Category: editing

October 21, 2022

How Story Coaching Can Help You Write a Better Story

Are you in the planning stage for a new story? Maybe you’ve started a first draft, but you’re stymied by some aspect of plotting or writing. Wouldn’t it be great to have a sounding board to discuss your ideas, options for structure and plot, POV choice, narrative tense to use, and so on? It can’t hurt to get an educated opinion about your approach before you begin writing or during the writing process. That’s where story coaching comes in.

What is story coaching?

Story coaching is consultation that a seasoned editor provides. It’s a discussion with dark fiction writers about literary aspects of their work and choices they could make to develop a sound blueprint from which to construct an effective story.

Story coaching is for you if you’re noodling an incomplete idea or wrestling with an unfinished manuscript you’re unsure what to do with. Story coaching—which I provide through video consultation (link coming soon)—will help guide you toward completing a solid draft. I’m also available if you simply have burning questions about writing craft.

Story coaching is typically most helpful early in the story development process. Instead of spending days, weeks, or months writing a story that doesn’t work, story coaching prepares you to draft the most powerful story you can write—a story that will connect and satisfy readers, readers willing to shell out more of their book-buying dollars for your future work—along with positive reviews.

Story coaching can also take place well after the first draft to gain feedback and insight about challenging aspects of your dark fiction project.

What I provide with story coaching

As a certified editor, I can review early pages you send (a partial or complete manuscript). Or I can simply discuss your story with you through video consultation (link coming soon).

Here are a few story coaching services I offer:

• Determining acceptable word count for your genre (dark fiction only)
• Discussing strengths and weaknesses of your story’s premise (see how to write a premise statement)
• Maximizing setting and grounding your characters and their action in your story world
• Evaluating possible plot and structure choices
• Developing deeper characters
• Understanding the importance of conflict
• Choosing point of view and narrative voice
• Avoiding clichés

I don’t provide any of the following with story coaching:

• A written editorial report
• A marked-up manuscript with edits

Your job after story coaching

A story coaching session with me will arm you with suggestions and directions for drafting, which you’ll be able to undertake with more confidence and clarity. Then, you’ll write, write, write!

The next step beyond story coaching is manuscript evaluation, which is an entry-level edit after you’ve finished writing your manuscript. For more information, see Fiction Editing Spectrum.

Cost of story coaching

My rate for an hour of story coaching is $58. For more information about editing rates, see Dark Fiction Editing Rates.

How to prepare for story coaching

If you’re considering booking a story coaching session with me, here are a few ways you can prepare:

1. Take a few days to jot down some issues with your story and how you might go about writing it. Include any questions about this and writing in general.
2. If you’ve written pages, review the topics in the first list under “What I provide with story coaching.” Then make notes or record more questions about these aspects of your story.
3. Complete the exercise of writing a 100-word blurb for your story, novella, or novel. It will help you discover what your story’s about. For instructions, go here.

When you’re ready for story coaching, contact me and let me know where you are in your writing process and what you’d like to discuss. I’m available to help you learn more about the craft of writing dark fiction and develop a better, more successful story.

August 24, 2022

Why Dark Fiction Writers Need Proofreading

You’ve made the wise decision to have your dark fiction manuscript line edited and copy edited. Is it ready for submission or self-publication? Not quite. If you want to polish your prose to perfection, you’ll hire a proofreader.

What is proofreading?

Editing involves major changes to your story, its structure, and language, but proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, when a skilled proofreader fixes minor misspellings, typos, punctuation mistakes, formatting issues, and other inconsistencies.

Editing stages leading up to proofreading

The number one mistake writers make when hiring a proofreader is that they believe they need only proofreading when, in most cases, their writing would also benefit from a previous level of editing. (For a pictorial representation of the entire editing spectrum, see What Do You Need on the Fiction Editing Spectrum.)

Manuscript evaluation

Manuscript evaluation offers an educated opinion, in writing, about how your draft stacks up to published fiction standards. The editor evaluates and reports on such elements as structure, plot, pacing, characterization, point of view, description, setting, and more. Most importantly, a professional critique includes what you could do to sharpen these elements and make your story better.

Developmental editing

Developmental editing evaluates the building blocks of a story, checking that they’re present and working well together. It ensures that your structure and plot are solid, characters well-drawn and motivated, point of view correctly executed, setting and description vividly drawn, dialogue rings true, mood and tone support the overall story.

Line editing

Line editing enhances your writing style so that your language is clear, flows effortlessly, and reads well. Refining paragraph and sentence construction ensures that all the right building blocks are in place and maximizes the effectiveness of your ideas. Misspellings, wrong words, awkward phrasing, and more are corrected. Line editing tightens your writing.

Copy editing

Copy editing hones your writing style by correcting spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation errors; ensuring that your writing adheres to editorial style standards; clarifying the text by eliminating ambiguous or factually incorrect information; flagging continuity inconsistencies; and producing a smooth reading experience.

Proofreading

While line editors and copy editors correct inaccuracies and hone your writing style, they won’t catch every mechanical error. The proofreader’s job is to scour your manuscript and find any mistakes that may have slipped through the editing cracks. This means proofreading falls at the very end of the editorial process, after your manuscript has undergone both line editing and copy editing.

Make sure you’ve thoroughly revised and edited your work before you pursue the final stage of proofreading. (There’s no point spending time and money fixing minor errors if you might later cut entire sections or restructure paragraphs and sentences.) Only have your manuscript proofread after you’ve completed a final edited draft that you’re pleased with.

In fact, if you send a proofreader a manuscript riddled with grammar mistakes, difficult sentences, and convoluted paragraphs—things you’re unable to see but stand out like flashing neon to an editor—they may decline the job and recommend a previous editorial service.

Why is proofreading important?

A manuscript sprinkled with typos, grammar errors, or textual inconsistencies will derail readers from the fictive dream you’ve worked hard to induce. Proofreading is crucial because it enables your narrative to mesmerize readers without disruption.

