Editing Your Manuscript

I’ve spent the last couple months working on three different manuscripts–a middle grade, a memoir and a contemporary romance. Two of those were edited by freelance editors and I was working off their notes. The other one I was drafting and is now with a freelance editor.

I’m a big believer in using freelance editors for my work when I’ve reached the stage where I simply cannot take the story any farther.

There was a great article posted on Ink Deep Editing about the experience of being edited, and you can read that here.

However, before I reach the stage of hiring someone else to look at my work, I do my own editing and revisions. But, editing our own work takes a little bit of practice and skills in knowing how to edit a full manuscript.

If you’re looking to learn more about the process of editing your own work–and/or critiquing someone else’s manuscript, there is a great Developmental Edit class being taught at Margie Lawson’s Academy. Rhay Christou is teaching the class and she’s one of Margie’s fabulous teachers (she also teaches the deep point of view class as well as a class on character and giving chapters a pulse)

Here is a bit of the description:

Digging Deep into Developmental Edits

Your words shine and each line glisten. But you���re still getting rejections!

Pansters and plotters, at some point you���re going to have to step back from the words, the lines, and even the paragraphs, and look at the big picture issues.

Diving deep into developmental edits is an intense fourteen lecture course for those writers who have finished at least one draft of a novel.

This course is all about seeing your work as an editor, and learning how to analyze what you have on the page, so you can make the big decisions that will take your novel from fine to powerful.

This two-month course is packed full of tips, ideas, and learning opportunities not only aimed at helping writers make their current work in progress shine, but also teaching writers how to make future novels stronger.

This is a two-month class which uses a three-pass system on your manuscript. To find out more details and how to register go here.