch my services to them specifically, I don’t want to appear desperate or appear that I don’t have a good client list already. In the initial pitch, I want the potential buyer to think I’m offering because I can write well for their needs, not that I’m just trying to sell myself to whomever pays.

However, after you’ve had contact with them, if they say they can’t use your services currently, then it’s acceptable to thank them for their consideration, to keep you in mind for the future, and should they know anyone in need of writing services, “Feel free to pass my information along to them.”

Never miss an opportunity to promote yourself and your writing.

On a personal note, hope everyone is having a great day. I’m finally out of bed, last night and most of today, been sitting up in the living room for a change. I don’t realize how much I miss the sunlight coming in through the front windows until I get stuck in the bedroom. Our bedroom is dark! Great for sleeping, but not so great when you’re stuck on bedrest! It’s good to ‘see the light’, LOL!

Ya’ll keep writing!

Love and stuff,
Michy

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Just a shorty today, something that bugs me.

I see people write or speak this phrase, “When I graduated college…”

In this instance, graduated is a verb, and college is the direct object, meaning the action of the verb is performed directly on the object, ‘college’.

What you really mean to say is that you, “…graduated FROM college.”

The verb form of ‘graduate’ has to be used with the object in this instance.

Now, in a lovely grammar twist, since English is such a fun language, it’s important to note that while a student graduates FROM college or high school, the school actually graduates the student.

“Odessa High School graduated 670 seniors this year.”

“This year, 670 seniors graduated from Odessa High School.”

Got it?

See, the school can graduate the student, but the student cannot graduate the school.

Cool.

Ya’ll have a great day and keep writing!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Well, you should be writing up Halloween stuff right now. Last year, I put up a simple Halloween costume article that received over 14,000 page views in less than one month. Totally blew me away! 14,000 in a month!

That same article is currently sitting at about 17,000 page views, and I’m hoping it will bump up some if I repromote it right now around Halloween.

Don’t underestimate the value or re-promoting content that is seasonal. I know you’re going to want to write newer, fresh articles for holidays, but don’t overlook the possibility that a few minutes of promoting some of your older but still timely seasonal stuff can gain you more page views with a minimum amount of work. After all, it’s much easier and faster to spend a couple minutes re-promoting an old holiday article than it is writing a brand new one and then promoting it.

Refresh those old Halloween articles before you write new ones, and when you write new ones, if you can find a way to link back to any Halloween content from last year, do so! Kill two birds with one stone that way.

You also need to be thinking about and writing about and submitting some Thanksgiving stuff already. I personally think it’s a touch too early for Christmas yet, but Thanksgiving is right around the corner once Halloween is past, and it’ll be upon us faster than you think. If you have recipes and full-meal preparation articles to put up, those can be done now, and then in about two to three weeks, you really want to push the Thanksgiving stuff.

Anyway, get your Halloween stuff up now! Page views for holiday stuff if properly promoted and written timely can really boom!

Keep writing!

Oh, and if you haven’t seen my new blog about how to start a freelance business, check out this link today, on Today.com!

Love and stuff,
Michy

“Dear God, Let Me Lose Fat, Amen”

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