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grammar

Asta’s Annotations: Editing Tips for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Writers

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Today I thought I would cover three of the common editing queries I see from science fiction and fantasy writers. 1) World and Race Names The common issue here appears to be whether or not to capitalise. My advice is to follow standard English conventions, unless you have a strong reason not to do so. In either case, the real key is consistency. Don’t swap and change from chapter to chapter; make a decision on your preference and stick to it. Here is an example based on common English usage, followed by a fantasy rendering. In Denmark, many Danes enjoy … Read more

Asta’s Annotations: The Death of Punctuation, or the Decline of the Reader?

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Anyone who knows me well will know semicolons are punctuation marks about which my views are passionate. Unfortunately, many digital/small publishing houses do not appear to agree. Notes from editors frequently come through to me with requests to remove all (or at least some) of my semicolons since they are ‘specialised punctuation’. My response to this (in my head) is to ask: Since when? Now, this column is by no means intended as a rant against any publishers or fellow editors; I merely use it to illustrate a point. I fully accept that each publishing house has its own preferences, … Read more

Submissions Week Day Two: Writing Issues – Typos, Grammar and Style

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Submissions Week

Hey all, Welcome to our second annual submissions week – were we’ll talk about all things submissions. This is a great opportunity for our newer authors to learn things from our veterans – how to prepare your story (whether it’s a short story, a novella, a novel, poem etc) for submission to a publisher. Yesterday we tackled manuscript formatting – today we’ll tackle what’s actually in the thing. When you submit a story, you want it to be as good as it can possibly be. If you submit a perfectly formatted manuscript that is full or grammatical errors or style … Read more