Proofreading polishes your work with a professional finish. This is vital if you want agents or publishers to consider your work or, if you’re pursuing self-publishing, you desire to build a loyal readership. When readers encounter an unedited or unproofed book, they’ll probably assume you couldn’t be bothered to invest in your own work. If you skipped these essential steps and your work shows it, why would they read any more of your dark fiction?

Proofreading is indispensable because, if you omit it and readers encounter more than a few typos or grammar errors in your novel, any remaining errors will negatively affect their reading experience. Many disgruntled readers are willing to go out of their way to complain about slipshod editing and proofing in reviews of your work. Falling stars = dwindling sales.

In today’s world of self-publishing, proofreading is a nonnegotiable step in the editorial process. As in indie author, you may be looking for ways to cut costs and thus be tempted to proofread on your own. But indie books have grown in quality in recent years, raising the bar and increasing competition. Getting your work professionally proofread is now not only common practice but a necessity for success.

What does a proofreader do?

Proofreaders won’t overhaul your story content or provide in-depth feedback on your work. This is the job of previous editors (see What Do You Need on the Fiction Editing Spectrum?). Proofreaders arrive like Mary Poppins at the tail end of the editorial process to fine-tune and polish your edited work.

This means proofreaders won’t copy-edit your manuscript, making changes they’re not being paid to make. But a reliable proofreader will ensure that your manuscript is free from spelling, grammar, and other errors that could ruin the reading experience and discredit your writing—and you.

Proofreading for print publishing

In print publishing, proofreading is done after the manuscript has been laid out and a “proof” copy printed. This version is what a proofreader works on.

The proofreader’s job for print layout is to conduct a thorough quality check before the book goes into print production. They may compare the original, edited manuscript to the proof, making sure there are no omissions or layout errors. The proofreader checks line spacing and page numbering, and fixes awkward word or page breaks. If the proofreader encounters too many errors, they may return the proof to the copy editor for further work.

Proofreaders consider the entire book, not just the chapter text. They’ll check your epigraphs, acknowledgments, and dedication pages, as well as your table of contents—everywhere text appears.

Tasks of a proofreader

Although professional proofreaders possess a keen eye for detail, that’s not enough. They must also employ a reliable and repeatable method to detect every minor error in your text, from misplaced commas to misused words. They’ll also correct typographical and layout issues in print proofs, such as inconsistencies in font use or incorrectly spaced lines in a paragraph.

The following list is by no means exhaustive, but here are some issues proofreaders check:

• Words that sound alike—homophones (for example, they’re, there, their)
• Definite and indefinite articles (a, an, the)
• Prepositions and prepositional phrases
• Comma use
• Hyphens (-), en dashes (–), and em dashes (—)
• Apostrophes
• Capitalization of terms, titles, and proper names
• Treatment of numbers
• Formatting of dialogue
• Paragraph indentation and spacing
• Page numbers, headers, footers
• Pagination

Effective proofreading requires multiple passes, each round focusing on only one task.

Can you do your own proofreading?

The short answer is, “Yes, but.” The long answer explains why not.

Any kind of proofing you do yourself helps to produce a cleaner manuscript. Whatever gets your work closer to the finish line is a good thing.

But you, as author, being the only one to proofread your own work? I caution against it. No matter how sharp you are, you will skip over typos and issues you’ve seen dozens of times during revision because you’ve become used to seeing them.

So, relying on only your own proofreading isn’t recommended. You’re so accustomed to your text that you could miss mistakes. A professional examines your manuscript with fresh eyes and is less likely to skip over errors.

Bottom line: catch as many errors as you can, but don’t skip hiring a professional proofreader.

The cost of proofreading

How much does third-party proofreading cost nowadays?

Proofreading and editing businesses usually advertise set per-word rates, sometimes with different prices based on turnaround time. On average, expect to pay $0.01–$0.04 per word (around $2.00–$10.00 per page).

The editing and proofreading service, Scribendi, lets you calculate the cost of proofreading based on your word count. For example, an 80,000-word novel takes two weeks and costs $1602.86 (as of the date of this post). That comes out to $0.02 per word, or $5.01 per 250-word page. A 4000-word short story with one-week turnaround time costs $129.33 ($0.032 per word, $8.08 per page). With 24-hour turnaround, cost increases to $163.17 ($0.041 per word, $10.20 per page).

Reedsy proofreading costs about $0.015 per word, or $3.75 per page.

I proofread for $0.009 per word, or $2.25 per page. See Current dark fiction editing rates.

Do you need a proofreader?

Proofreaders are your last line of defense against errors in your work. When you’re ready to professionalize your manuscript, I’m here to help.

If you need any kind of editing for your dark fiction, including proofreading, check out What Do You Need on the Fiction Editing Spectrum? and Dark Fiction Editing. I have decades of experience and can help you polish your edited writing. Drop me a line about your current project. I’d love to hear from you!

What Do You Need on the Fiction Editing Spectrum?

When a fiction writer says, “I need an editor,” what exactly does it mean? What kind of editor? What kind of editing? This post discusses different levels and types on the fiction editing spectrum.

It took me thirty years of struggling through my own writing process to realize there’s more to producing an effective, salable story—whether it be a short story, novelette, novella, or novel. Much more than merely throwing X number of words on the page and running spellcheck before rushing the a manuscript to an agent or publisher.

The most important thing I’ve learned is that editing is not only necessary, but crucial to successfully placing stories in today’s markets, including self-publishing. And “editing” isn’t a one-size-fits-all service; there are different types of editing, depending on where your manuscript is in the writing and revision process.

Five levels of editing

I provide story coaching (link coming soon) for consultation during the planning and drafting stage of story development.

When you’ve produced a manuscript draft, I offer comprehensive fiction editing at the following levels that range from very high down to the nitty gritty:

The types of editing at each of these levels exist on the following spectrum.

