But how do we know when to stop writing and start editing? Is it okay to edit before we’re done with the full draft? When should editing start?

First, let’s look at the phases of editing.

Three Levels of Editing

When we say “editing,” we could mean a variety of things. For the purposes of this article, we’re talking about developmental editing, line editing, and copy editing.

• Developmental editing is big-picture stuff.
• Line editing is sentence style and order.
• Copy editing is grammar and punctuation.

Every piece of writing—be it a blog, short story, or novel—should go through all three of these stages. So, when do we start each?

When to Start Editing

Developmental Editing

For the first step of editing, you want to have a completed work AND have taken a break between writing and reviewing. That break might be anywhere from a few days for a project you’ve been working on quickly, or it could mean stepping away for weeks or months if it’s a project you’ve been working on for years. Take this time to forget your plot so you can come at it with fresh eyes.

During developmental editing, you will be rereading and making changes. I recommend doing a complete read-through first and only making notes on what to change, not actually changing it yet. Trust me, this will save you time and lots of rewriting your already rewritten scenes. Once you’ve gone through and commented, now you can start the editing phase of actually rewriting.

Line Editing

At this point, I’d be surprised if you didn’t need a break from your work. But you don’t always need one between developmental and line editing. Now that you know your plot is solid, you can go through and start looking at the words and sentence constructions you’ve been using and turn them into the words you really wanted to write, the ones true to your character and your author voice. Line editing should only start after developmental editing, though. You don’t want to line-edit something into a beautiful turn of phrase only to cut that scene later.

Copy Editing

The final step in editing is to complete copy editing, which looks at grammar and punctuation. This third step of the editing process should truly come last. Only once you’ve reread and revised your text should you start trying to perfect it grammatically. Otherwise, like with rewriting too early, you might change or cut a section later, making your detailed copy edit there null and void.

Final Thoughts

Knowing when to stop editing is as important as knowing when to start it. Keep the editing stages in order, and don’t start one until you’ve finished the one before. It may be tempting to skip ahead. Don’t. Slow and methodical wins the day.

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at her computer, you can find her crafting, scuba diving, or posting pictures of her cats on Instagram. Visit JeanettetheWriter.com for more info and follow @JeanettetheWriter on Instagram and Facebook.

The post When Should I Start Editing? appeared first on DIY MFA.

After all, editing is expensive. It takes a long time. What is your editor doing during those weeks or months with your manuscript? What are they doing to earn that high fee? I promise you, editing isn’t sitting around reading books all day. It’s also not making our pens proverbially bleed onto the page as we gleefully correct errors. Editing is a complicated and often frustrating process. Here’s a little of what it looks like.

What Does Professional Editing Look Like?

Since I’m a copy editor, I’ll take you through what a copy edit looks like for me with the average manuscript.

Receive the Manuscript

The first step is receiving the manuscript. I will perform a basic cleanup on the text, formatting it properly (if it isn’t already) and performing basic functions such as replacing any double spaces between sentences with single spaces. All of this happens before the track changes go on because there’s no need for the author to see those changes (and they can be numerous).

Read Through the Manuscript

Next, I’ll read through the manuscript from beginning to end to get an idea of the contents and the author’s voice and intentions. If the edit is a tight turnaround, I may only read the first section of the book before diving into editing fully.

Track Changes Go On

Now, track changes go on, and the editing begins. Editors look for many things at this stage, and the order in which they search for each item could be different for each author and editor. For a copy edit, I’m looking at grammar such as unnecessary passive voice or consistent capitalization; I’m looking for flow such as too many repeated sentence starts; I’m looking for punctuation, including both the correctness and the impact of each mark.

Make Additional Passes

Depending on how “clean” the manuscript already is, I may complete anywhere from two to five passes on it, looking for different things each time. How many passes a manuscript gets also depends on the timeline or quote from the editor. The less time for the edit, the fewer passes I’m going to be able to fit in. Some editors will name a specific number of passes in their contracts.

Manuscript Goes Back to the Author

Once the manuscript is handed back to the author, they have a chance to read through it and make any final changes or change anything back they disagree with. You don’t need to and shouldn’t hit accept all. I usually lock the track changes on during this stage, so you can’t do that.

Final Pass & Cleanup

When you’re done making changes, then it comes back to me, and I do a final scan of the manuscript. In particular, I’m paying attention to any edits I see you’ve made to be sure any basic errors haven’t been introduced. I then “accept all” on the manuscript and send the tracked changes and clean copies to the author.

What Does it Take to Be an Editor?

In addition to how I edit, I’d like to cover what it takes to complete the above steps. Editors have different traits that make them adept at different types of editing. But most editors will have these basic skills.

Decision Making

Editing is a lot of decision-making. Yes, a lot of decisions are made for us by style guides and grammar rules. But there are a LOT of exceptions to English writing “rules,” and editors are tasked with finding the right answer to a question with no certain conclusion. Therefore, a lot of editing comes down to style. Editors are constantly trying to balance what is correct with what is the author’s voice.

Detail Retention

Did the apartment switch from the second to the third floor in two different chapters? Did you capitalize a made-up term somewhere but have it lowercase in other places? These sorts of details need to ring bells in an editor’s mind so they can create consistency in the work.

Empathy

Editors need to understand their authors. They need to understand what the author’s intentions are behind the words and their meaning and how they are trying to get it across. We must put ourselves in the author’s shoes and think like them to do our best editing without removing what makes the writing special.

A Keen Eye

Great editors can spot even the smallest details, like a wrongly italicized comma. We need to be detail oriented to find what needs fixing. A lot of editing is looking at a word or construction and telling ourselves, “I better look this up.”

Patience 

Editors need to be patient with authors, for sure, but also patient with the work. Editing shouldn’t be rushed. When I work on a manuscript, I work six or seven days a week, but I only edit up to four hours each day. This is about how long we can do Deep Work.

Resilience

Editors need to have a thick skin. Sure, most people think it’s the authors who need to steel themselves up against our edits, but it’s really editors who need to be resilient to feedback on our edits. After all, we’ve invested into your manuscript, it can be devastating to hear an author changed back most of the edits. But it happens. Editors need to be resilient to it.

Some editors refer to themselves as gardeners, helping manuscripts grow into full books. Other editors see themselves as miners, digging the true message from your words. Overall, editing is a long and complicated process. (And we haven’t even covered developmental editing, line editing, or proofreading.) But rest assured, your high-charging editor is doing much more than just adding a few commas or making a few comments. 

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at her computer, you can find her crafting, scuba diving, or posting pictures of her cats on Instagram. Visit JeanettetheWriter.com for more info and follow @JeanettetheWriter on Instagram and Facebook.

The post What Does an Editor Actually Do? appeared first on DIY MFA.

An edit by any other name would be just as damn difficult.

But seriously. What do we mean by “writing” and “editing”? Are they really as black and white as the separate words make them appear?

Yes, and no. 

Writing and editing are forever intertwined, causing debate and confusion over what these two activities mean. In some cases, people treat them as a single process. (FYI: They’re definitely not.) But it’s also impossible to totally separate the two.

So, let’s define each of these processes and compare them to be sure we’re writing and editing to the best of our respective abilities for each task. 

What Is Writing?

My fingers move across the keyboard to obey my brain which is generating thoughts in the form of words that the computer is recording—that’s writing. Put simply, “writing” is the act of initially getting words onto the page. It’s the process of crafting ideas and characters and worlds out of nothing but randomly firing synapses in our brains. 

Writing is HARD! Creativity can be a fickle muse and block our ideas from ever making it on the page. When we write, we want to be in the zone and focused solely on the act of creation. Editing is a bit different.

Okay, so, What Is Editing?

A word or sentence already exists on the page and I am now evaluating that word/sentence to determine if it is exactly what I want and expressed in a clear manner—that’s editing. Seriously, anything past putting the initial word on the page is absolutely considered a revision, not writing. Editing, therefore, will comprise the bulk of what you do to a story or manuscript.

Like writing, editing is difficult but in different ways. Our minds need to move from the function of creation to a more logical function of evaluation and decision making. A lot of writers will tell you this is the harder task.

Why Should Writing and Editing Be Separate?

Now that we understand what writing and editing are, it’s important to recognize where these two processes are intertwined so we may separate them again. Does this sound familiar?

You sit down to write. After a couple of paragraphs, you get stuck, so you look back at those new sentences and start tinkering with the word choice or the punctuation. You add on a few more paragraphs and then realize what you just wrote conflicts with something else somewhere in the story. So, you scroll back to that place and start rewriting that scene. Once that’s done, you move back to your current spot and type out a few more paragraphs. Stuck again, you look back and reread and start tinkering…

This is an example of what happens when we mix the writing and editing processes. Most people will tell you this is a bad idea. Writing and editing should be separate for a reason. That reason mostly being efficiency.

