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Can I Edit my Novel with Grammarly?

Dear Editor | Can I Edit my Novel with Grammarly?

I usually answer these kinds of questions with an it-depends kind of answer. Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes it is no, depending on a variety of factors.

This is no one of those times. My answer is clear.

No.

You can’t edit your novel with Grammarly. (And I’m not just saying that because I’m an editor.)

Well, you can. But it won’t be correct.

This topic has come up in several editing groups I’m a member of. Yes, editors may well have a vested interest in saying they can do the job better than a piece of software. After all, that’s how editors earn money.

The general consensus among editors is that Grammarly is correct around half the time.

The challenge for authors who need help with spelling and grammar is working out which half.

I also have a real-life example to prove my point: a novel the author claims was edited in Grammarly. We’re both members of a Facebook group for writers, and the author shared that in a post. That’s all I’m going to tell you about the book. The point here isn’t to embarrass a new writer.

The point is to show that while Grammarly can identify more errors than spellcheck, that’s not going to give an error-free novel. Far from it.

Let’s go through the first few paragraphs in the Kindle sample:

“Sonny Quick, under the table.”

This sentence is grammatically correct if we assume the unnamed speaker is telling a character named Sonny Quick to get under the table. Unfortunately, that is not the case: the next line makes clear the unnamed speaker is telling a young boy called Johnny to get under the table.

To make this clear, the sentence should read:

“Sonny, quick, get under the table.”

This shows “quick” is an instruction, not the character’s surname.

Better still, revise the sentence to give the character’s name (Johnny), and avoid the awkward double commas:

“Johnny. Get under the table. Quick.”

Let’s move on.

Lieutenant Smith stomped in, slamming the door open.

Again, this sentence is grammatically correct: the words are spelled correctly, capitalised appropriately, and the punctuation is in the right place.

But it describes a practical impossibility. The lieutenant must open the door before he stomps in. Not after. As such, the sentence should read:

The door slammed open, and Lieutenant Smith stomped in.

So we have had two sentences that Grammarly has punctuated in a way that is technically correct, but which is incorrect based on the actual content.

This next sentence is missing two commas and a period. It also says “horseshoes” even though a blacksmith can only beat one horseshoe at a time. The sentence should read:

Mr Thomas said to Lieutenant Smith, “Johnny hasn’t turned up to work this morning, so I don’t know where he is. I’m busy.” He kept beating the horseshoe he was making.

That’s how a competent proofreader (or grammar checker) would edit the sentence. A line editor or copyeditor would revise the paragraph to start with dialogue and move the action beat to the middle:

“Johnny hasn’t turned up to work this morning.” Mr Thomas beat the horseshoe he was working on. “I don’t know where he is. I’m busy.”

Why? Because we don’t need to know who Mr Thomas is talking to. It’s obvious.

Lieutenant Smith grew red! His anger was visible.

The sentence doesn’t need the exclamation mark! It’s not a Hardy Boys novel! Too many exclamation marks are annoying! (They can also be a sign of poor writing …)

On the plus side, first the sentence is showing. Unfortunately, the next sentence tells the emotion, which isn’t necessary.

Mr Thomas’s shoe tapped Johnny on the knee, just motioning that he would keep him safe.

Again, this sentence is grammatically correct. But it doesn’t make sense. Try to visualise the scene: Mr Thomas is making horseshoes, an activity normally conducted on an anvil in a forge. I’m no blacksmith, but the pictures and demonstrations I’ve seen have the blacksmith facing an anvil (which he beats the horseshoe on). The anvil is positioned beside the forge, so the blacksmith can easily heat the metal. There will also be a bucket of water next to the anvil, so the blacksmith can quickly cool the metal.

At least, that’s how I picture a blacksmith’s forge. But that doesn’t match the description we’re given.

  • If Mr Thomas is facing the anvil, how can he tap Johnny on the knee with his foot?
  • Where is the workbench? It can’t be in front of Mr Thomas, as then the lieutenant would be able to see Johnny. It can’t be behind Mr Thomas, as that would mean making an awkward movement that would be sure to attract the lieutenant’s attention.

I don’t know. Again, an editor would have asked these questions so the author could either revise or delete the sentence.

That’s a lot of errors for four sentences on the first page of a novel. My conclusion: if you’re writing a novel, Grammarly is no substitute for a competent human editor.

If you don’t know show from tell, find someone who does.

If you don’t know first person from third person point of view, find someone who does.

If you don’t know right from wrong (or write from right from Wright), find someone who does.

Because you can’t rely on even the best online grammar checker.

How long will it take to edit my novel? And how much will it cost?