The editing spectrum

As a results-oriented editor of dark fiction, I provide all five levels of editing, along with a few other services.

Wherever you are in your writing process with a piece of dark fiction, I can help you improve your work.

You may only want to work on early issues with story coaching, manuscript critique, or developmental editing. Many writers skip these early steps and instead contract for a simple proofread to finalize their work before seeking publication. I learned the hard way in my own fiction-writing career that this is a big mistake—one that cost me decades of constant rejections.

Here’s why this is important…

The importance of editing in stages

Why edit in stages? Simply because it’s humanly impossible to flag every kind of error in one pass.

Instead, to maximize the effectiveness of comprehensive editing, it’s industry best practice to perform each editing stage individually, progressing to the next only when the current stage is thorough and complete.

In other words, you should send your manuscript in order through each of the four editing stages. Doing so ensures you’re addressing problems logically and not wasting time and effort correcting passages that need to be rewritten or may be removed.

This means you complete story-level work (manuscript evaluation and developmental editing) before doing text-level work. Line editing should always come before copy editing, not after or at the same time.

An example of editing in stages

Here’s a writer’s original passage:

The toothless hag hissed; spraying blood over her furowed chin and the bouquet of leafy twigs she proffered. Her drooping body was covered with vines. He took them from her and she screamed to curdle the blood in his heart.

Here’s what a line editor would do to improve the passage:

The toothless hag hissed; spraying blood over her furowed chin and the bouquet of leafy twigs she proffered. Vines covered hHer drooping body was covered with vines. He took accepted them twigs from her and she screamed, to curdlinge the his blood in his heart.

Reads better, doesn’t it? But editing isn’t complete. A copy editor would clean it up like this:

The toothless hag hissed,; spraying blood over her furowed furrowed chin and the bouquet of leafy twigs she proffered. Vines covered her drooping body. He accepted the twigs from her and she screamed, curdling his blood.

Even better. A proofreader would use a fine-toothed comb to ensure the final edited paragraph was the best it could be:

The toothless hag hissed, spraying blood over her furrowed chin and the bouquet of leafy twigs she proffered. Vines covered her drooping body. He accepted the twigs from her, and she screamed, curdling his blood.

Granted, inserting a necessary comma isn’t much of a change in a single paragraph, but proofreaders find and fix many other minor issues in a whole manuscript.

Important: You should complete both developmental and line editing before you query agents or traditional publishers. If you’ll be self-publishing, you should complete all editing stages (developmental, line, and copy editing; then proofreading) before putting your book on the market. (Although, even if your book is already on the market, you may have the manuscript edited at some level and re-upload the corrected content.)

As a comprehensive editor of dark fiction, I supplement every level of editing with an editorial letter that explains and provides context for comments and edits I’ve made in your marked-up manuscript.

The bottom line

What you want most of all is a seasoned editor who understands the differences between the four levels of editing and who can explain what each will do to improve your dark fiction.

When you’re ready to take the next step to improve your writing, I can evaluate your manuscript, discuss your options with you, and lead you through the process of producing a polished piece of dark fiction. For more information, check out Dark Fiction Editing.

What an editor can—and cannot—do (and that includes me)

An editor can:

• Tell you why your story doesn’t work.
• Show you how to fix what needs fixing.
• Improve your story so that it reaches its full potential.
• Help you become a better, more skilled writer.

An editor cannot:

• Fix your manuscript for you.
• Guarantee anything, especially publication.

It’s up to you to make (or not make) the suggested changes. And, although no editor can guarantee publication, I can move you closer to your goals. Every edit is a learning experience that will help you become a better writer.

If you don’t know what kind of editing you need

Not sure what level of editing would benefit you most? Read through the following list and pick one or two that best represent your situation.

1. If you’ve completed a story and want an analysis of story elements, revealing what’s working, what isn’t, plus suggestions for improvement, you need manuscript evaluation.
2. If you simply need a sounding board to discuss your idea, get an opinion about your approach to writing, and ask writing craft questions, you need story coaching (which I provide through video consultation).
3. If you have an incomplete idea or unfinished manuscript you’re unsure what to do with, you need story coaching or developmental editing to help you complete a solid draft.
4. If you’ve finished an early draft of a work and need help to solidify it at the story level, you need developmental editing.
5. If you’ve completed a manuscript and think it’s pretty good but you want it streamlined and tightened, you need line editing.
6. If your manuscript has been through line editing, you need copy editing.
7. If your manuscript has been through the previous levels, you need proofreading.
8. If your manuscript has been through all the above, congratulations! You’re ready to submit or self-publish.

If you’re still not sure what kind of editing you need or have questions, contact me and ask. We’ll figure something out that will best serve you, your story, and your writing career.

Dark Fiction Writers: Do You Need Editing?

You’ve been toying with a deliciously dark story idea but need professional direction before and during the writing process. Or you’ve drafted pages you’d like an opinion on before continuing your work.

Perhaps you’re nowhere near a polish; your manuscript needs evaluation and suggestions on the story level before you finalize writing.

Could be you’ve finished a short story, novelette, novella, or novel. Bravo! Now it’s time to polish your work for submission or self-publication. But, if you’re honest with yourself, you’re not so good at it.

Although you’ve done all you know to improve your dark fiction, you remain under-published—you’re still not getting those acceptances you long for. Or, if you’ve self-published, reviewers complain about mistakes in your writing. Cringe.

Is your writing as good as it could be?

Hey, we all know getting published is tough. But is the quality of your storytelling—or the way you write—prompting rejection?

If so, you could benefit from the services of a seasoned professional who specializes in editing dark fiction.

Why hire an editor?

You need editing:

• When you don’t know what’s wrong with your writing or how to fix it
• To give your readers an optimal reading experience, one that brings them back for more

What’s wrong with my writing?

If you’re just getting started writing dark fiction, you’re perplexed about why a manuscript isn’t working, or you’re less than stellar at self-editing, consider hiring a fiction editor. A qualified, professional editor can help you find what’s amiss in your manuscript, why it’s causing problems, and how to fix it.

As a teaching writer and editor, I’ll bring not only 35+ years of experience to bear on your project, but share the tools in my toolbox with you. This means I’ll review your work to identify areas for improvement and explain how to fix them—thus helping you become a better, more successful writer.

Why not give readers your best?

You also need editing because your readers deserve your best. Today’s discerning book buyers want stories that are engaging and error-free. (Just check the reviews of most self-published books, and you’ll see what I mean.)

Top-notch editing ensures you’re sharing the best version of your story—one that will entertain readers without distracting them with narrative blunders. A great story told well (free of grammar and spelling mistakes, of course) encourages repeat readers who’ll tell others about your work.

Are you ready for editing?

You are if the story you’re writing is important to you, and you realize you can’t do it on your own.

But first, let me ask…

Which of these 5 dark fiction writers are you most like?

Take the next step:

Whether you’re one of the writers above, somewhere in between, or totally “off the charts,” so to speak, I’d love to help you become a better dark fiction writer.

Haven’t you spent enough effort writing stories that fall flat with readers or, worse yet, get dinged in reviews? It’s time to kiss your current plateau goodbye and advance your storytelling and writing skills. Maybe there’s a deadline you need to meet with the best story you can submit.

If you’re curious to learn more about the kinds of editing recommended, head over to Dark Fiction Editing. Then strike up a conversation with me about your current project. I look forward to hearing from you!

Does Your Dark Fiction Need Manuscript Evaluation?

You’ve drafted a piece of dark fiction, but you’re not sure whether it’s ready for editing. Are the plot and structure as effective as they could be? Are your characters fully developed and believable, or do they come off as flat? Did you pick the best POV—and execute it correctly? What could you do to improve your story before you revise and polish? A skilled editor can answer these questions through manuscript evaluation.

What is manuscript evaluation?

Manuscript evaluation, or critique, is a high-level overview and comprehensive assessment of your work, whether it be a short story, novella, or novel.

After you’ve finished a draft, you naturally need to revise it but often don’t know how to approach such a formidable task. Manuscript evaluation by a qualified story editor provides a workable process toward “re-vision”—seeing with fresh eyes—what you’ve put on paper. It analyzes what is and isn’t working, and develops a plan to implement improvements.

Manuscript evaluation offers an educated opinion, in writing, about how your draft stacks up to published fiction standards. The editor evaluates and reports on such elements as structure, plot, pacing, characterization, point of view, description, setting, and more. Most importantly, a professional critique includes what you could do to sharpen these elements and make your story better.

Why and when should you request a manuscript evaluation?

The next step beyond story coaching (link coming soon), manuscript evaluation is an entry-level edit for when you’ve completed some actual writing.

You might seek critique and feedback when you’ve finished your first (or second or subsequent) draft. Or after you’ve submitted the work to beta readers and made your own preparatory revisions.

A note about beta reading: A seasoned story editor’s manuscript evaluation goes far beyond a beta read. Beta readers can give you feedback based on their personal experience as readers in your genre. But manuscript evaluation is a deepwater analysis from an editorial professional who can can envision how to develop your story’s full potential. Isn’t that what you’re looking for?

You could even opt for manuscript evaluation after you’ve self-published a book that’s received less than stellar reviews. Manuscript critique will assess what’s going on—or not going on that should be—with your manuscript. Editor feedback will suggest how to fix problems identified.

Although developmental editing is a story-level edit designed to reshape fiction early in the revision process, your manuscript may not be ready for it. Manuscript evaluation is an introductory step that identifies the structural strengths and weaknesses of your work. Based on the editor’s guidance, you get a second go at revising your dark fiction before submitting it for developmental editing.

Part of manuscript evaluation is determining whether further editing would benefit your work. As a developmental editor, I not only review and evaluate your manuscript but will let you know if I recommend further editing. (The next step in the process (X Spectrum) is most likely developmental editing.)

What an editor does during manuscript evaluation—and how long it takes

How much time a manuscript evaluation takes depends on the size of your manuscript. I can critique a short story in a week. Novellas in three to four weeks. Novels may take six to eight weeks.

Here are the fundamentals that I review and assess during manuscript evaluation:

• Word count for your genre (dark fiction only)
• Premise
• Plot, story structure, and pacing
• Conflict and tension
• Characterization and character development
• Point of view, narration, and narrative voice
• Narrative consistency and continuity
• Setting and description
• Theme

I don’t do the following in manuscript evaluation:

• Correct grammar, spelling, or word choice
• Edit at the paragraph or sentence level
• Flag repetitions
• Fix dialogue problems

The result of manuscript evaluation: the editorial report

An editorial report (also called an editorial letter or memo) is what an editor returns after thoroughly reviewing a manuscript. The report provides the valuable feedback you’re looking for as a writer of dark fiction.

In my editorial reports, I begin with a general statement about your work, pointing out strengths and weaknesses. Then I delve into specific critiques of the core narrative elements listed in the previous section. These assessments include advice about how to improve your story with actionable steps for revision, such as:

• Evaluation of your story’s premise
• Information you could cut—or add, if it’s missing
• Whether your word count is appropriate for your particular dark fiction market
• Ways to solidify story structure, reconstruct your plot, and avoid clichés
• Recommendations on how to heighten conflict and tension
• How you might fix instances of inconsistent pacing
• Suggestions to deepen character development and make your story people more authentic
• How to strengthen your chosen point of view, narration, and narrative voice
• Any narrative inconsistencies
• Better ways to describe characters and action grounded in your story setting
• Tips to underscore your theme

The editorial report contains information and instruction that could lead you to make substantial changes to your manuscript. Toward this end, my guidance will help you develop a revision strategy that, if implemented, will improve your story.

