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Editing fiction: Dialogue

In the first of a series of posts on editing fiction, Katherine Kirk looks at how editors can help authors create engaging dialogue that really brings individual characters to life.

Style manuals like New Hart’s Rules and guides like The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction can help editors know exactly how to punctuate an interruption or how to capitalise a stammered first name, but there’s more to great conversations than the lengths of their pauses. Sometimes we need to dig a little deeper into them, and at a line editing level, this can start to feel a bit abstract. It can be hard to explain to an author how to add more subtext to a snippet of dialogue: ‘You need to not write more things not being said’ sounds like some kind of magic trick.

This post will look at how great dialogue starts with the character, it changes depending on whom they’re talking to, and how editors can add or subtract to bring those voices out.

Start with the character

If a novel’s characters aren’t distinct enough from each other, their voices will blur into one and the reader will soon forget who’s who and why they should care.

A strong character voice comes from who that character is at their core. Their background, their beliefs and their agenda all play into how they speak. If you’re working directly with an author, you can ask them probing questions like: ‘These characters live in the US but are originally from the UK, having moved there when the children were quite young. How much of their British accent has remained a decade later?’

The answers will inform word choice and what sort of rhythm the characters use when they speak. For that reason, I usually don’t wait until the end of my main pass through a manuscript to ask the author these types of questions, but send them along as soon as possible.

If you’re not working directly with an author, then you can only work with the information they’ve given you in the manuscript itself, which is why it’s a great idea to read the whole thing first, before editing. In your style sheet, make notes not only of the concrete details like a character’s age or hair colour but also about characteristics that could inform the way they speak. If they have a pet phrase or verbal habit, see if it’s used consistently. Does their spoken voice match their inner voice? Is there a good reason for it not to?

Paying attention to these aspects of the character’s voice can help you to pick up on where characters might start sounding the same. For instance, what maybe started as a verbal habit for one character might have been applied to multiple characters, nullifying its effect. Or it may be an author habit instead. If an author is relying only on these verbal habits to distinguish characters from each other, they might be overused and feel repetitive. Authors of YA may be tempted to have their teen characters say ‘like’ in every sentence; while this might reflect how some real-life teens speak, overuse may irritate readers. Don’t be afraid to suggest removing some of them.

Pet phrases aren’t the only tool we can use to make the voices more distinct. Some other options might be:

talking around the issue vs getting to the point (look at sentence structure here)
utilising gratuitously verbose lexical terms vs using short, simple words
airily drifting in and out of a conversation with pauses and ellipses vs jumping in and thrashing about with dashes
popping in slang vs using very ‘correct’ formal language. Regional slang, age-specific slang, and industry jargon can all tell us a lot about a person, and about a person who refuses to use it.

The roles we play

I am her mother, his wife, her teacher, his naughty little secret, their ally, your worst nightmare, and that will affect how I speak to you. People who know each other well develop a kind of shorthand and can read each other’s subtext better, so characters who are close might not need to have every question answered. I often find that deleting the answer to the question (especially a yes or no) loses nothing. The reader can infer the answer from context and how the conversation proceeds, and it feels snappier and more vivid.

Here’s an example with every question answered. Note how slow it feels.

‘Where is he?’ I asked, reaching for the frozen peas.

‘He’s out back, I think.’ She turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘I’m not hungry. The peas are for the swelling.’ I pressed them to my throbbing cheek. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘I didn’t tell him,’ she said. ‘I knew it would make him angry.’

‘Because you know how he gets,’ I muttered.

‘Yes. I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell him.’

When the characters are family, as these two might be, then much of this does not need to be said. Cutting text out can turn it into subtext, making the conversation feel less stodgy and more suspenseful. If there’s a tag along with an action beat, we can probably take the tag out too and use the action beat as attribution on its own. Where it’s clear who’s speaking, we don’t need any attribution at all. Here’s an extreme example of how it might be pared down:

‘Where is he?’ I reached for the frozen peas.

‘Out back.’ She turned away. ‘I didn’t tell him.’

‘You know how he gets.’

‘I know.’

What if they were acquaintances?

‘Where is he?’ I reached for the frozen peas.

‘He’s out back. Working in the shop, I think.’ She turned away. ‘Did he do that?’

‘You couldn’t have known.’

‘I might have. But it wasn’t me that told him.’

Here, they need to give each other a little more information, and the shared knowledge of years of history is gone. They speak in slightly more complete sentences and give each other more grace.

How the characters negotiate the control of the conversation (or turn-taking) could also show their intimacy. It might change over the course of a novel. A meet-cute might have our lovers verbally stumbling over and butting up against each other, but by the end of their love story, they’re listening to each other, reading each other’s subtext and finishing each other’s sentences. Or it could go the other way, with a couple who used to be able to read each other’s signals now finding they’re no longer fluent in their shared unspoken language, and they might misread it.

What if our two characters dislike each other, and one of them is a little tougher? Let’s have the tough lady interrupt more and use more colloquial language, and contrast it with the other by having more hedging and hesitation. We might need to add an action beat to make the character more vivid.

‘Where is he?’ I reached for the frozen peas.

She spat out an apple seed. ‘I ain’t his keeper.’

‘Did you tell him? That I–’

‘Course not.’

‘It’s just that, well, I wouldn’t blame you if you had.’

‘Well I didn’t.’

Their relationship affects the words they choose to say, the questions they dodge and the assumptions they make. Dialogue that fails to take these elements into account tends towards soulless conversation that is just furthering the plot, reacting to an event or revealing a secret.

How much can an editor change?

It tends to be easier to take things out than to add things in. Whatever we remove, the words that remain are still entirely the author’s. Luckily for us, authors tend to bloat dialogue rather than be too brief, so we usually just need to do some careful snipping. But sometimes the dialogue feels like it’s just scaffolding and it needs something more substantial.

When it comes to adding stuff in, editors are limited in what we can do. It’s not our job to write the book. But we could provide examples. My favourite trick is to mine the narrative for key phrases that ring with the character’s voice and move them into sleepy dialogue to wake it up. I might borrow a phrase from one speaker and give it to another, or flip who says what. That way I’m using the author’s own words to patch the hole rather than speaking for them. If there isn’t a handy phrase nearby, I’ll provide some examples in my best imitation of their voice and let the author choose.

