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About Jim Dempsey

Jim Dempsey is a book editor who specializes in detailed analysis and editing of novel manuscripts through his company, Novel Gazing. He has worked as an editor for more than 20 years. He has a master’s degree in creative writing and is a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading and is a trustee of the Arkbound Foundation. Jim is fascinated by the similarities between fiction and psychotherapy, since both investigate the human condition, the things that make us uniquely human. He explores this at The Fiction Therapist website. If you have a specific concern with your novel, send an email to jim [at] thefictiontherapist.com, or visit the website to ask for a free sample edit. You can follow Jim on Instagram @the_fiction_therapist.

Recent Posts by this author:

  • Writing is a Labyrinth of Choices
  • How to Give Useful Criticism
  • The Wonders of your Character’s World View
  • Achieve Your Writing Goals
  • How to Respond to Criticism
  • Tune out your self-doubt—Fiction Therapy
  • Discover Your Characters’ Goals
  • How to Find Inspiration—Fiction Therapy
  • Fiction Therapy—What’s Your Story’s Problem?
  • The Different Types of Editing Explained
  • The Pitfalls of Self-Editing
  • All the King’s Editors—Jim Dempsey

    • Writing is a Labyrinth of Choices

    By

    Your phone rings. You check the screen. You don’t recognize the number. Do you answer it?

    The cars in front of you on the highway slow down, their brake lights glowing. The traffic is gridlocked up ahead, but there’s an exit just before. Do you take it?

    Life is full of decisions, apparently simple choices that could take you in a whole different direction. Fiction, as a reflection of life, is the same. In the hero’s journey – a template for stories found all over the world – there is what Joseph Campbell called the refusal of the call. This is the moment, early in the story, when the hero knows he has to do something to change his ordinary life, but doesn’t yet feel able to take that step. He refuses, and those around him try to convince him that he has to take that journey. Eventually, of course, he will because otherwise there would be no story.

    In The Sound of Music, Maria doesn’t want to leave the convent, but Mother Abbess sends her to the von Trapp house anyway, believing it would be a more appropriate environment for Maria. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is different, she wants to leave, and Professor Marvel, the charlatan fortune teller, has to convince her to go back home.

    These are big moments of decision in a story, when the main character has to decide whether or not to go on that journey, to cross the ‘first threshold’ into the second act. But the hero makes many more decisions throughout the journey, as do most other characters, and each one of those choices could have a profound effect on the course of the narrative.

    Applied psychology

    In psychology, this moment of decision is called a choice point. Therapists can try to make their patients aware of these moments to recognize the impact of certain choices. The technique can be used for anything from addiction to stress reduction. In anger management, for example, a subject could be aware of the moment where they could choose between flying off the handle or reacting differently, in a way that would ultimately have a better outcome on their life, in a way that they, perhaps later, would have preferred to have reacted. The idea is to encourage flexibility in their response to certain triggers.

    The technique is also useful in stories. [Read more…]

    How to Give Useful Criticism

    By

    The great thing about Writer Unboxed is the sense of community it gives to writers. There’s the twitter account to follow, the Facebook group to connect with others, and, of course, the unconference where you can really engage in all things writery. All of this is so important in the otherwise solitary task of writing. Beyond WU are the many writers’ groups, often online these days to help writers connect with others working in their specific genres or interest areas. And then there are beta … [Read more...]

    The Wonders of your Character’s World View

    By

    A father, Jim, takes his son thirteen-year-old son, Roy, to Alaska in the tradition of all those great male adventurers. It’s long been an ambition for Jim, to pack up and live off the land for a year. It gives him the chance to connect with his son and show the boy what it means to be a man. But Jim doesn’t know this environment. When challenged, he makes mistakes, bad decisions and over-rules his son’s suggestions. After all, Roy is still a child. What does he know? Jim is the father; he … [Read more...]