Finally, the editorial report concludes with any suggestions for further editing, such as developmental editing.

Your job after manuscript evaluation

You may have questions after you’ve had time to read and digest my editorial report. If so, you’re welcome to email me back for any necessary clarification about my comments and suggestions. If you’d like to conference with me to receive further advice, I offer 50% off a thirty-minute video consultation (link coming soon).

If you submit an early draft, my editorial direction may prompt a significant rewrite. If you send a polished draft after several rounds of your own revision, my comments might focus instead on deepening character development or nuancing your story’s themes.

In either case, when you receive the editorial report, you may spend a few weeks incorporating my feedback or otherwise rewriting portions of your manuscript. Rest assured, this work will strengthen your story structure and improve its content, moving you closer to the possibility of publication.

How manuscript evaluation leads to developmental editing

If you’re still in the drafting stage and aren’t sure what level of editing you need, it can’t hurt to start with manuscript evaluation. Critique identifies big-picture story issues and suggests how to fix them. You then can do your own revision (a great exercise for developing writers) and submit the revised manuscript afterward for developmental editing.

When you follow the staged editorial process in the Fiction Editing Spectrum and begin with manuscript evaluation, you’ll save money in the long run when you move on to developmental editing; I provide a discount for both services.

I typically recommend you submit your dark fiction for manuscript evaluation first. By making your own changes based on my feedback, you’ll learn how to revise your own work. And your story will be more cohesive moving forward.

With developmental editing, I also provide an editorial report. However, the information and suggestions will be more in-depth and include inline comments. Since you will have addressed structural and other overarching issues during your revision following manuscript evaluation, I’ll be able to focus on finessing your story into something even more powerful and compelling.

For more information, see What Developmental Editing Can Do for Writers of Dark Fiction.

Cost of manuscript evaluation

Reedsy averages the cost of an editorial assessment at $0.0197 cents per word ($0.02). This means that, for an 80,000-word book, the average quote would be $1520.

My rate for manuscript evaluation is $2.95 per 250-word page, which comes out to $0.0118 per word. For more information about my editing rates, see Dark Fiction Editing Rates.

How you can start the process of manuscript evaluation

If you’re thinking about submitting your latest work (or a previously shelved manuscript) for evaluation, I’ll need you to do something important for me. (And, by the way, I’m not the only editor who may request what I’m about to ask you.)

Write me the back cover description for your book. This text of around 100 words lets me know what your story is about and what you intended to accomplish in writing it. I’ll use this summary as a basis to evaluate the whole manuscript.

Book descriptions communicate what your story’s about through three simple elements:

• Who your main character is
• Your character’s story problem and goal
• The conflict arrayed against them (what’s at stake)

In describing what your story’s about, provide the premise without giving away any twists or the ending. These few sentences are what you’re promising to those who risk buying your work. I need this information so that I can evaluate whether your manuscript delivers on what you’ve promised.

How to write your book description

The protagonist is a character whose life is upended by a problem and who therefore pursues a goal to resolve that problem. During this process, they encounter conflict that threatens what’s most important to them—the stakes of the story.

Here’s my 94-word book description for Death Perception, a supernatural thriller:

Nineteen-year-old Kennet Singleton lives with his invalid mother in a personal care facility, but he wants out. He operates the crematory at the local funeral home, where he discovers he can discern the cause of death of those he cremates—by toasting marshmallows over their ashes.

He thinks his ability is no big deal since his customers are already dead. But when his perception differs from what’s on the death certificate, he finds himself in the midst of murderers. To save the residents and avenge the dead, Kennet must bring the killers to justice.

Let’s analyze this:

[Here’s another way to write a book description:
Getting Your Readers to Click “Buy Now”]

It takes a little doing, but see if you can write a 100-word book description for your story, novella, or novel. Then you’ll be ready to contact me about manuscript evaluation.

If you’re looking for a high-level assessment of the narrative elements in a work of dark fiction, an analysis that will guide you into a more effective revision process, consider manuscript evaluation. Drop me a line about your project soon, and let’s explore how to make your work more publishable.

August 1, 2022

How Line Editing Benefits Dark Fiction Writers

Good dark fiction isn’t just about story. Equally important are the clarity, readability, and style of your writing. After finishing a work of dark fiction, if you want to improve it, you need to concentrate on how you communicate your ideas. That’s where line editing comes in.

Can you do it all?

Examine how well your paragraphs and sentences fit together. Do they flow from one to the next? Do your words successfully evoke the tone you’re going for? Is your language precise and understandable, easy to read? Have you executed point of view consistently? Can you cut extraneous words and phrases? And catch those wrong words, overused words, junk words? Did you—?

Whew! Can you do all this—and a hundred other things to simplify and streamline your manuscript? If not, a line editor can.

What does line editing accomplish?

A line edit evaluates and enhances your writing style at the paragraph and sentence level. Line editors don’t scour your manuscript for mechanical errors like copy editors do. Rather, they focus on how you use language to tell your story.

Line editors analyze your writing line by line. They examine the building blocks of your story—chapters, scenes, paragraphs, sentences, clauses—to ensure these components work together.

During this stage, a line editor’s mission is to make your writing as clear as possible by looking at the content, style, tone, and consistency of your prose. Line editing is also called stylistic editing because it focuses specifically on your individual writing style.

The goal of a skilled line editor is to tighten your writing and make it sing.

What’s the difference between line editing and copy editing?

Line editors share certain attributes with copy editors: attention to detail and interest in how language works at the sentence level. But their tasks differ.

Although both line editors and copy editors work line by line, they look for different issues. Line editing focuses on your writing style; copy editing concentrates on the nitty-gritty of mechanics—spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation.

When you should hire a line editor

Line editing should take place after your story draft is complete. In fact, line editors prefer that you’ve done everything you can yourself and see no further way to improve your writing before you share it with them. (I’m one of them.)

If your manuscript has gone through developmental editing, line editing is the next step in the editing spectrum (link coming soon).

