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I work with my clients on bringing out the best in their manuscripts, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and crafting a story that agents, editors, and readers can’t put down. You’ve put the hard work into writing your novel, but now it’s time to polish it into something better than you ever imagined.
To check out my editing services, click here. I hope we’ll be working together soon!
-Ellen Brock
Ellen Brock 
Hi Ellen
I find your short videos great. They are concise and straight to the point. I am writing a novel
which is set in the USA even though I live in the UK.
I think names of characters can be difficult and nicknames. I guess using names which are not similar and not too complicated to pronounce is a good rule- of- thumb?
Maybe, you could mention on a video about names and place names?
I am mentioning several cities in the states but creating my own town and village names.
I love the whole process as gradually the plot fits in or clicks in by itself. The characters take on their own life. I know what they eat.
I have dyslexia quite badly so I research more than I should and edit in my head before writing.
Thanks
Peter
Hi Peter, I’m glad you found my videos helpful!
Yes, keeping names simple and easy to pronounce is a good rule of thumb. I will definitely add a video about names to my list, but it will probably take me a while to get to it.
Thanks for stopping by!
Peter-
Writing S/F & Fantasy, I thought making up names for dozens of characters was hard, but for my novel [set in Napoleonic France], it was fairly simple. I needed about 300 names [had a Cavalry unit to fill out plus everybody else], so I just googled a list of French artists between 1650-1850, printed it out and then went to work.
I would take the first name of fellow #1, then pair it with the last name of fellow #4. Didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would.
For my fantasy books coming up, I decided to do something similar and see if it worked. I looked up baby names in various cultures I am unfamiliar with [like 18th century Latvians] and used them as the base for a series of names. For example, if a real name happened to be ‘votyjarer’ I would transliterate it as ‘varjyt’ [which is easier for me to say and becomes original]. Worked like a charm.
But don’t tell anybody when the books come out. 😉
A great resource I was referred to can be found here-
http://www.behindthename.com/
Hope all that helps!
On the subject of names, one problem I have is referring to a character a number of times in a short span. It seems that the 10th reference to Bob on the same page would make my readers batty, so I try to mix it up by using first/last/title. Does Ellen have a video or blog that deals with this?
No, I don’t have a blog or video about that, but it’s definitely a common problem that I see all the time. Being aware of the issue helps tremendously. If you can alternate how you refer to people, that helps a lot, but sometimes you just have to find ways to restructure sentences to avoid repeating the name.
I will try to post more about that sometime – perhaps after Novel Boot Camp.
I love that website for names by the way! Very interesting and useful for writers.
Hello, Ellen. I’m still on the process of writing my novel but i’m the type of person that likes to plan out everything while doing work, so even if i haven’t finished my manuscript i already know the way i want to go. I got questions about it and i’d like you to tell me your opinion.
I’m Mexican, my English is not perfect, at all, and i really refuse to try and publish my novel here on my country, since as far as i could go if my novel does great is to Spain and Argentine. Not world-wide as the US or Canada would do. So i planned i’d finish my novel in Spanish then translate it myself the best i could (professional translators are way too expensive!) and then get it to an editor who would tell me everything that’s wrong with my English and help me make it decent. then, i would submit to another (or the same) editor, now to check on stuff normally like structure of the story, characters, world, etc. Finally after that i would go and search for an agent. My question is Do you think that could be the best way to go? I really want to publish on the US, What do you think?
Hi Elias,
I’ve worked with quite a few writers who do not speak English as their first language but want to publish in the U.S. It can be done, but often it requires multiple rounds of editing before the novel is ready to query to agents. This can get pricey, especially if the book also has structural problems. Essentially, you would need, at the very least, two rounds of edits (developmental & line edits).
I wouldn’t worry about cleaning up the errors in English before hiring a developmental editor. I would do the developmental edit first, that way you don’t spend money having sentences, paragraphs, pages, and even whole chapters line edited that will be cut during the developmental edit.
I hope this helps! Good luck!
Thank you so much!! in the future i will try to make sure and follow this, it sounds logical! also, thanks for the videos, i’ll follow you and keep watching them!
Great! Thanks, Elias!
