Inventing Reality Editing Service

Delete Redundancies for Tighter Manuscript

Among the most common mistakes I see when editing novice writers’ manuscripts is the use of redundant words. A redundancy exists when the modifying words aren’t needed because they say exactly what the word being modified implies. For example, “rich heiress” is redundant as an heiress by definition is rich.

Writer Samuel Delaney recommends a simple test to see if you’ve got a redundancy in your writing. First, replace the modifier with its antonym. So if you had the phrase “rich heiress,” you’d replace “rich” with “poor” to get “poor heiress.” If this new phrase is contradictory or ridiculous sounding, you probably have a redundancy.

Of course, there is an outside chance that given the context of your story, you might write “poor heiress” – for example, you could be writing tongue-in-cheek that the young woman has inherited a bankrupt estate. But more often than not, this isn’t the case.

Fortunately, redundancies are easy to fix. Simply delete the modifier. Just write “heiress.”

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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:

Great Writing Quotes by Author Anne Sexton

I think of myself as writing for one person, that one perfect reader who understands and loves.

The beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that’s saying a lot.

All I am is the trick of words writing themselves.

It’s a little mad, but I believe I am many people. When I am writing a poem, I feel I am the person who should have written it.

Craft is a trick you make up to let you write the poem.

When I’m writing, I know I’m doing the thing I was born to do.

We are all writing God’s poem.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Consider Using Counterplotting in Your Novel – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for July 8, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Consider Using Counterplotting in Your Novel
One solid plotting strategy for a long novel – though it also will work in a novella or a long short story – is to split the main characters into two groups and alternate the focus of scenes or chapters between them. The two groups then reunite at the story’s climax. This technique is called counterplotting. It’s often is used in quest novels. READ MORE

Marketing Tip: How to Do a Book Reading/Signing
Many authors are happy to simply do what they enjoy most, which is write. You also have to promote your published books, though, and a time-honored way of doing so is by making presentations, such as readings and signings, at libraries, bookstores and other businesses that might carry your titles. My book Nail Your Book Reading and Signing covers just how to do that with easy to understand, practical tips. Topics covered include: potential locations for a book presentation; arranging, preparing and promoting your presentation; creating visuals for the presentation; avoiding stage fright during a presentation; setting up back of room sales, and more. The tips come from a long-time author who has done dozens of book readings and signings as well as advised hundreds of his writing clients about how to give a presentation. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Center on Internal Flaw for Compelling Story
To make a story more compelling, consider structuring it around an internal flaw in the main character. An internal flaw is some personal trait that makes a character less than perfect – perhaps being quick to anger, possibly suffering from jealousy or envy, maybe believing his outlook on the world is the only correct one. As none of us are perfect, an internal flaw makes a character who may otherwise be quite heroic appear more realistic to readers. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Indie Authors Should Use Cash Basis Accounting
As an indie author with limited expenses and a small amount of revenue that isn’t garnered through credit, you want to use simple, straightforward cash basis accounting. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: When Do You Need a Manuscript Editor?
You’ve finished your novel or short story but are beginning to think that maybe someone else should look it over before you send it off. You do an Internet search and find Web sites for manuscript editors – also known as book doctors – who will proofread and critique your manuscript for a fee. So is a manuscript editor necessary? LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Target Specific Audiences to Sell Your Book
Not everyone will be interested in your book. Some people simply will not read westerns, others will not read mysteries. Some people have no interest in your detailed guidebook to elegant napkin folding or a first-person account of the Grenada invasion. But there ARE people who will be interested in any of these books. Your marketing challenge is to find them – and then get your book out in front of them. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “The Marks of a Feather” by Imee C. Nudas
A recent editing client, Imee C. Nudas, has published her first fantasy poem, “The Marks of a Feather”! The long-form poem explores if the truth behind the Marks of the Feather truly can vanquish all dark curses forever. If you like fairy tales and poetry, this is your book! 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 July 15, 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 Andre Maurois

Almost all great writers have as their motif, more or less disguised, the passage from childhood to maturity, the clash between the thrill of expectation and the disillusioning knowledge of truth. ‘Lost Illusion’ is the undisclosed title of every novel.

A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he does by giving it a shape.

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.

The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it… I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.

Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors; by trying at the outset to imitate them; by daring then to be original; by destroying one’s first productions.

The need to express one’s self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

What is a Scene and a Vignette in Fiction? – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for July 1, 2025

Plotting Your Book: What is a Scene and a Vignette in Fiction?
A major division of a story is a scene, in which a dramatic action occurs, usually involving the same characters at a single locale. Stories typically consist of several scenes, all of which correspond with the opening, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement. READ MORE

Marketing Tips: How to Build Your Author’s Website
You need a website if you’re a serious author. A website is the hub where readers can go to find out about your books, a little about you, where to find you on social media, how to contact you, and more. Fortunately, you can construct a website for very little cost right in the comfort of your own home. My book Build Your Author’s Website explains how, using easy to understand, practical explanations. It covers such diverse topics as finding a Website host, deciding what your website will look like, pages needed for your website, share buttons, pictures, your website text’s readability, and driving traffic to your website. The tips here come from an author and professional editor who began building websites more than two decades ago and has advised hundreds of his writing clients about the process. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: How to Create a Memorable Protagonist
Often the secret to writing a good story is to create a memorable protagonist. After all, usually the most relatable element of a book for readers are the characters. Readers will see something in the protagonist that matches who they are or who they wish to be. Indeed, years after forgetting the story’s plot and its message, readers will remember the characters and their best lines. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: DRM: To Enable or Not to Enable
When self-publishing your ebook on Kindle, you’ll be asked if you want to enable “Digital Rights Management.” If you enable it, the Kindle version of the book will include coding that makes the copying of it more difficult. The goal is to eliminate piracy. Authors, publishers and editors hold very different views about the value of DRM, with some recommending it and others advising against it. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Watch for Verb Tense Shifts in Your Writing
A common mistake among novice writers is shifting within their story so that events occurred in the now but then in the next paragraph happen in the past. This is a sign that the writer is changing verb tenses. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Promote Book with Goodreads Author’s Page
A number of websites exist where readers go to find more great books by sharing their thoughts about what they’ve just read. For the moment, Goodreads appears to be the most popular of those sites. Because of this, savvy authors have set up their own pages on Goodreads – not just because they’re voracious readers but because doing so is a good way to promote their own books. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Geo Girl Maxine” by Ann James
A long-time editing client, Ann James, has published her latest children’s book, “Geo Girl Maxine.” Maxine –known to her friends as “Geo Girl” – has a passion for geography that sets her apart. While others might yawn at maps and landforms, she finds adventure in every continent, ocean, and river. Determined to share her excitement, Max dreams up fun ways to get her friends interested in the wonders of the world. CHECK IT OUT

Great Writing Quotes by Author Vanna Bonta

The real story is not the plot, but how the characters unfold by it.

Teaching English and teaching Writing are two separate things.

My primary motivation for writing is to communicate my perceptions and insights into the human condition, in a way that may provide understanding, comfort, and company to others.

Language achieves soul only when it’s applied as a tool, used by those who imbue it with what they have had the courage and honesty to perceive and feel.

It is interesting to note that poetry, a literary device whose very construct involves the use of words, is itself the word of choice by persons grasping to describe something so beautiful it is marvelously ineffable.

Poetry isn’t an activity, it’s a way life is lived.

The primary dues a writer or any artist pays is to remain sentient, and to forfeit the illusionary luxury of such anesthetics as avoidance, numbness, and denials.

Any literature, when it arrives at being good literature, transcends genre. The category “Women Poets” is bizarre and irrelevant. It’s a subcategory of Poets, but there is not a “Men Poets” category.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Use Reversals to Increase Suspense in Story – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for June 24, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Use Reversals to Increase Suspense in Story
As your main character attempts to resolve the story’s central problem, he should suffer reversals. Reversals occur when the main character’s effort to solve the crisis actually worsens the situation so that the problem is more difficult to rectify. READ MORE

Marketing Tips: How to Build Your Author’s Platform
An author’s platform is absolutely vital to your success as an indie writer. Consisting of your website, social media, and outreach efforts, the platform gives you the tools to reach others who might buy your book. It also is a way for potential readers to stumble upon your book. My book Create Your Author’s Platform helps you build those tools to promote your books. Using practical, easy-to-understand explanations, it covers constructing a website, blogging, mailing lists, newsletters, social media, press releases, and book readings/signings. The tips come from a professional author and editor who has built a platform for his own books and has advised hundreds of other writers about how to do so. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: How to Create Suspense in Your Story
Conflict – the competition a character faces as attempting to achieve a goal – always is the core of a story. But a good story is more than just a fight between a hero and a villain or an inner monologue in which one struggles what to do. Good storytelling involves suspense, that tension in which the reader is uncertain how the conflict will be resolved. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: How to Create Page Breaks in Your Ebook
When creating an ebook that you’re self-publishing, you want it to appear as professional as possible. Appearance, of course, certainly is no substitute for content. Still, a good, reader-friendly layout can make the ebook easier to follow. One way to accomplish that is to include “page breaks” in the text so that different sections and parts of the book start on a new ebook page. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Avoid Giving Readers a Big Info Dump
An info dump is a chunk of exposition that is insufficiently integrated into the story being told. It’s also known as an “expository lump” and is a specific kind of exposition. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Ensure Amazon Page is of Highest Quality
The Amazon.com page that sells your book may perhaps be the most important item in your entire marketing effort. All of your press releases, news articles, blog reviews of your book, radio appearances, website pages and more probably will point potential readers to this page. It is where potential readers can purchase your book. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Defending the International Order in Crisis” by David F. Manning
A book I edited this past for winter for a client this month was named the No. 1 New Release in International Political Treaties on Amazon.com. David F. Manning’s “Defending the International Order in Crisis: The United States, Europe, Russia, the Global South at Geopolitical Odds in a Multipolar World” examines how the world order has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union and hoe the United states might adjust its foreign policy and military strategy to what has occurred since then. CHECK IT OUT

Great Writing Quotes by Author Graham Swift

When I am writing, I’m very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.

If you can’t stand your own company alone in a room for long hours, or, when it gets tough, the feeling of being in a locked cell, or, when it gets tougher still, the vague feeling of being buried alive-then don’t be a writer.

Part of the very impulse of writing for me is actually wanting to get away from myself.

Structure that really pays off is all based on emotion. I don’t write down an elaborate plan. It’s really done by feel. It’s one area of my writing that I think I’ve got surer at as I’ve evolved. In my work you often get an abrupt shift in time, a jolt. But the emotional logic will take the reader on. I hope. I trust. After all, our memories do not work with any sequential logic.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

How to Build a Scene for Your Story – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for June 17, 2025

Plotting Your Book: How to Build a Scene for Your Story
When penning a story, concentrating on its smallest chunk – the scene – marks a good approach. Rather than be overwhelmed by the complexity and multiple layers of the entire story, focusing on this basic dramatic unit makes writing more manageable. READ MORE

The Best Guide to Promoting Your Book!
My book 7 Minutes a Day to Promoting Your Book is a practical, how-to guide that takes you step-by-step through implementing a simple but effective marketing plan for your book – with just 7 minutes of work required a day. You’ll complete short, skillful exercises that allow you to publicize and sell your novel or nonfiction title as you read the book, all the while getting the encouragement and motivation needed to keep you going. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Establish Characters’ Intentions in Every Scene
Characters’ intentions drive your plot. When they are the focus of your writing, your story has action, tension and suspense because some characters will oppose and even temporarily thwart your story’s protagonist. The consequences of that action sets up the next scene. When those intentions aren’t the focus, the story drifts with irrelevant scenes, and character development suffers. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Self-Published Authors Usually Don’t Need EIN
Authors who self-publish generally don’t need an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Should you ghostwrite books or freelance, however, you probably will need one. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: How to Find Lit Agents, Publishers for Your Writing
Once you’ve written your novel or short story, the question arises of where to you send it. If following the traditional publishing route, the answer depends on what type of work you’ve written. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Build a Website to Promote Your New Book
When an editor or marketing expert tells you to get a website for promoting your book, you probably have one of two reactions: 1) “I can’t afford that” or 2) “I haven’t a clue how to do that; I wouldn’t know who to contact, and I can’t build one myself because I don’t understand anything about web page design or this html code I vaguely recall is needed to construct a website.” This editor is here to tell you that there’s no need to worry. For very little money, you easily can build a website with just limited knowledge of how they’re constructed or how they work. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Shooting at Shadows” by Forest McMullin
A recent editing client of mine, Forest McMullin, has published his second book, the thriller “Shooting at Shadows”! Ethan McGuire’s relentless pursuit of explosive stories has cost him his family, his integrity, and now–possibly–his life. While documenting the rise of white supremacist movements in Western New York, Ethan encounters a world of neo-Nazis, heavily armed survivalists, rogue FBI agents, and violent criminals, all with something to hide. But when a crew of ruthless bank robbers starts hunting him for photos he doesn’t even know he has, the stakes turn deadly. As his enemies close in and his family becomes a target, Ethan must expose the truth–before it buries him. READ MORE

Great Writing Quotes by Author Barbara Pym

The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things . . . the trivial pleasure like cooking, one’s home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.

Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.

My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the ‘stream of consciousness’ type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.

Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends.

I imagine the proverb about too many cooks spoiling the broth can be applied to writing as well as anything else. The poetical or literary broth is better cooked by one person.

Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks: