Erin Brenner's Blog, page 2

Breaking the Blank Page: Two Simple Tricks for Writing Stronger Intros

By Sean Brenner

“Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.” — Terry Prachet, The Hogfather

Writing intros can be a painful process. 

A blank page can be intimidating to the point that just making the effort to start is difficult. Where do you begin? This question can become overwhelming, and eventually, just thinking about it puts you off.

A good intro has a lot to cover. It needs to introduce your topic and the major points you make in your manuscript. It also has to get reade...

From Puzzle to Plan: Organizing Complex Writing

Editor’s Note: I’m excited to welcome Sean Brenner (yup, my kid!) as a monthly contributor to Right Touch Editing. Sean brings a fresh perspective on writing, drawing from his experience crafting fictional universes and scriptwriting. Each month, he’ll share insights on tackling writing challenges. You can find more of his work at Imagined Worlds Writing Services. Welcome, Sean!

More often than not, the hardest part of writing is figuring out where to begin, especially when you’re writing about a...

Balancing Act: Maximizing Productivity Without Burning Out

“Work smarter, not harder!”

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve heard this productivity mantra. And who doesn’t want to maximize their workday? I love working efficiently and getting the most out of my day. And the sooner I can get work done, the sooner I can relax, right?

But many of our cherished productivity beliefs are actually myths. What we think makes us more productive often does the opposite. Through my research for a Lenovo Pro article on productivity and years of r...

Split Infinitives: Breaking an Outdated Rule to Write Better

The English language is full of supposed grammar rules that many of us learned in school. One persistent myth is that we should never split infinitives, that is, we should never put a word between to and its verb. But like many grammar “rules,” this one deserves to be broken.

First, let me explain what I’m talking about. In the phrase to boldly go, the adverb boldly splits the infinitive to go. For decades, some writers and editors have twisted themselves into knots to avoid such constructions, p...

Using GenAI as Your Writing Assistant: The Business Writer’s Guide

These days, business writers face mounting pressure to produce more content faster while maintaining quality. Generative AI (GenAI) tools, like Claude and Perplexity, can help streamline your writing process—not by replacing you but by serving as a capable assistant. Let’s explore helpful ways to integrate GenAI into the different stages of your writing process.

Important! Remember that AI isn’t a magic wand, and it’s not a replacement for human thinking. It can make some very big mistakes. Alway...

Help! I’m Stuck on Citations

Citations can be the bane of a copyeditor’s existence. Whether one author writes them or multiple authors do, copyeditors are often left to fill in blanks and apply a style where none exists.

Theoretically, writers are responsible for writing complete, properly formatted citations. Editors should only have to do a light edit, querying any missing information. Among other items, your citation checklist should include the following: 

The desired citation style was used.Citations in the text are li...

Clarifying the Suspensive Hyphen

The common reader may believe punctuation to be minutia compared to other components of a written work, but editors know better. Using punctuation correctly—or incorrectly—can affect the work’s overall tone and message. And one of the most questioned punctuation marks is the suspensive hyphen. Let’s dive into what it is and when to use it. (Spoiler alert: Major style guides, and yours truly, support using this hyphen!)

Dropping the Second Term

The question of a suspensive hyphen—that is, the use o...

Hyphenation Headaches: Navigating -ly Adverb Rules

Many Right Touch Editing clients use the term cost-effective in their marketing collateral, including the variation cost effectively, as in: We are cost effectively providing. 

A client once asked: “Should cost effectively be hyphenated? Cost-effective is hyphenated in Merriam-Webster’s, but I keep bumping into the rule about not hyphenating –ly adverbs in my grammar and style books.”

Compound adjectives like cost-effective are hyphenated, but compound adverbs with –ly adverbs generally are not. H...

A Dozen Ways to Advance Your Copyediting Career, Part 2

Last week, I shared several career paths copyeditors can take and helpful resources to get you started. Keep reading for more more ways to develop your skillset and expand your professional horizons in the publishing field.

I Love Words, But …

Just because you love words doesn’t mean you can’t love other things, too. I know many wonderful editors who are also gifted crafters that run successful craft businesses. You might be a great musician or a talented woodworker and build a second career base...

A Dozen Ways to Advance Your Copyediting Career, Part 1

Copyediting can be a fulfilling career, especially for people who love language and love to learn. The texts we edit can teach us about topics we know little or nothing about. We can find joy in the word puzzles that sentences present to us.

Sometimes, though, that’s not enough. We become bored with our routines and desire to do something different. Maybe we want the opportunity to earn more money or build more variety into our client lists. Situations change, too, both personally and professiona...