Even the most dedicated plotters will have sections of their work that need to be cut. Going through your work too early for smaller edits like grammar and punctuation will be wasted if that scene never makes it in the final book.

There’s also the idea of “context switching.” When we change from one task and move onto something unrelated, our brain needs time to reset itself which can lower efficiency. While writing and editing seem closely related, the mindset you need for each (creation vs evaluation) is vastly different. Therefore, switching between the two wastes time as your brain tries to catch up.

Why We Can Never Fully Untangle Writing and Editing

Although keeping the writing and editing processes separate is often good for efficiency, it’s not truly possible to untangle them fully. During the initial writing—even if you don’t edit the words on the page—your brain is still making decisions about what words to put down, evaluating them before choosing one. And during the editing process, you will likely need to switch on the creativity and come up with new words or ideas to fill in gaps or add plotlines. 

Despite our best efforts, we will never be able to truly separate writing and editing. The best we can do is recognize where they overlap and be mindful of separating them again when they do mix.

Tell us in the comments: What about you? How do you define “writing” and “editing”?

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at the computer, you can find her crafting, teaching a scuba diving class, or posting pictures of her cats on Instagram. Visit JeanettetheWriter.com for more info and follow @JeanettetheWriter on Instagram and Facebook.

The post The Difference Between Writing and Editing appeared first on DIY MFA.

In the last article, Your Self-Publishing Toolbox for Authorial Success: Writing Tools, we discussed the tools I highly recommend for the writing phase of an author’s publishing journey. In this article, we’ll dig into the editing tools I recommend for your self-publishing toolbox for authorial success.

When we finish writing the magical words, The End, a deep sigh of joy escapes our lips. 

We did it. We. Wrote. The dang. Book. And it can seem as if we’ve reached the final finish line. Except there’s only one problem. Once the manuscript is done being drafted, the process of true writing has just begun. This is where your editing tools come in.

Editing Tools

Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin

Intuitive Editing is a book written to explain exactly how to edit a book. It’s described as: 

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.

I myself go through this invaluable resource over and again every time I’m editing a new book. It’s that rich. Whether you’re tackling developmental edits, plot holes, character flaws, and so on, this book breaks down exactly how to fix your book. I can’t recommend it enough. 

Google Docs

Here’s a second plug for Google Docs because the tool is versatile. You’ll remember that Google Docs is:

A free web-based application in which documents and spreadsheets can be created, edited, and stored online. Users of Google Docs can import, create, edit, and update documents and spreadsheets in various fonts and file formats, combining text with formulas, lists, tables, and images.

Even if you don’t choose to draft in Docs, it is a powerful editing tool for you. Not everyone is comfortable with editing software like: Grammarly and ProWritingAid. 

Sometimes, all you need is to add your manuscript to a different writing processor, change the font, and get to polishing to create your best work.

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is the only platform that offers world-class grammar and style checking combined with more in-depth reports to help you strengthen your writing. Our unique combination of suggestions, articles, videos, and quizzes makes writing fun and interactive.

While I haven’t personally used ProWritingAid for one of my novels yet, I know this is an invaluable editing tool. I’ve used it for smaller projects and was blown away by its features. Not to mention how much ease it brought to the entire process of editing.

ProWritingAid also employs technology, such as artificial intelligence, to amplify the tool so while you may miss something, the tool itself will not. It’s a great software to use for processing your manuscript before sending it off to betas and editors.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a cloud-based typing assistant that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes. It uses artificial intelligence to identify and search for an appropriate replacement for the error it locates.

Grammarly is a good editing tool if you have a shorter manuscript and you’re not looking to do a thorough edit, such as developmental editing. I’ve used it for different projects. I, personally, noticed the tool works best on simpler, and shorter, projects versus, let’s say, a long-form epic fantasy manuscript.

If you like browser add-ons and something that’s quick, but works, I encourage you to add Grammarly to your toolbox for initial editing, after proofreading, before you dive in to handle developmental edits and so on.

Print It Out

Not a digital writer? No problem. I know many authors who will draft their books in a writing tool like Scrivener, but then they will go to their local library, or even somewhere like FedEx (USA establishment for printing and shipping), and they will print out their entire manuscript.

This helps them because they can physically scratch out lines, write notes, and rearrange scenes, all in a bright red pen… Okay, that may be too triggering. For some, the pen is purple… Or orange. Ha!

