by Floyd Largent Fellow writer William Shunn provides the classic format for short story formatting here (ignore at your peril). Eventually, this will become such a habitual format that you won’t have to think about it, and any other will look odd to you. Well, suppose you’ve finished your epic story “Wrecker of Ten Million Galaxies,” it’s in the …
by Floyd Largent Lately, it’s become just a little bit harder to be a freelance editor. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for this life. I love working with words—no, scratch that. I love cooperating with them, urging them to take on this meaning, …
by Floyd Largent Content Editor | Books | Short Stories If you’ve recently completed a book-length manuscript, it’s best to run it past another pair of eyes before you send it out into the world. As the author, you may be too close to the project to see its potential flaws, from minor continuity errors …
by Floyd Largent, Developmental Content Editor In the last few years, superhero fiction has become extremely popular among writers not associated with the traditional publishing scene—and personally, I rather enjoy this trend. I’m not sure why. I never grew up reading superhero comic books, though when I was in grad school, I borrowed my roommate’s, and …
by Floyd Largent, book editor In my last blog, I discussed some of the basics of what it takes to be a good editor: voracious habits of reading and writing, a thorough grounding in the tropes of the genres one works in, and simple experience—the quality that comes with quantity. But while those factors are …
by Floyd Largent, book editor As a writer, you probably know it’s always best to get at least one unbiased person to review your manuscript before you submit it to a publisher or agent. In fact, that’s probably why you’re checking out this website. And as you wander through these pages, you may be wondering …
by Floyd Largent, book editor If there’s one question writers get asked almost as often as “Where do you get your ideas?” it’s, “How can I become a better writer?” Whole college courses—nay, curricula—have been built around this question, in an elaborate attempt to provide a complicated answer to what basically boils down to Two …
by Floyd Largent, Professional Editor Book Editing Associates Twenty years ago, the answer to the question I’ve posed in the title would be “Yes, definitely”—but only if you were writing a book. With the exception of established literary lions like Joyce Carol Oates or John Updike, agents don’t handle short stories or non-fiction articles. There’s …
by Floyd Largent, editor While most writers are patient about the length of the book editing process, I suspect every editor has had clients who have pestered them to “Just get on with it” and “Hurry up, already.” Those are usually the same ones unhappy with the results, because you’ve had to scurry and not do …
by Floyd Largent Back in 1816, during the dismal “Year Without a Summer” caused by an eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora, young Mary Wollstonecraft Clairmont was visiting in Geneva with her soon-to-be husband, poet Percy Blythe Shelley, and their friends, writers Lord Byron and John Polidori. When Byron suggested they each write a horror story, …
By Floyd Largent As a writer, you’ve probably suffered through days when you just wanted to curl up under your desk because the words wouldn’t come. Writer’s block, we call it; it’s so pervasive that even non-writers know about it. It’s a painful and very real malady that can strike anyone who works with words, …
Floyd Largent One of the attractions of writing nonfiction, mainstream fiction, and most genre fiction is that you and the reader already share the same universe: the Real World, where the cultures, mores, politics, and history are all well known and relatively easy to research. Research is itself a major hot-button topic for writers, one …