Maid and butler dialogue I had occasion recently, on one of the submissions to my TheOpeningLines.com website, to comment on some “Maid and Butler” dialogue that an author had used in the opening to his novel. What is “Maid and … Read More
I wrote a piece for the Irish Times recently on e-book pricing. The link is here. It was picked up by the Arts & Letters Daily, which is very gratifying. The full text is posted below: E-book pricing: because you’re … Read More
As a partner post to my earlier piece on dashes, today I’m going into hyphenation in detail: Why we hyphenate words. What guidelines exist for hyphen usage. How word structure continues to evolve around hyphens. Why do we hyphenate anything? … Read More
Synopses A common problem for authors who are ready to submit to agents/publishers is the necessity (usually) to supply a synopsis. They’ve done all the hard work, written the book, gone through repeated revisions and rewrites, given it to beta-readers, … Read More
Must dash! Before I became an editor, I had only vaguely noticed that some dashes were longer than others. I thought it was perhaps a particular type of font, or just that some publishers liked longer lines and some liked … Read More