Nevertheless, if you need to touch it? Flip it? Physically put your pen to it? Go ahead and print it all out. Grab a massive binder to add the sheets to, and be sure to stack up on pens and highlighters so you can dive into a thorough edit of your book.

As you continue on your journey, you will find other editing tools that will help support you where you are and be of great assistance to your craft. However, if you’re uncertain of where to begin, I highly recommend these tools for your toolbox once you’ve crossed over into the editing stage of your book.

Tell us in the comments: What editing tools do you use? Are there any not on this list?

Stephanie BwaBwa is a Fantasy Universe Builder, Author, and Entrepreneur. She’s the creator of Elledelle, the universe filled with angels, adventure, romance, and magic. She’s the author of the fantasy series: The Seraphim Resistance and The Transcendents, as well as the writing guide, Fantasy Fundamentals. Stephanie co-hosts a podcast for indie authors called: Indie Author Lifestyle with her fantasy partner-in-madness, Angela J. Ford, and is a self-publishing columnist for DIY MFA. You can usually catch her going for a walk through a park, or simply binging anything creatively juicy with too many snacks. Get in contact with Stephanie directly at: stephaniebwabwa.com.

The post Your Self-Publishing Toolbox for Authorial Success: Editing Tools appeared first on DIY MFA.

1. You managed to write all of this!

If you haven’t already, I want you to stop reading this immediately and go celebrate that you finished a project and are moving on to editing. That is a HUGE accomplishment! 

All those words (good and bad), those came from you. You poured your heart onto the page and that took guts and dedication. 

Always keep in mind that you birthed that manuscript or story into the world all on your own. That is powerful.

2. No one’s first draft is good

There may be moments of greatness in your first draft, of course. But no writer, even professionals we idolize, gets everything perfect on the first try. 

It’s a hard pill to swallow when we look back on our writing and admit it isn’t very good—yet. 

But that’s the key. It’s only a first draft. No one expects it to be remotely good, let alone perfect. Don’t beat yourself up about it. That’s what the editing process is there for.

3. Editing is the fun part

In this humble editor’s opinion, the editing process is where the fun of writing really begins. 

During the writing phase, your mind was throwing out anything it could find at the moment to make your point. 

Now is the time to take all that word-clay and start digging in, molding and shaping it into the artwork you imagined. After all, is there anything better than that feeling when a sentence you revised is so good it gives you goosebumps?

4. Editing is NOT a never-ending process

The writing process has a clear demarcation when it comes to an end. All stories, whether short or novel-length, have a conclusion of some sort. 

But the editing process… it’s not so clear when it ends. 

Yes, you could go on forever making a little tweak here and a small wording change there, but you will need to one day call it quits. Setting a goal and having a specific series of edits in mind can help you draw that line in the sand. 

5. All great writers had an editor

With the rise of self-publishing, I can no longer say that every book published has been through the hands of at least one editor. 

But I’ll bet any writer worth their salt can point out exactly which books had an editor and which didn’t. The Amazon and New York Times bestsellers? They definitely had editors! 

Don’t think you have to or even should go through the editing process alone. Editors are your friends and they serve an important purpose.

Tell us in the comments: What do you keep in mind during the editing process?

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at her computer, you can find her crafting, scuba diving, or posting pictures of her cats on Instagram. Visit JeanettetheWriter.com for more info and follow @JeanettetheWriter on Instagram and Facebook.

The post #5onFri: Five Things to Keep in Mind During the Editing Process appeared first on DIY MFA.

Here’s why we get trapped when it comes to this question. There’s no such thing as a perfect book. No such thing as an errorless manuscript. The “rules” of writing, even when it comes to grammar and punctuation, are fluid, which means there is no final “perfect” version available to us no matter how hard we try.

If there’s no such thing as perfect, then editing could go on until infinity. So, I ask again, how do we know when we’re done? The answer isn’t as easy as “it always takes this number of passes looking at these aspects.” But here are some factors that come into play when we decide enough is enough so you can stop editing.

How You Publish

Not every writer will need to complete by themselves or pursue with a professional every stage of editing—depending on how you are trying to publish. 

If you are self-publishing, your book should go through, at minimum, a developmental edit (big story ideas), a line edit (paragraph-level issues and wording), a copyedit (grammar and punctuation), and a final proofread (to catch any last errors). You’ll want to have a mixture of self-editing and professional editing for these stages.

