There are days when this already enjoyable job provides additional pleasure. Such as today with my ongoing mentoring of a writer’s work in progress and the arrival of another two chapters. It is such a joy to read. The writer combines lovely descriptive passages with taut and cliché-free dialogue to paint a seductive picture of…
The question for today (and unfortunately almost every working day) is: how can a person progress through the education system to degree level and beyond and still not know how to use an apostrophe? This query has been provoked by tackling an enthralling and extremely well-researched biography focussing on a major player in a major…
Oh the terrible things the bureaucrats and politicians do to the English language. They are now talking of “enhanced interrogation”. Which is what the rest of us call “torture”. Such pussy-footing around with words shows how scared they are of calling a spade a spade.
The message used to be, keep it simple. Now perhaps we should rephrase that to, keep it short. Global best-seller Patricia Cornwell reckons it is increasingly hard for a novelist to keep their readers engaged and interested. Attention spans have shrunk. Which is why she has reduced the number of pages in each chapter to…
Once more I ponder the age-old question: what is it about apostrophes that so many people fail to understand? I am wading my way through a book edit in which two-thirds of the corrections require the deletion, placement or shifting of an apostrophe. In case you are among the perplexed masses, apostrophes do not denote…
A message came from a client who has written (compiled?) a 140,000-word manuscript that is in severe need of revision and correction: “I will do a bit of research on apostrophes etc as I dont (sic) know much about that stuff,” she wrote. Why are apostrophes such a big problem for so many people? Why…
Today I have been handed a 107,000-word manuscript for assessment … and it provides an object lesson for so many would-be writers. It comes to me as a PDF. Why? At this early stage, a simple text document is all that is required. Why go to the trouble of creating a format that is impractical…
The thesis is done. Not mine … but that of a truly delightful client (aren’t they all?) who commissioned me to proofread and edit her 72,000-word submission for her PhD. For one whose editing work is predominantly concerned with fiction in all its genres (well, most of them) and a broad spectrum of non-fiction, this…