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Sometimes when typing or formatting a manuscript in Microsoft Word, to indicate a change of scenes, you might center a group of three to five asterisks between paragraphs. Then you hit return.  And the darndest thing happens: The asterisks turn to a whole line of them, and no matter what you do – highlight and delete them,Continue reading “Getting Rid of a Line of Dots that Won’t Go Away”

Adverse and averse often are confused because both imply something negative while sounding very similar. But as with the way these words are spelled, so there also is a subtle difference in their meanings. Adverse means unfavorable or harmful, as in Mary suffered an adverse reaction to the medication. Averse means strongly dislikes or opposes, as in A lifelong Republican, SamContinue reading “A Positive Answer: Adverse vs. Averse”

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 ofContinue reading “5 Science Fiction Prompts, Storystarters”

• Understand instructions before writing paper• Types of academic papers you could write• How to properly punctuate ‘et. al’• Examples of how to use e.g. vs. i.e. • How to use page numbers in APA Style Citations ______________ 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 newContinue reading “5 Must-Know Rules for Writing Academic Papers”

“Young or old, good or bad, I don’t think anything dies as slow and as hard as a writer.” – Charles Bukowski “Writing is hard work and bad for the health.” – E. B. White “Writers live twice.” – Natalie Goldberg “Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as idleness.” – Thomas Carlyle “TheContinue reading “5 Great Quotations about the Writing Life”

“Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.” – Thomas Berger “All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not drivenContinue reading “Five Great Quotations about Why We Must Write”

In a way, writing is like a waking dream meditation (a “vision quest” in other parlance) in which the very essence of who you are utilizes the symbols of everyday things to discover the answers to life’s most challenging questions. Which of the “big questions” of life does your writing address? If none at all, wouldContinue reading “Writing Inspiration: Go on Vision Quest”

Among the most common yet avoidable errors when formatting a book to be self-published is inserting the wrong font, font size and or other style into the manuscript. For example, if you want your text to be in Times Roman, 12 point, and single spaced, you might find when editing it that a few paragraphs areContinue reading “Avoid Introducing Wrong Styles into Your Text”

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 simpleContinue reading “Delete Redundancies for Tighter Manuscript”