So I used to be the worst at actually sitting down and getting the words on the page, but right now, in the throes of camp nano, I’m doing okay! And it’s basically all because of this site, 750words.com.
★ 3 Pages = 750 words
“I looked this up. 250 words per page is considered to be the standard accepted number of words per page. So, three standard pages are about 750 words. You can’t just fart out 3 pages without running into your subconscious a little bit… 750 words takes a bit of effort, and it never fails to get me typing things that I have wanted to articulate without realizing it. And that’s the point.” - Buster Benson, the dude who set this up
It has a monthly counter thingy…
some fun little badges (I haven’t got many but there’s a TONNE and they’re all adorable):
There’s even one for Nano!
AND! This is the best part, this is literally what makes me write every day - the stats!
It tells you how fast you wrote, and how many breaks you took, and the rating of what you’ve written? Also, this:
as you can see I write lots of death, but look how colourful!
i’m not sure what all of this means but the most frequent words thing is really useful for seeing the little ticks I have in my writing. Also, graphs. mmmh
There’s also some neat little monthly stats tables and they do monthly write-every-day challenges! It’s all private, it autosaves your work and you can customise backgrounds/fonts and even write in full-screen mode.
Anyway, I just thought I’d share, happy writing everyone!
I have a friend who is doing freelace editing. She charges 0.03 per word, before tax. My book is 100000 words (or around), and she told me that the price for her editing would be 3,075 dollars. She told me this was on the low end of editing, is that true? I'm okay with doing my best to edit my own book (which I am I'd just like a second pair of eyes if possible.) But 3,000 dollars is not within my pay range. (Thanked her for going over the prices with me and told her I was sorry I couldn't.)
Hi there! It really depends on the kind of editing, how experienced (and busy) the editor is, the shape the manuscript is in, and a number of other factors. I’ve seen anything from .005/word for proofreading to .08/word for developmental editing. My own rates start at .015/word for an editorial review and go up to .03/word for a heavy developmental edit (consult + lengthy critique + margin comments + follow up call + email support).
A lot of people experience sticker shock with editing, so you’re not alone there. You can find people to do it for cheap, but it’s usually a you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing. (At the same time, I always encourage writers to ask editors for a sample of their work before hiring them–don’t assume that because the editor charges a lot you’ll click with their style.)
I might be preaching to the choir here, but I’ve gotten enough asks about editing prices that I think it’s worth pointing out a few things:
Editing takes time. You can’t just quickly breeze through a manuscript once and come back with helpful, detailed recommendations. In my case, no matter what kind of editing I do, I carefully read every manuscript twice. Because of the level of focus and attention I give to the story, for a 100,000 word manuscript that could mean almost 20 hours of my time just to read the thing… before I even start writing a critique.
Good editors are experienced and often highly educated. If you can find an editor who is willing to work for minimum wage, more power to you (I guess?). Personally, I’m a published fiction writer, and I have a masters degree and years of experience in my field, so I charge accordingly. Most editors I respect (read: that I would hire myself) have rates starting at $80/hr.
If you want useful feedback, there’s no such thing as “taking a quick look” at your manuscript. I get a lot of inquiries from writers who hope I can come down on my price if they don’t need as much feedback: “Just take a quick look” or “give me an overall impression.” There are two problems with this. The first (see above) is that even reading the manuscript can take hours of my time. The second is that the only way for me to give “quick” feedback is to give shallow, crappy feedback… which I just can’t bring myself to do.
The bummer, of course, is that all of these factors put editing way outside of a lot of writers’ price range. Every time I get an inquiry from a broke writer and have to turn them down, my heart dies a little. That’s part of the reason I’m working on my self-editing guide The Complete Guide to Self Editing for Fiction Writers. It’s a DIY guide that walks you through doing a story-level, scene-level, and sentence-level edit on your story. Completing it has been slower going than I originally thought (It just keeps getting longer!!), but I hope to have it finished soon.
Thanks for writing! I hope this has been helpful, and good luck to you!
I don’t mean flaws in character design, even though they possibly do. I mean the problems your characters SHOULD have. The problems they face in your story ie. villains, conflict, war, homophobic parents, not having a date to the big dance. Y’know…like a plot.
Here are 3 ways to improve your plot
1. Your Characters Need to Make Decisions
This may sound obvious, but it isn’t always. The Problem™ isn’t just something your character has to go through that sucks—they should be faced with options, and have to make Active Decisions™ that affect the outcome of the story. This gives your characters agency—if they don’t have agency, if they don’t make decisions, your characters will be read as passive. Passive characters aren’t interesting.
2. These Choices Need To Be Hard
Give your characters inner conflict.
Hard, tough decisions to make. How to face their big problem. In figuring out what options your characters will choose, remember their
Motivations
Background
They way they were raised
Moral/Ethical/Spiritual beliefs
Fears
Loyalties
3. Figure Out The Stakes
Based on what kind of story you have, the stakes for your protagonist are going to be different.
SciFi novel about how the world is going to get obliterated by an evil force in 2 days? High stakes.
Romance novella about 29-year old Tequila Sheila who can’t seem to find a date to her brother’s wedding? Lower stakes.
And there’s nothing wrong with having higher or lower stakes—but do think about where your stakes should be for your particular story. Many stories don’t have high enough stakes for readers to be captivated; these stories need to be reconfigured, after realizing what exactly is at stake and to what degree. Understanding what your stakes are can help you figure out what kind of reading experience your book will be.
as soon as i figure out whether there’s any practical difference between ‘that’ and ‘which’ in a sentence, you’re all finished
“That” is if the clause specifies which one, “which” is if you’re giving extra information.
“She took the bag that contains the loot” means that she took one of several bags, in particular, the one that happens to contain the loot.
“She took the bag, which contains the loot” means that there’s only one bag you might be referring to, and that the fact that she took it is important because it contains the loot.
Also, there’s a comma before “which” but not before “that.”
