Fanfic and rambling. Things you'll find here: Mass Effect, Ninja Turtles, Dragon Age, crafts and needlework, and anything else that might strike my fancy.
What it means when an indie film gets a SAG-AFTRA waiver:
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[id: tweet from Alex O'Keefe @/AlexOKeefe1994 that says “People keep saying SAG-AFTRA is handing out "waivers” for indie productions to keep filming. These are NOT WAIVERS they are INTERIM AGREEMENTS. That means the employers have agreed to all the demands actors are making of AMPTP. If indies can afford it, why cant billionaires?“ end id.]
[Image Description: A series of sixteen tweets by John Rogers @jonrog1 that say:
1) A moment at the Teamsters/UPS rally this morning clarified our current struggle with the studio CEO’s (among other bosses). Teamsters got a lot of wins, but one of the main sticking points is the pay for the 65% of local UPS workers who are part-time …
2) If you read the SAG-AFTRA demands, a truly STUNNING amount of their points involve protecting background actors, and trying to improve conditions for the 87% of their union who makes less than $26,000 a year.
3) As WGA members know, this is not a strike for the showrunners. We’re trying to fix the fact the the current younger generation of writers can’t even afford housing and their pathway to advancement has been cut off.
4) Like … folks, I’m fine. There are maybe two proposals in there that affect me. I’m walking in 90% weather and losing over 50% of my income for the year because I want the younger writers to get what I got at this stage of their careers.
5) Our unions and the CEO’s and various negotiators have a fundamental cognitive disconnect. Because CEO’s types only succeed by FUCKING THEIR PEERS.
6) Zaslav, Iger , those types of execs, etc have never gone without so a fellow exec or a junior exec could thrive. A fellow exec failing is the moment to use your own leverage to advance past them, if not destroy them.
7) Part of it is the money but part of this, I think, is a genuine inability to grasp even the concepts of any labor action. Because it is always other-directed.
8) So many people treat capitalism as part of nature red in tooth and claw, but it’s not. It’s a human construct. There are different rules you can play by – but not if you want to win.
9) The greatest gift capitalism ever granted was the ability to validate selfish behavior as a virtue because that’s “just what’s necessary, I don’t make the rules!” (Look ma, it’s reification!)
10) This is where I usually point out that Adam Smith wrote that you have to overpay workers to keep your labor force up, and you need to take into account the psychic damage of capitalism to the workers, and that admiring the rich is the greatest source of moral corruption …
11) But I’ll stave off that diversion to just land with … this is a discontinuity of attitudes which I think was once breached by the fact that management USED to come from people who loved building their company or their trade, even if they eventually did management shit.
12) Now, even that thin thread of SYMPATHY (Adam Smith joke, get it? People?) is gone. The CEO’s are working off a different scorecard, practically and morally. We’re not just playing by wildly divergent rules, our lives and careers are DEFINED by those wildly divergent rules.
13) To them, we are IN FACT being “unreasonable”, as our behavior does not make sense in their moral framework. They don’t think they’re being evil, they think they’re playing by the actual rules, and we’re nuts.
14) There’s not great conclusion to this, other than to note that the bit about making writers homeless was described as “cruel but necessary” because they genuinely don’t understand the meaning of cruel, because they are always on the other side of the power dynamic.
15) And if they’re ever NOT on the top of the power dynamic, they’re not suffering, they’re dead. They are un-people in their own eyes.
16) These men are not irrational, but they are deranged. This isn’t about money, it’s about identity. And in a fight about identity … they will set billions on fire.
Because they can always get more money. But they’ll never shed the stink of losing to their lessers.“
so SAG-AFTRA finally released some official guidance for fans, viewers, creators/influencers, critics, and more during the strike. here’s what you need to know:
if you see a publication/news source/journalist talking about a piece of struck work, that’s ok. they’re allowed to do that.
2. they’re asking regular viewers and fans to DONATE TO STRIKE FUNDS, SHOW UP TO PICKETS IF YOU CAN, and please do NOT boycott streaming services or movies in theaters.
3. influencers, content creators, cosplayers, and anything in between is still a bit of a grey area, but they’re asking people to use their best judgement. “organically” means UNPAID promo (like an invite to a premiere without being paid, being sent a publicity box, letting the company’s social media post a photo of you in cosplay, etc).
obviously this doesn’t answer every question, and isn’t hard and fast rules for fanworks, but it can at least inform how you personally choose to move forward when posting online and moving publically. i hope this helps!
writerandstudent said: I have a friend who is doing freelace editing. She charges 0.03 per word, before tax. My book is 100000 words (or around), and she told me that the price for her editing would be 3,075 dollars. She told me this was on the low end of editing, is that true? I'm okay with doing my best to edit my own book (which I am I'd just like a second pair of eyes if possible.) But 3,000 dollars is not within my pay range. (Thanked her for going over the prices with me and told her I was sorry I couldn't.)
