At times, editing can be a bit like a jigsaw puzzle - if the puzzle pieces were scattered around the room like Easter eggs. Although I work with a lot of first-time authors, I don't think that this is a problem specific to them. After all, if you think about Faulkner or Dickens or Joyce, you know that a lot of famous, established authors were known for convoluted sentences and paragraphs that refer back to things that you didn't think were important before. So instead of scol

We've talked about this kind of thing before: the facetiously placed quotation marks that cause us to question what we're reading. With the latest rounds of political finger pointing in the news lately - and the assertion that we're all supposed to simply understand when people are joking or not - I've actually heard government officials say things like "Well, he made those 'air quotes,' didn't he?" and a reporter say "But the tweet was in ALL CAPS - there weren't any quotati

I've had two occasions, lately, to try to figure out exactly what I do - and what I'm willing to do - in my freelancing. (Don't let your mind go too far. We're only talking about various kinds of editing, when we really get down to the basics.) My website says that I'm a writing coach, an editor, and a proofreader. And that's pretty much how I see what I do. When someone comes to me with a manuscript (partial or complete), I can coach to the points that are working (and c