Dear Editor | How Long Will it Take to Edit my Novel (And How Much Will It Cost)?

(And How Much Will it Cost?)

This is another question from a Facebook group. An author asked how long it would take her to edit her 80,000-word novel before sending it to a professional editor.

My answer? It depends.

It depends on two things:

  • What level of editing you are doing.
  • The state of the manuscript

The Level of Editing

I discussed the different levels of editing in my recent blog post, Did My Editor Do Their Job Properly?. As a general guide:

  • Developmental editing takes longer than copyediting
  • Line editing takes longer than copyediting
  • Copyediting takes longer than proofreading

It takes me around four hours to read an 80,000-word novel when I’m reading for pleasure. It can take me up to twice as long if I’m reading as part of a Manuscript Assessment, as I’ll be taking detailed notes as I read. It can then take me another four hours to draft the editorial letter, run spellcheck, and proofread the letter before sending.

Actual on-the-page editing will take much longer. It can take me anywhere from 20 to 80 hours to edit an 80,000-word manuscript (depending on whether the manuscript requires line editing or copyediting).

How long it takes me will depend on how good the writing was to begin with, and how much time, effort, and knowledge the author has spent revising and self-editing. That could be anything from 20 to 200 hours. Hint: the more time you spend, the less time it will take a professional editor.

If my sample edit indicates the edit is going to take more longer than 40 hours, I will suggest the author start with a manuscript assessment and undertake more self-editing before engaging me or any other professional editor.

State of the Manuscript

Some authors have an excellent grasp of the basics of punctuation and grammar. Some do not. I’ve had manuscripts submitted for editing that range from almost publication standard to almost unreadable. It doesn’t matter how great your story is, how original your plot, how compelling your characters if you can’t use words and sentences and paragraphs and scenes to get that plot and those characters across to the reader.

I’ve heard writers say they don’t need to know basic grammar, how to punctuate dialogue, or how to correctly use a comma. Their editor will fix that.

Well, yes. But that will make the editing a lot more expensive than it could be.

It also means you’re not giving your editor the chance to do the best job possible—if your editor is focussing on correcting misplaced commas, and trying to work out who is talking so your dialogue is punctuated correctly, then your editor might miss more important errors.

The other problem with submitting a messy manuscript is that the editor might do the work you’ve asked for (e.g copyediting), without realising the manuscript actually isn’t ready for copyediting because one of the main characters has a personality transplant at the halfway point, the pacing is inconsistent, the climax falls fifty pages too early, and the final resolution relies on an eye-rolling “coincidence”.

Don’t be that author. Make sure your manuscript is ready for copyediting before submitting it for copyediting. The best way to do that is to use beta readers, or pay a freelance editor for a manuscript assessment.

How Much Will it Cost to Edit My Novel?

If copyediting an 80,000-word novel will take between 20 and 40 hours, then how much will it cost to edit my novel?

The Editorial Freelancers Association has a schedule of average fees charged by member editors. Editing fees range from $30/hour to $60/hour, depending on the level of editing required. I pitch my fees in the middle of this range, and don’t differentiate between the types of editing. My time isn’t worth any less just because I’m doing a less complex level of editing.

Editors may quote for a project based on a per page rate (a standard editorial page is 250 words), a per 1,000 words rate, or by the hour. But at the end of the day, they all charge by the hour—even those who quote a single rate for a full manuscript.

Remember, while this standard hourly rate might sound high, freelance editors are self-employed. Freelance editors don’t get paid for eight hours a day, or 40 hours a week—they only get paid for chargeable hours, which means they aren’t paid for administration or marketing time. Editors don’t get paid vacation, paid sick leave, or benefits such as retirement savings contributions, or medical insurance. Editors have to pay for dictionaries, style guides, software, computers, and an internet connection.

Those expenses all come out of the hourly rate.

Actual actual hourly earnings may be half their hourly rate or less. Editing is mentally straining, which means many editors are only able to spend five hours a day editing without starting to miss errors.

So if an editor estimates your 80,000-word novel will take them 20 hours to copyedit, the quote will be somewhere between $600 and $1,200, depending on their standard hourly rate. A longer manuscript will cost more.

A manuscript that needs more work will cost more.

The best way to keep your editing costs down is to present your editor with a clean manuscript with no basic writing errors. This means:

  • Writing in scenes.
  • Showing, not telling.
  • Using point of view correctly.
  • Use interior monologue correctly.

If you’re not sure what these terms mean, you’re probably not ready for copyediting. Instead, begin with a manuscript assessment that will reinforce what you’re doing well, and show you how to correct what you’re not doing well.

