A different approach to the cover. I’m not sure if I like it or not.

https://www.canva.com/design/DABS4Kh_Igo/U1yrztN4tgFBCzPIUSCDiw/view?&utm_content=DABS4Kh_Igo&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton&cc_from_uid=UABSyWCr6RI

And now it has a Goodreads page. (It isn’t out yet, I’m just getting things ready.)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25659536-the-well-presented-manuscript

First go at a cover for The Well-Presented Manuscript.

http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms/files/2015/06/Well-Presented-MS-cover.jpg

Since I got my first Kindle, I’ve made nearly 7000 notes on 250 books. 

I’ve been going through them finding patterns in the errors (they’re mostly errors) for my Well-Presented Manuscript book. I’ve reached the 1700s. Damn, it’s tedious. 

If you’re subscribed to my Commonly Confused Words email list, there’ll be a big email tonight. I’ve now passed 80 items in total (you can see them, and subscribe, at the link). 

http://csidemedia.com/gryphonclerks/commonly-confused-words/

Common Ridiculous Research Fails

I’m writing a chapter on research for my Well-Presented Manuscript book, and looking for things that writers often get wrong through ignorance.

At the moment I have:

Phases of the moon (multiple moons in the same part of the sky will have the same phase; not everyone knows this, apparently, because they don’t know how moon phases work).

Guns. A revolver is not an automatic, and a rifle is not a shotgun, and they differ in ways that can be important to the story.

Any other examples of things that you see frequently in books that make you roll your eyes?

(Hollywood physics and Hollywood human biology kind of get a genre pass.)

“You know who breaks this rule? Neil Gaiman. One of the few living writers who’s both a commercial and critical success, a man who must just about need a second house by now in order to store his awards. 

“On the other hand, you know who isn’t Neil Gaiman? You.”

– For the book version of The Well-Presented Manuscript.

Have people commented on your breathless (rather than deathless) prose? Do you under-comma? 

Here’s a guide for the perplexed. With bonus advice on participle dangling*.

*The advice is “don’t”. But I also explain what that is, and why it matters.

http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms/comma-calmer-2-commas-to-put-in/

Originally shared by Mike Reeves-McMillan

So, would you be interested if I wrote a blog post series (leading to an ebook) on “The Well-Presented Manuscript: How to Stand Out When Submitting to Editors”?

It would mainly address the short story market (context: I’ve done a lot of short story submitting in the past year, have made several sales, and most of the rejections I’ve had have been personalised, which is a sign I’m getting past the slush readers). I have also been an editor in a major publishing house, though, and a lot of the advice would also apply to submitting to trad pub.

The premise is: most of what gets submitted to editors is rejected immediately because it doesn’t meet basic standards of competence in presentation and language use. Here’s how to meet those standards – and, by the way, meeting them will help with self-publishing too, since some readers also reject books that don’t meet them.

Topics I would cover include: 

– How editors select what to publish (and what not to publish)

– How to find short story markets

– Basics of Standard Manuscript Format

– Commonly confused words and how to distinguish them

– Apostrophe wrangling

– Befriending the comma (that one would require a few posts)

– The dangling participle and how to avoid it

– The past of the past: how not to make your reader tense with confusion

– Tricks to ensure that you haven’t missed words from your sentences

– Varying your sentence structure for fun and profit

– Concise, active writing

I’m open to suggestions on what else to include. 

Note: this isn’t about writing the actual story, which is another set of skills above and beyond these. This is about meeting the basic standards that will get your story read in the first place. I review a lot of books, and I see the same errors over and over. Most of them are simple to correct.

So it looks like I’m already about halfway through drafting The Well-Presented Manuscript, my only-what-you-need-to-know guide to looking like a professional when you send your writing out into the world.

There will be about 16 chapters, maybe 20,000 words. That seems like a good balance between “covers the material adequately” and “goes into too much detail”.

http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms/introduction

In the latest post on The Well-Presented Manuscript, I give you just enough about the punctuation marks (other than apostrophes and commas) to help you look professional.

Bear in mind that every mistake I talk about in this blog series is something I’ve seen in a published book. Often more than one.

http://csidemedia.com/wellpresentedms/punctuated-equilibrium/