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DropTheAnvil posted:Hey, does anyone have any recommendations for Copy editors? The one I used before (BookSide Manner) is "booked" up for the next few months, and I need the piece edited for March. I have one that I use and she's great. Leng and Newts can confirm(she punches up my fantasy novels). If you want i'll pm you her email.
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Jan 13, 2022 03:57
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 Oooh, this one looks promising. I might give this a shot at some point. Anyone can vouch for this?
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Jan 19, 2022 07:56
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Seems like it would a helpful tool for editing, but a lot of work, particularly at longer lengths? It's something I'd consider for a writer who's still learning to maybe try out with some shorts, to help get a better idea of things, but for longer texts the cost/benefit ratio seems wack. Might be a good tool in longform if an individual scene isn't working? Still, it seems both slower and less effective than the eternal god-tier Unfucking Your Writing When You're Stuck trick, which is (this is not a joke: try it) switching the entire doc into comic sans.
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Jan 19, 2022 10:31
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(from vague memory of the science, the reason this works is because Comic Sans was designed to be legible for people with dyslexia, and each letter is 100% distinct from each other letter, and so reading it hits a different part of your brain than reading other typefaces – you process it more like images than language. What that actually means while writing is that if you switch into comic sans, it does not matter how much a piece matters to you or how recently you wrote it, it will instantly feel like Somebody Else's Writing. Instant distance and objectivity. It's like a magic trick, not loving around when I say it probably saved my career)
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Jan 19, 2022 10:41
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Yeah, I’m not sure how much the color-coding would work, or even what problem it would solve. And I can only imagine how much work it might be. The comic-sans trick does work for me. I always thought that was because I have a weird brain (ADD) but I’ve heard other people swear by it too. It doesn’t really give the distance I need to look at my work objectively, but it does help me just get words on the page as quickly as possible when I’m stuck.
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Jan 19, 2022 15:38
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Wow my editing trick has always been to physically print out what I’m working on and break out the coloured pens. I have to try this Comic Sans trick to see if I can save myself some money and paper next time!
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Jan 19, 2022 20:49
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And after so many years of mocking the poor font... He had won the victory against himself. He loved Comic Sans.
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Jan 19, 2022 22:52
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i only edit in wingdings
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Jan 19, 2022 23:00
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I usually draft in whatever the default typeface is for the word processor, so Arial if it's Google Docs and Calibri if it's MS Word, and then I switch to a more "bookish" typeface like Garamond or Georgia for editing. It's the switch itself that's important more than which font I'm switching to though. I've done the opposite (drafting in serif, editing in sans-serif) and as long as the new typeface is distinct enough to keep me from revisiting my mental state when I was writing the draft, it works.
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Jan 19, 2022 23:44
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The color coding looks neat, and can highlight patterns in your prose, but sounds like a lot of work. Hats off to you if it works though. I narrate my pieces, which requires me to slow down and actually read out loud my piece. It helps me figure out what sentences don't flow right, and which ones are too long.
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Jan 19, 2022 23:45
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I'd been drafting in Calibri until someone on twitter suggested Garamond, it definitely makes your work feel more professional.
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Jan 19, 2022 23:51
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i'm reasonably sure one of those writing apps has an option to highlight your dialogue for you. prowritingaid, scrivener or papyrus. one of those, i think.
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Jan 20, 2022 00:49
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Don’t see what was wrong with Times New Roman 
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Jan 20, 2022 01:32
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I use Times New Roman. But I also use a variation on the trick Djeser mentioned. In google docs, I let a story languish in single spaced default Arial until I've written enough that it feels like a decent idea I want to take to completion. Then I switch it to TNR, fix the spacing, add page numbers, etc.
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Jan 20, 2022 01:41
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I use Times New Roman because I too grew up during the era where I was told it was the superior font, and also because it's one of the fonts you can submit in so it saves me a switch.
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Jan 20, 2022 01:44
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Just as god intended. I hope one day to write something worthy of TNR.
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Jan 20, 2022 01:46
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oh yes this is absolutely critical, do NOT submit in comic sans, it is a great editing tool but please don't actually keep your MS in it
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Jan 20, 2022 05:17
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:oh yes this is absolutely critical, do NOT submit in comic sans, it is a great editing tool but please don't actually keep your MS in it Why couldn't you have said this three months ago!!
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Jan 20, 2022 05:24
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since they came out I don't like reading text not in Amazon's Bookerly (e-ink) or Apple's San Francisco (everything else).
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Jan 20, 2022 05:44
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Junpei posted:
Can vouch that it is helpful for diagnostic purposes when a scene or an interaction just feels kind of off. I wouldn't do it on an entire manuscript either, not even a short story or a chapter; just the parts where the flow doesn't feel quite right and if alpha and beta readers haven't been able to articulate what's bothering them.
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Jan 20, 2022 07:26
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I learned to do something similar when reverse outlining (when you write the outline after the first draft) where they recommended writing in a word count for each bullet point. The information it gave me wasn't always useful, but it did help in situations where I was worried about pacing. It sometimes feels weird and formal to do things like that, like it shouldn't really matter exactly how many words long one story beat is, but sometimes you notice something weird in the analytics you didn't see when you were looking at the raw data. I actually really liked the visualization of taking a first draft of a story and then tracking the changes from the first draft to the final draft, since I got to see how much I had changed and even which kinds of things I change.
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Jan 20, 2022 11:03
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:oh yes this is absolutely critical, do NOT submit in comic sans, it is a great editing tool but please don't actually keep your MS in it What if it’s a comedy?
