Welcome to Part III of our editing-focused series, After the Draft. We’re entering the final stretch of our series of steps you can follow – regardless of experience – when editing books so that your final self-edited draft is ready to begin moving up the chain toward publication. In this edition, we’re tackling some of […]
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Welcome back to After the Draft, our short crash course in effective book editing that any author can tackle before engaging a human editor and preparing for publication. Here in Part II, we’re entering the line editing stage of our journey – forging ahead into the forest of words, armed with our editorial machete as […]
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So… you’ve written a book. Congratulations! Those weeks, months, or even years of hard effort have finally paid off, and your new manuscript now sits complete. But (sadly) the work doesn’t end there – because once that initial draft is done, it’s time for revision and those all-important book edits. In this three-part series, we’ll […]
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Writing may not be music, but most can definitely see a creative commonality between constructing an engaging story and constructing an intriguing, enjoyable song. Rhythm, rhyme, tone, pacing and technique are all key to how you forge your sentences and paragraphs, and how you build your story as a whole. Whether you’re writing a novel, […]
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What draws you to read fantasy fiction? Is it the imaginative, fantastical worlds? The glorious sword fights and epic battles? The best fantasy books are fun: they capture the reader’s imagination and whirl them into an adventure. But underneath the fun premise, fantasy stories also have a strong, beating heart: they are tales of courage […]
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We’re off to the fantastical lands of Westeros for this edition of What’s the Score, as we welcome genre titan George R.R. Martin to the AutoCrit family! The popularity of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series needs no long-winded introduction – so let’s get to it, knock down the doors of the Red Keep and […]
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When you’re editing your book with AutoCrit, it can be quite surprising to see the word it appear high up the list as one of your most overused words. After all, as a wide-ranging pronoun, it is one of the most commonly used words in the English language. You’d hardly be surprised to see it […]
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The world is full of people who want to give writing advice, but not everyone’s qualified. The only people who truly understand writers and the writing life are writers themselves. We’ve compiled twenty quotes from famous authors with some of the very best advice on living the writing life, the craft itself, and the only […]
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It ain’t easy being mean. You’ve spent a lot of time developing a character your readers will care about, and you’ve grown fond of that character, too. But, in the name of good fiction, you’re going to have to make her suffer. That’s narrative conflict. Storytelling is about conflict. If your character isn’t struggling, you’re […]
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For some of us, hearing criticism or seeing those red marks on our drafts indicating places where we may need to make changes is like hearing our newborn baby is ugly. How can you make receiving feedback easier and more productive? Here’s how to handle criticism without getting disheartened. Why Does Criticism Hurt? You […]
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