If you’re asking them to add something, you must have a good reason for doing so, and be very clear in your directions. Be specific about what exactly needs to be added, why and where. Review their revisions to check they haven’t introduced errors. And remember that it’s not your book.

Summing it up

If you read a manuscript in full before you dive in, you can get to know the characters a little better.
Take note not only of what characters are but who they are, and how that affects their voice.
Make note of their relationships, and check if these relationships are reflected in their conversations.
Trim out the unnecessary padding and let the best parts of the dialogue shine without being smothered by redundant dialogue tags or awkward attempts to show dialect.
Be just as careful taking out as you are adding in, and don’t fix what ain’t broke. Ask more questions and respect the characters as much as you respect the author.

For more insight into making dialogue sparkle, I recommend Louise Harnby’s dialogue resources, this blog post by Emma Darwin, and Sophie Playle’s fabulous explanation of ‘As You Know, Bob’ dialogue (and how to avoid it).

About Katherine Kirk

Katherine Kirk is a fiction editor who has been described by clients as a hopeless semantic and their secret weapon. She offers line editing, copyediting and proofreading to indie authors and publishers of all fiction genres, and she particularly enjoys science fiction and fantasy.

About the CIEP

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) is a non-profit body promoting excellence in English language editing. We set and demonstrate editorial standards, and we are a community, training hub and support network for editorial professionals – the people who work to make text accurate, clear and fit for purpose.
Find out more about:

Photo credits: speech bubbles by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels; couple by Samson Katt on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Curriculum focus: Developmental editing

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In this regular feature for The Edit, former training director Jane Moody shines a light on an area of the CIEP’s Curriculum for professional development.

Developmental editing is a tricky one to pin down in the curriculum. You could argue that anything that applies to general editing also applies to developmental editing, so all the skills are equally applicable. There are not many specific resources to support learning in this area, although there are some specific courses.

In the table I have picked out some of the competencies, skills and attitudes that you should be able to evidence under each of the criteria. I’ve listed some suggested supporting resources below the table.

Knowledge criteria	Editorial competency, professional skills and attitudes
2.2.3 Voice and tone	• Understands reading level, register (degree of formality) and use of terminology appropriate to the type of publication and audience
2.3.1 Judgement of sense	• Has general knowledge appropriate to the genre and subject area they are working with • Understands judgement of sense: does content appear correct and appropriate for context? If doubtful: flag, query or change? Is change justified and appropriate? • Understands vocabulary and idioms (corrects any easily confused words; if not the right word, can supply a suitable replacement) • Can explain/justify changes
2.3.2 Judgement of voice	• Understands and respects author’s voice but can assess whether suited to the content and the target/likely audience, appropriateness for context • Can make changes in keeping with context
2.3.3 Clarity in writing	• Understands the need to avoid ambiguity • Understands appropriate use of language and tone • Understands conciseness (elimination of redundancy/repetition) • If space is limited or layout is fixed, is aware of the need to fit any change into the available space without causing a new problem • Can reword appropriately to simplify, clarify or shorten text • Can identify whether material is well expressed and flows logically, with the ideas and wording easy to follow
2.3.4 Author and client queries	• Understands judgement required for author queries (when, what and how) and how many queries are appropriate • Can ask relevant client queries (remit, style, problems), and to judge how many, when and how to ask • Can formulate clear, concise, useful questions • Understands when to alert client to problems of content • Can raise appropriate queries and deal with redundancy, omission, errors and inconsistencies, all within the limits of schedule and budget
2.4.9 Project style sheets	• Can create a project style sheet • Is aware of what can be expected, what is usually essential, what could be included in a project style sheet
2.4.10 Managing an editorial project	• Understands the possible extent and limits of an editorial project manager’s remit • Understands scheduling and planning a project • Can adapt to changes in schedule or resources • Understands the need to work within a budget • Understands the need for good communication and briefing with all parties in a project • Can take on aspects of the editorial project manager’s role when necessary
3.1.2 Assessment of the manuscript and brief	• Has ability to assess a manuscript and agree a brief
3.1.3 Structural editing	• Understands the principles of structural editing: detailed analysis of the text, advising the author of any structural or major changes required • Can identify and analyse themes and plot types; author’s voice and style; different points of view; dialogue; consistency of plot, timeline and setting, character, language

Resources to support your learning and CPD

When it comes to fiction, developmental editing is possibly served by more resources, and you can find courses and literature to support your learning.

Sophie Playle has written a CIEP guide, Developmental Editing for Fiction, which is a good place to start.

If you work in non-fiction, the equivalent CIEP guide, written by Claire Beveridge, is Developmental Editing for Non-Fiction.

Both guides give a good list of further resources at the end, so I won’t repeat them here.

Sophie Playle offers training courses in this area for fiction editors:

Developmental Editing: Fiction Theory
Developmental Editing in Practice

She has also recorded a useful webinar: Guiding Principles for Developmental Fiction Editing.

The blog post What Is Developmental Editing? The Writer’s Guide to Developmental Editing by Alice Sudlow is aimed at authors but is also a neat summary of the process for editors.

I found an interesting summary from Scott Norton, in his book published in 2009: Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers, published by the University of Chicago Press. He gives a concise set of 12 ‘rules’ for developmental editors, starting with ‘be realistic’. The book is available from all the usual sources.

Of course, the CIEP online courses will help you too. You might try:

About Jane Moody

Jane has worked with books for all her working life (which is rather more years than she cares to admit), having started life as a librarian. She started a freelance editing business while at home with her two children, which she maintained for 15 years before going back into full-time employment as head of publishing for a medical Royal College.

Now retired, she has resurrected her editorial business, but has less time for work these days as she spends much time with her four grandchildren and in her garden.

About the CIEP

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Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Definite articles: Developmental editing

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Welcome to ‘Definite articles’, our pick of recent editing-related internet content, most of which are definitely articles. This time, our theme is developmental editing.

The CIEP has recently released two guides about developmental editing: one covering fiction, the other, non-fiction. Let’s look at each type in turn.

Fiction

Sophie Playle, the author of our guide on developmental editing for fiction, recently released three connected CIEP blogs that answered key questions about the subject. The first covered giving feedback, the second was about definition and boundaries, and the third looked at process.

