Inventing Reality Editing Service

Use Subplot to Give Story More Depth – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Sept. 16, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Use Subplot to Give Story More Depth
One way to give your story depth is to include a subplot, which is a secondary plot line. This sometimes is referred to as the B story, a term from screenwriting. READ MORE

Writing Advice: Mastering Point of View
For beginning writers, point of view often is the most difficult element to master. Without really understanding the role point of view plays in storytelling, aspiring authors frequently select the wrong one. Sometimes they prefer to write or read a specific point of view, so they just go with that, even though it’s not the best choice for their story. My book Mastering Point of View addresses those and many other issues writers face with this element of fiction. It examines the three main points of view – first, third and second – and the different forms each one can take. It looks at when using a specific point of view is to a story’s benefit and when it’s to the story’s detriment. It also discusses how to select your viewpoint character and why a consistent point of view is vital. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Most Popular Point of View Types in Stories
Among the most important decisions a fiction writer can make is what point of view to use in a story. Point of view determines what aspects of a story will be left out and deeply affects how the reader relates to the main character and interprets the tale’s message. The various points of view available to novelists and short story writers generally are grouped into three categories: first person; second person; and third person. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: You’ve Self-Published? You’re a Sole Proprietor!
The moment you’ve self-published a book – presuming you’ve done nothing else to set up your business – you’re a sole proprietor. That’s right, you’ve started your own business, ipso facto! READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Use Third-Person Objective for Neutral Narration
A popular third-person point of view in fiction is third-person objective. This occurs when a narrator outside of the story tells what occurs without giving the characters’ internal thoughts, opinions or feelings. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Use Various Kinds of Presentations to Pitch Book
Public presentations are a great way for authors to sell their books. Usually such presentations allow you to get publicity for the event, meaning that those attending usually have a strong interest in your book’s topic. Such a captive audience can be introduced to other books you’ve written, increasing sales of your older titles. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “The Jungle Didn’t Kill Me” by Shamso Abdullahi Ahmed
A summer editing client has published her first book – the memoir The Jungle Didn’t Kill Me. Written by Shamso Abdullahi Ahmed, the book recounts her journey from war-torn Somalia to the United States. During the civil war, she lost her mother as a young girl. Orphaned, she began her journey to start a new life, first traveling to Kenya then South Africa, where she is betrayed and forced to continue her journey. After flying to Brazil, she traverses South and Central America on foot until she can reach the United States and find a new home that offers her peace and freedom. The Jungle Didn’t Kill Me is available in paperback and ebook. CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires Sept. 23, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Great Writing Quotes by Author Maxine Kumin

To write about the monstrous sense of alienation the poet feels in this culture of polarized hatreds is a way of staying sane. With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness in an inhuman world.

I would not recommend poetry as a career. In the first place, it’s impossible in this time and place – in this culture – to make poetry a career. The writing of poetry is one thing. It’s an obsession, the scratching of a divine itch, and has nothing to do with money. You can, however, make a career out of being a poet by teaching, traveling around, and giving lectures. It’s a thin living at best.

The tougher the form the easier it is for me to handle the poem, because the form gives permission to be very gut honest about feelings.

I didn’t write my poems because I wanted to, they were wrung from me. I had to write them.

One way of ending the poem is to turn it back on itself, like a serpent with its tail in its mouth.

My writing time needs to surround itself with empty stretches, or at least unpeopled ones, for the writing takes place in an area of suspension as in a hanging nest that is almost entirely encapsulated.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

When and How Do I Get My Royalties?

After countless hours of writing and revising, wringing your hands over the cover design, and struggling with formatting glitches, you’ve finally done – you’ve self-published your book! You’re euphoric, but one nagging question remains: When and how do I get my royalties?

Technically, most self-published authors don’t receive royalties. Royalties are a publisher’s payment made to an author. Since you’re self-publishing, you’re probably the publisher. Because of this, some print on demand companies don’t pay “royalties” to their authors but use several other terms, like profit or revenue.

Of course, you’re the author, so what’s the difference, really? Royalties is simply one of those words whose definition is morphing to keep with modern realities. And it really doesn’t change the question: When and how do I get my money?

As with most corporate publishers, royalties from print on demand publishing are on a per-sale basis. Both royalties largely depend on a percentage of the retail cost. If the book sells for $10, and you receive 10 percent for royalties, then you earn a dollar for every book sold. Sell 100 books, and you’ve made a hundred bucks.

A major difference is authors with corporate publishers typically receive an advance against future sales. So once the author delivers the book to the publisher, the latter cuts the former a check. The author won’t receive any royalties, however, until total sales surpass the amount of the royalties check. So if the author receives a dollar for every book sold, and the advance is for $10,000, book sales will have to top 10,000 before royalties are received. Self-publishing, in contrast, offers no advance, and you are paid out your share of the book sales usually within 30-90 days.

In self-publishing, the amount you earn per book sale usually varies based on the retail price. Kindle Direct Publishing, for example, requires that an ebook be priced at a certain level (as of this writing, $2.99) to receive 70% of each sale; ebooks falling below that price can only receive 35% of each sale. The length of the book, the paper quality, whether or not color is used, and other factors also can affect the price, depending on which format (paperback, ebook, audiobook) you publish.

Without question, self-publishing gives you a higher return for royalties than corporate publishing. The challenge for self-publishing authors is to obtain the sales that would equal the corporate publisher’s advance. Almost all authors, even those who’ve published a couple of books, will have to promote their own titles, however, so self-publishing often is the smarter route to go.

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Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

Don’t End Novel with Cliffhanger – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Sept. 9, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Don’t End Novel with Cliffhanger
One of the new writing trends among self-published authors is to end their novel on a cliffhanger. The idea is that this will generate interest in purchasing the author’s next novel, which is a sequel. Unless readers know they’ve picked up a trilogy or a book in a story arc, most will find a cliffhanger ending unsatisfying and wonder why the author didn’t finish the story. READ MORE

Writing Tips: How to Create Your Story’s Characters
Successful stories require characters who face some challenge or conflict. While coming up with such story ideas is easy enough, many writers struggle with ensuring their characters are interesting so the reader will want to follow them on their journey. My book Create Your Story’s Characters is all about making that process easier for writers. It examines how characters fit among a story’s basic elements then discusses the different kinds of characters. Next, it hones in on those types of characters that make great protagonists – three-dimensional, dynamic characters who gradually grow so that by the end of the story they are better, wiser people who can overcome the challenge they face. Lastly, it looks at some common pitfalls that beginning authors stumble into when creating characters. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Utilize Parallel Structure for Crisper Writing
To make your writing smoother when listing items, consider using parallel structure. This occurs when you follow the same grammatical pattern as providing a list of equal items or ideas within a sentence. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Do Self-Published Writers Need a Business Plan?
If self-publishing a book, do you need a business plan? The answer depends on your goals and objectives. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Forewords, Prefaces and Introductions
Before your actual book begins – particularly if writing nonfiction – you may want to include material that that introduces readers to it. The idea of these introductions is in large part to establish why readers actually should read the book. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: How to Land a Television or Radio Interview
A great way to promote your book is through a radio or television interview. Most likely the program you land on boasts a loyal audience that’s highly interested in your book’s topic. This can quickly translate not just to additional book sales but requests to appear on other, similar programs. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “The Gumbeaux Sistahs” by Jax Frey
If you enjoy Southern or women’s fiction, check out my editing client Jax Frey’s The Gumbeaux Sistahs. When Southern artist Judith Lafferty loses her long-time, prestigious museum job to a much younger man, she finds herself devastated, alone in her sixties, and on the brink of financial disaster. Enter the incomparable Gumbeaux Sistahs, who deliver day-old coffee to her front door as a ploy, then go on to kidnap her, feed her excellent gumbo, and come up with outrageous solutions to her problems. The Gumbeaux Sistahs is a heart-warming, smart story of friendship and unexpected shenanigans that you do not want to miss. The novel was a recent selection of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club. CHECK IT OUT

Great Writing Quotes by Author Uri Shulevitz

An author must learn the principles of good storytelling only in order to write better from the heart.

Don’t misuse the pencil and don’t torment the paper.

As I kept on writing I realized that the “what” came before the “how”…what I had to say was the most important thing and how to say it was of secondary importance.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Editing Tip: Don’t Worry About Being Satisfied

Having trouble with a passage? Simply write something different in the spot that bothers you. Even if you’re not satisfied with what you’ve just written, don’t worry about it. In a week, re-read the passage. Does what you’ve written now sound fine or does it still need revising?

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Should You Write a Happy or an Unhappy Ending? – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Sept. 2, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Should You Write a Happy or an Unhappy Ending?
When writing the climax your story, you’ll need to decide if the ending will be happy or unhappy. How should you choose which one to use? READ MORE

Writing Tips: How to Create Your Story’s Setting
All too often, writers give their story’s setting short shrift. Setting – the place and time of your story – can establish mood, tone and milieu. It can drive conflict in a story and develop your character. It can highlight themes and even be a “character” in your story. My new book, Build Your Story’s Setting, aims to help writers think of their story’s place and time in ways that elevate the tale to a new level. It begins by defining setting and its role in a story. From there, it moves on to the craftsmanship of describing a setting. Lastly, it looks at incorporating setting into your story’s plot and using it to reveal character while establishing theme. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: How Not to Create a Protagonist
You can have the greatest plot in the world, discuss a deep, universal theme, and write crisp, taut sentences, but if the reader can’t connect to your protagonist, the story will fall flat. Simply put, you always must create a protagonist the reader will root for. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Six Great Formulas for Writing a Nonfiction Title
To successfully market a nonfiction book, you’ll want a powerful title that grabs the reader. Unlike fiction, however, the nonfiction book not only has to catch the readers’ attention but give the reader an instant sense of what the book is about. As you compete with hundreds and sometimes even thousands of books writing about your topic, such a title will make your book stand out, which in turn means readers are more likely to click on it at Amazon.com or to pull it off a shelf at a bookstore. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Avoid Clever-Author Syndrome in Storytelling
When we’ve mastered some skill – say ball handling in basketball – we often like to show off. So when we’re on the sidewalk with the neighbor kids, we’ll spin the ball on a finger or perform some gravity-defying dribbling trick. When writers resort to such showing off in a story, they’re guilty of clever-author syndrome. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Increase Author Website Visits with Strategic SEO
Search Engine Optimization is another way to improve your page rank. As search engine robots and crawlers check over your website, they seek key words so that someone using a search engine gets sites that best match their needs. Simply incorporating certain keywords into your website text will improve the chances of someone finding your site when they search for those words. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Scapegoat: The Tommy Lee Hines Story” by Peggy Allen Towns
A couple of years ago, I edited this excellent book by Peggy Allen Towns, who writes about African American history. In 1978, the arrest of Tommy Lee Hines, a young black man with the mental capacity of a six-year-old, shook the city of Decatur, Alabama. This gripping story chronicles the untold narrative of an intellectually disabled man who finds himself trapped in a web of systemic racism, prejudices, and a legal system that needs reforming. As the sequence of events unfold, author Peggy Allen Towns captures the tragedy of Tommy Lee Hines that inspired a movement for change. CHECK IT OUT

Great Writing Quotes by Author Marla Frazee

The more personal and heartfelt the story is for the author and/or illustrator of the book, the more universal the emotion that can be gleaned from it.

Picture books are an emotional medium. They need to make us feel something.

Every word, every character in a picture book must count.

What I had to do was learn how to tell stories with my pictures. At first I didn’t even know what that meant because I thought I was already doing it. After all these years of drawing stories and trying to teach it, I think it boils down to a pretty simple rule: it takes time to get to know the characters in a book and the world they inhabit. My first sketches are always horrible. Stereotypical. Contrived. Generic. I have to put in the time in order to deepen them and have it all mean something.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Five Rules for Spelling Possessive Nouns

Most writers know that an “apostrophe s” is needed to show possession or ownership. Where that apostrophe goes, however, changes depending on whether the word is singular or plural and if it ends in s or not.

If the noun is singular and does not end in s, place the apostrophe between the word’s last letter and the apostrophe s: Jane’s, desk’s, car’s.

Should the singular noun end in s, just place an apostrophe after the word’s last letter. Don’t add an extra s:
CORRECT: dress’ (The dress’ hem needed to be raised.)
WRONG: dress’s

Generally, if the noun is plural and ends in s, place the apostrophe after the s: girls’, cities’, vehicles’. As most plural words end in s, don’t add an extra s:
CORRECT: boys’
WRONG: boys’s

If the noun is plural but doesn’t end in s, add an apostrophe s: men’s, women’s.

How to Come Up with Characters’ Names

One of the most important decisions you’ll make as a storyteller is the names if your characters. If the names don’t ring right with readers, it can wear on them despite that the rest of your story is exceptional. Consider that the primary male character in a romance novel typically has a very strong, masculine name, so Lucas and Griffin work as Alpha male names but Sheldon doesn’t. In science fiction’s “Star Trek,” several names were considered for the commander of the starship, the series’ lead, before “James T. Kirk” emerged as the best one.

So how do you come up with a character’s name? It’s a matter of searching for and playing with names until you land on the right-sounding one.

Here are some different techniques that clients I’ve worked with have used for coming up with character names:
• Anagram maker (works well for fantasy book)
• Ancient names (modernize them)
• Atlas (look up names of exotic foreign cities and towns, then alter the vowels and consonants; for example Nepal could become Palen or Palne)
• Baby name website/book
• Census records (works well for historical fiction)
• Dead languages (find a word in that language that describes your character; works well in science fiction or fantasy books)
• Google translate (put in a word that describes your character and then find the equivalent of it in a foreign language)
• History books (works well for historical fiction)
• Hymnals
• Obituaries
• Phone books
• Puns (works well for humor stories)
• Symbolic association (a good example is Luke Skywalker; this is like leaving a cookie for the reader)

If you write a lot and plan to publish a number of stories and novels, be sure to keep a name list. Each time you stumble across a great potential name, add it to the list. And while names aren’t interchangeable between characters, the discarded names from the today’s story might by the perfect name for tomorrow’s tale.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks: