After 15+ years writing fiction, more than a decade editing it, and six years teaching others how to edit fiction, this year I put my classes together in an easy-to-use book that will help authors edit their own manuscripts before submitting them to agents, editors, or publishers.
I’m so excited for the opportunity to share this with others. It will be available next month through Bold Vision Books–stay tuned for ordering details!
You’ve finally finished your manuscript! But what’s the next step?
If this has happened to you, don’t worry because you are not alone. Just keep reading!
In every manuscript, there is an author and in every author, there is an editor.
We all know how tricky and tiring editing can be, especially if you’ve just started your writing career. Editors can be a bit pricey and seeing that you’ve just started out, you have to edit it yourself because you have no budget.
Here’s the problem: How do you start your editing? What exactly are the things you have to look out for?
Well, I’ve got the solution for you! Presenting the Editing Fiction: Detect and Correct For Success by Kathy Gaudry. We know how editing fictional books is hard, so in this book, you will learn a simple method of editing your work!
Through this book, you’ll discover:
Kathy understands how editing can be challenging for a starter. This book is meant to ease you through the toughest of concepts and empowers you to confidently edit your own manuscript.
Knowing this was a short book, I didn’t expect a lot of in-depth fiction-editing information, but this book was a little sparse for someone who’s been studying fiction writing for a while.
There’s some good info in here that I would recommend to people thinking about writing who aren’t sure how much work is involved — this will give you a good idea of how many different things you need to know before you write (though it won’t help you identify or fix those areas).
However, despite the emphasis on producing a clean book, there are a few typos and significant formatting errors that make the book awkward to read at times.
My biggest issue with the book is the suggestion to use the Chicago Manual of Style but offering other grammar guides. If writes are seeking traditional publication, CMOS is THE style guide. Relying on any other could result in punctuation/grammar mistakes in a manuscript.
Overall, I’m not sure I’d consider this to help an experienced writer self-edit, but it could definitely help new writers manage their expectations.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Successful writers spend a lot more time editing than they do writing. They know that first drafts need extensive revisions to ensure their stories or messages come across clearly and effectively.
In this book you’ll find a wealth of suggestions from best-selling authors who have studied editing techniques and implemented them in their books, which have touched the hearts and lives of readers around the world.
If you’re an aspiring, beginning, or intermediate writer, this book will help you polish your manuscript and get it ready for publication. If you’re an established author, these tips can help you edit other writers’ manuscripts, either in a critique group setting or as an editorial freelancer.
For years, the go-to self-editing book for novelists has been “Self-Editing for Fiction Writers” by King and Browne, but I think this book has supplanted that book and made it my must-have recommendation for writers and editors alike.
“Editing Secrets of Best-Selling Authors” doesn’t go into as much detail when it comes to self-editing, but it identifies and addresses MANY more issues than appear in King and Browne’s book. Ide’s book also looks at nonfiction editing, as well as identifying different types of editing. In my opinion, if you’re looking for a comprehensive explanation of what’s involved in a self-edit, this is the book for you.
This is also a book I’ll recommend to people wanting to start their editing careers–the detailed lists of what’s involved in the different types of editing for different types of books will give new editors a good idea of the type of work they’ll need to master and provide to their clients.
Without a doubt, this book is on my must-have shelf for writers and editors.
Rated G. Get your copy here!
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
One of the most common problems I see in manuscripts by unpublished authors (besides slipping out of “storytelling” into “expository telling”) is a tendency to ramble from description to dialogue to action to discovery etc., almost at random.
This is fine when one is pre-writing— just brainstorming, outlining, and pantsing one’s way along, chasing inspiration. One pursues and often captures vivid scenes, character insights, and plot points around which the rest of the story will be written. But if “the rest of the story” fumbles its way toward the next gem, the reader might not stick around long enough to reach it.
What’s missing is a reliable way to hold the reader’s attention as you rhythmically spool through “the rest of the story” in a way that sets up each crushing defeat and glorious triumph. Fortunately, such a rhythm is well understood: it’s called story structure.
Story structure isn’t the same as a story arc, the three-act (or four-box, or eight-point) overall plot structure that makes a story satisfying. Nor is it a formulaic straitjacket to strangle your creativity. It is a basic underlying rhythm that engages the attention, emotion, and curiosity of your readers, and maintains it as long as you maintain that rhythm. Depart from it whenever you like… at your own risk.
Story structure (perhaps “story rhythm” would be a better term) is made up of two kinds of scenes, which Dwight Swain called “Scenes” and “Sequels,” each of which has three “story beats.”
Scene:
Sequel:
The three parts of a Scene sound just like any scene you might write: a character strives toward a specific Goal, encounters Conflict or resistance, and either fails to attain the Goal, or succeeds and is disappointed for some reason, or discovers what the next Goal must be. It might not end in “disaster,” but there must be some kind of “uh oh” or “what next?” involved, which hopefully sets up another scene.
But this is Swain’s insight: begin with a Goal and Conflict, but always end in Disaster of some kind, at least something that feels like a Disaster to your main character and to your reader.
Then make the next scene something different: make it a Sequelto the scene before it. Describe the POV character feeling, absorbing, Reacting to the Disaster that just happened. Then give them a Dilemma: force them to make an impossible choice (or one that seems so to that character at that part of their character arc). Let them agonize in a way that resonates convincingly with your reader. But not for too long. They must Decide on some course of action—which becomes the Goal for your next Scene.
