Tag Archives: editing

How to write gleefully

This article was first published on The Editors’ Weekly, the blog of Editors Canada.

There are times when you want to make your prose more lively – if not flagrantly flippant then at least glancingly gleeful. Your words could land with a thump or splash or flit by with a twirl, but they must be sprightly. You want to write like a child. Well, no, not like a child – children aren’t very good writers; their sense of sentence structure is a bit squishy and scrawny – but like a child would write if a child had the skill of an adult. You want to be extra expressive. Continue reading

Just for reference

This article was originally published on BoldFace, the blog of Editors Toronto.

If you edit academic books or articles, you probably spend a lot of time tidying up references. Sometimes as much time as editing the entire rest of the text. First, you have to pick your style: Chicago (note or name-date), MLA, APA, or, in the sciences, AMA or Vancouver. Then, you have to make everything consistent with it, to the extent possible. On top of that, you may have to look up the sources to double-check them.

I’ve edited medical continuing-education presentations that had no bibliographies and would cite some sources as just, for instance, “Heinz & Wong 2013.” I would have to find the rest of the citation—and I would, nearly every time, with a single search. Which means that anyone else who wanted to know would also be able to find it as quickly. Our citation standards were developed before the wonderful world of high-powered search engines. If we can find the source from an incomplete or inaccurate citation, how much of this tidying up is necessary? Continue reading

Novel medical treatments

To go with my presentation “Translating medicalese into everyday English,” here’s the article that I wrote for The Editors’ Weekly, the blog of Editors Canada.

People with serious health problems are often subject to novel treatments. But that shouldn’t mean being treated like they’re in a novel. Continue reading

Be an editorial Machiavelli

This was originally published on the website of ACES: The society for editing

Editors need to think more like Machiavelli.

You know who Niccolò Machiavelli was, right? He’s famous for having said “The ends justify the means.”

Except he never said that. Or wrote it. Continue reading

5. Professional writing is a group activity.

When you’re being paid to write something, you’re not the lone romantic protagonist doing everything yourself, expressing your true vision, et cetera, et cetera. You’re writing a thing that other people are going to read, and you want to make sure that they’ll be glad they’ve read it. I already told you this: It’s not about you, it’s about your readers. Continue reading

4. Don’t write from the heart. Write FOR the heart.

One time a medical editor friend told me about being introduced to someone who was “a writer.” My friend asked what kind of writing she did: technical, medical, magazine articles, fiction? She said, and my friend quoted, “I write from the heart.”

I put my hand over my mouth and said, “Oh noooooooo.” My friend joined in.

I mean, I’m sure she has good feelings about it. But if you’re writing for other people, it’s not your heart that matters. It’s theirs. Continue reading

3. Seek qualified advice.

If you’re just writing in your journal for your own fulfillment and you don’t care about anyone else’s opinion of it, congratulations: You’re in a happy place. On the other hand, if you want other people to read and enjoy your writing, you’ll want to get some opinions on it.

Here’s the problem: Your target audience may know whether they like something, but they may not know exactly why, or what you could do to make it more likeable. Continue reading

2. You can’t cast someone else’s spell.

You may want to write as well as some famous successful author – or anyway, you may want to be as famous and successful as they are – but you can’t write the same as they do, and the things that work for them won’t necessarily work for you.

This is because… [a hush falls over the room; I lean in close to speak in confidence] …YOU’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE!

Many famous writers don’t realize this either. They got successful by writing as they do with their own particularities. They have their habits and their personal rules and they aren’t always so good at knowing which of those things made them good writers and which just made them feel less insecure. Continue reading

1. You’ve outgrown your high school grammar rules.

Many people cling tightly to the advice they remember from their high school English teacher: the stern prescriptions and proscriptions, the rules for writing. Good grammar, bad grammar, how to structure an essay. Cross one of these directives and they’ll say “But my high school English teacher taught me…”

There are two things I need to tell you about this, and I’m not going to be gentle because I’m damn tired of hearing this crap. Continue reading

12 Days of Gifts for Writers

I’ve been a professional editor for 20 years and a (paid!) writer for longer than that, and I’ve observed a few things over those years that many people would do well to know. Starting today, I have twelve little gifts for you, one per day. By “gifts” I mean advice I’m giving you free that you would normally have to pay me for. By “you” I mean anyone who writes. If you don’t write, read it anyway. What the hell. You’re here, aren’t you?

These gifts are not rules – no no no no no. I don’t care if you want rules. The only real rule in writing is Write stuff your readers will be glad they’ve read. (Well, there’s also Don’t be a jerk, but that’s more of a rule in everything.) Everything else is commentary. And so are these: insights, suggestions, ungentle nudges. But I think you’ll be glad you read them.

Here’s a table of contents, growing until the end of the 12 days; at the end of the 12 days I’ll make an ebook of the whole thing, and I’ll also make an audiobook… for my Patreon supporters.

  1. You’ve outgrown your high school grammar rules.
  2. You can’t cast someone else’s spell.
  3. Seek qualified advice.
  4. Don’t write from the heart. Write FOR the heart.
  5. Professional writing is a group activity.
  6. Good structure is made of desire.
  7. Read bad writing.
  8. Write whatever you want. Also write whatever you have to.
  9. You’re probably wrong about how good your writing is.
  10. Do your own damn research, and do your own damn writing.
  11. Everyone’s a writer.
  12. You already have a voice.