Self Editing

My students and I are in the home stretch for our self-editing workshop this month. In every "editing type" class I teach, students are always grateful when I show them how to find the heart of their story, so that they can find their story problems BEFORE an editor does.

We ran through the whole shebang on scenes...learned to do a storyboard...again, so that attendees could spot pacing, tone, point of view, etc. problems BEFORE an editor does.

This week we're doing words. You know the drill. Are you giving readers the correct impressions of your characters in your descriptions AND actions. How's your grammar? How's your sentence structure?

At the end of the month I expect all my students to be exhausted. :)

Self-editing is a lot of work.

But it's all necessary work. If you want to go the traditional or epublishing or even small press route, you have to be one of the best of the best. Having a clean manuscript with a flawless story and scenes that create the edge-of-the-seat pacing puts you ahead of the rest.

But...if you want to self-publish and you can't afford to hire an outside editor...you really need to self-edit. You have no safety net.

susan