After these three Q&A-style blogs, how about a Q&A between three developmental editors? Sangeeta Mehta, Susan Chang and Julie Scheina’s Zoom discussion about the practicalities of the role is transcribed on Jane Friedman’s website and is well worth a read.

Over on the ACES website, Tanya Gold offers a survey of the conversations an editor needs to have with an author before tackling a developmental edit.

Finally, Susan DeFreitas sets out three critical questions an author needs to ask before drafting or revising a novel. These questions offer some valuable pointers for developmental editing, too.

Non-fiction

In her CIEP guide on developmental editing for non-fiction, Claire Beveridge recommends a detailed guide to the subject by Gary Smailes. For Editors Canada, Paul Buckingham has written a useful shorter overview of the process.

If you’re looking for a particular specialism, ACES has covered medical developmental editing; The Editing Podcast has talked to a developmental editor of academic writing; and Geoff Hart has written for An American Editor about creating effective outlines, an article that’s particularly relevant to technical text.

Book recommendations

If you’d like a longer read than a web page can offer but are unsure where to start, book reviews are a good way in. For fiction developmental editing, Tanya Gold can recommend a stack of useful books. In non-fiction, the classic work is Scott Norton’s Developmental Editing, and on the ACES website you can review what the book covers before deciding whether it’s worth investing in.

And to see developmental editing within the larger process of creating a book, as well as hearing directly from editors, What Editors Do, edited by Peter Ginna, is a great read. You can read a review of it on the Editors Canada website.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: papers and sticky notes by cottonbro studio on Pexels; bookshelves by Huỳnh Đạt on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Developmental fiction editing Q&A part 3: Process

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To celebrate the launch of our new guide, Developmental Editing for Fiction, we are publishing a series of three blog posts in which Sophie Playle – author of the guide – answers CIEP members’ burning questions about this service.

To learn more, download the guide and consider taking one of Sophie’s online courses about developmental fiction editing.

I’m interested in how you communicate the developmental edit. Is it primarily through an editorial letter? A combination of a letter and comments in the margins of the manuscript? Do you meet with the author on Zoom, talk on the phone? How often?

Absolutely no to Zoom! My poor little introverted soul couldn’t take that kind of spotlight – though video or phone sessions definitely work for some editors.

The way I deliver my feedback will depend on the scope of the service I’ve defined and the needs of the manuscript. For example, for some general feedback, I’ll write an editorial report that doesn’t go beyond a certain number of pages; there will be no notes in the manuscript.

But for a full developmental edit, I’ll provide a longer editorial report, and I’ll leave notes in the manuscript. How extensive these are will depend on what’s needed. I might make some direct changes to the text, I might not. I might extensively highlight the manuscript, I might not.

Do you use book maps or other visual aids?

I might, I might not! (See above.)

Book maps take time to create. If I think the plot is going to need some extensive work, I’ll suggest that I make a book map as part of my developmental edit. Sometimes, I’ll get the author to make one for me (this saves me time and saves the author money) and I’ll use that to help form my analysis.

I’ve made a basic narrative-arc graph that I often insert into my editorial reports when explaining the three-act structure. Sometimes I’ll use tables or graphs if they help me present information more clearly. It’s something I want to make more use of, actually, so I’m always on the look-out for ideas in this area!

I love to know about workflows and the practical side. How do you do the processing of reading, analysing, assessing and suggesting? Do you use a step-by-step process? How much back-and-forth is there with the author?

There’s no one right way to conduct a developmental edit, but this is my general approach:

Read the manuscript straight through, quickly, without taking notes.
Let thoughts percolate for a day or two.
Jot down my main impressions for what needs to be addressed.
Plug these notes into my editorial report template.
The next step will depend on the scope of the specific service.
- For a critique, I’ll flesh out those notes, scanning the manuscript to refresh my memory, if needed.
- For a full developmental edit, I’ll work through the manuscript page-by-page, making the notes in the manuscript and my editorial report inform one another.

I’ll only get in touch with the author during the edit if I need them to clarify something relevant to the feedback I’m crafting. I won’t send them the manuscript to work on while I’m also working on it.

How many times do you read each manuscript, and what sort of notes do you make for yourself on each pass?

Usually once for a critique, twice for a full developmental edit (leaving notes and making edits during the second read-through).

I try not to make any notes on the first read-through as I want to experience the story more like a reader on this pass. I might highlight text I think could be useful to my analysis, and I might leave a few scant notes if I notice emerging recurring problems, but I won’t go into any detail or think about ways to fix the issues yet.

After you return your feedback to the client, is that the end of the process or do you then review any changes they make in light of your comments?

I let authors know that they can ask me for any clarifications if there’s something in my feedback they don’t understand. I ask them to batch their questions and let them know that I won’t spend more than another hour addressing them.

I don’t go back over the manuscript to check the revisions unless we’ve already agreed that this will be part of the service. This takes time, and needs to be considered in the fee and my schedule.

How do you balance how much you suggest and how much responsibility the author needs to take for fixing their own book under your guidance?

I won’t make substantial changes to an author’s book – that’s completely their responsibility, since it’s their book. I can only provide guidance and suggestions. How general or specific that is will depend on the scope of the service we’ve agreed upon.

How do you edit books in which authors have written to a formula, such as the frameworks in books like Save the Cat! Writes A Novel or Story Grid, especially if you’re not familiar with such frameworks or if the author is highly resistant to deviating from them?

If an author wants to use a framework you’re not familiar with, either don’t work on that book or take the time to learn about the framework.

If the author wants to use a framework, that’s up to them. You might be able to make the case for them to deviate from it, but if they decide they don’t agree with your justifications, that’s their right.

Authors often use frameworks as learning tools. They might not be ready to delve into more original or experimental story structures, and doing so might not help them achieve their writing or publishing goals so isn’t always necessary anyway.

As well as that, frameworks don’t produce cookie-cutter stories (if used well). Understanding archetypal story structure is hugely useful – for both authors and editors. Originality is found in the details, and the combination of new ideas – all of which can be hung beautifully upon frameworks.

