Among the most annoying features of Microsoft Word’s Track Changes program is that every time you reopen a file, the corrections show up. To not see the corrections, you have to toggle the “Display for Review” setting to “No Markup.”

This is a default setting because Microsoft says it doesn’t want you to share with others an edited document in which you haven’t approved the corrections. That approach may be fine for micromanagers and control freaks in the corporate world, but for the rest of us, most of the time it’s just plain annoying.

The easy solution to the problem, Microsoft says is to approve or disapprove of each correction. But if you receive a manuscript back from an editor with several hundred proofreading corrections, that’s a time-consuming task that you probably consider unnecessary.

Fortunately, you can change the default setting so those pesky proofreading corrections don’t show up every time you open a file. Rather than have the default setting open your Word file in “All Markup” mode and instead have it open in “No Markup” mode, do this:
• Open your document
• Click “File”
• Click “Options” (in Word 2010, it appears at the bottom of the page’s left side); a new window will pop-up
• Click “Trust Center” in the new window’s left menu; this changes the options in the right pane
• Click in the right pane “Trust Center Settings”; this in turn opens another window
• Click in the new window’s left pane “Privacy Options”
• Uncheck “Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving” in the new window’s right pane
• Click “OK” on both open windows

Test your document by closing and then reopening it. No proofreading marks should show. If you do want to see them, simply change the Track Changes setting to “All Markup” and then under the “Show Markup” dropdown menu, check the types of corrections you wish to see.

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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 self-publishing guidebooks:

“Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.” – Ray Bradbury

“Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.” – Nicholas Sparks

“The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.” – Russell Baker

“You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money’s in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.” – Larry Niven

“A writer should say to himself, not ‘How can I get more money?’ but ‘How can I reach more readers without lowering standards?’” – Brian Aldiss

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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:

What is your big, seemingly impossible, goal as writer? To write a nonfiction book? To publish a short story? List the steps you must take to achieve this vision. Now work on achieving each one of those smaller steps as you head toward your big goal.

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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:

The next time you write one of these words, you may want to back up and see if you’ve got it right. Knowing which part of speech you’re using will prove helpful.

“Backup” as a single a word with no space or hyphen can be used either as an adjective (When Johnson got knocked out, the coach put in his backup quarterback.) or as a noun (Noticing that the license plate matched that of a stolen vehicle, the policeman called for backup.).

“Back up” as two words with a space is a verb meaning to go in reverse (“Stop and back up, I think someone was in the alley,” the deputy said to his partner.).

Sometimes “back-up” with a hyphen appears as a replacement for “backup.” The hyphen is unnecessary, though, so back up and go with a single word.

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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:

Perhaps the most profound conflict a character can face is coming into conflict with himself. Conflicts in which the protagonist faces off against other individuals or society often result in characters that represent ideals and concepts. But the character that first must deal with his own foibles to overcome a villain or oppressive values has learned something. He has grown as a character and become a better human being. Ideally, your readers will grow with this character, making his triumph more lasting in the readers’ minds.

An example of a man vs. himself conflict is Anakin Skywalker’s internal struggle in “Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith” in which the young jedi must decide if he will serve the powers of good or turn to the Dark Side. In this case, Skywalker makes the wrong choices and becomes the villain Darth Vader.

If handled correctly, a man vs. himself conflict can raise a story to high art. The “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “The City on the Edge of Forever,” in which Captain Kirk must decide between his love of a woman and his responsibility to the future of humanity, is modern tragedy. In Stanslaw Lem’s “Solaris”, a psychologist is reunited with what appears to be his wife but in reality is an amalgam of his memories of her. The result is an intense psychological struggle worthy of the best contemporary literature.

Arguably, your story gains sophistication when your main character must overcome a challenge other than defeating the forces of nature or a straight villain. To survive being marooned on a desert world or succeed in taking down an alien menace, your main character ought to first have to overcome some internal conflict that in turn allows him to be victorious over nature or invader. For example, in Anne McCaffrey’s short story “The Smallest Dragonboy,” the main character Keevan must learn self-discipline and gain self-confidence to achieve his goal of becoming a dragonrider. In doing so, he overcomes the story’s wider challenge of being ridiculed by the other older and stronger boys.

Your story almost always is better when a man vs. himself conflict rests at its core.

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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 guidebooks for plotting your story:

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning of life” or “The government outlaws books.” The author then asks “What if?” exploring how the world with this novum is different than ours.

Among the problems of many novice science fiction writers is instead of introducing a new novum they rely on used furniture – that is, they borrow novums from popular SF series. After all, how many novels have you read that use starships exploring the galaxy for the Earth-based Federation? Barely changing names to appear as if you are not appropriating – a starcraft seeking M-class worlds for the Earth-centered Alliance – still doesn’t cut it as original or fully using the potential that science fiction offers to examine our culture or humanity.

To help SF writers, here are some novums of potential near-future inventions from which stories could be built:

Artificial photosynthesis
What if man-made leaves could utilize a process that mimicked photosynthesis to generate energy? How does this change the appearance of our cities and communities as real trees and shrubbery are replaced with electricity-creating plants?

Drawing water from air
What if sun-powered moisture-absorbing technologies could pull drinking water from the air for desert communities? How does this affect the redistribution of population, and what deep affect does this have on our culture?

Face paying
What if face-recognition technology allowed you to pay for consumer goods simply by flashing your face before a screen? What other applications might this technology have, from replacing passwords to locating criminals?

Paralysis Reversal
What is an electronic device implanted in the brain could reverse paralysis? The device links the brain’s motor cortex to the spinal cord below the injury.

Stellar Echo Imaging
What if we imaged exoworlds by examining the “echoes” that occur when naturally fluctuating radiation (from their suns) strike them? What would we learn about alien worlds through this method?

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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:

It’s easy to get it’s vs. its right – and your readers will appreciate its correct usage.

“It’s” is a contraction for “it is”, as in It’s just like the one my father wore. (“It is just like the one my father wore.”)

“Its” is the possessive form of “it”, as in The sun shined high overhead, its brightness warming his face.

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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 promoting your self-published book, consider offering additional valuable content. This tried-and-true technique can drive readers to a service you provide or to other books you are selling.

Your book already is valuable content. But after the reader finishes it, you only can hope that the reader takes the next step of hiring you for the service you provide or for buying additional books. Instead, now that you have their interest, offer them something beyond your book, something that sends them to a place where they can learn about your services or where they can see your other titles.

This valuable content might be a free sample chapter, a video, a blog or a podcast. It is provided to readers as a “bonus” for having purchased your book. It gives additional information beyond what is in your book.

For example, suppose that you are a website designer and penned a nonfiction book about what businesses should include on their Internet pages. You might include a link to a video or a podcast that discusses writing such content; this video or podcast would subtly mention that you offer web design services and provide contact information for you. Or you might provide an additional free chapter from a book about how to write content for a website, which you also authored.

A spin on this is to enlist readers in improving your services or products (read “books” here). Rather than have a reader stew about a spelling error that you missed when editing your book, instead reward them for “finding” it. To that end, you might include in the book a page that says, “If you spot a typo, let us know for a free gift.” The gift might be a set of bookmarks promoting your titles or could be a discount on the purchase of your next book.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional book 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 80 books including 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 book marketing guidebooks: