Gary Smailes

Learning about the different types of editing, and trying to decide which editing type is best for you and your book can be confusing.

 

In this article, you will discover the different types of editing, learn which editing type is best for you and also understand what type of editor will provide the most value to your latest book.

So you’ve had your book professionally edited, and you are faced with the task of turning the feedback into something that lifts your book to the next level. This article will help you do that. 

If you are going to successfully self-edit your own novel then it is essential that you take one important step: stop thinking like a writer. Or, to be more accurate: if you are going to self-edit your own novel with any level of success, then you need to stop thinking like a writer and start thinking like an editor.

In this article, I will set out to explain why so many famous authors (Stephen King being perhaps the most vocal) warn other authors against the use of adverbs. In fact, King’s hatred of adverbs is so intense that he’s been quoted as saying, “Adverbs are evil.”

Understanding how to format dialogue in a book can trip up even the most talented writer. From the outside, it can appear that formatting dialogue is a black box of contradictory rules. In this article, I want to dispel this myth and detail a set of easy-to-use guidelines, which will allow you to grasp the basic building blocks of dialogue formatting.

For some, show, don’t tell has become a cliché with little value, but as a professional editor, I’d insist that showing, not telling is the most powerful tool a writer can use. Utilizing this one technique will make you a better writer overnight.Afterall, clichés are clichés for a reason and there’s a strong element of wisdom behind the well-worn phrase.

When self-editing your novel there are a number of tips and tricks you can use to make the job that little bit easier.

If you follow the techniques outlined in this article, you will be able to write more effective and revealing dialogue for your novels. The techniques will allow you to avoid writing one-dimensional characters that fail to grasp the reader's interest and imagination.