Tasks of a line editor

Line editors tackle many issues to make your manuscript better. Here are a few of them.

• Restructure paragraphs and sentences to maximize comprehension, simplicity, and flow
• Break up long paragraphs
• Fix run-on sentences or incomplete sentences
• Revise awkward sentences, split long sentences, streamline sentences with clauses and parentheticals
• Catch misspellings, wrong words, double words, overused words
• Cut unnecessary phrases and words
• Eradicate junk words
• Substitute stronger words for commonly overused words (very, just, still, walked, etc.)
• Suggest stronger words for weak nouns and verbs while minimizing adverbs and adjectives
• Correct dangling participles
• Flag POV errors and explain why and how they need to be rectified
• Tighten dialogue and mend faulty attributions

What I typically do during line editing

During the course of a line edit, I may:

• Point out inconsistencies in the story line
• Flag scenes where the action is confusing or your meaning unclear
• Query you in a manuscript comment about whether you’ve requested and received permission to include those song lyrics in your epigraph (you can’t use them for free, and if you use them without permission, you can be sued for copyright infringement)
• Correct the spelling and capitalization of 7-Eleven and all trademarked names to protect you from legal action
• Recast sentences that begin with There are and It is (no-nos, by the way)
• Mark redundancies that repeat the same information in different ways
• Indicate where tonal shifts occur
• Eliminate confusing or unnecessary narrative digressions
• Suggest changes you could make to improve pacing
• Flag clichés and prompt you to use fresh phrasing
• Vary sentence lengths

I also check for any discrepancies in your setting, plot, and character traits to ensure internal consistency. For example, if you wrote on page 29: “Derek scrubbed a hand over his blond crewcut,” but on page 74 you wrote, “Derek tore at his long, brown hair,” I’ll bring it to your attention. Why?

Because readers hate such gaffes and will drop stars off their reviews of your book. As a writer striving for excellence, you don’t need that.

The cost of line editing

How much does third-party line editing cost?

Editing businesses usually advertise set per-word rates, sometimes with different prices based on turnaround time. On average, expect to pay $0.02–$0.04 per word (around $5.00–$10.00 per page).

The editing and proofreading service, Scribendi, lets you calculate the cost of editing based on your word count. (They lump line and copy editing together.) For example, an 80,000-word novel takes two weeks and costs $1602.86 (as of the date of this post). That comes out to $0.02 per word, or $5.01 per 250-word page. A 4000-word short story with one-week turnaround time costs $129.33 ($0.032 per word, $8.08 per page). With 24-hour turnaround, cost increases to $163.17 ($0.041 per word, $10.20 per page).

With Reedsy, line editing is lumped in with copy editing and costs about $0.02 per word, or $5.00 per page.

I line-edit for $0.02 per word, or $5.00 per page. If you contract for both line and copy editing or line, copy, and proofreading, I offer a discount. See Current dark fiction editing rates.

How we can work together

In addition to doing the edits, I will, if you want, talk through my edits and answer any questions you may have. See video consultation (link coming soon).

If you submit a clean, well-written manuscript, I may be able to do line editing in a single pass; but it will more likely involve two rounds between us. Editing, like writing, is an iterative process.

Need a line editor?

If you’re ready to take your writing to the next level, I’m here to support your goals.

If you need any kind of editing for your dark fiction manuscript, including line editing, check out The Editing Spectrum (link coming soon) and Dark Fiction Editing. I have decades of experience and can help you improve your writing. Then drop me a line about your current project. I can’t wait to hear from you!

July 22, 2022

What Developmental Editing Can Do for Writers of Dark Fiction

Developmental editing, also called substantive or content editing, focuses on improving big-picture narrative elements in your writing. This kind of editing occurs early in the writing process. For fiction, developmental editing considers these aspects:

• Genre concerns
• Story structure
• Characters and characterization
• Narration, point of view, and use of narrative modes
• Plot and pace
• Setting
• Theme
• Mood and tone
• Style and voice

Examples of developmental editing

As a developmental editor, I give your manuscript a careful reading to evaluate the previously listed elements. Here are examples of the primary ones.

Structure

When I analyze the structure of your story, I look for, at minimum, a clear beginning, middle, and ending. For longer works (novelettes, novellas, and novels), I check for scaffolding such as three-act, hero’s journey, or eight-stage organization. (These are just a few; there are others.) Are all signposts in place and connecting material in proper proportion?

Plot and pacing

With plot, I check for a clear cause-and-effect chain from beginning to end, keeping an eye out for possible contrivances. Does the protagonist (and other important characters) have a clear story goal? Sub-goals?

While pursuing those goals, your main character must encounter meaningful conflict based on significant stakes. In your protagonist’s monumental effort to resolve conflict and attain their story goal, are the climax and resolution logical yet satisfying?

The pace between major plot events should vary yet steadily mount toward the conclusion.

Characters and characterization

Evaluating characters and characterization asks if the protagonist, antagonist, and secondary characters are well-drawn for their purpose. Are they believable and consistent, properly motivated to pursue their story goals through heightening conflict?

Does the main character learn and change through the course of the work, demonstrating their ability to resolve the conflict?

Narration, point of view, and narrative modes

Have you chosen the most effective narrator for your story (external or internal)? How about the most effective point of view for the narrator to relate the story events and action? I have an eagle eye for catching and correcting POV errors, mistakes that can distance readers from your story or prompt them to quit reading altogether.

Line editing more fully evaluates your use of narrative modes—dialogue, internalization (character thoughts and feelings), action, description, and exposition. But during developmental editing, I suggest how best to use these modes to narrate or dramatize particular passages.

Setting

Setting includes geographic location and time.

You should set your story in the only place it could happen.

Its sub-settings, such as your protagonist’s home or a dark alley where significant action takes place, should contribute to conflict by threatening your characters or constraining them from reaching their goals.

Time in setting refers to the time period during which your story events take place (past, present, future) as well as the time of each scene. To evaluate your story’s use of time, I ask questions such as:

• Does your story adhere to the limitations of the time period in which it’s set?
• Does your narrative progress along a defined timeline or, if told out of chronological order, are the time points for each scene clear and understandable?
• Is time revealed at the beginning of each scene so that readers understand the progression of scenes or any skips in time?

The cost of developmental editing

How much does third-party developmental editing cost?

Editing businesses usually advertise set per-word rates, sometimes with different prices based on turnaround time. On average, expect to pay $0.02–$0.04 per word (around $5.00–$10.00 per page).

The editing and proofreading service, Scribendi, does not offer developmental editing, only line/copy editing.

With Reedsy, developmental editing for an 80,000-word novel costs about $0.0252 per word, or $6.30 per page.

I do developmental editing for $0.018 per word, or $4.50 per page. See Current dark fiction editing rates.

The goal of developmental editing

The goal of developmental editing is to ensure your work is sound on a structural and storytelling level. As a developmental editor, I analyze the previous aspects of your story to identify missing elements or, if present, to determine whether they’re working.

A developmental edit may require you to restructure your manuscript. Usually, you will need to rewrite to address issues identified and resubmit for a second evaluation.

Only when your story is effective as it can be should you pursue line editing and copy editing.

What I do as a developmental editor of dark fiction

When a writer of dark fiction sends me their manuscript for development editing, I make notes as I read carefully. I evaluate and comment on most of the above elements and suggest options and improvements. I return the commented manuscript (change-tracked Microsoft Word) with a cover email that discusses my findings and summarizes my recommendations.

As a developmental editor, I will evaluate, critique, guide, and help you shape your work—even if you’re still writing it. After you produce a strong story, I’m available to further refine your writing with line editing and copy editing. Each step will bring you closer to the possibility of publication.

July 19, 2022

What Copy Editors Can Do for Fiction Writers

What exactly are copy editors, and what do they do for writers, especially writers of dark fiction?

What copy editors are not

Copy editors are not writers (although I’m both a writer and an editor). They’re not rewriters. They’re not developmental editors, line editors, or proofreaders.

What copy editors do

Copy editors review an author’s text to do the following:

• Correct spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation errors
• Ensure that the writing adheres to the standards of their chosen (or assigned) stylebook
• Clarify the text by eliminating ambiguous or factually incorrect statements
• Produce a smooth reading experience

Copy editors correct mechanical errors

Copy editors must know how to spot and correct grammar and spelling errors as well as syntax and punctuation mistakes.

Copy editors adhere to style standards

Mastering grammar, syntax, and punctuation begins and continues with becoming thoroughly acquainted with the dictionary and the latest version of a style guide such as The Chicago Manual of Style or The Associated Press Stylebook. I use CMOS.

Copy editors check facts

Copy editors may also need to fact-check information in manuscripts. With a discriminating eye, they consider each statement and ask: is the information, as stated by the writer, factually correct? Some research may be required to determine accuracy.

If a fact—whether appearing in narrative or dialogue—is ambiguous, copy editors may contact the author with a polite note pointing out the issue and asking for clarification.

Correcting factual errors and ambiguities prevents misreading and misunderstanding, which could potentially prove disastrous to readers and consequently costly to the author and publisher.

The cost of copy editing

How much does third-party copy editing cost?

Editing businesses usually advertise set per-word rates, sometimes with different prices based on turnaround time. On average, expect to pay $0.02–$0.04 per word (around $5.00–$10.00 per page).

The editing and proofreading service, Scribendi, lets you calculate the cost of editing based on your word count. (They lump line and copy editing together.) For example, an 80,000-word novel takes two weeks and costs $1602.86 (as of the date of this post). That comes out to $0.02 per word, or $5.01 per 250-word page. A 4000-word short story with one-week turnaround time costs $129.33 ($0.032 per word, $8.08 per page). With 24-hour turnaround, cost increases to $163.17 ($0.041 per word, $10.20 per page).

With Reedsy, copy editing is lumped in with line editing and costs about $0.02 per word, or $5.00 per page.

I copy-edit for $0.012 per word, or $3.00 per page. If you contract for both line and copy editing or line, copy, and proofreading, I offer a discount. See Current dark fiction editing rates.

The goal of copy editing

The goal of careful copy editors is to produce clean, consistent, and correct manuscripts that fulfill the intentions of both writer and publisher. Attention to mechanics, style standards, accuracy, and readability is how copy editors achieve these ends.

Need a copy editor?

If you need any kind of editing, including copy editing, for your dark fiction manuscript, check out Dark Fiction Editing. I have decades of experience and can help you improve your writing.

July 21, 2021

The Would-Be Novelist’s Self-Education Plan

Can you teach yourself to write a novel through a reading program? I did. Here’s how.

Back in 2006, I earned a master’s in Writing Popular Fiction, producing Death Perception as my thesis novel. But the greater part of my literary training came from self-education, through which I learned many things I didn’t in school.

For over thirty years, I’ve read and studied hundreds of writing craft books, many pertaining to aspects of novel-writing. Some books were better than others, but most offered something to improve my writing. (I maintain a growing list of what I consider the best books at Lee’s Favorite Writing Texts.)

The self-education process

If you’ve never written a novel before or want to improve your current process, here’s a self-education plan to get you started:

1. Understanding the hero’s journey as a prerequisite for further study
2. Developing an idea
3. Structuring the external plot
4. Mapping the protagonist’s inner story of change (character arc)
5. Weaving plot and character arc into a properly structured narrative
6. Writing effective scenes
7. Incorporating theme to enrich your narrative
8. Writing well
9. Revising your work
10. Editing to polish your prose

1. Understanding the hero’s journey

Many fiction craft books refer to the “hero’s journey,” popularized by mythologist Joseph Campbell. As a prerequisite to your journey of self-education, I recommend boning up on mythic story structure.

