Substantive Editing for Fiction 101 LESSON PACK

Good novels don’t just happen—they endure several revisions before publishing, and the first round of edits is usually the substantive edit.

What is a substantive fiction edit? Sometimes called a macro edit, it’s the “big picture” edit—before the copyeditor looks at each punctuation mark and notation, the substantive editor looks at the whole book: characters, pacing, plotlines, point of view, setting, etc., as well as keeping an eye on punctuation, grammar, and more.

In Substantive Fiction Editing 101, we’ll look at the basics of a well-written novel and learn how to help our authors learn and incorporate those techniques. The class includes everything from understanding the Christian fiction market and its genres, learning the elements of an effective substantive edit, and mastering the basics of Christian fiction—showing versus telling, characterization, plot, and formatting.