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Jan 20, 2022 15:59
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Junpei posted:Oooh, this one looks promising. I might give this a shot at some point. Anyone can vouch for this? Before I add tags and poo poo I usually just write my dialogue like a script anyway, with the names of people before their lines. Color coding seems like a lot of work honestly.
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Jan 20, 2022 16:05
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REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:What if it’s a comedy? Should have used Jokerman instead.
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Jan 20, 2022 16:29
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 Yep, I agree with this quite a bit. Not that death can't be used effectively, but I have absolutely no interest in having MC drop like flies in the name of 'realism'.
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Jan 23, 2022 01:47
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someone is still mad about ned stark (not saying you are junpei, that's just the most prominent example i can think of)
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Jan 23, 2022 01:51
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For obvious reasons, few books/movies kill their main characters and of those that do, extremely few do before the end. Usually it’s about stakes or theme, not realism. I have big doubts that death or realism is the reason the commentator doesn’t read adult fiction.
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Jan 23, 2022 02:29
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ive read like maybe two books where a PoV character dies before the very end and both of those books juggled like 4+ PoVs and in one of them it was the main narrative thrust that made a passive character into the active character who then became the replacement PoV
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Jan 23, 2022 02:33
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I dunno, "my entire issue with adult movies and fiction" seems like a roundabout way of saying "my problem with media where bad things happen." Like, to go to the oldest hoariest example, that post seems to write off every one of Shakespeare's tragedies as a waste of time. And it's not like media aimed at kids is in any way short on death and trauma. Books don't have to be "fun". They just have to be compelling.
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Jan 23, 2022 02:41
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Hey, I know quite a few 'kids media' where death is used sparingly but effectively. There is a very effective use of it in the third and fifth Percy Jackson books. Deltora Quest uses it well.
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Jan 23, 2022 02:44
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One of my favorite fantasy novels has two POVs and kills one of them offscreen, and it's so perfect and cool that I've never stopped thinking about it. Not gonna work in every book, though.
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Jan 23, 2022 04:39
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Junpei posted:
I disagree with this, and I think you can have it both ways. I think you can tell a story with meaningful character growth and overcoming obstacles and also have the reader wondering if every time the characters get into a car it'll blow up.
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Jan 23, 2022 06:09
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I don't necessarily have a problem with protagonists dying in general, but I think there are times when it feels like an author feels like they have a contractual obligation to kill someone off every now and then. I'm specifically thinking of Robin Jarvis, who wrote (IMO) pretty entertaining Young Adult fiction about talking animals going on fantasy adventures, and also seemed to have an aversion to a completely happy ending, with the most notable example I can think of being a villain coming back in ghost form after they'd died in order to poison one of the main characters, in like the last page or something, after they'd all celebrated their victory over the forces of evil. Anyway, that just felt like a massive bummer for the sake of it.
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Jan 23, 2022 06:15
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A lot of this is down to taste and genre conventions. It's perfectly appropriate for major characters to die in your grimdark dystopia, not so much in your story about tea parties in the enchanted grove. Readers are going to self-select based on their tolerance for death and trauma. Not wanting major bad vibes in your fiction is just as valid a preference as wanting tons of bad vibes. Sometimes it's okay to like things, or to not like them, or to like things other people don't like, or to not like things other people like. You don't have to justify everything!
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Jan 23, 2022 06:29
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It just strikes me as personal preference? And hey, as a counterpoint: the books described sound horribly boring to me. You shouldn't kill off characters if there's no good (plot/character/tone) reason to do so, and overusing it will quickly numb any shock value it has, but I don't think the tumblr post is useful writing advice beyond the rather banal "here's a thing some readers enjoy"
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Jan 23, 2022 07:04
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no one is allowed to leave this thread until the one true writing opinion has been found. That sound you just heard was me locking the door to the thread, from the outside
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Jan 23, 2022 07:08
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I mean, it feels like a valid criticism of the point? There are readers who really enjoy stories about alien robots tentacle-loving each other, and that is a perfectly valid preference, but "your piece of literary realism about growing up queer in the 90s is bad because it didn't contain tentacle gently caress robots" is bad crit, and it's rooted in this idea I've seen floating around that there are Inherently Good Tropes and Inherently Bad Tropes and the value of a story is based on which ones you choose. I don't like questions like "are redemption arcs bad" either because it assumes there's a single answer rather than the always-frustrating but rarely wrong "it depends."
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Jan 23, 2022 07:23
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"your piece of literary realism about growing up queer in the 90s is bad because it didn't contain tentacle gently caress robots" is bad crit is it though
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Jan 23, 2022 09:25
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sebmojo posted:someone is still mad about ned stark (not saying you are junpei, that's just the most prominent example i can think of) Game of Thrones makes it work, IMO. It's pretty "here's how this would have actually unfolded, given what we know of real history" But on the other hand of this, Joss Whedon definitely murdered a whole lot of characters for cheap drama, and the respective shows /movies got poorer for it in most cases. You can even see someone else going "yeah wtf dude, let's actually not get rid of this very good character" with Agents of MARVEL. The only time it worked was with Buffy's mom.
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Jan 23, 2022 16:37
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Nae posted:is it though If I received a crit like that I would shrug, guess the reader was bored, and didn't know how to articulate it. The pitch, 90's growing up queer with tentacle gently caress robots reminds me of Man-Eaters, for some reason. Junpei posted:Yep, I agree with this quite a bit. Not that death can't be used effectively, but I have absolutely no interest in having MC drop like flies in the name of 'realism'. There are so many examples where this happens, and so many reasons on WHY it happens, that it should be taken by a case by case basis. It happens in 1917, and that's fine. I'm actually having a hard time remembering when a death of a protagonist, and not how they died, annoyed me.
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Jan 23, 2022 16:46
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