Or leave a comment, and I’ll cover your question in a future blog post.

Five Myths Non-Writers Believe

Five Myths Non-Writers Believe

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a writer. But you weren’t always a writer. Once upon a time you were a reader and—perhaps—an aspiring writer.

Like me.

I’ve always been a reader. A bookworm, if you like. And like many readers, I also wanted to be a writer. Specifically, a novelist. I won two school writing competitions in high school and even went on a creative writing camp, but the endless essays of high school and university didn’t leave much time for personal reading or writing.

I didn’t know much about the publishing industry.

Okay. I didn’t know anything about the publishing industry.

I started reading for pleasure again when I got a job, but not writing: I already spent enough hours a day in front of a computer, writing client reports and our company newsletter. I had one colleague whose wife was writing a novel. I asked how it was progressing: he said she was still in the research phase, which was going to take her a year. I asked a few more times but stopped asking when I got a look that said she wasn’t making much progress (or not making as much as her husband thought she ought to be making).

I had another colleague who announced one day that he’d finished his novel. I asked when it was going to be published. Yes, I really thought it was that easy.

When I started researching the craft of writing and the business of publishing, I soon realised that many of my assumptions were incorrect. In particular, there were five myths I believed about writing:

  • Anyone can write a novel
  • Writing is a good way to earn some extra cash
  • Running spell check is enough editing
  • Getting a novel published is easy
  • Writers write. The publisher does the rest

Are you laughing yet? Or do some of my naïve ideas sound eerily familiar? I’ve since discovered my ideas were misguided. But I’ve also discovered there is an element of truth in some of them.

Anyone can write a novel

This is both wrong and right. Anyone can type 80,000 words and call it a novel. Slapping a cover on it and uploading to Amazon isn’t hard (it can’t be, given the quality of some of the novels on Amazon).

But writing a good novel is hard, and not just ‘anyone’ can do it. It takes patience, perseverance, and practice. And most people don’t make it.

Writing is an easy way to earn some extra cash

If you’re prepared to make money writing scam recipe books (using recipes copied from dodgy websites) or scam self-help books (using advice copied from wacko websites) or other scam books (using information copied from Wikipedia), then yes, writing can be an easy way to earn extra cash. Even better, hire someone on Fiverr to ghostwrite (or ghostcopy) the book for you.

But is that writing? It’s certainly not the writing dream so many people have. In reality, pursuing a career as a writer, especially a novelist, is going to cost you a lot of money before you earn anything from it. And most writers also have a day job to pay the bills.

Running spell check is enough editing

Once the manuscript is written, editing is just a matter of running spell check, followed by a quick read-through to make sure spell check hasn’t missed any your/you’re or their/there/they’re errors. That’s editing.

No, that’s running spell check. Editing goes into a lot more detail, and a good novel will have one gone through several stages of editing before it is published (not to mention being read and red-penned by critique partners and beta readers before it goes to the editor). And then it will be proofread—which is different again.

Getting a novel published is easy

Check out your local bookstore. Check out the publishers of those novels. Getting your novel published by one of those publishers isn’t easy. It’s a long way from easy.

But the advent of vanity publishers and self-publishing make it easy to find a publisher. Any vanity press will take your money, tell you you’ve written the next great American (or Australian or British or Canadian or New Zealand) novel, and for another $10,000 they’ll be able to put your novel in front of influential Hollywood producers (and take a first-class holiday in some swanky resort).

But self-publishing platforms such as Amazon, DrafttoDigital, iBooks, Kobo and Smashwords do provide newbie authors with a way of getting their novels published and printed and on sale. And it’s not difficult. But authors soon find that writing and publishing was the easy part . . .

Writers write. The publisher does the rest

This is the final myth, and is one that continues to drive new authors to traditional publishers. They don’t want to be involved in the publishing or the marketing. They want to write. Period. The problem with this myth is that all authors, no matter how they are published, all authors have to do more than write.

Even traditional publishers expect authors to contribute to their marketing efforts. At the very least, these will include a website (which the author pays for), social media profiles and regular updates (which the author undertakes herself, or pays someone else to manage), and attendance at certain industry events and conferences (which the author pays for). These efforts may or may not sell books.

Self-published authors have sole responsibility for marketing — there is no one else. They can just write, but then it’s likely no one will buy their books.

Myth or Truth?

Yes, there is an element of truth in each of these five myths. But more myth than truth. Oh, well. Back to the writing . . .

Writers, what myths have you heard that you now know aren’t true?

Readers, what do you believe about writers that might not be true?