Is It Time to Rethink the Third-Person Author Bio?
I’m blogging today at The Chicago Manual of Style Shop Talk blog: This morning I was looking at a writer’s website and once again wondered about an anomaly I see all the time in author bios. You know...
View ArticleLife as a Copyeditor
I’m blogging today: Do you ever find at the end of workday that even though you know darned well you weren’t slacking for even ten minutes, somehow you didn’t make any progress in editing your...
View Article10 New Favorite MS Word Tricks for Editors
Blogging today at CMOS Shop Talk: I love Microsoft Word shortcuts, and I post them from time to time when I stumble across a new one. But how’s a body supposed to discover all the features of this...
View ArticleChange Is Good! (Right?)
I’m watching the clock today: in exactly one hour, seven minutes, and twenty-three seconds, I’ll be retired from my job at the University of Chicago Press. As you know by now, my longtime colleague...
View ArticleFiction+ for Creative Writers and Their Editors
Although I officially retired from my work at the Chicago Manual in December, I couldn’t say no to an opportunity to continue hanging around the CMOS Online Shop Talk blog when Russell Harper—the new...
View Article“Hazel and I’s puppy”? When Fiction Meets Bad Grammar
Today at Fiction+ (The Chicago Manual of Style’s Shop Talk blog), I write about the trending compound possessive pronoun “I’s,” as in “Hazel and I’s Puppy. The. Cutest. Ever.” (Go to post at Fiction+)...
View ArticleWhen Characters Speak: Formatting Dialogue
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): In novels and stories and other creative works, words spoken by a character are normally set off from the narrative with quotation marks,...
View ArticleSure, You Got A’s in English—But Do You Know Where Commas Go?
A few months ago in a conference session, a group of novelists digressed into good-natured complaints about being copyedited. One writer drew a lot of laughs saying, “I mean, I got A’s in English! I...
View ArticleDo You Overstep When Editing Fiction? Three Easy Cures
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): The other day, I ran across this line in a recent novel by a best-selling American writer (key words are disguised): His disposition warmed...
View ArticlePreparing an Audiobook for a Narrator Who Isn’t You
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): Recently I read through a book to make notes for a professional voice actor who would be reading it for an audiobook production. Luckily,...
View ArticleCan I Put an iPhone in My Novel?
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): Short answer: Yes. Now and then, a writer or editor asks our online Q&A whether mentioning a brand name in a work of fiction requires...
View Article“Had had”? Flashbacks and the Past Perfect
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): Novelists are sometimes urged to eliminate the past-perfect tense from their sentences, and copyeditors are sometimes trained to search out...
View ArticleNumbers in Creative Writing
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): When we think about writing numbers, we tend to think of research papers, financial reports, sports columns, and other quantity-laden...
View ArticleWhen Page Numbers Don’t Help
My post today at Fiction+ (for The Chicago Manual of Style): Editors are never happy. First they throw a fit if you send in a manuscript without page numbers, but once you send them a paginated work,...
View ArticleFormatting Text Messages in Fiction
From my post today at The Chicago Manual of Style, for Fiction+ For many writers and readers, text messages formatted plainly in the line of narrative fail to convey the feeling of a text. After all,...
View ArticleHow to Edit Blurbs
It’s debatable whether blurbs really do influence book buyers, since many readers assume that blurbers are friends and mentors of the writer or publisher, but readers of some genres expect to see a...
View ArticleAbbreviations in Fiction
A great many common abbreviations behave perfectly well in any fiction or nonfiction context, including dialogue: Mr., Ms., CEO, p.m., PhD, UFO. Editors should have no quarrel with them, as long as...
View ArticleCrediting Images at an Author Website
I'm blogging today for Fiction+ at The Chicago Manual of Style’s Shop Talk blog: When you borrow images from another creator, whether you found them in printed form, online, or crumpled in your...
View ArticleHow to “Take Back” an Online Error
I'm blogging today for Fiction+ at The Chicago Manual of Style’s Shop Talk blog: Everyone makes mistakes, but if you goof online at your author website or in social media, the potential for ruin these...
View ArticleStyle and Grammar in Promotional Copy
I’m blogging today for Fiction+ at The Chicago Manual of Style’s Shop Talk blog: Anyone familiar with the grammar and style rules and guidelines in CMOS knows they come with a lot of qualifiers:...
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