My Courses

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…

• 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 new…

“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 “The…

“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 driven…

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, would…

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 are…

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…

Science fiction stories typically revolve around a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that becomes “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or a space station with artificial gravity; it also can be hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the…

When describing a fair-haired man, don’t use blonde, even if the dude looks like a lady. A flaxen-haired female is a blonde, but a sandy-haired male is a blond (no e, please). ______________ 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…