Writer, Editor, Helper

Gender-Neutral Pronouns in Creative Writing

People sometimes worry about honoring the personal pronouns of those who don’t identify with the gender binary. They’re concerned that using (for instance) “they/them” in place of “he/him” or “she/her” will be complicated or confusing. Some aren’t sure about the grammar (“They are” or “They is”?).

Overcoming entrenched speech habits to use the right pronoun consistently takes practice. But in writing, it’s easier. Plenty of creative writers use “they/them” pronouns (among others) for nonbinary characters.

The Chicago Way

How Grammar “Goofs” Work in Creative Writing

I’ve written before to caution copyeditors against scrubbing voice and character out of fiction manuscripts by adhering too closely to a style manual.

Each novel or story is unique, of course. Some feature dialect and colloquialisms, and others pretty much stick to formal English as laid out in The Chicago Manual of Style. Many, many novels and stories mix it up, using formal English for the narrative while their characters speak in a more casual idiom. Keeping all those voices straight is one of the primary tasks of a writer; monitoring and protecting those distinctions is a primary task of an editor.

To make good writing and editing choices, it’s helpful to know what’s considered standard or formal in the first place, not in order to apply that knowledge indiscriminately, but to use it to create or edit narration and dialogue that’s consistently natural, real, and believable. That’s where a good dictionary and style guide come in. They help us determine what’s “grammatical” so we can choose when to reject it for the best effect.

To see how these intentional grammar “goofs” work in creative writing, let’s look at a few issues commonly faced by writers.

Commas between Adjectives in Creative Writing

Do you sometimes dither over whether to put a comma between two or more adjectives?

a polished, spherical stone or a polished spherical stone?

a nice, big check or a nice big check?

Although the guidelines for deciding at CMOS 5.91 and CMOS 6.36–37 work well for any kind of writing, there are times when creative writers prefer to ignore them.

8 Tips for Creative Writers on Facebook

I often encourage creative writers to join one or more private Facebook groups where they can post questions and share resources with other writers. There are specialized groups for children’s book writers, romance writers, fantasy—you name it. In groups like “Ask a Book Editor,” writers can get help from amateur and professional editors. At “The Business of Being a Writer,” people share information about self-publishing, getting an agent, drafting and revising manuscripts, and financial matters. In groups like “Scrivener Users” or “PerfectIt Users,” writers share technical advice.

Although some groups are by invitation only, typically becoming a member of a private (or closed) group is as simple as clicking on Join and agreeing to the rules. Some discussions are closely moderated, others not. The writing groups I like best prohibit ads and self-promotion and insist that conversations stick to writing and publishing topics. They provide a pet-free zone where you don’t have to see what anyone else is cooking for dinner.

Style and Grammar in Promotional Copy

Anyone familiar with the grammar and style rules and guidelines in CMOS knows they come with a lot of qualifiers: normally, in most cases, in running text, in regular prose, depending on the context—I could go on and on. In life, very few rules are meant to cover every situation. The same is true in CMOS.

This is especially so when it comes to writing and editing marketing copy, something more and more authors are doing for themselves. Indie authors often design their own book covers and ads and write their own press releases. A few weeks ago we looked at the liberties we take when writing or editing blurbs. This week we’ll consider more visual types of promotion.

Abbreviations in Fiction

 

A great many common abbreviations* behave perfectly well in any fiction or nonfiction context, including dialogue, when the general guidelines in CMOS are observed: Mr., Ms., CEO, p.m., PhD, UFO. Editors should have no quarrel with them, as long as they’re styled consistently. If it’s 11:00 a.m. in chapter 1, it shouldn’t be 2 PM in chapter 3. That’s what style sheets are for.

Nonfiction versus Fiction

On the other hand, some of Chicago’s advice for wrangling abbreviations (see CMOS 10.3) can be safely ignored by fiction writers and editors. In a novel or short story,

Crediting Images at an Author Website

Your author website probably has a nice banner image, and if you blog, you probably look online for eye-catching artwork to illustrate or decorate your posts or pages. Maybe your About page features a professional headshot or images from book signings or other events. When you borrow images from another creator, whether you found them in printed form, online, or crumpled in your mother’s coat pocket, there will be times when you’re obliged to acknowledge that the work isn’t yours.

In printed books, such credits can appear in captions, footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographies. Sometimes credits are gathered on the copyright page or in a list of illustrations. But those options weren’t exactly invented with your website vibe in mind. Here, I’ll explain how you can easily adapt several of these traditional crediting methods for website use.

Formatting Text Messages in Fiction

 

 

In our Fiction+ series, we set out to help CMOS users adapt Chicago style to creative writing contexts. Sometimes, Chicago’s general guidelines already work just fine; other times, they need a little noodge to sit comfortably on a page of fiction. And often, as is the case in this post, they are just one option among many that may suit the material.

So my aim today isn’t to decide the best way to format text messages in fiction, but to show how different stylings suit different kinds of work and to point out problems that might arise.

How to Edit Blurbs

 

Blurbs are quotations of praise that appear on book covers and jackets, in press releases, on author websites, posters, and ads, in social media, and in the unnumbered pages at the beginning of a novel or creative nonfiction book. They may be solicited or excerpted from published reviews. Any writer or publisher who finds it hard to get attention in the traditional review press may be especially motivated to solicit blurbs from influential writers or celebrities.

