Category: Revision and Editing

Seven More Days

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

A quick reminder that it’s only seven more days before the end of my traditional Midwinter Festival Sale – if you’ve got got a friend who might want a critique and line-edit, or if you want to buy one for yourself to hang on to until you’re ready to use it, you still have some time left.

In the meantime, have some links to pictures of gingerbread houses and a guide to finding local Christmas light displays and last year’s Festival of Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, to amuse you during the season.

The Looming Spectre of Christmas Presents

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

That time of year is coming around again . . . the Northern Hemisphere Midwinter Holiday (exported to the Southern Hemisphere by transplanted Northern Hemisphereans), in which we celebrate, among numerous other things, the fact that the sun has come back for another year.  I never fully appreciated that aspect of the season when I was a young thing growing up in Florida, or even in Texas; it took moving up to live cheek-by-jowl with the 45th parallel to show me just why so many different cultures thought that the winter solstice was a thing to celebrate.  Right now, we’re in the tight and rapid end of the downward spiral, with night closing in at 4PM or even earlier, and the sense of relief when the days start getting longer again is, believe me, immediate and intense.

So we celebrate our midwinter holidays with good food and good drink and the exchange of gifts, and that brings us to one of the perennial worries of the season:  what to give to the other people in your life.

If one of the other people in your life is a writer, I can help you with that.  From now until the 26th of December, you can buy your writer friend the gift of a line-edit and critique from Dr. Doyle’s Editorial and Critique Services for the seasonal sale price of $1000.00, to be redeemed at the time of the recipient’s choice.

Sample December Gift Certificate

The gift purchase comes with a .pdf certificate suitable for printing out and presenting to the recipient in the wrapper or envelope of your choice.  The holiday in question can be customized for the recipient, as well.

(And if the recipient of the gift happens to be you, that’s fine, too – this has been a rough year, and we need to be kind to ourselves as well as to others.)

The Work That Binds Us Together

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

This is, of course, National Novel Writing Month – which really ought to be called International Novel Writing Month, as the map on its web page shows.

In a month that’s been full of bad news from all over, and much unhappiness and partisan animosity, I find looking at that map to be immensely consoling – because whatever else may be going on, there are people all over the world striving to do the same difficult but rewarding thing, and cheering each other on as they go.  The 1,994  writers hard at work in Chicago are doing their bit; so are the 8,046 in Chile and the 39 in Kenya, the 127 in Latvia and the 756 in India . . . and all the rest, all around the globe, working on their individual acts of subcreation.

(Shameless self-promotion time:  If, after you’re finished with your project, you should happen to want it gone over with an editorial/critical eye, please imagine me making a discreet gesture toward the “Editorial Services” link just beneath the header.)

Time for a Spot of Shameless Self-Promotion

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

It’s drawing on toward the end of local summer, hard as it is to believe with the temperature and the humidity being what they are – but here in far northern New Hampshire the first hints of color are showing up in the trees, so fall can’t be far behind.

If you’re one of those writers who took advantage of the long summer days (or the long winter nights, if you’re in the other hemisphere) to finish your novel or your short story, now is the time to think about whipping that first draft into better shape.

As a quick look up at this blog’s title will show, I’m here to help you.  My standard rate is a flat fee of $1500 for a standard-length (80,000-100,000 word) novel; for $100 I will edit your short story or the first 5000 words/first chapter of your novel.  Details are available here.

April Showers Seasonal Special Time

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

Because it is now, at least in theory, spring (the thermometer got down to 10°F last night, so what it is in practice is something else again), it’s time once more for a Seasonal Special Offer.

Sample Spring Gift Certificate2016Small

From now through the 15th of April, in hope of warmer and brighter days to come, my usual rate for a full line-edit and critique for a standard-weight novel drops back to $1000.

Furthermore, you can purchase a gift certificate for a friend or colleague at the seasonal price, to be redeemed by the recipient at whatever future date they find convenient.  Needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – you can also take advantage of this seasonal offer to pre-purchase a line-edit and critique for yourself on the same terms.

Also, for your amusement:  How to make a gingerbread TARDIS.

It’s the Longest Night of the Year

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

Sunset’s at 4:03 PM (at least, it’ll be 4:03 at the local weather station I get my reports from), and by 4:30 it’ll be as black as the inside of a goat outdoors.  But we keep on keeping on, in the conviction that the sun will once again come back and the days will start their outward spiral toward midsummer.

