Tag Archives: advice

advice, editorial

Confessions of an Editor: I Hate Your Needless Words

Years ago when I first learned my trade, I remember wondering why my writing mentors railed so hard against passive voice writing. We’re all guilty of it, most people don’t see anything wrong with it, and passive voice is one of the dead giveaways to an editor that you aren’t quite the kick-ass writer you think you are. Your cover letter might be exciting, your query compelling, but once you include those needless words and break the number one Strunk and White commandment, you are DOOMED.

Unfortunately, getting rid of passive voice is not the whole answer. Your writing needs help if you still use garbage words and phrases. What do I consider a garbage word or phrase? Read on:

“The new Remington Rifle can often be used to hunt small animals, but its real purpose is to shoot down big game.” 

Tell me, just WHAT is the purpose of using the word “often” in that sentence? Never mind the rest of the errors for a moment, concentrate on that phrase “can often be used”. This is too much fat and not enough meat.

Try this on for size:

“Some use the new Remington Rifle to hunt small animals, but its real purpose is to shoot down big game.” 

Why does this sentence read better? Because it gets to the point and obeys Strunk and White by OMITTING NEEDLESS WORDS.  Now look at the rest of this sentence. “…but its real purpose is to shoot down big game.” Continue reading Confessions of an Editor: I Hate Your Needless Words →

advice, editorial

What Freelance Writers Can Learn From Jesse Jackson’s “Mistake”

The big controversey in the headlines at the time I’m writing this is Jesse Jackson’s gaffe on the Bill O’Reilly show. Jackson made some untoward comments about Barack Obama when he thought the microphone was turned off.

Jesse Jackson clearly never attended broadcasting school. If he had, he would know that a microphone is NEVER off, especially on network television. When the operator pushes the “off” button, it should be treated like a deadly snake some rancher has just killed. Did you know a poisonous snake with its head cut off can still strike and kill you? Jesse Jackson knows that now, all too well.

What can freelance writers learn from this?

For starters, there is the growing awareness of what happens when a potential employer, editor or publisher wants to Google you before they start paying you for services rendered. In the mid to late 90s, I knew of several people in the freelance IT industry who ran webcam blogs. Many of these people weren’t very concerned over the amount of clothing they wore on their webcams. I don’t think they thought very much about the notion that those pictures could still be floating around today, ten years later. Continue reading What Freelance Writers Can Learn From Jesse Jackson’s “Mistake” →

advice, editorial

Confessions of an Editor: Schadenfruede

The German phrase schadenfruede means “pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune.” I regularly indulge in this shameful practice by reading blogs like the sadly discontinued (but perpetually archived and available) Miss Snark.

What can I say? I enjoy reading about other people dealing with the same sort of nonsense I encounter…it makes me feel good to know that other writers, editors and publishers struggle with me. Lit Agent X provides one of the best I’ve read this week. In the post “Query Oops”, she discusses the bonehead blunders she gets in her query letters. People asking her to “bare with me”, discussing “cereal killers” without a trace of irony, and my all-time fave, the guy who enclosed a “synapses” of his novel.

To be fair, I am willing to bet that the “synapses” guy was a victim of his spell checker. But I don’t care. Its grounds for round-filing, if you ask me. Then again, I am guilty of my own moronic blunders, which are usually the result of hitting “Send” far too eagerly. The three things I have learned in my stint as a writer and editor:

1. Never submit while hungover.

2. Never submit before coffee.

3. Never submit before breakfast.

If you can heed these three very related warnings, chances are you will go much farther than I. One day, you’ll be sitting in a high-rise office building in Manhattan and you’ll be round-filing MY correspondence. And laughing.

Oh–and before you ask: there isn’t a writer worth a damn who doesn’t go overboard on the food, alcohol, smokes or other bad-for-you things. It’s just the way we’re wired. I insist on the no hungover submissions rule with this in mind. You can pickle your innards as much as you like when the day’s work is done, but don’t you dare let morning -after sludge brain screw you out of a paying gig.

reading

The Handbook of Magazine Article Writing

handbook-of-magazine-article-writing.JPG The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing covers all the bases; query letters, coming up with ideas editors will love, and developing that all-important skill of targeting your queries to just the right market. If you’re new to the magazine writing game, try out this one…you’ll get some great help to get your first batch of queries out the door in the most effective way possible.

Most appealing about this book? It draws on the experience of a large number of successful freelancers. There are plenty of books written from a single freelancer’s point of view, but the range of experience represented in this book offers more perspective. Take what works and leave the rest! With 248 pages of freelance writing wisdom, you’ll find plenty of advice to apply to your early work.

Buy for $11.55

advice, editorial

Writing Advice From “Ask Pud”

ask-pud2.jpgPhillip Kaplan’s Ask Pud blog is one I come back to from time to time for no other reason than it’s amusing and gives me a break from writing-related stuff for a few minutes. I ran across an interesting post recently that definitely applies to writers.

Just take out the phrases “professional musician” and “rock stars,”  insert the word “freelancer” or “writer” and you’ve got the gist. You can safely ignore the snarky bit about heroin–that’s a musician thing, not a writer thing. Besides, what freelancer has time for THAT nonsense? What follows is quoted from Ask Pud:

Continue reading Writing Advice From “Ask Pud” →

advice

Writer’s Market Guides: Top 5 Ways To Avoid Wasting Your Money

I have a very low threshold for B.S. in the writing game. One of my all-time pet peeves? For-pay services that actually deliver very little useful information. There are plenty of books, websites, and blogs offering products and services, but the signal-to-noise ratio makes investing in them a potentially risky proposition for the new writer. Want to cut through the crap and find the guides that actually have something to offer? Here are my top five strategies:

Continue reading Writer’s Market Guides: Top 5 Ways To Avoid Wasting Your Money →