Fiction Editing Tips: Tiffany Yates Martin
Editing your own writing can feel like doing your own brain surgery. After you’ve completed your manuscript and you’re standing at the foot of Revision Mountain, climbing to the summit can feel impossible. It’s hard to look at your own writing with the objective eye needed to shape it into a tight, polished, publishable story—but just like writing, self-editing is a skill you can learn.
Developmental editor Tiffany Yates Martin has spent her career in the publishing industry honing practical, actionable techniques to help authors evaluate how well their story is working, where it might not be, and how to fix it. With a clear, accessible, user-friendly approach, she leads writers through every step of deepening and elevating their own work, as well as how to approach the edit and develop their “editor brain,” and how to solicit and process feedback. Intuitive Editing doesn’t offer one-size-fits-all advice or rigid writing “rules”; instead it helps authors discover what works for their story and their style—to find the best version of their vision.
Whether you’re writing fiction, narrative nonfiction, or memoir; whether this your first story or your fiftieth, Intuitive Editing will give you the tools you need to edit and revise your own writing with inspiration, motivation, and confidence.
In more than 25 years in the publishing industry, developmental book editor Tiffany Yates Martin has worked both with major publishing houses and directly with authors (through her company FoxPrint Editorial), on books by New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling authors and award winners as well as newer writers. She presents objective editing and writing craft workshops for writers’ groups, organizations, and conferences to help authors learn to edit their own writing and revise their stories. She also offers editing tips and advice on creative story revision for numerous writers’ sites and publications.
I’ve been itching to read this book for a while. Not only is the cover stunning, but teaching writers how to self-edit better is a passion of mine. I couldn’t wait to see what Yates Martin had to say about the process.
I absolutely agree with her.
Her book is full of valuable, relevant, necessary information authors need to strengthen their manuscripts. I’ve given almost all of the same advice to my clients.
The only small caveat I would include is that I wouldn’t personally recommend this to new authors (I work primarily with writers on their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd manuscripts). I think some of the info could be confusing or overwhelming to new-new authors, but for those authors with some experience (who’ve been studying and writing for a couple of years), I think this book is perfect. I would put this book on my shelf next to Donald Maass’s “Writing the Breakout Novel”–an invaluable resource, but a solid understanding of fiction-writing basics will make it easier to apply what you learn.
I’ll definitely recommend this book to others.
Also check out: How to Edit Your Novel: Practical Tips for Strengthening Your Story by Karin Beery
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