The average editing speed for a COPY EDIT is 6 pages an hour.
The industry standard for number of words on a page is 250 (this can change but this is the industry standard). So six pages equals 1500 words. So 1500 words an hour. An average novel is around 60,000 words. Divide that by 1500 and you get how many hours it will take on average to edit – which in this case is 40 hours.
This is for a copy edit.
Now because you’re not a horrible person you should want to pay your editor at least minimum wage which currently in the U.S. is $7.25 an hour – which is $290. Except even copy editing requires specialized skills so let’s bump that up to the new proposed minimum wage of $15.00 an hour. Which is $600 for a 60,000 word or 240-page manuscript.
THIS IS FOR COPY EDITING.
And this isn’t even the industry standard rate. the average copy edit rate is $36-41 per hour. (Source)
Higher levels of editing like Line editing, Content Editing, and Developmental Editing all take a higher degree of skill and expertise. As the linked article shows for Non-fiction/journalistic editing there’s a lot of things higher level editors have to be able to do. A lot of these kinds of edits require education and knowledge of the genre. This isn’t looking for comma faults or homophones. This is tightening up language, fixing plot holes, flagging and fixing characterization issues, and more. Not only does this take longer (4 pages an hour on average for a line edit, and 2 pages an hour for a content edit) but it costs more. This is a huge time commitment and work commitment for the editor. With a content edit, the editor may be literally filling in whole scenes mimicking the author’s voice or, more often, cutting huge swathes of text and reordering it. (I have cut so many first chapters you do not even know. And don’t even ask me about how many action scenes I’ve written.) It takes a whole slew of skills to do higher level editing.
I get it, money is tight. But it’s tight for everyone–including your editors. For me, I’ve been editing professionally for 25 years. I am disabled and editing is my primary source of income. I deserve to be paid a living wage for my work and expertise. While I charge on the lower end of editing because I know most of my clientele is as cash-strapped as I am, I still need to be able to pay bills.
Grammarly, ProWriting Aid, Google Docs, Word, Etc. can help but they aren’t a substitute for a professional editor. They will not be able to tell you that your character is an antisemitic stereotype or that you dropped a plot thread or that your plot is the exact same as the previous book or that your sex scene has two too many limbs (extra hands and tongues are a problem) or that your heroine’s eye color changed from blue to brown halfway through. These are all things I’ve caught just this month.
Beta readers are a good start, but again they aren’t professionals. They aren’t trained to look for this. And as someone who is trying to train other editors, it is not easy. Editing requires the ability to think laterally as well as linearly. It is both detail-oriented and macro-oriented.
So to answer the initial question is 3,000 for 100,000 words unreasonable. No. Not at all. Especially if you’re getting a content edit or a line edit.
^_^
I see you mentioning the different types of editing but what exactly are the differences?
So here are the different types of editing. And I’m going to use an analogy of cooking to do this.
Under the Developmental Editing Umbrella are the following:
Book/Story Doctoring - This is your recipe creation. A book doctor helps you with creating a viable (but not perfected) recipe. It includes things like world building, character creation, story arcs, character arcs, outlining, and making sure the story is in the right order and has all of the appropriate beats. A book doctor will often help write scenes wholesale and they will do a lot of handholding through the process. It’s intensive. And it’s expensive.
Content Editing - This is your fine tuning of the recipe. A content editor will read what should be your second or third draft and help you with pacing, flow, consistent characterization, filling plot holes, and fleshing out action or sex scenes. A content editor will often do some chapter rearranging or suggest you cut scenes/chapters/characters wholesale. It’s not as intensive as a book doctor and it’s about making sure that you have a viable story plot, character and pacing wise. This is not checking spelling or grammar. And it’s not just pointing out problems but also providing solutions for said problems, even if it means rewriting something for the author.
Line editing - This is your plating/presentation. It’s making the language shine and sparkle. This is about the writing–the language–itself. I did a meta on this a few years ago that goes into exactly what a line edit looks like. It’s not rewriting, and a line editor will not fully flesh out your scenes if you’re an under-writer or fully cut extraneous description if you’re an over-writer. They may do some depending on the editor. But mostly they stick with the text they are given.