About Sophie Playle

Sophie Playle is a professional fiction editor who also teaches online courses to other editors. Speculative and literary fiction are her favourite genres to edit, and she loves working with authors who are passionate about high-quality storytelling. Sophie is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, and has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

About the CIEP

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Photo credit: header image by EliFrancis on Pixabay, open books by Gülfer Ergin on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, Blog Assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Developmental fiction editing Q&A part 2: Definition and boundaries

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To learn more, download the guide and consider taking one of Sophie’s online courses about developmental fiction editing.

What is reasonable for the client to expect of us in terms of interventions in the actual text in a developmental edit?

Whatever you’ve defined as part of your service.

And I don’t mean something like ‘I’ll leave at least five comments on every page’ because that’s arbitrary. It’s not about making the edit look a certain way, but making sure you’re delivering the outcomes you’ve promised – and that might mean your edits look quite different from one manuscript to another.

How do you explain the difference between developmental editing and other types of editing to a client? I’ve found sometimes the client hasn’t been wholly clear about what they expect from me.

Publishers will have a brief in mind, and if you’re not clear on what they want from you, ask for clarification.

If you’re working directly with authors, though, they will look to you for guidance on what your service entails. They might have a rough idea about the kind of feedback they’re looking for, but you should lay out the details of your service for them so that you’re both on the same page.

Do you usually work with a finished draft, however rough it may be, or do you work with the author during the writing process? The latter is often referred to as ‘book coaching’, but it seems to overlap with developmental editing. Maybe that’s why so many authors – and editors – are confused by the scope of developmental editing.

I always work on complete drafts because to help an author shape their novel, I need to understand the story in its entirety. I’m definitely one of those people who consider those who help authors finish their drafts as book coaches.

But you’re absolutely right that there are no hard-and-fast service definitions, and this can create confusion. But only if you don’t define your service. As long as you’ve got a clearly defined service, it doesn’t really matter if someone calls a similar service by a different name.

At the end of the day, the aims are similar.

I’d love to have some ideas on how to cost a developmental edit – and how to explain to the author how that price (range) has been arrived at.

I actually don’t think the author needs to know how you’ve arrived at your price. I don’t ask my mechanic or my plumber why they charge a certain fee; I don’t ask an artist how they decided how much to sell their watercolour for.

If I feel I’m getting a fair exchange of value, that’s all that matters – and that’s all that matters to your clients, too.

There are so many ways to conduct a developmental edit that it’s not very helpful to try to compare your fees to others in the field – because everyone will be doing things differently. Working out your fees for developmental editing is the same as working out your fees for any kind of service. There are lots of methods out there, and lots of things to consider.

Generally, it comes down to this:

What do you need to earn?
How long will the work take?
What are your clients willing to pay?

Playing around with these somewhat nebulous concepts will help you arrive at a cost – but pricing really is an art, not a formula, and it may take you a bit of trial and error before you feel confident you’ve got it right.

How do you make sure your page comments are suitable for a developmental edit and don’t stray into line editing?

Some editors will do a lot of line editing as part of a developmental edit, and that’s up to them – but I don’t work that way. If I want to delve into addressing issues at a line level, I’ll suggest that as an additional round of editing after the bigger-picture (developmental) side of things has been addressed.

This means all my page comments will be related to a big-picture issue. If I have a clear idea of what those big-picture issues are before I start working through the manuscript page-by-page, I can make sure my comments are suitable and targeted.

About Sophie Playle

Sophie is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, and has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credit: header image by EliFrancis on Pixabay, laptop and typewriter by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Developmental fiction editing Q&A part 1: Giving feedback

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To learn more, download the guide and consider taking one of Sophie’s online courses about developmental fiction editing.

What’s the most common developmental editing problem you see in fiction?

New writers often underestimate how much they don’t know.

Completing a full draft of a book is an immense achievement in and of itself, and authors will usually find their writing technique has improved by the time they get to the end of their first draft. But just as writing technique takes practice, so does the art of hanging plots together.

So the most common developmental issue I see in fiction is a weak or unclear premise (because the author will have usually started writing with a vague idea that they developed as they wrote) with a plot that doesn’t hit enough significantly dramatic, interesting or relevant events (because a good structure is built from a good premise).

Often the solution is to teach the author how to refine their premise and make better use of the archetypal plot points that lend themselves to a classic three-act structure.

Other common issues include narration that focuses too much on summary and exposition (instead of building dramatic scenes) and unfocused point of view, causing distance or confusion between readers and characters.

Have you ever come across a developmental problem so huge that it could not be resolved? If you have, how did you handle this with the author?

No, because what does it even really mean to resolve all the issues in a book?

There’s no such thing as a perfect book. In my eyes, my role is to help the author improve what they have, and I can always make suggestions on how they might do this.

Fiction authors tend to be emotionally involved in their writing. How do you deal with authors being upset and/or resistant to your suggested amendments? Or are they generally happy to receive constructive feedback?

You’d think that when someone asks for professional feedback and is willing to pay for it, they would be open to receiving said feedback … But that’s not always the case!

I’ve worked with authors who have replied to my feedback quite curtly, affronted. Over the years, I’ve developed a better instinct for the kind of authors who are secretly looking for validation and the kind of authors who are genuinely looking for constructive guidance, and made sure I’m working with the latter.

I work really, really hard on writing my feedback with sensitivity and tact, and I tell the author what they’re doing well, too. If they resist my feedback, there’s nothing I can do about that – and it’s their prerogative.

It’s possible the author needs to work on their own emotions around receiving feedback, but it’s also possible that I’ve not quite understood what they’re trying to do or that some of my suggestions aren’t right for the book, so I try to maintain some humility and distance from how an author receives my work.

There have been times when I’ve felt like an interloper in the private, intense author–text relationship. How does an editor create the space for themselves to work, and for the author to coolly re-evaluate the text?

Similar to my answer above: the author is responsible for their own mindset, but there are things we can do as developmental editors to help them feel good about the feedback we’re giving – by communicating with humility and tact.

What do you do when it feels as though everything needs fixing?

I put the manuscript aside for a day or two and let the small issues sink to the bottom of my mind like sediment so I can see the bigger issues more clearly. Then I focus on addressing those.

If I feel it’s appropriate, I’ll suggest multiple rounds of feedback – so the author will go away and address the first round of suggestions, then I’ll reassess the new draft and give them different, more nuanced things to focus on for the next draft.