“Had had”? Flashbacks and the Past Perfect

Novelists are sometimes urged to eliminate the past-perfect tense from their sentences, and copyeditors are sometimes trained to search out those auxiliary “hads” and lop them off from their verbs. What exactly is the past perfect? And what’s wrong with using it?

When Page Numbers Don’t Help

 

Editors are never happy. First they throw a fit if you send in a manuscript without page numbers, but once you send them a paginated work, they complain when you try to discuss a sentence on page 67. What’s the deal?

Creative writers will benefit from understanding what editors and copyeditors face when it’s time to discuss changes to your manuscript.

Numbers in Creative Writing

 

 

When we think about writing numbers, we tend to think of research papers, financial reports, sports columns, and other quantity-laden nonfiction settings. But novelists and playwrights and poets also puzzle over how to style numbers. Some happily leave such matters to their copyeditors, while others spend valuable writing time out of a compulsion to get it “right.” If you’re the latter type (or their copyeditor), read on for comfort and advice.

Do You Overstep When Editing Fiction? Three Easy Cures

The other day, I ran across this line in a recent novel by a best-selling American writer (key words are disguised):

His disposition warmed faster than did the gradually dawning day.

I couldn’t help wondering: Did the writer write it that way? And the copyeditor thought it was fine? Or did the editor bully the writer into “correcting” the sentence by adding “did”?

Why would an editor insist on such awkwardness? No doubt from a doubly wrongheaded conviction that fiction isn’t exempt from formal English and that certain familiar wordings are somehow incorrect. But there’s nothing ungrammatical about “His disposition warmed faster than the gradually dawning day.”

I can think of three obvious ways overeager copyeditors get writers into trouble. Let’s take a look.

Can I Put an iPhone in My Novel?

Short answer: Yes.

Now and then, a writer or editor asks our online Q&A whether mentioning a brand name in a work of fiction requires permission or the addition of the trademark (™) or registered (^®) symbol.

Fortunately, in works published in the United States there’s no need to sidetrack readers with unsightly sentences like “Her iPhone^® slipped from her fingers and into the lake.” Anyone who reads fiction regularly already knows this. Mentioning a brand name in a work of fiction is generally considered fair use* unless it goes so far as to infringe on the rights of the owner. (More on that below.)

This freedom of mention in fiction is basically the same as for nonfiction, journalism, blog posts, and other published prose, but there are reasons to take care when using the names of real products in any work.

Preparing an Audiobook for a Narrator Who Isn’t You

Recently I read through a book to make notes for a professional voice actor who would be reading it for an audiobook production. Luckily, she turned out to be a genius at reading my mind and dodging most of the little landmines I had overlooked. The experience was eye-opening; I’m sure I could do a better job now and prevent some of the problems I heard on the recording.

Sure, You Got A’s in English—But Do You Know Where Commas Go?

A few months ago in a conference session, a group of novelists digressed into good-natured complaints about being copyedited. One writer drew a lot of laughs saying, “I mean, I got A’s in English! I know where the freaking commas go!”* Others nodded in recognition and comradery.

I bit my tongue. I really wanted to say—as gently as possible—I’m sorry dear, but you freaking don’t.

“Hazel and I’s puppy”? When Fiction Meets Bad Grammar

 

 

“Hazel and I’s Puppy. The. Cutest. Ever.”

In editing formal prose, we fix nonstandard English without hesitation. But in editing creative works, we often need to throw out the stylebook so a narrator or character in a novel or play can abuse grammar to good effect. The guideline is “believability”: would a character naturally use such a phrase, or would they speak more formally?

When Characters Speak: Formatting Dialogue

In novels and stories and other creative works, words spoken by a character are normally set off from the narrative with quotation marks, and the speaker is identified in the run of text by tags like “she said.” This is not only Chicago style—it’s an old convention that continues to dominate literature today. To help readers keep track of who’s speaking without the constant repetition of tags, it’s also traditional to start a new paragraph when the speaker changes.

Here’s an example from Ji-li Jiang’s memoir, Red Scarf Girl (New York: Harper Trophy, 1997):

Fiction+ for Creative Writers and Their Editors

Although I officially retired from my work at the Chicago Manual in December, I couldn’t say no to an opportunity to continue hanging around the CMOS Online Shop Talk blog when Russell Harper—the new editor—invited me to share a new corner of the blog with him called Fiction+. There we’ll focus on how to cope when Chicago style rules don’t quite seem to fit the creative context of a novel, story, poem, or play.

Russell kicked things off last week with a post on comma splices; today I interview Janet Burroway, author of the classic textbook Writing Fiction, a staple in creative writing classes that has just been issued in a new 10th edition.

If you’re interested in creative writing or editing, be sure to check out Fiction+. You can sign up for alerts if you want to be sure to catch new posts, and I’ll continue to give you a heads-up here.

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Photo: Woman Writing, by August Macke (1887–1914), courtesy Wikimedia Commons

 

Life as a Copyeditor

Do you ever find at the end of workday that even though you know darned well you weren’t slacking for even ten minutes, somehow you didn’t make any progress in editing your manuscript?

Or do you ever try to explain to someone why even though you put in forty or fifty hours a week, your editing time is way, way less?