Empower Your Writing with these Simple Tricks Empower Your Writing with these Simple Tricks By Megan Cutler | May 6, 2019 | Comments 1 comment Since I started these editing guides, we’ve covered a lot. We started with the basics of grammar and punctuation. We also spent some time on passive voice, character perspective, and how to enhance character voice. Of course, none of this advice can replace having an editor or betas to help pinpoint your mistakes, but the … Read More Read More
Making The Most Of Character Perspective Making The Most Of Character Perspective By Megan Cutler | March 11, 2019 | Comments 2 comments Last week I talked about the different perspectives, or points of view, available to writers. I covered my personal pros and cons for each and touched on the fact that they balance out pretty well, depending on the purpose of your project. But since the chosen point of view often sets the tone and atmosphere … Read More Read More
A Perspective Primer – Which is Best? A Perspective Primer – Which is Best? By Megan Cutler | March 4, 2019 | Comments 1 comment So far my editing guides have covered grammar rules like punctuation and passive voice. Aside from those, my most frequent notes center around perspective. But unlike the other guides I’ve written, perspective can’t be handled with a short paragraph of guidelines. Perspective, or point of view, is a stylistic choice every writer must make in … Read More Read More
How to Prune Passive Voice How to Prune Passive Voice By Megan Cutler | January 21, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment I’ve been editing for friends for several years now, which is one of the reasons I’ve decided to start editing as a service. As a result, I see a lot of the same errors over and over. As soon as I started noticing them in the work of others, I found them in my own … Read More Read More
An Art A Day – My Inktober 2018 Experience An Art A Day – My Inktober 2018 Experience By Megan Cutler | December 3, 2018 | Comments 2 comments It’s been a long time since I sat down to seriously draw a picture. I used to doodle all the time, and not just in the margins of my classroom notebooks. I used to love drawing pictures of my characters, even if I never considered myself any good. For the first three years of my … Read More Read More
How to Punctuate with Precision – A Helpful Guide for Indies How to Punctuate with Precision – A Helpful Guide for Indies By Megan Cutler | November 26, 2018 | Comments 1 comment Back in September, I put together a quick reference editing guide to help my fellow indies with their editing woes. I wanted to provide tools that would make the editing process easier. But I also wanted to help indies spot a skillful editor – a daunting task considering the wide variety of options. That guide … Read More Read More
My Work is Absolutely as Valuable as Yours My Work is Absolutely as Valuable as Yours By Megan Cutler | October 22, 2018 | Comments 5 comments The biggest struggle I face as an indie author has nothing to do with inspiration or even with sales. It’s time. There’s never enough time to complete all the tasks on my to-do list. Worse, I have to defend every second of that time from people who act as if my work should be finished … Read More Read More
Make Line Editing Easy – A Helpful Guide for Indies Make Line Editing Easy – A Helpful Guide for Indies By Megan Cutler | September 24, 2018 | Comments 3 comments The top piece of feedback I note in reviews of self-published fiction is lack of proper editing. We’re talking about line edits here; basic spelling, grammar and structure. This tends to be the first thing most readers notice, because it breaks up the flow and makes the story difficult to read. A high number of … Read More Read More
Characters Won’t Always Do What You Want Characters Won’t Always Do What You Want By Megan Cutler | September 3, 2018 | Comments 1 comment Characters are fickle creatures. They’ll waltz into your stories, demand more than you ever intended to give them, and linger long after you’ve finished writing about them. Mine like to whisper extra tidbits about their lives, which I use for writing prompt responses. Characters get away with all this because they’re a critical component of … Read More Read More
The Dark Side of Fandom The Dark Side of Fandom By Megan Cutler | August 6, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment This past weekend (as I write this) my husband and I saw Solo: A Star Wars Story. It was always a given we would go, even though the trailers didn’t catch my attention. But we were both shocked to find that only a week after opening, it had been shoved into the smallest theater in … Read More Read More