I try to suggest this approach upfront, before I even start working on the manuscript, so that I’m not suddenly asking the author to shell out for more editing that they didn’t expect or budget for. To be able to suggest this approach to the author, I need to spend a little time looking at the manuscript and getting to know the author’s creative goals beforehand.

You (and the author) have to take into account the law of diminishing returns, though. Authors don’t have infinite budgets or time, so sometimes it’s about doing the best you can with the resources available, and accepting that.

Even if you and the author can’t get the manuscript to the point you’d like, it can be a valuable learning experience for the author and they can take what they’ve learned to their next book.

About Sophie Playle

Sophie is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, and has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credit: header image by EliFrancis on Pixabay, bookstore by Maria Orlova on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

CIEP social media round-up: August and September 2022

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Our social media team takes you through the CIEP content we’ve shared on our social media platforms during August and September 2022. This time, the emphasis falls on fiction.

Editing fiction

Several blog posts from August and September had the theme of fiction editing. There’s a common misconception out there that fiction editing is just a form of rather intense reading that you could carry out while sitting in a soft armchair drinking a mug of cocoa.

The first article listed here, which forms part of our curriculum for professional development, is by Jane Moody, our Training Director. She gives a detailed table of the competencies, skills and attitudes that we should be able to evidence as a professional fiction editor. Cocoa is optional.

One of the best sources of advice for CIEP members about how to become a fiction editor – or any type of editor – are the CIEP forums. This ‘Forum matters’ article points you in the direction of some of the best places to access information about fiction editing.

Rachel Lapidow edits role-playing games. The style sheets for such complex projects are detailed – the style sheet of her current work-in-progress is 60 pages long! She shares the structure of her style sheets and the process of creating them, and shows us how they can be useful for fiction editing too.

While you might think the main focus of fiction editing is dealing with fantasy, Sue Littleford reminds us that we also need to think about facts. Keeping records about your current work in order to optimise your future work is essential for editors of any subject matter, and fiction is no different. She describes three ways to keep records and introduces the CIEP’s free spreadsheet designed for record keeping.

‘Definite articles’ is our pick of recent editing-related content from all around the internet – and, in this edition, themes included the language of fiction, dialogue and character, plot, story and scenes, and the business side of fiction publishing.

The writing software Scrivener has some enthusiastic fans among the writing community. Scrivener allows you to restructure a piece of writing much more easily than is possible in Microsoft Word. In his ‘Talking tech’ column, Andy Coulson investigates whether Scrivener might also be a useful tool for developmental editors of fiction.

And in the editorial department …

Agile planning

An ‘Agile’ approach to planning – and the changes that occur in that planning – is a style of teamworking. It’s a project management model more familiar in the world of technology. Its principles make a priority of individuals, deliverables, collaboration and response to change. Steven Martin considers whether the Agile approach might work in publishing.

Project management

What does editorial project management actually involve and where do copyeditors and proofreaders fit into the process? In this post, editorial project manager Julia Sandford-Cooke describes her typical week and some of the tasks she often undertakes. Check out the CIEP’s Editorial Project Management course if you want to learn more.

Translation editing or copyediting?

Gwenydd Jones is an experienced translator. Early in her career she noticed clients were asking for ‘translation editing’ – with the term ‘editing’ being used very loosely. She explains what’s involved in the field of translation editing and considers how it shares similarities with copyediting.

Apostrophes

George Bernard Shaw hated them, but could we do without them? Is it time to ‘kill apostrophes’ or would that be ‘just plain wrong’? In her regular column ‘A Finer Point’, Cathy Tingle goes in search of the genuinely useful apostrophe and makes some interesting findings.

Working through the menopause

It is encouraging to see increasing numbers of conversations about menopause and perimenopause. Members of the CIEP forums shared their varied experiences of working through the menopause, which Liz Dalby has gathered here. This post also includes some links to helpful resources.

Networking and conferencing

September is usually the month of our annual CIEP Conference, so networking is on our minds. The word strikes fear into those of us of a more introvert nature. In this article, BookMachine’s Laura Summers puts paid to the image that networking has to be awkward or scary. And while networking is about making new connections and building on existing relationships, it’s also about learning and confidence-building. All things that you’ll experience at our annual conference, which you’ll be hearing about in various blog posts in the weeks to come!

The CIEP Annual Conference took place on 10–12 September 2022. Our theme was editing in a diverse world. It was our first hybrid conference (with sessions available online as well as in person); and it was our first in-person conference since 2019. Look out for blog posts in the near future on the sessions and some conference experiences from our delegates.

Our speakers did not disappoint, and special thanks go to Katherine May, Reverend Richard Coles and Ian McMillan.

CIEP Language Quiz 16

Finally, dare you try Quiz 16? It’s all about aspects of punctuation, grammar and usage when editing fiction.

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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Flying Solo: Facts for fiction editors

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In this Flying Solo column, Sue Littleford looks at how the Going Solo toolkit’s work record spreadsheet can be modified for use by fiction editors, and finds out how three fiction editors keep records about their work.

Fiction editors can’t avoid diving into non-fiction when they’re running their businesses rather than editing. The Going Solo toolkit’s work record spreadsheet (available as a member benefit – you’ll need to be logged in to the CIEP website to download it) is heavily geared towards the kind of breakdown of jobs that a non-fiction editor will find useful. Those categories don’t really work for fiction editing, beyond word count, time taken and fee charged, so I’ve been talking to three fiction editors about their own record-keeping.

Why keep records about completed work?

Editors and proofreaders in all niches need to keep track of their work and the time it takes them if they’re to have a solid basis from which to calculate quotes of cost and time. In June 2021, I looked at how to use the filter with a spreadsheet of data about the work you’ve done to get the best use of it when it comes to preparing a new quote or estimate.

Another benefit of compiling records of your work (for CIEP members and prospective members) is that you can send in a spreadsheet of the relevant details with an upgrade application instead of having to type out everything again on the application form, and it’s easy to see when you’ve achieved the necessary hours of experience.

But the main and ongoing benefit is not having to snatch figures out of the air when it comes to your pricing, and knowing the answer to the eternal question ‘How long will it take?’ You can also see if you’re getting faster or slower overall, see the impact using a new tool makes on your speeds (or a change in the material you’re working with) and, especially with repeat clients, ensure consistency in your pricing approach, and see how jobs from a particular source compare.

