5 must-read blogs for the novice self-editor

Until embarrassingly recently, I thought that editing a novel was simply reading through it and correcting spelling and grammatical errors. It wasn’t until I did a little online digging that I realised that this isn’t the case at all!

You see, there’s a difference between editing and proofreading. There’s a difference between macro-editing and micro-editing. And don’t even get me started on the difference between story editing and structural editing and copyediting and line editing! To be honest, with my limited editing experience—read: my WIP Holding Up the Sky is the first thing I’ve actually attempted to edit properly—I’m still trying to get my head around it all.

But there are a number of blogs and blog posts I’ve discovered along the way that have really helped me understand the editing process, decipher the heap of new words and terms, and gave me much food for thought as I took those first tentative steps. As I turn my mind back to editing now that the first draft of my fantasy novel Old Blood is finished, I thought I’d share some of my favourites with you!

Despite its name, Go Teen Writers is not just a site for teenagers! It has a lot of excellent advice for the less experienced writer, covering novel-writing and techniques, character and plot development, editing, and publishing. This is the blog where I first learned about what editing really is, and some of my favourite posts on the subject are:

• Six Reasons to Take Six Weeks Off From Your First Draft
• The Macro Edit
• The Micro Edit

NY Book Editors are a professional editing service. They run a blog on their website where they share a variety of tips and tricks about writing and the road to publishing, including—surprise, surprise—the editing process. I stumbled across a fantastic pair of their posts that outline some of the key types of editing and provide examples:

• What is the Difference Between Copyediting and Line Editing?
• What’s the Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading?

Kristina Stanley is a fellow WordPressian, the author of the Stone Mountain Mysteries series, and CEO and founder of the online editing tool Fictionary. Like many do, she hosts a writing-related blog on her author website, and this little gem of a post (below) describes three main stages of editing and what each of these entails:

• Story Editing. Copyediting. Proofreading. What in the world are they?

The Writersaurus is a writing blog created and run by author H. Duke. Jam-packed with engaging content on the art of writing, editing, publishing, marketing and even a few book reviews thrown in, I’ve found this blog to be a great resource! In particular, the following two posts lay out a comprehensive step-by-step process to revision and editing:

• Revising and Editing Part 1: Macro revision
• Micro-editing: 6 Easy Edits to Strengthen Your Final Draft

Writer’s Edit is an Australian-based online literary magazine and, as of 2014, a small press. Unsurprisingly, their website includes a stack of great posts under the key headings of fiction writing, freelance writing, and self-publishing. I discovered the following post more recently and love its extensive look at structural editing:

• Ultimate Guide: Structural Editing For Your Novel

What are your favourite editing-related blogs or blog posts? Which ones helped you the most when you knew next to nothing?

Rebecca Alasdair