Fiction Editing Fundamentals Part 1 One-on-One Instruction

To edit fiction, you need to understand techniques integral to good fiction writing. In this course, you will learn the different components a work of fiction must contain. Whether a short story or a full-length novel, this is an essential course for anyone planning to provide novel editing services.

We’ll talk about opening hooks, chapter-ending hooks, and what needs to be shown in the first chapter, developing believable primary and secondary characters, emotions, and how to maintain characters’ points of view.

This course will equip you with a list of overused words and how over-explanation bogs down the story. We’ll discuss plot development and related topics, such as saggy middle syndrome, GMC (goals, motivation, and conflict), and subplots. I will present the importance of active and passive state-of-being verbs and how to spot five different problems of “telling” and make them “show” the scene more vividly. These techniques will help you edit fiction more effectively.

You’ll learn proper dialogue and thought techniques and how to spot author intrusion and eight other miscellaneous dialogue “rules.” As an editor, you need to know how to tell if the author’s voice is developed or needs more work.

You will learn what makes fiction unique from all other forms of writing and how to be confident as you edit fiction.

*Formerly called Editing Fiction Basic