If you provide several services – manuscript assessment, development editing, structural editing, line editing, copyediting, proofreading – you can also see which is the most rewarding in a financial sense, which gives you best return for your time, and it helps you to tailor bundles of services at a sensible price for your business.

And now, a warning! You may be tempted to keep minimal records, perhaps just your invoices, but you really should be keeping full records: anyone planning on upgrading (and all members will need to achieve PM status to remain in the Institute, which means applying for at least one upgrade: see p4 of the Member Handbook for time limits) will need a record of the work they’ve done to show that they have the requisite hours of the right type.

In addition, in the UK, you will need to be able to show HMRC evidence of the hours you work, in order to support your calculations for tax relief on the costs of working at home. If you live (or at least pay tax) elsewhere, be sure to check your own country’s requirements – but if you still have CIEP upgrades to do, you’ll need your breakdown of hours worked available and categorised.

Facts for fiction editors is definitely A Thing!

Three editors, three approaches to record-keeping

Here’s how three editors handle their records.

1. Going Solo toolkit with modifications

Now an editor of fiction and creative non-fiction, APM Jill French started her business mainly focused on non-fiction, and finds the Going Solo toolkit’s work record spreadsheet works well for her way of thinking, with the addition of ‘manuscript assessment’ as a category of work. Each round of editing the same book is logged as a separate job, which gives her enough data to analyse when it comes to pricing another job of the same stage.

2. Combining two off-the-shelf systems

IM Katherine Kirk uses both the work record from the Going Solo toolkit and Maya Berger’s TEA system (CIEP member discount available). Katherine is working towards PM status and finds the analysis and tracking offered in the jobs spreadsheet helps her to maintain a good record to support her application in due course. But she finds that TEA works better for her for financial records, and so she maintains both, having simply hidden the columns that are irrelevant to her business (columns N–S from the Going Solo spreadsheet).

Katherine uses the average words per hour for that particular kind of work to inform her estimates, but, depending on the client, may also do a sample edit to check. She records these sample edits in TEA in order to be prepared if that client comes back. If the client doesn’t return, Katherine has data ready to hand on the price she quoted, and can see what impact changing the price has on landing the client.

3. Tailored record-keeping

Nicky Taylor, an APM, has developed her own record-keeping system over the years. Like Jill, she records each type of work for the same book as separate jobs, so a development edit and a copyedit get their own rows in her spreadsheet.

Nicky said to me, ‘Looking at all my data made me realise that manuscript critiques on their own were simply not financially viable, so I stopped offering that service; if I hadn’t recorded everything, I doubt I would have known.’ Music to my ears about the real-world value of keeping business data.

For a development edit, Nicky records the onboarding time, reading time, report-writing time; for a copy- or line edit, she will record the time spent on each pass – she always does a full read-through and two passes, and has a column in her spreadsheet for each of these.

Included in her records are columns for pre-returning the job, which covers time for checking comments, checking over the style sheet and completing the handover tasks. Another column captures the time spent on post-edit revisions, post-edit discussions with the author, and emails. If a PDF conversion or layout work is required, this time also goes into that post-edit column.

Most of the time, the production of the style sheet is absorbed into the two passes, but may be recorded separately if the occasion demands. Production of a bible, perhaps for a planned series, will be logged separately.

Nicky includes an ‘Other’ column in her spreadsheet for different kinds of jobs, such as consultancy and other requests, recording the exact nature in the job description column. Like Katherine, Nicky also uses TEA for her financials.

The Going Solo toolkit: Work record spreadsheet

The CIEP has decided to follow Jill’s recommendation, and has added manuscript assessment to the dropdown list of types of work, which would include the kinds of tasks covered by Nicky’s ‘Other’ column. If you’re already using the spreadsheet and would like to add this to your own records, you can either download the new version (be sure to be logged in to the CIEP website first) and copy your records across, or extend that dropdown list yourself. It’s easy!

NB: All screenshots show Excel 365 on a PC. The instructions apply to PCs but Microsoft tells me they also work for Macs.

1. Select column ‘Type of work’ by clicking on the column header (D), which turns the column grey. A black down-arrow shows when your cursor is in the right position to select.

2. On the Data tab …

… open Data Validation in the Data Tools group by clicking the little down-arrow:

3. Select Data Validation from the dropdown menu:

4. You’ll see this:

Click Yes.

5. You’ll see this:

Now you can type a comma, a space and MA into the end of the Source box.

Check the ‘Apply these changes to all other cells with the same settings’ box if you’ve added other tabs that have this same list, otherwise you can leave it blank.

It will look like this:

Click on OK.

You’re done! You can now use the new code, and you can, if you like, add others that suit the work you do. You might want to add consultancy as a category, for instance, if that makes sense for the work you do. You don’t have to use codes – you could spell out the entire word, or use a fuller abbreviation. Once you’ve got the hang of this, you can personalise your spreadsheet exactly as you like. That said …

Four reminders

Reminder #1

The Admissions Panel explained to me, when I was developing the Going Solo toolkit, that they want to see your copyediting and proofreading hours on your upgrade application, so remember to keep recording these clearly and separately, no matter what else you decide to record.

Reminder #2

If you’re not sure how to get the best use of the data you’ve gone to the trouble of collecting, see my earlier ‘Flying solo’ post on using the filter functions.

Reminder #3

The sooner you start keeping detailed records, the sooner you’ll have compiled a useful bank of data to help with price and time estimation for new jobs.

Reminder #4

If you’re inspired by Nicky’s level of detail, don’t forget that you can continue to personalise your own copy of the Going Solo toolkit work record. Inserting additional columns is easy!

1. Click on the column letter immediately to the right of where you want to insert a new column.

Here, I’ve highlighted column I – see the colour change where the column’s label is, and the column itself has turned grey.

2. Right-click, then select Insert and a column will arrive between, in this example, Author name(s) and Total time taken (hours).

3. … and you will get this:

4. The Author name(s) column is still H, but Total time taken (hours) is now column J and we have a new, blank column I. Type in the name you want for the heading. Repeat as often as you need to add new columns, always clicking at the head of the column to the right of where you want to add a new one.

5. Columns in the wrong order? Move them with cut and paste. The column will always paste in to the left of where you click, as creating the new column did.

6. Unneeded columns? Instead of clicking on Insert, click on Delete if you’re sure you don’t want that column, or Hide, if you think you may need it at some point. (To unhide, select the columns on either side of the hidden column(s) and right-click; click on Unhide.)

Buy a print copy or download the second edition of Going Solo: Creating your freelance editorial business from here.

About Sue Littleford

Sue Littleford is the author of the CIEP guide Going Solo, now in its second edition. She went solo with her own freelance copyediting business, Apt Words, in March 2007 and specialises in scholarly humanities and social sciences.

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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Forum matters: Fiction and other specialisms

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This feature comes from the band of CIEP members who volunteer as forum moderators. You will only be able to access links to the posts if you’re a forum user and logged in. Find out how to register.

Supporting members’ specialisms

One of the best things about the CIEP community is the sheer breadth of knowledge held and shared freely by its members. From FRedit to flamingos, there’s bound to be a tasty morsel that will make your life easier, or at least a little more interesting, especially if you dig a little deeper into the specialist groups, which were created to avoid overwhelming the core forums. Find out more about joining one or more of these forums.

Since this issue of The Edit is all about fiction, it’s an opportunity to draw your attention to the Fiction forum, which has over 500 members. Of course, fiction editors will gain a lot from the main forums in the first place, and recent useful threads have covered checking facts, how deep down the rabbit hole you need to go (and whether you should charge extra for spelunking), flamingo migration and the etymology of riverbank architecture. Might these reappear in this year’s CIEP conference quiz? Best take notes.

An exploration on SfEPLine of which tools are available to editors with vision loss or impairment (reassuring to know that loss of vision might not necessarily mean an end to an editing career) connects quite nicely with a thread in the Newbie forum (an underrated goldmine of good advice, if you ask us) about screen readers and Latin abbreviations. Meanwhile, a Marketplace offer spurred a sensitive discussion on SfEPLine about the ethics, legalities and practicalities of working with an author who is not yet an adult, in order to safeguard all stakeholders.

The Macros forum also has useful information for fiction editors, and if you’re looking to add more macros to your toolbox but don’t know where to start, try one of the ones recommended in this thread. A handy macro for fiction editors might be Paul Beverley’s ChapterChopper, which shows the number of words per chapter. This could help editors to pinpoint developmental issues like pace slumps or info-dumping.

If you work with science fiction, you might be interested in Reedsy Sci-Fi week (August–September 2022), or catch up with recordings afterwards. This information appeared on the Events forum, full of links to happenings of interest to editors that you might regret missing.

If your special interest is fiction, this is just the tip of it. Come along as we open the curtain and show you what the Fiction group has been up to.

Digging deeper

This section is link-free because not all of our forum users are members of the Fiction forum. If you’d like to access it, find out how in ‘Joining a specialist forum’, below.

The Fiction Special Interest Group (Fic SIG) invites any member to give a talk on a relevant topic of their choice. Kath Kirk gave a webinar on the special considerations copyeditors need for editing science fiction and fantasy novels. She discussed how to keep track of wibbly-wobbly timelines, and this spurred further discussion in the Fiction forum about which software can help editors to visualise it.

Clare Law’s talk on using data-driven editing to become more efficient, get paid more, reduce anxiety and beat imposter syndrome led to robust discussions in the Fiction forum about which silent changes fiction editors usually make, and which queries they’ve stored in their TextExpander arsenals.

Members of the Fiction forum also shared resources for working on children’s fiction, and how to format a fiction manuscript for submission to a literary agent, as well as recommendations of courses for editors who are looking to build their fiction-editing skills.

If you missed these fabulous discussions, don’t worry! Notes from the talks are shared on the Fiction forum afterwards.

Joining a specialist forum

There’s no barrier to CIEP members’ entry into the specialist groups. Everybody should join their local group forum. Even international members can be local through the Cloud Clubs. Apart from Fiction, other topic-based groups are Music, English Language Teaching, Education, MedSTEM, Languages (translation), Legal and more – and sometimes they’re where the real action is!

If you’re interested in a deeper exploration of a niche or subject related to editing, follow the step-by-step instructions on this page or get in touch with one of the forum moderators.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: books by ready made and woman in a hat by Olivia cox, both on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Definite articles: Fiction

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Welcome to ‘Definite articles’, our pick of recent editing-related internet content, most of which are definitely articles. This time, our theme is fiction. If you want to view the CIEP’s own recent content, head straight for CIEP social media round-up: June and July 2022.

In this blog post:

The language of fiction
Dialogue and character
Plot, story and scenes
The business of fiction
Fiction past
And the prize goes to …

The language of fiction

Words: they’re what books are made of. If you’re stuck for one, the internet’s a good place to start in finding what you need. During May, June and July, Cambridge Dictionaries published a number of useful articles for any fiction writer or editor groping towards the right words, including how to describe textures, breathing, people you like and admire, looking for information and then finding it, enjoying yourself, and animal noises such as howling, mewing and snorting, and grunting, lowing and bleating.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary posted its ‘Great big list of beautiful and useless words, part 1’, with links to Parts 2 and 3. Each list contained 50 words that were obscure and attractive in equal measure. Our favourite was peristeronic: suggestive of pigeons. (So useful.)

Dialogue and character

A major element of fiction is dialogue. In July, Carol Saller for The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) explored interjections, because:

Not all fictional characters are meant to be smooth-tongued and lyrical in their speech. Rather, just like us, they sometimes mumble or stumble. Giving a character flawed speech is a way to make dialogue more realistic. And this very human kind of talking often involves the use of interjections.

Continuing the theme of writing authentic dialogue, Edwin L Battistella described how we’re likely to deal with pronouns and joint possession in normal speech – for example ‘Paul and my home’ or ‘Kace and I’s text’. Battistella set out the grammar rules but explained why we often break them when chatting. This practical approach may explain why the article attracted so many likes on the CIEP’s social media platforms.

When we write beyond our own experience it’s crucial to conduct research – for example to interview people with different lives to ours, and to learn about variations and dialects in Englishes and other languages. The internet can offer some pointers on the latter, although this should only be the first step. In June, The Guardian focused on Multicultural London English (MLE), which is rapidly growing in the UK.

