At first blush, horror and romance might seem as far apart as two genres can be. But on closer inspection, the genres exhibit many similarities. Beyond the story-level connections, the readerships of these two genres share a protectiveness born from the feeling others look down on their genre of choice as being of low merit, […]
The recording of my webinar on editing horror is now available for purchase at Club Ed at the following link: Editing Horror with James Gallagher This one-hour webinar is for people interested in learning how to edit the horror genre. The class covers the following: What is horror? Brief history of the genre Subgenres Horror […]
“Only by thoughtful concentration on details can fiction be satisfactorily edited.” —Words into Type [On April 4, 2025, I presented “The Case of Ever-Changing Eye Color: Tracking Continuity in Manuscripts” to a live audience at ACES 2025 in Salt Lake City. This series of posts is largely based on that presentation.] What Are Continuity Issues? […]
The self-paced Editing for Point of View and Perspective class from Club Ed delves into finer editing considerations of particular benefit to developmental editors and line editors. As with all Club Ed courses, the materials and exercises are first-rate. After having taken many quality courses from Club Ed creator Jennifer Lawler, I’d picked up this […]
People are often surprised by the time it takes to copyedit manuscripts, probably because they have a sense of how long it takes to read a book of similar length. But copyediting does take longer—much longer—and authors and readers benefit from the hours upon hours copy editors dedicate to their craft. (This post refers largely […]
Too often people view editing as a one-way service in which the editor “corrects” the author’s prose. To get the most out of the author–editor relationship, however, it’s important to remember two things: • Editing is a conversation. • Edits are suggestions. (Though general principles still apply, the following is geared toward the relationship between […]
This January I tweeted daily thanks for helpful things in my editing world. The following tweets offer useful resources and provide insight into my editing life. I missed the first two days, so I’ll send a special thanks to authors everywhere and to The Best Punctuation Book, Period from June Casagrande, with honorable mentions to […]
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