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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. 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.

Recent Posts by this author:

  • 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
  • Who’s Going to Help Your Hero?
  • All the King’s Editors—Jim Dempsey

    • 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 should know best.

    But he doesn’t.

    [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

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    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

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    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?

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    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...]

    Who’s Going to Help Your Hero?

    By

    I just had my in-laws staying. For seven weeks! Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice, easy-going people (at least, they kept telling me so), but I reckon Ghandi could test your patience after seven weeks in your spare room. There was no one thing they did to annoy me (OK, there was one thing: “The car had an accident,” said Pops. It wasn’t him. It was the car.) It was all the little irks and ticks that built up over the time. And it was a long time. Seven weeks. Did I mention that already? By … [Read more...]

    All the King’s Editors—Jim Dempsey

    By

    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 will approach 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...]