Editing Untangled Workshop
Happy new Year Everyone.
Robyn and I are privileged to have been selected to do our Editing Untangled Workshop at this year’s Dublin Writers Conference.
So, what’s so special about our workshop you ask?
Let’s start with the fact that it’s tailored to you, the writer.
As professional editors and writers we’ve attended many conferences and writer events. Those, combined with the wide variety of edits we’ve done, have shown that many writers, especially first time writers, have little experience with editing.
Questions we often hear are:
- Why do I need an editor?
- What is an editor going to do that I can’t do?
- What is a developmental edit?
- I have spell check, why do I need an edit?
- Why are there so many types of editing?
- What is proofreading?
- Why is editing so expensive?
And on and on and on.
Based on our observations and discussions with other writers,
we’ve designed our workshop to try and address as many of these issues as time permits.
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We’ll begin with a very brief introduction of who we are, our backgrounds and experience.
Then we will tell you our opinion of:
- the purpose of editing
- why you need an editor
- what an editor should do
- what an editor should not do.
And our counter as to why writers think they don’t need an editor.
Next up we’ll very briefly cover the different types of editing. Here we’ll explain the typical status of a manuscript that each applies to and the type of things (listed below) we look for in each.
Developmental Editing – where we work with the author to provide guidance and feedback by critiquing the following areas:
- Structure
- Characterization/character arc
- Goals, motivation, conflict
- Correct point of view
- Show don’t tell
- Plot
- Pace
- Genre specific and appropriate form
- Believable and genre specific dialog
- Balance between narrative and dialog
- Scene descriptions
- Provide templates and checklist as requested or needed
Copy or Line Editing – Copy editing can be light, medium or heavy. Things we will make sure are correct and proper are:
- Light
- Spelling
- Punctuation
- Grammar
- Capitalization
- Number usage
- Abbreviations
- Typographical errors
- Omitted or repeat words
- Overall story accuracy
- Medium
- Consistency of American or British English, colloquialisms, accents
- Sentence construction and run on sentences
- Elimination of unnecessary words
- Syntax
- Proper and consistent tense
- Over used words and adverbs, clichés, purple prose
- Logic or plot holes
- Character/time inconsistences
- Style sheet/guide adherence (if applicable)
- Heavy or Full – Suggestions for:
- Cuts
- Additions
- Rewrites
- Revisions to unclear passages
- Replacement words
- Rearranged sentences and scenes
Proofreading – The final review on a completely edited manuscript will check for:
- Typographical errors
- Punctuation
- Grammar
- Spacing
- Print quality and font consistency
- Sufficient white space – margins, paragraph spacing, indenting.
Other types of Edits such as Substantive or Content Edit and Production Edit will not be covered.
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But wait!
The next section in our workshop will cover what we believe are the three most important, yet misunderstood and misused, tools in an author’s toolbox.
- Show don’t tell
- Treating your scenes as you would a character
- Using dialogue to enhance your story
This is likely where we’ll spend as much time as we can.
Why? Because these three areas will likely enhance your story the most with often simple changes or additions.
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Finally, we’ll close with:
- Some tricks to use when self-editing
- Tips on how to choose an editor
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If you plan to attend the conference, jot down any questions you might have and we’ll try and cover as many as we can, time permitting. Otherwise, email them to us and we’ll be happy to answer them as soon as we can.
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Bob Boze lives in the south bay area of San Diego and his writing partner, Robyn Bennett, lives in Blenheim, on the south island of New Zealand. They are both published romance and non-fiction authors, editors, speakers and bloggers.
They offer a variety of writer and business services through their business website, Writing Allsorts. To find out more about the services they offer, go to https://writingallsorts.com/ and follow the links to their web sites to learn more about their books.
Something in particular you’d like to know about? We speak, write and do workshops on a ton of writing and business stuff. (Well, okay not a ton but a lot.) Just let us know. If it’s about social media or internet advertising or marketing, we’ll steer you to Laurence at BooksGoSocial, our expert. Anything else is fair game.
