Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Dangling Modifiers

In a previous article, we discussed dangling participles(EDITING 101:24). Today we’re going to discuss dangling modifiers.

If you remember, “dangling” is another word for “misplaced.” A modifier is a noun or an adjective that amends or explains, adding description to another noun. So a dangling modifier is simply a word modifying a noun that is in the wrong place, thereby making the sentence ambiguous or confusing, and sometimes downright funny.

Incorrect: The woman walked the dog in purple suede cowboy boots.

Correct: The woman in purple suede cowboy boots walked the dog.

Incorrect: We saw several monkeys on vacation in Mexico.

Correct: While on vacation in Mexico, we saw several monkeys.

Incorrect: We saw several…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Do All Your Characters Sound Alike?

In today’s post, we’re not talking about a writer’s voice, or style. We’re talking about the actual voice your characters use in their dialogue or monologues, and character monotones is a chronic problem I see in many of the manuscripts I edit. As the author, you might not realize this is a difficulty in your own writing, but I think once you read this post and the accompanying links, you’ll begin to see what I mean.

Character voice does not mean writing dialect or phonetic accents. This is dialect:

“How do you make out?”

“How me mek out?” He pointed upwards to the black rafters of the kitchen. “Tatta Fadda a mek Provide-ance…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Using Beta Readers

A Beta Reader is a person who reads your finished novel and gives you feedback on it before publication—while you still have time to make changes. The term “beta reader” has been adapted from the software industry, where programmers release a beta version of a new program to people who will test it. So think of this as someone “test driving” your book!

Having beta readers is an excellent step in writing your novel, as a good beta reader can vastly improve your book. They serve as a second pair of eyes, ensuring that what you’ve intended to write is really what you have written. A beta reader will read your entire manuscript and develop a personal response…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy of Adirondack Editing

Split Infinitives and Dangling Participles

Editors frequently correct both of these, but one is actually ok to use, while the other is not. Care to make a wager on which one is which before I get started?

Ante up!

What is a split infinitive, after all? It’s a sentence where a word, usually an adverb, interrupts a full verb (or full infinitive). A full infinitive is the verb with the word “to” in front of it—to run, to walk, to spit. The most famous split infinitive is “to boldly go.” Editors and teachers used to mark this as incorrect, but it’s all right to split an infinitive. Some examples are:

• Lyn continued to quickly run toward the burning building.

• Willow…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Who, Whom, and other Word Misuses

Erik (The Kid Who Reviews Books), a frequent visitor and commenter on The Story Reading Ape’s blog, requested a post discussing who and whom. Thanks for the suggestion, Erik, and if anyone else has any requests, please leave them in the comments!

Many writers struggle with when to use “who” and when to use “whom,” which are both pronouns. The technical explanation is that “who” is a subjective pronoun; it should be used to refer to the subject of a sentence. “Whom” is an objective pronoun; it should be used to refer to the object of a sentence.

But unless you like to diagram sentences in your sleep, that’s probably way too…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Using the Back of your Book Effectively

“Back matter” is what comes at the end of your book…after you type “The End.” Some authors don’t do much with it, which is a shame, because you’re missing a great opportunity for highly effective passive marketing. In other words: Free Advertising!

With an e-book, there are no restrictions as to how long your back matter can or should be. At a minimum, this area of the book should contain a polite request for a review, author bio and links, and details of other books you have written. But don’t just stop there—be creative! Why simply list the other books you’ve written? Why not post the entire first chapter of each? It’s a…

Fake books – powered by clickfarms – are gatecrashing Amazon’s charts. And despite being aware of the issue for well over a year, Amazon has failed to resolve it.

If you look at the Kindle Store Best Seller charts right now, and click over to Free Books, you will see that the Top 20 currently has five suspicious-looking titles.

None of them have reviews. All were published in the last week. They have no Also Boughts – meaning they have had very few sales. Each of these titles are around 2,500 pages long, seem to have duplicated content, and are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

What is going on here?

For over fifteen months now, scammers have been raiding the Kindle Unlimited pot using a well-worn trick. They usually pilfer the content first of all – often by stealing an author’s original work and running it through a synonymizer – and…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Hiring Professionals, Part 2

Further to EDITING 101: 37 – Hiring Professionals, Part 1 last week, today we’re going to finish our discussion on hiring professionals to help you self-publish your book.

• Book/Copyeditor

Hiring a book editor can be a little trickier than a cover designer, because you can’t see examples of the work ahead of time. Or can you? Almost all freelance book editors offer a free sample edit of your material just so you can see what they will do to your work. If they don’t offer a sample edit for free, walk away. There’s simply no telling what you’re getting into. Even if they offer samples of other peoples’ edits, that’s no indication as to what they’ll do…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Hiring Professionals, Part 1

If you’re going to self-publish your book, there may be tasks that you are unable to do yourself, or tasks that you simply don’t want to take the time for. That’s when it’s time to hire a professional.

What kinds of professionals might an author need or want to hire? A book or copyeditor, a formatter, a cover designer, a trailer producer, and a marketer are typical professions that authors enlist the help of. In all cases, you can’t tell whether somebody is good based on what they charge. Why not?

Most of the time, there is no established standard rate for these services. Each freelance provider charges what they think is fair and reasonable, both to…

Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy ofAdirondack Editing

Using the five senses

I love it when an author decides to use the senses in writing their descriptions. It’s so rarely done, it seems, that it keeps the story fresh and exciting for me. Let’s talk about some ways to incorporate each of them into your descriptions—without going overboard, of course! Nobody wants a blow-by-blow listing of everything your main character smelled in a day, especially if he’s a homicide detective in the morgue!

When using any of the senses in writing description, you want to remember “Show, don’t tell” to get the most effectiveness out of it.

• Taste

Your first cup of coffee in the morning—does anything taste better? Or, on the other hand, it can be your biggest…