Sensitivity Editing - This is your making sure your recipe can accommodate people with allergies. Sensitivity editing is more than just looking for things that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. It includes things like consent, populating the world, character description, phraseology, and even global things like plot points/villains/etc. Ideally the sensitivity editor will be from the marginalized community represented, but it isn’t always feasible. Some sensitivity editors can do a general edit, but it requires training and experience. But no one person is a monolith. Keep this in mind. Sensitivity editing can be draining because the editors have to open themselves up to the potential pain to be effective. They are deliberately putting themselves into a traumatic situation to make your story better.
Hi there! It really depends on the kind of editing, how experienced (and busy) the editor is, the shape the manuscript is in, and a number of other factors. I’ve seen anything from .005/word for proofreading to .08/word for developmental editing. My own rates start at .015/word for an editorial review and go up to .03/word for a heavy developmental edit (consult + lengthy critique + margin comments + follow up call + email support).
A lot of people experience sticker shock with editing, so you’re not alone there. You can find people to do it for cheap, but it’s usually a you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing. (At the same time, I always encourage writers to ask editors for a sample of their work before hiring them–don’t assume that because the editor charges a lot you’ll click with their style.)
I might be preaching to the choir here, but I’ve gotten enough asks about editing prices that I think it’s worth pointing out a few things:
Editing takes time. You can’t just quickly breeze through a manuscript once and come back with helpful, detailed recommendations. In my case, no matter what kind of editing I do, I carefully read every manuscript twice. Because of the level of focus and attention I give to the story, for a 100,000 word manuscript that could mean almost 20 hours of my time just to read the thing… before I even start writing a critique.
Good editors are experienced and often highly educated. If you can find an editor who is willing to work for minimum wage, more power to you (I guess?). Personally, I’m a published fiction writer, and I have a masters degree and years of experience in my field, so I charge accordingly. Most editors I respect (read: that I would hire myself) have rates starting at $80/hr.
If you want useful feedback, there’s no such thing as “taking a quick look” at your manuscript. I get a lot of inquiries from writers who hope I can come down on my price if they don’t need as much feedback: “Just take a quick look” or “give me an overall impression.” There are two problems with this. The first (see above) is that even reading the manuscript can take hours of my time. The second is that the only way for me to give “quick” feedback is to give shallow, crappy feedback… which I just can’t bring myself to do.
The bummer, of course, is that all of these factors put editing way outside of a lot of writers’ price range. Every time I get an inquiry from a broke writer and have to turn them down, my heart dies a little. That’s part of the reason I’m working on my self-editing guide The Complete Guide to Self Editing for Fiction Writers. It’s a DIY guide that walks you through doing a story-level, scene-level, and sentence-level edit on your story. Completing it has been slower going than I originally thought (It just keeps getting longer!!), but I hope to have it finished soon.
Thanks for writing! I hope this has been helpful, and good luck to you!
So for instance, my Marginalized identities include: Disabled, Chronically ill, body positivity, bisexual, genderqueer (I prefer just queer), Pagan (Eclectic Wicca), Domestic Abuse Survivor, Rape Survivor, Sexual Assault Survivor, and AFAB. So using my own marginalizations I can check a lot of boxes. My specialty is consent. Particularly sexual consent. I am VERY good at it because of my history. However because of my personal relationships, education, background, and various training I can provide a decently competent generalized sensitivity edit… like I’ll catch antisemitism even though I am not Jewish because my best friend and co-author is Jewish (I’ve even caught things that she missed because she’s gotten used to the microaggressions and I haven’t). I also know when to back out and go – “this is outside of my expertise; you need someone else.”
Manuscript Assessment - Basically this is your food critic. It’s a professional opinion about what is good about your story, what is not so good, what kinds of editing you need, and what you should be focusing on next. It’s often done in very general terms and does not provide solutions. You are essentially paying someone for their professional opinion about where your story stands at that moment.
These fall under the Technical Editing umbrella:
Copy Editing - This is your cleaning up the plate. You know that person with a rag who removes the little bit of schmutz or stray herb? That’s the copy editor. They clean up the story – fixing spelling, grammar, punctuation, consistency (did the character change eye or hair color?), pregnancy length, consistent timing, etc.
Proofreading - This is the person who makes sure the final presentation is pretty. It’s the waiter who sets the plate down in front of you and arranges it just so. It’s checking to make sure that every line has the right open and close quotes, for instance. That you haven’t missed a period someplace. That there isn’t a random extra space somewhere. It’s the final presentation.