If you plan on traditionally publishing, your novel will also need these four stages, but you might have the help of your agent’s and publisher’s editors for copyediting and proofreading. You’ll still want to complete at least a developmental and line edit before trying to attract agents.

Law of Diminishing Returns

If we still need to do all this editing ourselves, how do we know when it’s done? This is where Gabriela would mention the law of diminishing returns. As simply stated as one can get with an economics principle, the law of diminishing returns is something like: when you invest effort into something, after a certain point—if nothing else changes—the profit from that investment will begin to decrease.

There are three stages to this principle: increasing returns, diminishing returns, and negative returns. Increasing returns happen on your first or maybe first few passes through your manuscript. You’re making big changes that are objectively altering the book for the better. 

Diminishing returns begin when you reach the peak of your knowledge. Remember the phrase from our definition—“if nothing else changes.” If we aren’t acquiring new skills to apply to our manuscript, then applying our given knowledge will begin to have less of an impact as we continue.

We need to stop ourselves somewhere along the curve of diminishing returns before we slip into negative returns. This occurs when you’re “editing your manuscript to death.” Even bread dough has a point at which you can over-knead it. Don’t fall down the slope of negative returns so that you no longer recognize your beautiful work.

Goal Setting

It can be difficult to find the balance between making changes that help the manuscript and making changes for changes’ sake. Identifying when to stop is easier if you simply set a goal and stick to it.

For developmental editing, your goal may be a quick read through for structural issues (followed by a rewrite) and then a deeper developmental edit for any further plot holes or inconsistencies (followed by a rewrite).

Line editing, which includes word choice, could go on forever and ever. Again, it can be helpful to name a number of passes through the manuscript as a goal and then call it quits. Whether that’s just once or many more times completely depends on your level of comfort with this stage of editing. 

Same for copyediting. Once may be enough to get all your commas in the right place. Or you may need multiple passes, some with the help of a grammar checker. When it comes to proofreading, make it a goal to set aside some cash because, let’s be honest, it’s better to hire a professional.

In the end, it’s all about goals. Tell yourself you will only do “X” number of passes for each level and stick to that. Otherwise you could find yourself on the revision hamster wheel.

That Gut Feeling

It’s difficult to tell you when to stop editing because there’s something to be said for that gut feeling. I, as an editor, cannot feel your gut feeling and therefore cannot fully advise you on what your manuscript needs.

But you know what it needs. I know you know. 

One day, you’ll be reading through a paragraph and think “that’s really good,” and that’s when you stop tinkering and move on to the next stage or start querying/press publish. 

Because we tend to doubt our guts or forget where we felt our gut speak up, I like to highlight sections in green when I know I’m done with them. It helps kick imposter syndrome to the curb when you see how much of your own writing you’ve perfected.

Overall, I wish I could give you a better answer. But the only way to do that is to have a professional look at your manuscript and evaluate your self-editing skills. Even then, it is ultimately up to you when you call it finished.

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at her computer, you can find her crafting, scuba diving, or posting pictures of her cats on Instagram. Visit JeanettetheWriter.com for more info and follow @JeanettetheWriter on Instagram and Facebook.

The post Enough Is Enough: When to Stop Editing appeared first on DIY MFA.

Let me take you through my answer:

MFA: Missing Factual Applications

There are a lot of great things about MFA programs: time and space to write, the opportunity to make connections with writers, and let’s not forget actual writing. However, one of the ways MFA programs fall short is they sometimes stand for Missing Factual Applications.

Were it not for my internship, (read: me legit convincing my professor they needed to let me work for them so I could absorb their real-world knowledge like a sponge) I wouldn’t know anything about the editing process, querying, publishing, and everything in between. MFA programs are so committed to writing, they forget there’s another type of education their writers need (read: the deets on the DIRE situation that is publishing).

Let me level with you, MFAs aren’t perfect

My MFA program didn’t teach us !@#$ about how to query agencies, or our manuscripts, ways to leverage our education in pursuit of jobs outside adjunct teaching, and the amount of education we received regarding publishing was straight up laughable. 

So, my first piece of advice to this person was: Do not blame yourself for what you don’t know. MFA programs need to find ways to do right by their students by providing transparent and current resources which will help them achieve their goals. 

I found the reason my MFA program didn’t provide any insight into the editing process or the publication process was because they were so grossly out of touch. Despite the fact that one of our faculty members was published several times over, they never taught us a thing about querying. Another faculty member’s book was optioned for a TV series, and yet we never got a lesson in film and media rights. 

What you don’t know isn’t your own fault but, unfortunately, it becomes your responsibility to learn…which is easier said than done.

Answering the Question

The answer to this person’s query is dependent on several factors: what stage of the writing process you’re in and how you’re being published.

The Writing Process

Drafting: If you’re still drafting (meaning you are not yet ready to query publishers), I advise reaching out to anyone and everyone who is willing to read your work. Getting opinions and feedback from those whose life experience, and genre, is different from your own is supremely helpful and valuable.

Getting Ready to Query: Once you are confident your draft is ready to be sent to publishers, I recommend working with an editor who 1) understands your vision for the book, and 2) is familiar with your voice, for tightening, line edits, narrative plot holes, and reviews of your query letter. 

If you find you’re getting consistent rejections, take note of what the rejections are saying (assuming they’ve provided feedback) and re-work your draft.

Post Contract Signing: This part of the editing process really depends on the publisher. Depending on your publisher’s budget, you may or may not be assigned an editor to work with you until final proof. With my publisher specifically, there was an expectation the draft I presented was as close to the final draft as possible. I went to page proofs relatively quickly.

Page Proofs: Page proofs refer to the proof of the manuscript the publisher intends to send to print. When I received the page proofs, I did a one over myself, then I worked overtime in order to pay for an independent editor to also do a once over for spelling, syntax, and narrative errors. There was an expectation that edits made during this phase would not be large scale plot edits.

To be completely transparent, I was published by an independent publisher, and assume a lot of the expectations around proofing and editing are dependent upon your publisher. However, I think the above is a good baseline for what you can expect with the editing process.

What other questions do you have about the editing process, writing a novel, or getting published? Drop them here and Lauren might answer them in a future column!

Lauren J. Sharkey is a writer, teacher, and transracial adoptee. Inconvenient Daughter is her debut novel and loosely based on her experience as a Korean adoptee. You can follow her at ljsharks.com, and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post What MFAs Miss about the Editing Process appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter, especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for January is debut writers, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode William Germano and I discuss:

• When you should start from scratch and why it’s a great technique for your writing.
• What skill all writers need to master and how it will improve your writing and revising.
• Why he believes that if something is worth writing, it’s worth revising as well.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About William Germano

William Germano is professor of English at Cooper Union, where he served as dean of the faculty of humanities and social sciences for more than a decade. During an earlier career in publishing, he served as editor-in-chief at Columbia University Press and as vice-president and editorial director at Routledge. 

His previous books include two in this Chicago series: Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books (third edition, 2016) and From Dissertation to Book (second edition, 2013). He has also written Eye Chart, a book about how we test vision, for Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series (2017), and The Tales of Hoffmann, a study of Powell and Pressburger’s 1951 opera film, published by the BFI (2013).  

Most recently he has co-authored, with Kit Nicholls, Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything (Princeton UP, 2020).

You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts

A trusted editor turns his attention to the most important part of writing: revision.

So you’ve just finished writing something? Congratulations! Now revise it. Because revision is about getting from good to better, and it’s only finished when you decide to stop. But where to begin? In On Revision, William Germano shows authors how to take on the most critical stage of writing anything: rewriting it.

For more than twenty years, thousands of writers have turned to Germano for his insider’s take on navigating the world of publishing. A professor, author, and veteran of the book industry, Germano knows what editors want and what writers need to know: Revising is not just correcting typos. Revising is about listening and seeing again. Revising is a rethinking of the principles from the ground up to understand why the writer is doing something, why they’re going somewhere, and why they’re taking the reader along with them.

On Revision steps back to take in the big picture, showing authors how to hear their own writing voice and how to reread their work as if they didn’t write it. On Revision will show you how to know when your writing is actually done—and, until it is, what you need to do to get it there.

Additional Info:

Why is revising writing such a challenge?

What does it mean to you to have a philosophy of revising? of writing? 

How do you know when a piece of writing is finished? 

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 393

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The post Episode 393: The Craft of Revision – Interview with William Germano appeared first on DIY MFA.

While I wanted to lambast this person for thoroughly insulting editors, instead, I politely directed them to a resource where they could learn more about standard industry rates. I then realized it’s something we haven’t covered here at DIY MFA and we should, because industry transparency and setting proper expectations will ensure you get the right service for the right price.

Here are some things to consider when you’re looking to pay an editor to edit your book:

The Type of Editing You’re Asking For

Going back to the Facebook post I mentioned, the OP was asking for every step of editing from the first pass to the final proofread from the same person. Many good editors specialize in just one or two types of editing.

For example, I don’t claim to be a developmental editor. My specialty is making your words sing through line editing or punching up your punctuation with copyediting. Many editors also have a rule about not proofing what they’ve recently line-edited. The OP would likely be better off from a services standpoint consulting with multiple specialists.

As for how this affects what you pay an editor, just realize that paying one person to do two things may mean two separate prices for each service. A line edit may go for one price while a proofread is negotiated separately. Developmental editing often costs the most. Could you get a bundle deal for some of these services? That’s up to the editor, but I personally charge separately for each project.

How Much Editing Is Required?

Writers seek out editors at many different stages of the writing process and some writers may be better at certain aspects than others, which means their editing could take more or less time. If your editor is charging hourly, having a cleaner manuscript will mean faster work, taking down the price.

Good editors will also evaluate a sample of your work to make sure the editing you want is the editing you need and to estimate how much time or effort it may take. Depending on what we see, the rate for editing can change.

How Long Editing Actually Takes

In the Facebook post, the OP wanted to publish the manuscript in less than a month. This seemed fairly unrealistic to me considering everything they were asking for. Good editors are in high demand and are often booked months in advance. We carefully lay out our schedules to make sure we can get the work done properly without rushing through and missing things. Many of us juggle multiple projects at the same time.

How does this affect your wallet? Well, if a client asks me to put their project ahead of others to meet a strict deadline, there’s a surcharge for that. Depending on how busy I am or how much of a rush it is, I’ve charged up to 40% more than what a non-rush quote would be. That number could be much higher with other editors.

So, How Much Should I Pay an Editor?

Now, let’s talk about pricing. Truly, the number offered in the original post was laughable. Is there an editor out there who would pick up that job? I would sincerely hope not, but yeah, people do. I would, however, question this person’s reasoning in agreeing to complete the project for so little money.

As for rates, I’m partial to the EFA’s (Editorial Freelancer Association) median rates. Keep in mind, these aren’t bottom and top prices. This is the industry median (between the middle values in a data set) based on real reported rates from working editors. Will you find lower? Yes. Will you find much higher? Absolutely. 

This means there is a wide range in what you might pay for editing, keeping in mind the type of editing, cleanliness of the manuscript, and the timeline.

Part of deciding what to pay for editing is deciding on the caliber of editor you want. Are there amazing editors with lower rates? I’d say yes. Could you overpay for someone’s shoddy job? Yeah, that could happen too. 

Luckily, there are plenty of articles about how to evaluate an editor before you work with them. (Hint: a lot of it is about personality matching.) It’s a balancing act between the right fit and what you can afford. 

Speaking of which, having a budget in mind to start out with can help you not overpay for services. Or at least you’ll end up feeling good about how much you spent.

What should you budget? Let’s do some simple math. Developmental editing sits at a median rate of $0.03 to $0.039 per word. And let’s say you have a 50K-word novel. Multiplication tells us that your pricing could be around $1500 to $2000.

It could also be charged hourly (median EFA pricing is $46-50/hour); in which case the final price depends on how fast the editor works based on the number of pages. An industry-standard page is 250 words, meaning your 50K-word manuscript is about 200 pages. The EFA reports that editors work at a median pace of 4-6 pages per hour, equaling between 30 and 50 hours of editing. Again, multiplication says this will be around $1300 to $2500 for your developmental edit.

You can use the same math to estimate your price for other types of editing based on this chart.

In the end, there is too wide a variety of pricing to spell out in this article. But I recommend budgeting $1000+ for a good editor going through one stage of editing. 

If you’re self-publishing, you may need several rounds of editing with one or more editors. You also might need other people on your team like a graphic designer for your cover or a formatting expert for your layout.

Overall, editors strongly encourage each other to charge within industry standards. We consult with each other on pricing and even pass off jobs to each other if we know our rates aren’t inside the writer’s budget. When it comes to editing, don’t let sticker shock deter you from seeking out help. Slowly put aside your funds for editing. In the meantime, head to your local writing or critique group and learn from fellow writers who may be at a more advanced stage than yourself. Try grammar software (but please don’t blindly accept every change!). Pull the trigger when you’re ready for a professional to step in.

