Write like Great Classic Authors: Ernest Hemingway

“Write the truest sentence you know.” Then do it again. One sentence at a time, you write your story. Classic authors knew that there was nothing like capturing and keeping a reader’s attention, and titan in the literary world, Ernest Hemingway, knew and performed this trick better than most. Known for his concise, powerful prose, [...]

Proofreading for University Reports: Editor Cortni & Keiser University Vice Chancellor Discuss Academic Writing & Editing

As a writing and editing professional, editor Cortni Merritt is sometimes asked to consult and collaborate on a variety of academic, technical, and business writing projects in addition to her projects with SRD Editing Services as a member of other groups not associated with SRD Editing Services. Recently she was honored by the request to [...]

How to Write a Back Cover Blurb & Online Book Description

Wondering how to write a back cover blurb for your book? Especially if you’re venturing into self-publishing, this can be a sticky and even controversial topic. You are not alone as a self-published writer wondering what makes the best back cover copy for your book. Self-published authors grapple with this every day, working to create [...]

Writers Talking Writing: TV Writer Shonda Rhimes’s Tips to Lay Track

Lessons on Life from a TV Writer Earlier this year, I listened to the audiobook for Shonda Rhimes's Year of Yes, a successful and interesting TV writer with decades of experience (if you don’t know who she is.) In this mix of memoir and self-help advice, both funny and touching, Rhimes shares her wisdom about [...]

Tool for Children’s Book Writers (& Parents!): Accelerated Reader Bookfinder

For more than 20 years, the Accelerated Reader (AR) program has been helping kids read children's books they enjoy, at their own pace. Readers of all levels can choose an AR book, read their way through it, then take a computerized quiz to assess their understanding and sometimes earn class credit.  Educators across the US [...]

Creative Writing Tips: How to Watch Movies to Improve Your Storytelling

Sometimes, you just want to watch a movie for the fun of it. Sometimes, you want to watch a movie and learn from it. Specifically, if you want to spend some time enhancing your own creative writing skills by watching movies, I think there are a few ways that can be done. Now of course, movies aren't [...]

From “Writer” to “Author of a Book”: 4 Tips for Imposter Syndrome

There's a mental shift for writers when they start calling themselves an author of a book. Many writers seem to find some magic in the term, some kind of promise in the word. If you are among the group of authors with only one published book, there's good news. That's all it takes to call [...]

Random Writer Tool: 200 Years of Illustrated Women’s Fashion (Historical Fiction)

Random Writer Tools: Fashion in Historical Fiction Writers of historical fiction: rejoice! As a writer, you never know what kind of random tools that you find online will come in handy, and this article from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art ("the Met") is one such example! A team of researchers painstakingly reviewed fashion [...]

Two Common (and Easy-to-Use) Semicolon Rules

Semicolons: Who Needs 'Em? Oh! Semicolons. I, like many other editors, love them. But if you're a writer who finds the semicolon *the worst, * you have options available to you. One of those options is that you don't have to use any semicolons at all if you don't want to. I won't pressure you. But if [...]

Improve Your Writing Process

The Outcome Can Terrorize You If there's a thousand ways to do something, there's a thousand ways to do it right. And a thousand ways to muck it up. And the truth is -- you'll never find the writing process that works for you, without stumbling through a few of those. In On Writing Well, by William [...]