Dear Purposeful Prose , I’ve been self-editing my finished novel. At this stage, I’m taking some time away from the book so I can look at it again with fresh eyes. Lately, I’ve been thinking about asking a professional editor to look at my work, and I was wondering what type of edit you think I should go for. Is it too late to ask for a developmental edit? Would it be better for me to get a line edit?  First of all, congratulations on finishing your novel! The way I like to a

Dear Purposeful Prose,  I get confused about plagiarism and copyright infringement pretty often, and I’ve heard a lot of people use the terms interchangeably. Is there a real difference between the two? How do I know if I’ve done either one of these by accident? Growing up, I used to rent VHS tapes with my family at a Blockbuster-esque video store. Kids’ movies could be rented for free. I spent many a happy evening with my family watching things like My Neighbor Totoro . If y

Dear Purposeful Prose, I’m a big planner. For my book, I want to plan as much as I can before I start writing, and I’m struggling with point of view. I’m not sure what point of view I should use. I’ve read that second person is too easy to get wrong. There are also a few characters whose perspectives I could write from, but I don’t want to include so many perspectives that the story gets confusing. What perspective do you think it would be best to write in or how can I decide