On the latest locked-down and SWEARY episode of We’d Like a Word, Paul and Stevyn find out all about the arcane art of editing with two jobbing editors – Russel McLean and Linda Nagle. Both have years of experience in the field and are a mine of useful advice.

Russel D McLean is the author of a string of crime novels, including Ed’s Dead, described as a “masterpiece of modern noir” by Euro Crime. In addition to writing his own novels, Russel has provided editorial services – from development reports to full edits – for many clients and has chaired discussions at festival events including The Edinburgh Book Festival, The Dundee Book Festival, Aye Write, The Blairgowrie Book Festival and many others. The authors interviewed include Martina Cole, John Connolly, Chris Brookmyre, William McIlvanney, Justina Robson, Louise Welsh, and Stuart MacBride.

Linda Nagle is a freelance editor specialising in small press and self-published work. She is also an author and screenwriter. She has been published in the following anthologies: Tales of the Female perspective (Chinbeard Books); Paladins (Near to the Knuckle); 6 x 6 x 6 (Ice Pick Books), Within Darkness and Light (Nothing Books), The Black Room Manuscripts, Vol. 3 (The Sinister Horror Company) and her own anthology – Stranger Companies. She has edited numerous books for Haverhill House Publishing and John McIlveen and too many short stories to mention. She was also one of the writers of the acclaimed 2015 TV series Tráfico: Every Body Has a Price.

In this episode the discussion ranges from the difference between copy editing and structure editing, why nobody seems to able to write a good sex scene, how to deal with ‘precious’ authors and how Jake Thackray inspired a very sweary short story.

Mentioned in this podcast:

Blackwatertown by Paul Waters

Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by benjamin Dreyer

The Long Drop by Denise Mina

Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel by Lawrence Block

On Writing by Stephen King

Duncan Bradshaw – Bizarro writer (website)

Jericho Writers website

Russel’s website is here.

Linda’s Blog is here.

Where to find us …

We’d Like A Word is hosted by Paul Waters and Stevyn Colgan and goes out fortnightly. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Podcast Radio and many other podcast sites. Or you can listen to it via the hosting site – Anchor FM – by clicking here.

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