Blog posts

Home > Blog posts (Page 9)

Meet Desiree Villena: a human VA In recent blogposts, I've referred to ProWritingAid as an editing VA (virtual assistant). My guest today is a real VA, Desiree Villena. Desiree is a blog writer for Reedsy, the online marketplace that connects self-publishing authors with the world’s best editors, designers, and marketers. On Reedsy, Desiree also offers her services as a proofreader. Reedsy publish many excellent articles and this one on 'how to edit a book' is...

In my previous three posts on the reports available in ProWritingAid, I explored many reports. On 13 April, we looked at the Core group of reports. On 27 April, we looked at the Repeats group and the Structure group. On 11 May, we looked at the Readability group. But we're not done yet! Today's post looks at reports available in three more groups: the Consistency group the Fiction group, and the Plagiarism group. The Consistency...

ProWritingAid: your VA editor In my previous two posts on the reports available in ProWritingAid, I explored many reports. On 13 April, we looked at the Core group of reports. On 27 April, we looked at the Repeats group and the Structure group. But we're not done yet! Today's post looks at reports available in the Readability group. The Readability group The Readability report The first report - Readability - provides a series of readability...

My guest today is Rachel Hobbs, author of the Stones of Power series of dark fantasy novels. Rachel is no newcomer to Scrivener, nor to this blog - she was my guest in 2016. Time has moved on and Rachel's first book of her series, Shadow Stained has just been published and is now available on Amazon. Welcome back, Rachel! How do you feel about Scrivener? Since discovering Scrivener, I’ve never looked back. I...

ProWritingAid: your VA editor In my previous post on the reports available in ProWritingAid, I only touched on the Core group: Realtime, Summary, Style, Grammar, Thesaurus, Overused and Combo.But there is so much more! In this post, you will find yet more useful reports, each one helping you to create a clean and well-written manuscript, ahead of sending material to your editor. The Repeats group The two reports in the Repeats group might...

My guest today is Denise Brixey, author of the Harry the Wonder Cat series of cosy mysteries. Denise has been a member of my RedPen Mentoring team of writers for several years. I've encouraged her throughout her publishing journey and I'm delighted to announce that her second book The Jamaican Mission is available for preorder now and is being published TOMORROW on Tuesday, 21 April. I'm also delighted that Denise decided to...

VA = virtual assistant ProWritingAid is a grammar checker, style editor, and writing mentor in one package. Before showing your WIP to another human, and asking for feedback, run the text through ProWritingAid first. That way, your manuscript will be as clean as possible, and your human reviewers can focus on its effect on them, from the reader's perspective, without being distracted by any typos. If you have reached the stage of employing...

A TrackChanges view of your editing  While editors learn how to use Scrivener to provide editing services for their author clients, and authors become used to receiving feedback in Scrivener, I'm sure there will always be a need for a TrackChanges view of what editing has been done, and by whom. Word is not the only software with this facility. Scrivener's snapshot feature provides the same insight into progress made to date. How...

Revision mode is Scrivener's TrackChanges Editors who are Scrivener lovers but using Word and the TrackChanges facility to provide feedback to their clients should be delighted to discover Scrivener's Revision Mode. Together with Annotations, it replicates the functionality of TrackChanges. Authors keen to self-publish will also be delighted if/when editors provide editorial services in Scrivener, instead of the current 'industry standard' Word. This post explains the process for the editor and, then, how...

Every editor has their own way of working I'm sharing how I work, wearing my 'developmental editor's hat', with authors who plan to self-publish, many of whom are new to the publishing process. I use Scrivener for all my writing and, if that's what the authors in my RedPen Mentoring group choose as their writing environment, I provide editing services for them in Scrivener. I'm hoping some editors will consider providing the same...