RedPen

Home > RedPen (Page 2)

Posted on 15 November 2016
In Guest blogpost, Novel writing, RedPen Editing

Welcome, Patsy Collins! My nag buddy, Patsy, is no stranger to RedPenners. And she has been my guest on this blog before, back in April 2016. As I'm currently focusing on formatting, I asked Patsy to share her thoughts on this topic, particularly as she's just published a new collection of short stories: No Family Secrets.   Don't you just love the cover? Inside are 25 stories dedicated to her 10 cousins.   Have you noticed how,...

by

Posted on 10 September 2016
In RedPen Editing

  My book launch for EDITING The RedPen Way Last Tuesday went brilliantly. I'm still giddy from all the excitement. Hundreds of copies were downloaded and many of you have signed up for RedPen. Welcome! I've had excellent reviews too. All 5 star! Here's an extract from just one of them. A masterclass in self-editing ...

by

Posted on 26 August 2016
In RedPen Editing, Scrivener

I've not posted in a while, but I have a great excuse: I've been busy compiling with Scrivener and now have three versions of the same manuscript: EDITING The RedPen Way. I've learnt much much more about the power of Scrivener in the past three weeks, but the best bit (there are so many best bits!) is the flexibility of output. I explain below why I had three different forms of output, and I'll...

by

Posted on 11 July 2016
In RedPen Editing, Scrivener

I'm still busy, busy, busy: writing - and exploring areas of Scrivener I've not had occasion to use to date - like formatting within the Compile option. Great fun! As soon as the first draft of my book is done (next Sunday?), I'll start putting together a series of posts so you don't have to go through the same learning curve as me. What's new? I'll be sharing some of my discoveries at the...

by

Posted on 21 June 2016
In RedPen Editing, Scrivener, Training

This is post 10, the final post, of my series looking at how ProWritingAid works with Scrivener. I hope you decided to trial ProWritingAid and have been working alongside me in exploring its features. One question that I haven't answered so far: How exactly does ProWritingAid work with Scrivener? Simple ...

by

Posted on 19 June 2016
In RedPen Editing, Scrivener, Training

Step 9 of the Red Pen Editing cycle is to drill down. When you are relatively happy that you’ve fixed the major things – you have balance and structure, you have the right tense and voice, you've worked on dodgy patches, there are no more tasks on your list - it’s time to drill down. How often you drill down is up to you. It's essential before moving on to Step 10:...

by

Posted on 16 June 2016
In RedPen Editing, Scrivener, Training

Step 7 of the Red Pen Editing cycle is to check structure and balance. The standard structure for a story is beginning / middle / end. Where one ends and the next starts is important. Within each, you'll have paragraphs and, within those, sentences. Paragraphs need to be not too short and not too long. Sentences: ditto. And you need transitions to take the reader from one to the next ...

by