In ‘How (and how not!) to write queer characters: a primer‘ on Jane Friedman’s website, Susan DeFreitas gave advice about how to avoid writing stereotyped characters (for example the ‘Magic Gay Bestie’) and biased plot devices (for example when a gay character is killed off early), and suggested best practices for writing queer characters (for example, ‘Don’t make them the sole representative’).

ALLi (the Alliance of Independent Authors) shared Sacha Black’s podcast on levelling up your side characters, a Self-Publishing Conference Highlight, in audio and transcript. Black’s talk featured Mr Wheezy, the penguin from Toy Story (remember him?), alongside many minor characters you might have temporarily forgotten who are important for plot and theme.

Another useful article about characterisation on Jane Friedman’s site was Heather Davis’s ‘7 questions to design a better arc of change for your protagonist’. We posted this across our social media platforms in mid-July to wide approval. One follower commented, ‘this is a great article!’

Plot, story and scenes

In fact, there was a run of great articles from Jane Friedman’s site this summer. Many of them considered plot, story and scenes, from ‘The vital difference between plot and story – and why you need both‘ by Heather Davis to ‘The building blocks of scene’, ‘Moving between scenes with summary and spacers’ and ‘Good scenes require specifics’ by Sharon Oard Warner.

Back on the CMOS Shop Talk blog, Carol Saller considered ‘What makes a chapter of a novel?’ including purpose, length and endings.

The business of fiction

The profile of self-publishing was high this summer. Radio 4’s Money Box devoted a programme to self-publishing, and at the beginning of August The Guardian published a step-by-step guide to getting your book published, which mentioned the CIEP’s suggested minimum rates for editors and proofreaders to help with budgeting.

Talking about the CIEP, the AFEPI published a version of Averill Buchanan’s CIEP blog on fiction book production. Alongside this, you could read ALLi’s ‘Ultimate guide to formatting your print book’, posted in May.

In addition, there were articles on book blurbs, creating a copyright page and how to make a great author website, as well as ALLi Twitter chat on common book marketing failures. All useful stuff.

Fiction past

Reading fiction is an important part of writing and editing it. Recent online content on past fictional works included ‘A literary history of modernism’, which starts with psychologist and philosopher William James’s ‘stream of consciousness’, a quiz on Mary Shelley, five little-known facts about Dracula, fictional worlds you might belong in (one follower commented: ‘I ended up in Mrs Dalloway’s world. Need to dig out the cloche hat’) and, after we’ve finished reading, ‘How to survive the post-book blues’.

As the summer got hotter, the OUP created a playlist inspired by Oxford World’s Classics, so you didn’t even have to go to the bother of reading to be inspired. It’s on Spotify, if you want to hunt it out.

And the prize goes to …

In June, writers and others in the publishing industry expressed dismay that the Costa (formerly Whitbread) book awards were being scrapped after 50 years.

In July, a writer responded in the most positive way to the ending of another award. When it was announced that the Blue Peter Book Award had finished, Elle McNicoll, a former winner, started her own prize for UK books with a disability focus. She specified that winning books had to be ‘about JOY more than MISERY’.

Another book award led to an unexpected result this summer: it shone a spotlight on plagiarism in fiction. An examination of John Hughes’s novel The Dogs, longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, revealed that parts of the book displayed similarities to parts of major works by Svetlana Alexievich, Leo Tolstoy, Erich Maria Remarque, F Scott Fitzgerald and others. Author John Purcell wrote an account of the saga, ending with, ‘Needless to say, all of Hughes’ other work is now being placed under the microscope. This is far from over. Oh goodie.’

Fortunately, other prizes continued unbothered. At the end of July, along with others, Lit Hub announced the 2022 Booker Prize longlist.

Another prize that has survived the summer is the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest. Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton was the nineteenth-century author of the famous opening line ‘It was a dark and stormy night’, and entrants to the contest are tasked with writing ‘an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written’. The 2021 Grand Prize Winner was Stu Duval of Auckland, whose opening started: ‘A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold’ … you get the general idea. Keep checking www.bulwer-lytton.com for the news on this year’s winner, which will be widely proclaimed anon. While we wait with breath baited, enjoy Amber Sparks on Twitter (@ambernoelle), who got right into the Victorian vibe:

Normal people: I met this guy, he was average

Victorian writers: He was, in the way of most men, possessed of a rudimentary intelligence, his countenance ordinary, his bearing mild, with some weakness about the shoulders, his hair the color of ash; he spoke of the weather

What more is there to be said? Hand Amber the Bulwer Lytton crown, someone.

Online fiction resources

We hope you enjoyed this edition of ‘Definite articles’. Here are the resources we featured for reading, writing, editing and publishing fiction.

Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi): selfpublishingadvice.org

Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders & Indexers of Ireland (AFEPI) blog: afepi-ireland.com/blog

Cambridge Dictionaries blog: dictionaryblog.cambridge.org

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) Shop Talk: cmosshoptalk.com

Jane Friedman: janefriedman.com

Literary Hub (Lit Hub): lithub.com

Merriam-Webster Words at Play: merriam-webster.com/words-at-play

Oxford University Press blog: blog.oup.com

Penguin: penguin.co.uk

From the CIEP

We recently shared these CIEP fiction resources on our social media platforms.

Cashmore, Stephen. ‘Editing dialogue’. Members-only fact sheet. ciep.uk/resources/factsheets/#ED.

Donaldson, Sara. ‘Common problems encountered in fiction editing’. Blog article. blog.ciep.uk/fiction-editing-common-problems.

Introduction to Fiction Editing. Course. ciep.uk/training/choose-a-course/introduction-to-fiction-editing.

O’Grady, Carrie. ‘Sharing is caring: collaboration among freelance fiction editors’. Blog article. blog.ciep.uk/collaboration-among-freelance-fiction-editors.

Taylor, Nick. ‘Editing LGBTQ+ language with sensitivity’. Members-only fact sheet. ciep.uk/resources/factsheets/#ELL.

Trail, Katherine. ‘A look at editing romance novels’. Blog article. ciep.uk/romance-novels-editing.

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About the CIEP

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Photo credits: cat and books by Klaudia Ekert on Pexels, trophy by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.