This course is intended for writers who have drafted a novel and intend to self-publish, but who don't have the budget for professional editing. It aims to teach you how to approach the editing of your work from an objective and analytical perspective. It's rapid, (six lessons), explains the writing cycle, trains you to analyze and check your own writing systematically, and the exercises involve editing your own novel, so no time is lost.
The course is divided into six lessons:
Lesson 1: The Writing Process
First, you will learn about the writing and editing processes and the aims of each type of editing: developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Understanding these different parts of the overall process will help you to focus on the relevant aspects at each stage.
Lesson 2: Knowing your Novel
In this lesson, you will check you know 'the big picture of your novel, You will identify what your novel is all about and learn to summarise at the chapter level to build a synopsis of your novel.
Lesson 3: Point of View and Characters
In this lesson, you will consider the point of view you have chosen, and learn how to recognize errors in point of view. You will consider the characters in your novel, how you have described them, whether they are consistent, and most importantly, whether your readers will recognize them throughout the novel.
Lesson 4: Time, Setting Character Story Arcs
In this lesson, you will analyze the timeline, settings, and character story arcs in your novel, to check for any anomalies, unfinished stories, or missing descriptions.
Lesson 5: Engaging Your Readers
Here, we’ll look at some of the fun aspects such as the opening line, where you start your story, and whether you engage your readers early enough.
Lesson 6: Style Sheets and Proofreading
Finally, we’ll cover strategies to help with the rule-based checks at paragraph and sentence levels.
What will you learn in this course?
You will thus rapidly, in six lessons, learn how to identify issues that require developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading, by analyzing your own writing and tackling the necessary checks for each stage.
I work with novelists to help them prepare their manuscripts for submission. I’m an editor with over 30 years of experience in editing and an MA and PhD in writing skills. I’ve also completed numerous writing courses over the years focusing on fiction editing and also on specific aspects of novel writing such as character building, character...