Utah Freelance Editors

Local editors, copyeditors, & proofreaders

Talysa Sainz

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Giving Your Characters Pain

By Lauri Schoenfeld

We all go through pain—psychologically, emotionally, physically. No one shares their agony exactly in the same way as another because of our different personalities, upbringings, experiences, and perspectives. But we all deal with pain. None of us are free from it.

Your characters will always have something in one of these areas they’re striving to get through, understand, and process. They may be searching out who they are, and maybe because of their upbringing or culture, figuring those pieces out causes them a great deal of affliction. Perhaps the loss of someone they love has dramatically affected their worth, will, drive, or purpose for existence. Or physically, an illness they feel is so intense that even getting up to take a shower is more than they can bear. Each area can weaken your character’s spirit and heart.

Readers want to keep reading because pain is a universal thing, even if they don’t completely relate to what that character is dealing with. They want to root for them. The readers feel the agony, empathize with how much this space hurts the characters deeply, and want to be there to push them forward.

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Along the Road

By Lauri Schoenfeld

A few years back, I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, coming home from a road trip, wondering why I’ve never stumbled upon this book before. I needed a new perspective, a different outlook, and his words sang to my heart. I felt them. They resonated with me. My highlighter couldn’t go fast enough as I colored page after page of some of my favorite paragraphs. Ones I have come back and read again. I’m not sure if he knew when he was writing this book that it would have this impact, but it changed me!

I always have a plan set in motion in my personal life, knowing exactly where I’m going to go. I can see it, feel it, and even breathe the excitement of the next chapter. Until life happens and a bump in the road leaves me flying on the asphalt. I promise you, that’s never in my agenda for my story as I know that’s not in yours either. That’s the thing with life—much like writing a book—it never entirely goes the way you start planning it to be.

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How Character and Plot Work Together, Part 2

by Ruth Owen

How Character Creates Plot

Did you notice I already touched on this when talking about plot? The thing is, the protagonist’s desire is a necessary part of the conflict that creates the plot. If ET didn’t want to go home, there would be no movie.

Which leads me to a new term: Character Agency.

Modern readers—that is, readers in the last 20 years or so—have come to expect and want to read about characters who make choices that cause the plot to happen. They want characters who want something and then try to get it. They want characters who make mistakes and who experience the consequences. Maybe in the past, books got published with characters who just experienced the plot happening to them, but that won’t cut it for modern readers anymore.

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How Character and Plot Work Together, Part 1

by Ruth Owen

When I wrote my first book, it felt like a huge accomplishment. It was as if I had built a whole house. I showed it to some family and friends, who basically told me, “Cool! I like your house! It’s neat. One of the windows was a little askew, and there weren’t doorknobs on some of the bedroom doors, but I loved it. Let me know when actual real people want to move in.”

So I felt pretty good about myself. Then I got some actual, real beta readers—writing peers who knew more about writing books than my family and friends. They also weren’t afraid of hurting my feelings. Beta readers are like construction workers—they’ll recognize some things you’ve built wrong and give suggestions for how to fix it.

Suddenly I was getting comments akin to “You’ve done your wiring wrong” and “You haven’t put in enough insulation.” Bigger issues. I went back and revised. I tore open walls, fixed the wiring, and added insulation until it was up to code.

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Common Punctuation Mistakes in Fiction

by Crystal Shelley

In my last blog post, I provided an overview of the most common punctuation marks used in English and the different functions they serve. Here I discuss eight punctuation mistakes I often encounter when editing fiction.

USING APOSTROPHES TO PLURALIZE WORDS

Unless you’re pluralizing an individual letter (“mind your p’s and q’s”) or a word that might be confusing otherwise (“do’s and don’ts”), apostrophes are not used to make things plural. This is one of the most common mistakes I come across in writing and in the real world. You may have seen signs in the wild declaring “Condo’s for sale” or “Get your Christmas tree’s here.” This also happens in fiction writing, especially when it comes to pluralizing proper nouns. If you’re tempted to use an apostrophe in a plural, stop and think for a second. Are you trying to show possession or attribution? If not, the apostrophe probably doesn’t belong. For an in-depth look at this topic, check out my blog post on plurals and possessives.

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The Editing Funnel

by Jennie Stevens

When I first started my career, I encountered an issue many new editors face: there are no clear-cut definitions for the different types of editing. It seems every publishing house, editing firm, and freelancer has their own vocabulary and definitions for the same work. Even the term editor is an umbrella term that can encompass every job from acquiring a manuscript to fixing errant commas.

So what are the different categories of editing and how do they fit together? Once I understood the terms and structure myself, I found it relatively easy to explain to others using a simple image: the editing funnel. The editing funnel represents the order of editing, moving from big problems to small problems.

It is important to remember that each editor has their own understanding of these terms and how to apply them. If you are an author, make sure you and your editor are on the same page about the level of editing your manuscript requires, but it should generally follow the same path from draft to final product.

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Sample Edits

by Talysa Sainz

Finding the right editor can be difficult. Even editors know the importance of an author finding the right editor for their manuscript. The best thing you can do before you choose your editor is request sample edits from a variety of potential editors.

What is a sample edit?

A sample edit is a light or full edit on a small piece of your manuscript. It gives both the author and editor an idea of what a complete edit would look like. If you plan to pay for a professional edit, you should get as many sample edits as possible. Sample edits benefit both the author and the editor. When it comes to finding an editor for your manuscript, do not hesitate to shop around a little or to ask potential editors for a sample edit so you can see an example of their work.

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Variety in Character Descriptions

Kristy S. Gilbert, Looseleaf Editorial & Production

Describing characters can be difficult work, but some authors unintentionally make the task more difficult by sticking to a driver’s-license-style checklist of traits about their characters—gender, hair and eye color, height, etc. This focus normally comes from an impulse to describe characters so readers will have clear images in their minds.

Vary Your Character Descriptions by Kristy S. Gilbert

But using the same traits or describing characters solely in informational terms can make it harder for readers to remember things about individual characters and can hamper reader reactions and connections.

Instead, try out a few of these strategies to more efficiently create emotional situations and characters that delight and connect with your readers.

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Editing Teammates

Balancing the Author/Editor Relationship

By Candace Thomas

There is often a tug of war when it comes to editors and authors, particularly when it comes to the author’s voice. Keeping the integrity of the author’s voice is critical to any editing gig. But what authors, and editors, should come to understand is that everyone is on the same side. It’s the reader we are rooting for in the end. Working together to reach that audience makes you teammates. 

These three things are important to your teammate and will help you navigate the editing process together. 

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Editing Three Key Plot Points

By Emma Heggem

A lot of new writers finish their first draft and immediately start correcting typos. After all, they are eventually going to have to show their writing to other writers and even editors. They don’t want to have any embarrassing mistakes.

Editing Three Key Plot Points by Emma Heggem

So I’m officially, as an editor, giving you permission to have typos. Spell like crap, have run-on sentences, and don’t worry about dangling modifiers. That all can be dealt with later.

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