——-
Those are the differences. Some editors do more than one thing when they edit, I know I do a very basic sensitivity edit with anything greater than a line edit because it goes hand in hand with cleaning up language. But basically it boils down to the amount of work, time, problem solving, and hand-holding the editor has to do.
Copy editing is the Technical Editor’s bread and butter. And most developmental editors can also act as copy editors… but not at the same time.
Line editing is the Developmental Editor’s bread and butter. It requires some problem solving, lateral thinking, and hand holding. (Mostly about repetitive sentence structure.) But it isn’t as in depth as a content editor or as intensive as a book doctor.
As you like it: you’ll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version
Coriolanus: Here’s a college play, here’s the 1984 telefilm, here’s the 2014 one with tom hiddleston
Hamlet: The Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. THe 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. And the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation. Have the 2018 Almeida version here.
Henry IV: part 1 and part 2 of the BBC 1989 version. And here’s part 1 of a corwall school version.
Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.
Julius Caesar: here’s the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one.
King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny’s 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here.
Macbeth: here’s the 1961 one with Sean Connery. Here’s the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. Here’s the 1948 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljZrf_0_CcQ“>here. The 1988 BBC onee with portugese subtitles and here the 2001 one). The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here and the 1966 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny’s 2008 version is here.
The Merchant of Venice: here’s a stage version, here’s the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here’s the 2004 movie.
The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version.
Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here’s the 1984 version.
Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you’ve got the BBC version here and there.
Richard III: here’s the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier, and here’s the 1995 one with Ian McKellen. (the 1995 one is in english subtitled in spanish. the 1955 one has no subtitles and might have ads since it’s on youtube)
The Taming of the Shrew: the 1988 BBC version here, the 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one.
Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,
Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.
(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)
Oh, I have additions!
A Misdummer Night Dream: Here’s the 2013 globe production (the one with The Kiss, you know it)
Romeo and Juliet: Here’s the one that was going to be a stage show and then lockdown happened so they filmed it! Stars Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley
Okay, I’m collating everything from the comments because I love this so much!
This drive has 4 Globe productions Midsummer 2013 and Tempest 2013 (Both above), and then As You Like It 2009, and Love’s Labour’s Lost 2010
From maa-pix:
Twelfth Night: the 1998 version, “Live From Lincoln Center” on PBS, directed by Nicholas Hytner, with Helen Hunt, Paul Rudd, and Kyra Sedgwick. Part One, Intermission interview with Nicholas Hytner, and Part Two. Also here. (Absolutely fantastic version, best I’ve ever seen.)
They are also all Globe productions: MacBeth 2020, Romeo and Juliet 2009, Romeo and Juliet 2019, The Merry Wives of Windsor 2019, and The Winter’s Tale 2018.
And then finally MIT has this super cool repository of performances from around the world and some of them have videos https://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/
Also, if anyone has a version of the lockdown Romeo and Juliet mentioned above or the Olivier or McKellan Richard IIIs, the current links are broken and the productions sound very cool!
I might kiss you my friend for that work. I awoke from my slumber to find that the post had become popular again and there was way too much notes attached to it for me to read them all.
12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them
mwahahahahahahahahaha…..Udina.
NO REALLY, HEAR ME OUT! Okay, so, he’s very dislikable in his personality, and he’s written to be, so the writers achieved what they wanted to with him, but I actually think he’s quite understandable for his motivations, and that makes him relatable to me. Relatable = okay, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, lol, because I’m a softy.
But think about it. His motivation is genuinely what he thinks is best for humanity, at all times. Yeah, he’s a power hungry politician, but I think that was an acquired taste later and his first reason for tossing his hat in the political ring was he truly wanted to do what was best for his fellow man. You can see it in all the games underneath his grumpiness and dealing with Shepard. Yeah, in game 1 he’s trying to push hard for a Council seat and for a human Spectre, because that advances humanity over all on the galactic stage. It’s not a bad thing. Shepard and the Alliance happen to be the tools he’s using at the moment, and once it looks like they jeopardize the advancement he’s trying to make for humanity instead of helping him further it, he drops them and tries to distance himself. Sucks from the player’s end, yeah, but we know stuff Udina doesn’t and Udina’s playing a game that Shepard really isn’t. Shep’s trying to save the galaxy from the Reaper threat while Udina’s trying to push humanity forward in an arena where the rules of engagement are difficult and ever-changing. And Udina’s playing to win on the behalf of the human race.