Hi Ellen, Thank you so much for posting short videos. It helped me a lot! 🙂
You’re welcome! Thanks for watching, Jasmin!
Hi, Ellen. I have a question about the YA/middle-grade fantasy I am writing. The story has several plots, but one of them revolves around one of the Faerie worlds, which is basically disintegrating.Strengthening it requires a member of each of the world’s races to go on a quest to fix the ‘holes’ in the world. The number of people for the quest is fourteen different races and two oracles. Is this number excessive?
Hi Hailey,
It sort of depends on how prominent each character is. You want to keep “main” characters to a fairly low number, but the number of side characters isn’t a problem so long as they aren’t too similar and you provide frequent clues to help the reader remember who is who.
Does this help?
HI, Ellen,
I think your advice helps. My main issue is that 16 is a lot of people, but they’re mostly semi-main characters, not focal points of the plot. If you think I won’t have cut people (changing the world’s number of races would be awkward), then I’ll see how the story turns out with all of them.
Thanks.
Thanks for your great videos and informative blog! I’m a new subscriber, and I’ve just bookmarked your WordPress. I’m looking forward to learning more from you. Hopefully, I’ll need your services one day! All the best.
I’m glad you like my videos and blog! Thanks for subscribing!
awesome!
Dear Ellen Brock,
Thank you for sharing your professional advice. I’ve enjoyed your videos and blog. I would like to know if you line edit to the Chicago Manuel of Style?
Hi Ed,
Yes, I do follow it, however with fiction there are lots of areas that are not as clearly covered and, when necessary, I will favor artistic expression over being technically correct.
I also do not do proofreading, so I will point out mistakes when I catch them, but I do not fixate on things like punctuation because it would reduce my effectiveness at catching what’s really important in an edit (word choice, the “sound” of the language, emotional expression, clarity, etc.). Though proofreading at the same time as line editing is ineffective anyway because so much will change after the edit and those changes won’t be proofread.
I’m not sure if this answers your question. Thanks for watching my videos and checking out my blog!
Your videos helped me so much! A lot of the topics were things I’ve heard before, but the way you explain them, and the examples you give, make them easier to understand. I think I’ve made every possible rookie mistake at one time or another. Every time I get one problem corrected, it seems there’s another I was unaware I was even making. Thought I was doing pretty well until I watched your video about filtering. Ahhh! Fixing that now, which is not easy. I have to restructure so many sentences. But at least I know now and can refrain from using those words in the rest of my novel. I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford to have my whole manuscript edited, but would like to at least have the first few chapters edited to make sure there’s not some fatal flaw I need to fix before it’s too late to correct it. Do you do that-just edit partial manuscripts? Btw, I’m from the Cincinnati area as well. I live in Brown County, which is east of Cincy. Since you’re in the writing biz, you may have heard of my uncle, Cliff Radel, who writes for The Enquirer. Anyway, thanks SO MUCH for helping us newbs learn how to be better writers.
Hi Julie,
Thanks so much for your nice comment! That’s cool that we’re both in Cincy!
I am more than willing to edit partial manuscripts. That’s no problem at all!
Best of luck with finishing your novel!
-Ellen
Hi Ellen I watch your videos in youtube an pretty much I done everything you advice, I not the novel type guy normally I write geology text books but this history come to me like a boom, was in my head for several years but thanks to a song and an image I manage to lay out perfectly. Is a bout science fiction and romance, is a history it came in 8 books, I already have 5 books complete in my head, I have three and have write, so far my family love the history but I’m looking for a professional point of view, also I have a back history and looking your comment about the catalyst that set the history in motion is scattered in the first three books, the second one have a strong tight with that back history. I would like to send you that part and let me know what you thing.
Thanks
Ed
Hi Ed,
Sounds interesting! Feel free to send me more details about what type of help you’d like to my email (ellenbrock@keytopservices OR editorbrock@gmail.com) so we can talk more.
Thanks!
-Ellen
Hi Ellen,
Just wanted to let you know that I love your videos.
I came across one of your videos by chance and watched them all right away. So insightful, so helpful. If I would write in English, I would definitely ask you to work with me on my story.
Thanks & “dank je wel” from Holland!
Jutta
Thanks Jutta! I appreciate it! Glad my videos helped!