    Achieve Your Writing Goals

    By

    There are times when writing is easy, when you get through that daily word count without too much effort. And there are times when the final goal – that moment when you can type The End – seems very far away. There will be days when you think it will be impossible to reach, and it seems so much easier to check Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even clean the house. When you get to that point, however, there’s a better way to procrastinate. Follow this quick and simple process to overcome your … [Read more...]

    How to Respond to Criticism

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    Last time, I looked at how to deal with your own inner critic, and this month it seems appropriate and timely to look at external criticism. Any kind of feedback on your writing—whether good or bad—can be useful, but the negative stuff can hit hard, causing a burst of emotions within you. What’s the best way to deal with that and respond to those who criticize your writing? Since the latest and final series of Game of Thrones aired, more than a 1.5 million have signed a petition to have it … [Read more...]

    Tune out your self-doubt—Fiction Therapy

    By

    Best-selling thriller writer, Ian Rankin, has been writing professionally since the mid-1980s. He’s written close to 30 novels. He pretty much writes a book a year. But, at a certain point in his drafting process, usually somewhere at the end of the first month, he is struck by, what he calls, ‘the fear.’ He is convinced that all the work he's done in that month has been a waste of time, that this new book won’t be any good. When he mentions this to his wife, she usually asks, 'Are you on … [Read more...]

    Discover Your Characters’ Goals

    By

    Working out what your characters’ goals are will help you plan your plotline and develop engaging, motivated characters your readers will love to follow. Your characters need goals to get them to the next page, and then the next, and on until the end. They need to be going somewhere, trying to achieve something. That will make them the kinds of characters readers will want to spend time with, maybe even for a few hundred pages. Readers will want to know if your characters achieve those … [Read more...]

    How to Find Inspiration—Fiction Therapy

    By

    Whether you're wondering what happens next in your story, want to write your first novel, or are about to start on the next instalment of your long-running series, there are always times when you’ll need inspiration. And it is often surprisingly close by. 'Be observant,' said the dramatist, Lajos Egri, 'and you will be forced to admit that the world is an inexhaustible pastry shop and you are permitted to choose from the delicacies the tastiest bits for yourself.' It’s that easy. Except … [Read more...]

    Fiction Therapy—What’s Your Story’s Problem?

    By

    Every month, I examine some aspect of fiction—character development, plot, story structure, etc.—and offer advice and tips to help you work through the problems in your novel. I have adapted many of the concepts you’ll see here from proven techniques used in modern psychotherapy. Hence: Fiction Therapy. If you have a specific concern about your novel, send an email to jim [at] thefictiontherapist.com and I’ll do my best to help. I recently reviewed a debut novel, The Valley at the … [Read more...]

    The Different Types of Editing Explained

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    My last article, on the pitfalls of self-editing, provoked some discussion about the different types of editing. There’s certainly a lot of confusion around, and it’s not surprising. There’s line editing, copy-editing, developmental editing, structural editing, substantive editing, and then proofreading. Editors can hardly agree on exactly what’s involved in each type, and that’s because it can be difficult to draw definite lines between each one. But authors, since they are often the ones … [Read more...]

    The Pitfalls of Self-Editing

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    Let’s get this out of the way right at the start. I’m an editor. I’m going to be biased, but I’ve seen this scenario so many times over the years. As an author, you spend months, sometimes years, perfecting your novel, carefully considering each word, crafting every sentence, and polishing every paragraph. When you’re finished you read through it only to find tons of typos and a multitude of grammatical blunders. You edit as you go. You get rid of all those errors, and you rewrite and … [Read more...]

    All the King’s Editors—Jim Dempsey

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    Jim’s post is part of the “All the King’s Editors” series, where an editor from the Writer Unboxed contributor team edits manuscript pages submitted by a member of the WU community. Each participating editor approaches a submission in a unique way, and speaks only for him or herself. Remember, editing is as much art as science, and your take on the passage may differ. If so, feel free to join in the discussion at the end, but above all, be kind. If you’re interested in submitting a … [Read more...]