There's an episode of the TV show Friends in which Phoebe Buffay, who works as a masseuse, hosts a workshop to teach her clients to perform self-massage. Later, she tells the friends that she now has no clients, as they can get the kinks out by themselves at home.
That’s what my brain keeps warning me might happen if I share my organizational editing secrets with you.
I’ve learned editing best practices from New York literary agents at Writers House and New Leaf Literary and Media; from published authors at international workshops and conferences like Aspen Summer Words, Mors Tua Vita Mea, and AWP; and from extensively reading my clients’ work. With these best practices in mind, I have developed an editing style and a system of organization that work well for me. As a result, I’ve developed a firmer grasp on whether a writer’s choices are objectively (narratively) good or bad, and I’ve learned which narrative causes lead to which editorial effects.
So yes, it feels taboo for me as a professional freelance editor to create a course that teaches you how to identify problem areas and negative patterns in your manuscript, and then how to rectify the situation—in essence, what I do every day—but I think it’s worth it. Here’s why.
Not all creative types are good at being organized.
Think of how many times you’ve started using a planner or deployed a writing routine only to be thrown off in a couple of weeks. Think of how many novel ideas you’ve started but haven’t finished. Think of how many manuscripts are gathering dust on your hard drive because the work of taking a look at the finished product freaks you out more than the work of writing the thing.
This isn’t just a stereotype, and you shouldn’t feel guilty if you identified with any of these statements. When I googled “not all creative types are organized,” 440 million (!!) search results popped up. That’s nearly halfway to a billion hits. Reasons why we have so much trouble getting organized, especially when it relates to the creative pursuit itself, included:
We “have trouble corralling” all the information that’s jumbled around in our heads (Quartz)
We’re easily distracted, especially when it comes to task-based to-do lists (Inc.)
Myriad other reasons (well, 440 million, at least) that are personal and specific to you
This problem is compounded when you switch from the creative task of drafting a manuscript to the analytical task of editing your own novel.
Maybe you read through your novel, get distracted by a comma splice or a weird adverb, and find yourself doing more line-editing than developmental work.
Or maybe you take page after page of notes on things you need to fix, but you’re left feeling overwhelmed by this to-do list and clueless as to where you should start.
Maybe you feel the pressure of needing this book to be perfect to the extent that you can’t move forward.
Find yourself identifying with these examples, too? That’s okay. You know what’s interesting? Halfway down the first page of my Google search, the results shifted from why creative people stink at being organized to ways that creative people can become organized. In fact, according to Medium’s The Startup, being organized can actually make you more creative.
What kind of awesome, reverse-psychology witchcraft is that! Yes, by being less cluttered, less laissez-faire about your writing schedule, you can put more words on the page.
And by learning a bit about narrative theory and the objective way you can organize your editing to-do list, you can successfully edit your own novel.
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How to Edit Your Novel: Introducing Cracking the Editing Code
Cracking the Editing Code, my online course launching in March 2020, unlocks the vault to give you a wealth of insight and information into editing your novel, including:
An understanding of how plot, character, and theme work together in a fictional narrative
There are entire university courses, not to mention postgrad and doctoral programs, that focus on narrative theory, so I won’t pretend that we cover any more than the tip of the iceberg. In the second module, you’ll get a hit-the-ground-running lesson on the building blocks of fictional narrative: plot, character, and theme. In addition to learning how they work together to build your novel, you’ll learn what is meant by a plot-driven novel versus a character-driven novel as well as how you might bend your own genre’s expectations when it comes to these concepts.
Questions to ask yourself as you re-read your completed manuscript
From this crash course, we’ll explore the various questions a fiction writer or editor might ask as they’re reviewing a manuscript. Just like the primary colors red and blue mix to make purple, those narrative building blocks will combine to form questions about such topics as world-building, pacing, and independent agency.
Videos, checklists, quizzes, and customizable spreadsheets to help you answer those questions
Each of the nine modules comes with at least one worksheet, checklist, or quiz to help unlock your manuscript’s secrets. Lessons that have become personal favorites in my own creative writing and editing practice are wrapped up in a downloadable, customizable spreadsheet I hope you’ll use for every novel you write and self-revise for the rest of forever.
Organizational tips for translating all of these problem areas into an editing game plan that won’t leave you overwhelmed.
Feeling starry-eyed thanks to the Scrooge McDuck money slide of insight you now have into your novel? Don’t worry, I would be, too. Once you’ve gone through the theoretical and analytical lessons in the first seven modules, you can use the purely organizational lessons in Module 8 to give your plans for revision a fighting chance.
So, theory —> analysis —> organization —> success. That’s our formula for change here.
Why is Jessica offering me this information? Isn’t this what she does for a living?
Yes, I am a professional freelance editor. In fact this is a large part of why I wanted to bring this course into the world. There are few things that make me feel more discouraged than when I begin work on a manuscript that felt strong in the first five pages, which I read when considering a new client, and then watch it fall apart with simple narrative issues that the author could have fixed themselves.
I’d rather spend my time and your money tackling brain-stumping editorial concerns. Put your best foot forward, guys and gals! Cracking the Editing Code can teach you how to do it.
Earlier I mentioned that it can be challenging for creative people to be analytical, especially when it comes to their own work. As someone whose every career aptitude test shows right-brain/left-brain thinking, I want to use my powers for good (not evil) by sharing my best practices with you. (Also, how would I use right-brain/left-brain thinking for evil? How? I’m seriously asking, because I think I’d look decent in a black leather bodysuit.)
So far, I have only applied this ability on a one-on-one basis with my editing clients. Instead of just identifying an editorial concern and glazing over how to fix it, I offer up practical suggestions (down to the chapter and sometimes even the page number) for how they might omit, add, and revise narrative elements to make their novel the strongest it can be.
This has led to some pretty solid reviews, awards, and full manuscript request rates for them.
Related Pages:
Okay, Sign Me Up! I Want to Learn to Edit My Novel
Client feedback on how another Hatch Editorial resource has helped him as a Type B writer get organized.
To sum up, I can’t give you personalized advice in this course, but I can make sure: you’re playing with a full deck; that you know objectively why a narrative choice is strong or weak; that you can identify your own weak spots with relation to plot, character, and theme; and that you know how to solve these problems practically in your novel.
There’s the old adage: Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for life.
With Cracking the Editing Code, you’re getting the editorial equivalent of a fishing lesson: nine modules jam-packed with videos, worksheets, editing checklists, a downloadable, customizable editing spreadsheet… a veritable treasure trove of information to educate and empower your writing career.
This sounds awesome, but what does it cost?
At a university, a single course like this might cost $1,735 before all of the textbooks with your professor’s name stamped on the spine that you might have to purchase.
A writing retreat where you might take a lecture or a full week of lectures on becoming a better self-editor might cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000, and that’s before you pay for travel and housing.
I built my knowledge of editing principles in such courses and at such writing workshops, and now I want to share that knowledge with you. In other words, I have spent a lot of my own time and money developing these resources, but instead of charging exorbitant amounts…
…lifetime access to the course costs $297. That’s it.
When compared to these alternatives, that’s AT LEAST a discount of 40% and in some cases a mere fraction of the cost.
Better yet? Until the course launches in late March, you can get it for $150.
So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for my Teachable course and pre-order to guarantee your enrollment here.