Great editing checklist from Romance University

I think this is an exceptionally good editing post - and don't be fooled by the "romance" thing - the advice holds regardless of the type of writing you're doing.

I especially love the tip of isolating all the scenes that your major character is in to make sure their actions flow sensibly and they don't ever stagnate or go off on a weird tangent. I've definitely encouraged writers to do this in the past, but I think this "Theresa Stevens" character explains it better.

Check it out!
http://romanceuniversity.org/2011/07/22/ask-an-editor-by-theresa-stevens/

Links! Sequels!

I'm as yet unsure about links posts. Personally, I normally don't read them...they don't tell me anything in themselves, and by their very nature they create the threat of Opening More Tabs, which causes me to stress out. Will the article be worth it? What if it's on a page where there's tons of stuff that I need to look at and I end up having to spend hours getting caught up? Better just not to find out.

However, here are two links. And one of them's a comic. I hereby promise that if I do links posts, there will only be two links and one of them will be a comic.

1. Sequels - The Nathan Bransford report. Because almost everybody is writing a series and leaving important things out of the first book because they're "saving it for the sequels" and no matter how much I tell them the only thing that will accomplish is that the first book won't be as good as it could be and nobody will buy it and they need to just view it as a stand-alone and then think about sequels when and if a publisher actually takes the first book...nobody believes me. They keep insisting that it's got to be a series, and they've got to write it all now and there's no need to resolve plot threads and characterizations because it will all happen "in the next book." But it won't happen, because the first book won't get bought, so the sequel won't get written.

2. Comic. About DRM and how it's the worst thing ever.