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Write down your favorite word, your name, or the alphabet and find an author, genre, or book title that you love (or like, or just know if it gets difficult!) that starts with that letter! Google is okay.
I’ll put mine below:
C – Carnivorous Carnival (Series of Unfortunate Events)
H – Harry Potter
O – Of Mice and Men
C – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
O – Odd Thomas
L – Lord of the Flies
A – Animal Farm
T – To Kill A Mockingbird
E – Jane Eyre

Your turn!! Make sure you’re taking care of your brain health too!
Love always,
The Editor

I’ve been asked post about how to avoid passive voice when writing. I had to do some research myself to make sure I had a good grasp on the concept and to have some solid tips to pass along to you. Please make sure you notice the sources at the bottom of the page, I want to make sure they get their acknowledgement.

First, let me explain the difference between passive and active voice. The passive voice is generally vague, sterile, and clinical in nature. It’s used for people who aren’t important or unknown in a story. Since it’s non-specific and generic, passive voice is often used to deliver facts or bad news.

The package was delivered by the mailman.

Many workers were terminated and given severance checks.

Active voice is used with details, explanations, and personality. It’s clear and concise, and gives the reader better insight of the characters and settings.

Your entire piece of work doesn’t have to be one or the other. In fact, mixing between the two will keep things exciting and will prevent the reader from getting bored or overwhelmed. If you’re unsure how to do that, a good rule of thumb would be to use active voice with main characters and passive voice with minor characters.

A lot of writers get involved with putting out details, getting the story out of their heads, and writing a project can happen fast. Sometimes this can translate into overuse of the passive voice. If you’re unsure if you’ve abused passive writing, here are some ways to read through your piece and find those sentences.

The example sentence will be: “The car was driven by Janet.”

1. The subject is not doing the activity. The subject is being acted upon. (Car is subject, Janet is the doer)
2. A form of “be” (am, is, were, are, was) is used with the past participle. (was driven in the example)
3. The phrase “by [person/thing]” is in the sentence or can be added to the sentence. (by Janet)

Now that you know how to identify those sentences, here are some ways to change your passive voice into active voice.

1. Remove “ing” words. Change was walking into walked, had eaten to ate, or were playing into played.
2. Choose different verbs. Use more exciting verbs to explain something that’s happening. Using the thesaurus has become frowned upon, and many people feel like it can make a piece sound overworked, but I encourage using this tool if you’re feeling stale or uninspired. For example, change walk to strut, slink, glide, etc.
3. Put the adjectives before the nouns, not after. For example, a passive sentence is: The man was tall and stoic, hoping he’d get his point across. Active would be:  The tall and stoic man hoped his point came across clearly.
4. Change the order of your sentences. For example: From The symphony piece was written by Mindy Smith.  to  Mindy Smith wrote the symphony piece.
5. Make the subject do the action. The example above “The car was driven by Janet.” would be changed to “Janet drove the car.”

 

The best part about this is that the changes are simple. The English language and rules are fluid and flexible. The structure and wording can mean the difference between a scientific journal and the best sci-fi novel you’ve ever read. So read through your projects, see if you can spice it up, switch it up, and activate your active voice!

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions or need help. Leave sentences you’re unsure about in the comments and we’ll break them down for you.

 

I’m also looking for ideas for blog posts. If you have something that is confusing you, something that you’d be interested in hearing about, or just an interesting topic for me to tackle (doesn’t have to be editor/writing related either!), please drop it in the comments and I would love to attack all of it!!

 

Warmest regards,

The Editor

 

 

 

 

SOURCES:

• www.nailthatpaper.com
• The Copyeditor’s Handbook, Third Edition
• San José State University Writing Center

Editing is emotional for a writer.

When editing your work, I have to take a lot into consideration. Let’s face it, who wants someone to pick through your project containing all of your blood, sweat, and tears with a fine-toothed comb and point out everything wrong with it? Nobody!

I’m (usually) the first set of professional eyes to see your writing after you’ve shown your best friend, your mother, your sister, and your book club. People who love you. People who want you to win at life. People who want you to be successful.

Then here I come.

Writers are sensitive, man. I should know, I’m smack dab in the middle of writing a novel myself and when I think about someone other than my husband reading it, my stomach flips like an Olympic gymnast. Look out Dominique Dawes, someone is going to read my story and my belly is somersaulting right past you!

