Blog Entries
I’m Heather Belleguelle of Behest Fiction Editing. Welcome to my blog! I hope the posts I write will give you some handy tips, information, and ideas to help you on your writing journey.
As a British editor working with authors from both sides of the pond and having spent a year living in Canada myself, I’m very aware of the differences that exist between British and North American life and culture. My hope is that if you aren’t so familiar with all things British, I’ll be able to pass on some tips to help you ensure your British characters and settings are as authentic as possible and that I’ll also be able to introduce you to beautiful Britain.
If you have any questions or subjects you’d like me to consider covering, please drop an email to heather@behest-editing.com or send me a message via the contact form on this website.
- Gold-Digger
My husband and I recently watched the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1944 novel Towards Zero. During the course of the drama, one of the characters states sadly that she’d been accused of not marrying her husband for love but because she’s a “gold-digger”. Hearing the word made me wonder when its figurative use began. Continue reading...Category: Time Travel Tuesday - Split SecondI think we’d all agree that the pace of modern life is generally fast. Our ancestors in previous centuries marked the passing of time in years, days, and hours. Today, particularly as the accuracy of timekeeping has improved, we’re down to minutes, seconds, and even nanoseconds. Our word today reflects that speeding up of time. Continue reading...Category: Time Travel Tuesday
- Double TakeSurely it can’t be Time Travel Tuesday again? Today’s subject, “double take”, is exactly what I did when I looked at the calendar. Usually appearing in the phrase “do a double take”, the idiom means “a delayed reaction to a surprising or significant situation after an initial failure to notice anything unusual.” (M-W) As well Continue reading...Category: Time Travel Tuesday
- April Fool’s DayAs today is the first day of April, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for Time Travel Tuesday to look at the origins of “April Fool’s Day”. How the practice of playing tricks on others on this day came about is lost in the mists of time, but looking at various sources, it seems that Continue reading...Category: Time Travel Tuesday
- AdrenalineMany of the books I edit are crime fiction of some variety, and invariably, the sleuth or agent ends up in a perilous situation at some point during the story. Often this causes their “adrenaline” to kick in. When I read the word in a 1920s’ mystery, I wondered if the term had actually been Continue reading...Category: Time Travel Tuesday
- Be My GuestI was engrossed in an 1840s’ period drama, and my language detectors suddenly kicked into gear when one of the characters said “be my guest”. To me, the phrase sounded too modern for the time, and on looking into it, I found that it was. “Be my guest”, meaning “You’re welcome (to something); do as Continue reading...Category: Time Travel Tuesday