In honor of the season, and of all its assorted celebrations, I’m once again offering my wintertime holiday special: 

From now through Twelfth Night (6 January 2016), my price for a full-dress line-edit plus a 3-5 page letter of critique drops to a flat $1000 for a standard-weight novel, which you can also purchase in the form of a gift certificate redeemable by the recipient at a future date of their choice.  (And if the gift recipient happens to be you, that’s perfectly fine with me.)

Seasonal Special from Dr. Doyle’s Editorial and Critique Services

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

In the spirit of making the Yuletide (or other seasonal holiday of your choice) a bit brighter all ‘round:

From now through Twelfth Night (5 January 2015), my price for a full-dress line-edit plus a 3-5 page letter of critique drops to a flat $1000 for a standard-weight novel.

This offer can also be combined with the Seasonal Gift Certificate I blogged about earlier.

Besetting Sins

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 4 Comments

All writers have them – those prose tics they exhibit when the going is either too fast, or too slow, for them to notice the word-by-word; those all-too-easy-to-fall-back-on scenes and tropes that can take the place of carefully-crafted or character-driven plotting*; those personal or political agendas that will take advantage of an unguarded moment to turn sneaky fictional persuasion into open polemic.

One of my own sins is a horror of being too obvious about things.  Taken too far – as will happen, sometimes, despite all efforts to the contrary – this results in a story that lacks clarity because a lot of the necessary connective bits only exist inside my head.

So I’ve had to make a rule for myself:  When in doubt, spell it out.

It’s a useful rule, at least if you’re me, or if that particular writerly sin is one of yours, as well.

Generally speaking, I find that if I have to ask myself, “Self, are you perhaps being a bit over-subtle right here?”  the answer is usually, “Yes.”

Also – as I tell myself from time to time – don’t worry about being too obvious.  It’s actually fairly hard to be too obvious, and if you are being too obvious, trust me, your editor or your beta readers will let you know.

(And if you’re Vladimir Nabokov or James Joyce or Gene Wolfe, then you’re playing a different game altogether and a different set of general rules apply.  Also, you’re probably well beyond needing advice from me on anything, though possibly a good recipe or two might still be useful.) 

*Not that “carefully-crafted” and “character-driven” should be taken as mutually exclusive!

Summer Daze

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ 1 Comment

‘Tis the season for muggy, oppressive weather, the kind that saps the energy and destroys the initiative . . . not the best kind of weather in which to be doing revisions, but still, revisions must be done.

A few of the things that get taken care of in revision, at least by me:

Turning a suitable number of semicolons into either periods or commas, as appropriate.  I am, as I’ve admitted here before, one of those writers with a tendency to love semicolons not wisely, but too well, and getting rid of at least one in three isn’t going to hurt the story and will probably improve it.

Double-checking the continuity, in order to make sure that characters don’t refer to things other characters have told them before they’ve actually been told, and similar stuff.  When you’re the bead-stringing, rather than the linear, sort of writer, this is a matter of particular concern.

Getting rid of any zero-draft filler material and placeholders that may have lingered in the text even through subsequent iterations.  A tertiary character may have been referred to as [NameOfCharacter] while the plotline was still being spun out, for example, and now that he’s been promoted to Bob the Delivery Guy it’s a good idea to make certain that all the instances of square brackets have been cleaned up.

Generally smoothing out any sentences that are still too bumpy for my liking, and fixing up anything else that doesn’t feel quite right.

All I can say is, it’s a good thing that I like doing revisions.  I’d hate to be doing something that I didn’t like, here in the hazy humid days of summer.

 

It’s That Time of Year Again

~ drdoyleeditorial ~ Leave a comment

Yes . . . it’s my sporadically-recurring post in which I wave my hands and point to the “Editorial and Critique Services” bit of this blog’s title, and to the About and Editorial Services links on this page.  (Click on either one; the content is about the same either way.  The salient details certainly are.)

Short version:  One of the ways I keep the electricity and the internet running around this place is with freelance editorial and critique work.  If you’ve got a short story or a novel that you’d like to spruce up for submission or for self-publication, or that you’d like to make better for some other reason (including the learning experience), then I’m available to help you out.

My base rates:  $1500 for a standard 80,000-100,000 word novel; $100 for a short story or the first chapter/first 5000 words of a novel.  Rates for odd lengths – novellas, extra-long novels – are negotiable.  Also, if you go for the first-chapter deal on a novel, and then decide you want the whole enchilada, you get $100 off on the novel fee.