I use that feeling when I edit. It gives me compassion and empathy towards my author. I have to be ferocious, I have to trash talk you and roast you worse than the readers will so you toughen up. I have to push you so all that awful stuff that you hear comes from me first and you can smooth those rough edges. It’s my job to catch your dream as it spirals out of the sky and then give you the tools to launch it back. Pretty magical, isn’t it? Amazon reviewers can be brutal. Goodreads can be hell. Having a good editor will take away their power. (Well, most of it… some people will not be happy no matter how perfect a story is! My advice is to ignore them.)

When you get your edits, it’s instinct to get defensive. Don’t do that. Your editor is on your team! Your editor wants to fight for you to have a good piece of literature to give to the world.

I will tell you that you are wrong. No, that word does NOT have an apostrophe. No, you can’t put semicolons and commas wherever you want. “And by the way, bloaty is not a word. There’s bloated, there’s bloating, but no bloaty.”* Do you even know what a question mark is for?!?!?

It’s not an attack. Editing is not negativity. Editing is landscaping for books. We pull the weeds, we trim the hedges, and we water the flowers. Your job is to shower your creativity on them and encourage them to grow into beautiful works of art to share with the world.

So put pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard, and get your ideas out of your brain and into a book.

By the way, always remember:

Your editor loves you.

Your editor wants you to win at life.

Your editor wants you to be successful.

 

Warmest Regards,

The Editor

 

*Quote from Gilmore Girls: One’s Got Class and the Other One Dyes

Today’s book is special to me. I’ve always been quite mature for my age, so I’ve read pretty advanced books before most people are required to read them. I read Of Mice and Men in elementary school. If you’ve read it, you know how mature it is. I read today’s review book for the first time in 6th grade. If a 6th grader told their teacher nowadays that they read this book, they’d probably get suspended from school and CPS would be called on their parents. But it was the 90s and people weren’t so sensitive back then.

This is a picture of my copy of The Thorn Birds. It has been gently loved and reread numerous times over the years. This particular copy was printed in 1977 and it’s probably one of my most prized possessions.

This book is more than a smutty romance novel. This is a saga of a family in New Zealand and takes place starting in 1915. The story spans over generations and shows the will of a family to be strong through heartbreak after heartbreak. It’s a love story, tortured and forbidden; validating the fact that in the very simplest of terms: The heart wants what the heart wants.

Making a book into a movie is hit or miss. With an amazing cast, the movie adaptation of this book is astounding. With classic actors like Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare, more recently I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry) and Bryan Brown (Cocktail, Australia, Along Came Polly), it’s a beautiful interpretation of a story that I love.

Due to the intense emotional and psychological storyline and some graphic sex and violence, I don’t recommend it for the average young girl. Probably 16 or even older.

Whether by DVD or book, I hope you enjoy this incredible love story!

 

Warmest Regards,

The Editor

Hello friends!

My next project is in my lap, finally. This is one of my favorite parts, using the red pen.

Using the red pen is most fun with her; my first author, my friend, and someone with a great sense of humor. I’m lucky enough to be able to doodle and make ridiculous notes in the margins with the proofs that M sends me. She appreciates the silliness and it takes the edge off of me having to say “Did you forget what a question mark is??” (Just kidding!)

Watch for Scarecrow on Amazon in the weeks to come, I’ll let everyone know when it will be released. If you haven’t read the first two, go to the portfolio tab and check them out on Amazon.

 

 

Warmest Regards,

The Editor

I’m happy to have a new home here at editschmedit.com.

I’m ready to take a leap and do what I really love and enjoy every day of my life. I never was one for a normal nine to five, and the flexibility of editing is everything. It fits into every corner of my schedule, including some 1am sessions when I can’t sleep.

You can still see my old home at www.secretlifeofaneditor.blogspot.com, which will become my personal blog.

I’m going to get super sappy for a second and show mushy gratitude for the people in my life who push me to be the best version of myself.

To my mom, who handed down to me her love of the written word. Best. Gift. Ever.

To Meredith, of course, without whom I’d have never thought to take this journey.

To my amazing husband, who follows me down every crazy path I lead him, no questions asked. “Where you lead, I will follow, anywhere…” I love you!

To my William, who is simultaneously the best kid on the planet and also the reason I need books to lose myself in some far off place once in a while.

To Audrey who is my partner in crime and forever my alibi.

To Audrey’s man Jeff, who is my personal IT department and nerd consultant.

To so many other people who have shaped my life in some way or another and brought me to the present. I never thought I’d be where I am, I never thought I’d know the kind of happiness that is in my heart these days.

So, to the journey ahead and every plot twist to come! Cheers!!