Tag: Melva McLean

Filed under:

Melva McLean

Lost and Found

October 3, 2017 by Melva McLean | 2 Comments on Lost and Found

Over the years I’ve done a lot of freelance fiction editing, mostly developmental. I send off the manuscripts with a critical analysis, a lot of developmental markup and some copy editing. Some of the authors go on to be published; their autographed works are on my bookshelves. Of the ones not published, about half come […]

Read more »

Tagged

Filed under:

Melva McLean

What’s in a Name?

October 18, 2016 by Melva McLean | 2 Comments on What’s in a Name?

Last month’s book club choice was from a bunch of bestseller and book club lists. It was one of those “family” stories with a sizeable cast of characters. You know the kind — three or four sisters with partners and/or lovers and children and a couple of pets. I was a hundred pages into the […]

Read more »

Tagged

Filed under:

Melva McLean

Writing Wrongs in Fiction

September 6, 2016 by Melva McLean | 1 Comment on Writing Wrongs in Fiction

Last month, Paul Cipywnyk wrote here about plausibility and continuity in novels. But what about in screenwriting? Realistic, plausible details and continuity are equally — sometimes more — important on screen, but it can be challenging to ensure them. Now, it doesn’t matter what you’re writing about or in what time period — the research […]

Read more »

Tagged

Filed under:

Melva McLean

Movie Review: Genius

July 12, 2016 by Melva McLean | 4 Comments on Movie Review: Genius

Genius is a movie about the relationship between writer Thomas Wolfe and editor Maxwell Perkins and is based primarily on A. Scott Berg’s biography, “Max Perkins: Editor of Genius” (Riverhead Trade). Perkins worked for Charles Scribner’s Sons for over 30 years. Like Canada’s Ellen Seligman, Perkins was an exacting editor. Like Seligman, his meticulous attention […]

Read more »

Tagged

Filed under:

Melva McLean

Film Adaptation Is Just Another Kind of Editing

May 10, 2016 by Melva McLean | 4 Comments on Film Adaptation Is Just Another Kind of Editing

Several years ago, I was a reader for a couple of book publishers, and I had the opportunity to read a collection of short stories by the late Emily Givner. Joan Givner, Emily’s mom and a writer of note on her own, wanted to publish Emily’s stories posthumously and shopped the collection around. I was […]

Read more »

Tagged

Filed under:

Melva McLean

The Invisible Vocation in Books

September 1, 2015 by Melva McLean | 2 Comments on The Invisible Vocation in Books

Well, our blog post about Colin Firth playing the great Maxwell Perkins in the upcoming film Genius had a one-day reach of 3,000 viewers. We editors are the invisible and unsung celebrities of the publishing world, so it feels great to get some recognition in print or on film. Hell, we’ll even take word of […]

Read more »

Tagged