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at the computer, you can find her crafting, scuba diving, or posting pictures of her cats on Instagram. Visit JeanettetheWriter.com for more info and follow @JeanettetheWriter on Instagram and Facebook or @JeanettetheWrtr on Twitter.

The post How Much Should I Pay an Editor to Edit My Book? appeared first on DIY MFA.

But then what? How do you transform your first draft into a polished piece? For me, the task used to be overwhelming. I could be fun and carefree as I wrote my rough draft. I gave myself permission to write the story, not worrying if it were good or bad, knowing I could edit it later. 

Eventually, that fateful “later” day came, when I had to take my 70,000 words and edit them. I had no idea where to begin. Do I start rereading at the beginning, making changes as I see them along the way? But how would I keep track of the bigger thematic elements or pacing issues? How could I remember to drop breadcrumbs in the early chapters for a payoff that happens on page 145? Panic would start to set in. My rough draft became a beast that felt too big to manage.

Then I discovered the magical reverse outline. It was a way to get a high-level look at my novel, to condense the main plot into several manageable pages. From there, I could see the big changes I needed to make. It gave me a starting point to edit.

I’ll explain how it works, but the beauty of a reverse outline is that it works regardless of whether you prefer to plot or pants your way through your rough draft. The reverse outline isn’t about creating the initial story. Rather, it’s sole focus is to divide the task of editing into bite-size pieces.

Step 1: Read & Reverse Outline

During this initial phase, you don’t make any changes to your novel. This rough draft probably took you a while to write, so your memory of some of the early chapters might be a bit fuzzy. All you do in this step is to reread your manuscript and make notes of what happens. 

I like to write a few sentences summarizing each chapter. When I’m done, I have a reverse outline that is a few pages. If you are a pantser, this will help you get an overview of your whole story for the first time. If you’re a plotter, a reverse outline will give you an accurate view of what you’ve written, in case some of your story veered away from your initial outline.

Step 2: Review & Edit Outline

Set aside your rough draft and just look at your reverse outline. Do you see any gaping plot holes? Maybe noticed some contradictions in the story? Perhaps you notice that not much happens over several chapters and they can be combined into one. Or you might notice that you are rushing over an important part of the story and adding a chapter there would help flesh it out. 

This is where you should think about those big picture changes. I like to highlight my editing notes in my reverse outline so I know what areas of my draft I need to go back to and make changes. If some chapters don’t need big changes, I know that I can skip them for now.

Step 3: Transfer Changes To Novel

Now that you know the places in the draft that need these changes, you can jump right to those points and work on the big problems first. This is the stage where you go and add that chapter or fix the pacing in the section that feels too slow. 

Step 3.5 (Optional): Repeat

Maybe you only need one pass with a reverse outline. If so, that’s great. Maybe you made such enormous changes that it makes sense to do the process again. If so, that’s also great. 

Either way, you are getting closer to a finished, polished novel. You rock.

Step 4: Set Reverse Outline Aside

Now that your big changes are done, it is time to go back for the subtler changes, the ones that don’t necessarily directly affect the plot, but make for a better read. This is where you can set aside your reverse outline and go through your second (or third or fourth) draft and read it, revising wording that sounds awkward, fixing typos, adding in more specific details… 

Since you are used to seeing your own work, I suggest you read your manuscript aloud or change the font or read a printed version if you wrote it on the computer. Any of these changes will help you see your work with fresher eyes, and you will be more likely to catch the smaller mistakes.

Now you know the secret of the magical reverse outline. Time to finish that celebratory cake and get back to the work and joy of being a writer. 

Pull out that rough draft, the one you have been dreading to edit because you don’t know how to tackle revising a whole manuscript. With the reverse outline, you have the tools to start your editing journey, and if you keep at it, eventually you will have a polished piece! 

Brandie June spent most of her childhood onstage or reading, as both activities let her live in fantastic stories. She moved to Los Angeles to study acting at UCLA, and eventually branched out into costume design and playwriting. While she spends most of her free time writing, she will still take any excuse to play dress-up, especially if it involves wearing a crown. She happily promotes more stories as a marketing director for kids’ films and anime. When not writing or marketing, she can often be found doing aerial arts, playing board games, drinking too much espresso, and coming up with new art projects. She lives with her husband, two spoiled rescue pups, a spoiled cat, six fish tanks, and five bookshelves. You can find out more about her on her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The post The Magical Reverse Outline appeared first on DIY MFA.