Goal, Conflict, Disaster — Reaction, Dilemma, Decision
Goal, Conflict, Disaster — Reaction, Dilemma, Decision
As you string these together, you start a virtuous cycle of fascination and tension, an engine that drives the reader inexorably through the story. This smoothly-running engine can roar like a rocket or coast along at cruising speed, as the pace of the story varies, but if you can keep it running without interruption, you’ve got what’s called a “page-turner” on your hands. You have learned how to structure a book that your reader can’t put down.
Again, this is a scene-by-scene story rhythm that just works. It isn’t a formula, because every author will implement it differently. Your reader won’t “see” this Scene/Sequel structure because you’ll clothe it in characters, setting, thoughts, emotions, dialogue and action. Your reader will see and hear what you describe to them; they won’t notice the story structure you’re using.
Unless, of course, you don’t have one, or you deviate from the Scene/Sequel cycle in a distracting way. Then they will indeed miss the smoothly-running engine, even though they won’t know what exactly has gone wrong. Every passionate reader of fiction, regardless of genre, is familiar with the thrilling purr of well-structured storytelling even though almost none of them would recognize the machinery if they peeked under the hood. But readers don’t need to understand the mechanics of story structure to know immediately when it has stalled on them. Very few readers are willing to push your story along to the next service station. Now that you know the secret, you won’t do that to them anymore!
Nic Nelson started following Jesus early in college and has found it difficult to keep up with the fellow. It’s more like hurtling headlong from one impossible challenge to another, involving widely varied failure and just enough triumph to keep him sane. Which is probably just how Jesus intended it. Oh, and for the past fifteen years he has been helping authors to “write well and publish wisely.” Since clients keep coming despite Nic’s complete lack of advertising acumen, and they keep saying nice things about him when he isn’t around, he seems to do this pretty well.
“And the wrench is still there. What would it be like to operate with a professional team? I wouldn’t know that’s for sure. Give me more suction.”
Eyes rolled around the room.
I wrote this a few years ago and never gave it a second thought. But when I read it over yesterday, trying to determine if it was suitable for a contest entry, all I could see was eyeballs rolling around the room like they were on little roller skates. Now that’s a floating body part (FBP)!
I think you know what I was trying to say – everyone in the room rolled their eyes at the Doctors comment on professionalism. But that’s not what I wrote. There is nothing wrong with using the phrase rolled her eyes, as long as it’s connected to a person.
“Trying not to laugh, she rolled her eyes at his antics.”
We all know what that means. A writer could get super technical and write, “Trying not to laugh, she looked up and down quickly, at his antics.” That’s ridiculous. I wrote the sentence and I don’t know what it means! The sentence doesn’t qualify as a FBP because we understand the idiom. And the alternate, about looking up and down, will stop the story.
How can you tell which eye rolling is a FBP? In the second sentence those eyes are attached to a she. In my original sentence — Eyes rolled around the room – those eyes are rolling free!
Floating body parts are easy to spot. Every time a body part is mentioned it should be attached to a body. Referring to any body part without the stability of a whole body behind it, sets it afloat. Let’s look at a few.
He dropped his hands. My literal, visual brain sees a man standing, and his hands drop off his arms. What could you write that conveys the same feeling of frustration or giving up? His shoulders drooped. Or He slumped in the chair.
She slammed on the brakes and her arm shot out. This is a cause and effect situation. As adults, nearly all of us have reached out without thinking to protect our passenger. But the way this is written it sounds like the brakes caused her arm to shoot. She slammed the brake pedal and instinctively her arm went across the empty passenger seat. Because I used the word slammed, speed is suggested and we don’t need words like shot or flew.
There is a fine line between nabbing all apparent FBPs and recognizing an idiom. The determining factor should be – does it stop the story? If not, then carry on. If yes, then rephrase it.
Karen Saari loves to play with words, whether it’s writing or editing. She is a Christian, wife, mother and grandmother. Karen is currently working on her BA in English and Creative Writing. She writes contemporary Christian women’s fiction, and is working on a new book – The Neighbor’s Club.
An avid reader, she also sews and knits and is learning to draw and paint with watercolors. Yard sales and thrift stores are her favorite shopping places, besides craft stores. She lives with her husband, Robert in the mountains of northern California. They enjoy traveling the Oregon coast and photography.
Karen blogs at http://karensaari.com
Editor. Teacher. Novelist.
A passionate lover of fiction, Karin doesn't just write novels, she helps others write their best stories! A certified substantive editor with the Christian Editor Connection, her goal is to help authors to put her out of business by equipping them with the tools they need to become better writers.
Karin understood my advertising and marketing writing needs and accomplished the project in record time. She asked all the right questions up front to equip herself with enough … [more]
Substantive Fiction Editing: A substantive edit looks at the big picture. Start here to tackle the big issues before moving on to the nit-picky details. Substantive edits not only point out … [more]
Lover of all things fiction, I also love University of Michigan football, the Detroit Lions, Tigers, and Red Wings, kayaking, gluten-free cupcakes, and my husband.
Fiction: Substantive Editing Classes Substantive Editing for Fiction 101 In Substantive Fiction Editing 101, we’ll look at the basics of a well-written novel and learn how to help our … [more]