Some weeks have more than their share of great content. This week, I’ve got two links for writers and two for editors.

POV: omniscience or head-hopping?

This post helps you tell the difference between head-hopping and truly omniscient point of view in your writing. Certain POV are favoured in certain genres. It’s good to know the current favourite in your genre.

How to pick the POV for your novel looks like another excellent resource. Thanks to Arlene Prunkl for pointing out this site.

Here are thoughts from Writer’s Digest on the pros and cons of the present tense.

The Art of Dialect

As I try to read Uncle Remus Tales to my son, I find myself simultaneous translating every single word from dialect to something his ear will understand and editing out the disrespectful racial slurs. Then there’s A Clockwork Orange, that takes a great effort to understand the cockney. Frankly, I don’t.

But some get it right, like the hilariously funny Donna Morrissey who conveys the Newfie accent in her books. She spoke (at the EAC conference in Halifax) about achieving the balance of conveying the flavour of the language without over-taxing the reader. This week, Arlene Prunkl wrote advice about just how to achieve that. She also touches on the importance of conveying flavour without disrespecting your characters; like the disrespect I feel when I read Uncle Remus, a product of its time. I wonder if some characters warrant disrespect, because we want them to be disrespected for the sake of the plot. But that’s another discussion entirely.

Answering the unanswerable re freelancing success

“I want to be an editor – when will I start earning $?” and other unanswerable questions, answered by Louise Harnby. SPOILER: “It’ll take you seven months, twenty-three days, five hours and nine minutes exactly” to become a viable freelancer.

Honouring Excellence and Generosity

Katharine O’Moore-Klopf has won the ACES Robinson prize. Can’t think of someone who better “represents excellence and generosity in the field of copy editing;” so now I look forward to learning about the past winners.

The idea of honouring this kind of professionalism and generosity is wonderful. The EAC has an award for excellent editing, which I also really appreciate. I wish we had the resources (volunteers) to administer something like the Robinson prize too. There would be no shortage of honourees.

Congratulations, Katharine, and thanks for your generosity. The whole idea of this award leaves me with warm fuzzies.