A first draft is great, but seldom good enough.
by Andy Scheer
The author’s eagerness shone through his email. He’d just finished a manuscript, a 40,000-word nonfiction piece. He’d written it to encourage and inspire others in his occupation.
In two months, he’d attend a writers conference. He hoped I’d edit his manuscript — before the conference. To give me a sense of … Continue reading
Do you worry about what you capitalize and hyphenate?
by Andy Scheer
For hardcore word nerds, there’s big news from Chicago. When they heard it at the recent meeting of the American Copy Editors Society, people cheered.
An editor with the Chicago Manual of Style said their seventeenth edition, to release this fall, will advise that Internet be lowercased, not capitalized. … Continue reading
They’re your key to 3-D writing.
by Andy Scheer
John Steinbeck applies the principle in the first paragraph of Travels With Charley, about his 1960 drive “in search of America,” with a pick-up camper and a standard poodle.
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this … Continue reading