Game 2, he’s achieved his goals, but he’s struggling to make them more than just tokens. That’s frustrating no matter who you are, and especially when you feel like you’re being patronized to. And then your flagship Spectre up and dies, and you’re back at square one and it’s being used as an example to keep you and your species from being taken seriously…yeah, I’d be salty, too, lol. And again, he makes decisions against Shep, but it’s because that’s what looks like it’s the best avenue forward to further the cause of humanity. The whole situation with Shep looks BAD. Spectre goes missing, presumed dead for 2 years, then…shows up under a terrorist organization?? One that is only underlining what the other species are saying as why they shouldn’t give humans more responsibility?? UMM??? That’s…not a good look in front of the other kids on the playground, lol; that only gives them further cause to try to shove you off the swing you’re barely clinging to as it is. But then again, Shep is getting stuff done. They’re…actually doing what you wanted them to do in the first place, which is put the spotlight on humanity for how they can help the galaxy.
Game 3 is what really sold me on liking Udina. Weird, I know. He’s been a busy boy while Shep was incarcerated, lol, and it absolutely is him grabbing the reins of power for himself as much as he can, but this one also completely underlines for me how his motivation is ‘what’s best for humanity and Earth’. He knows the politics, he knows the players, he’s survived this long, and most important, he’s gaining ground. Once Earth is attacked and Arcturus is obliterated, he’s shaken. But this is his moment. This is why he’s been fighting tooth and nail to get to where he is: being able to mobilize help as humanity needs it. As he tells Shep, he’s the most powerful human in the galaxy (politically speaking), and we see how little that affords us. But don’t worry, he can move mountains while we need to move planets. He’s unwavering in that he is going to get help, goddamn it, one way or another. And that causes him to become more and more desperate, and desperate times call for desperate measures. It turns out he’s working with Cerberus, and that’s pretty fucking despicable.
But when you look at it from his point of view…where else did he have to turn?
He needed help. And he wasn’t getting it from the Council, the ones who are, y'know’, supposed to protect and help and lend hands. And, well…Shepard worked with Cerberus last year…because once again, there was a threat to the galaxy and the Council didn’t do shit. So the Savior of the Galaxy worked with a known terrorist cell, and you know what, they were successful. And here’s Cerberus again, offering help when nobody else will… Earth is burning. His people are dying in droves. He needs to take drastic action to gain control of assets and resources to send aid to his people.
…What would you do in his shoes?
18) it’s absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…
so many good things… like Omega’s market district. How did Harrot get in his position? Who else was helping him? Does Aria know or care? Is he greasing her palms for her to look the other way? What about Mordin’s clinic?? GIMME
24) topic that brings up warm fuzzy feels every time for you
honestly, the relationship ties people have the characters make, hehe. I can’t tell you how many times someone has just been talking about their head canon, or their favorite character and a throwaway sentence about “oh, yeah, they say/do xyz with [other character]…” and continue on, but I’m struck in the moment with awe at the sheer brilliance of it, and frequently “huh, wow, I never would have thought of that! I wish I had; this person is amazing”
idea: scene with two characters eagerly stripping each other clearly about to bone, but they keep getting interrupted by finding carefully concealed weapons in each other’s clothing, so they keep just unholstering, revealing and unstrapping increasingly ludicrous amounts of hidden guns and knives as the clothes come off, and it’s lowkey killing the mood a little
Alternatively: it’s not killing the mood at all but it’s totally making both of them giggle like they’re twelve and possibly get lowkey competitive in a subconscious way about who has the most to drop.
The more that I think of it the more I’m seeing the incredible intimacy of letting someone know where you keep your backup knife.
Like my god, the trust involved in letting someone undress you and learn your secrets instead of popping into the bathroom to change where they can’t see and hiding all your weapons under the sink
…Oh
second alternative: you go to hide all your weapons under the sink but there’s already a bunch of weapons hidden underneath the sink.
awkward
It’s not that there’s already a bunch of weapons hidden underneath the sink that makes it awkward so much as that there’s so many weapons hidden underneath the sink that they fall out of the cabinet with the unmistakable sound of a knife-alanche, and then the other person comes in like “I can explain!” and you’re just dead-ass standing there with your own armload of weapons like “I can also explain.”
Married version is shoving your hand in your partner’s clothes when you’re out of weapons because you KNOW where their spare is. Or wearing a weapon in a spot you can’t draw from yourself because its now spare storage for your spouse’s weapons.
The two illuminated cats from the edge of the pages in Pentiment
Something a bit different than my usual posting but I’ve been working on some small embroidery projects in my spare time and I’ve finally finished one before running out of steam
It’s nothing much but it’s my unwindy little hobby so I don’t strive for perfection :) (the back is. a mess.)
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