I’ll admit I’ve never read Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Instead, I heartily recommend the latest edition of Christopher Vogler’s 🌟 The Writer’s Journey – 25th Anniversary Edition: Mythic Structure for Writers. Highly accessible, it will teach you what you need to know about the hero’s journey—and provide a basis for understanding the next books included in this self-education program.

(By the way, I followed Vogler’s blueprint for Death Perception, which was well received.)

2. Developing a novel idea

Fashioning an idea into a full-blown plot has been one of my biggest challenges the past three decades. There are precious few books out there that lead you through the process of getting, brainstorming, and developing an initial idea into the basics of a workable plot.

William Bernhardt’s Powerful Premise: Writing the Irresistible covers premise and touches on concept and theme.

Larry Brooks provides some helpful information in “Part Two: Concept” of Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing, which I also recommend for story structure.

However, one of the best books I’ve found that covers this early part of the writing process is Robert C. Meredith and John D. Fitzgerald’s classic, 🌟 Structuring Your Novel: From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript. I turned the first three chapters into a worksheet that I’ve completed for every novel I’ve written:

• “How to Develop an Idea into a Novel and Test It”
• “How to Develop the Basic Conflict”
• “How to Develop a Plot or Story Line”

Answering the questions in these chapters will supply basic plot points needed for the next step.

3. Structuring the external plot

Most popular novels have a plot that follows three-act structure. The best books I’ve read (and reread) about story structure include:

• Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing, Larry Brooks – “Part Five: Story Structure”
• Story Structure: The Key to Successful Fiction, William Bernhardt
• Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of Story, James Scott Bell

4. Mapping the protagonist’s character arc

Along with external plot events, great novels include the main character’s inner story of change, or character arc. Character arc maps the lead’s development from a person with an inner need who, through challenges and conflict, learns to become a stronger, better person (or fails to).

The hands-down best book for this is K.M. Weiland’s 🌟 Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author’s Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development.

Another book indispensable in tying inner and outer conflict to character development is Debra Dixon’s 🌟 Goal, Motivation & Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction. I use her process for each major character in every novel I write.

5. Weaving plot and character arc into a properly structured narrative

The previously mentioned books will see you well on your way to a properly structured narrative. To finish putting all the pieces together, check out K.M. Weiland’s 🌟 Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story.

Now that you’ve arrived at this point, a book that weaves the hero’s journey, plot structure, and character arc into one how-to is Susan May Warren’s The Story Equation: How to Plot and Write a Brilliant Story from One Powerful Question. It’s a bit convoluted in its presentation and won’t make sense if you read it earlier in this process, but it nicely wraps everything together and will help cement the previous concepts into a workable story.

6. Writing effective scenes

Scenes are the building blocks of novels. To structure and write effective scenes, study Mike Klaassen’s Scenes and Sequels: How to Write Page-Turning Fiction and especially 🌟 How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson.

7. Incorporating theme to enrich your narrative

The most powerful novels incorporate a strong theme—what the story’s “really about.” Two good books to help you include theme in your writing are Stanley D. Williams’ excellent 🌟 The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success and K.M. Weiland’s Writing Your Story’s Theme: The Writer’s Guide to Plotting Stories That Matter.

8. Writing well

I could mention scads of books here, but I’ll stick to a few favorites about proven writing techniques in a number of areas:

• 🌟 Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight V. Swain – an essential classic
• Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Dwight V. Swain
• Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It), Janice Hardy
• Point of View in Fiction and Deep Point of View by Marcy Kennedy
• Description, Marcy Kennedy
• Dialogue, Marcy Kennedy
• Writing Vivid Settings, Rayne Hall

9. Revising your work

In this phase, you do the heavy lifting of restructuring and rewriting your early drafts before you polish your prose. A terrific resource is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King.

10. Editing to polish your prose

Besides having a developmental editor and beta readers give you feedback, fiction writers today must learn to edit their own work. My recommended texts for this purpose are:

• Track Down the Weasel Words, Angela Hunt
• The Word-Loss Diet, Rayne Hall
• 🌟 Editing Fiction at Sentence Level, Louise Harnby – a must-have for any fiction writer

As always, if you need an editor to teach you how to self-edit your own work, consider hiring me for developmental and/or line editing.

If you want to learn how to write a novel—one that has a better chance at being published—spend a season reading and studying the books above.

If you have a favorite craft book, drop me a comment below and let me know what it is and why you like it. I’m always seeking to learn more about fiction writing.

May 24, 2021

On Writing Ideas Bigger Than You Can Handle Now

What are writers to do when they have an idea and the ambition to write something they’re not yet skilled enough to write or don’t know how to tackle? How do you know if your capabilities are inadequate or you’re simply not working hard enough?

Kyle Winkler posted these questions on Twitter the other day, and they intrigued me enough to write this post.

When your literary reach exceeds your grasp

As readers first, writers can comprehend and appreciate writing at a level they’re not yet capable of producing. If you conceive an idea and attempt to write the piece but can’t pull it off for one reason or another, you’ve tried but may not have the skills to complete it or to fully realize your intention for it. Or you haven’t yet stumbled on how to approach it.

This doesn’t mean you’re not working hard enough; you’re simply working to the limits of your capabilities at this point in your career. Stephen King wrote Carrie first and The Stand later.

There’s also a difference between knowing something’s not right and knowing what’s not right—and how to fix it. This only comes with experience and continuing self-education and practice.

Enter the writing process

I recently developed a writing process I hope to perfect so that I’m always producing work. The phases I still find challenging are Ideation, Brainstorming, and Plotting—developing an initial idea into a workable plot with a beginning, middle, and ending. (Character development and theme also fall into these stages.)

“Working hard enough” may mean you shelve a piece, continue to write other things and study writing craft—for years or decades—before you get back to the piece with the increased capabilities to identify what’s wrong or what’s needed and then go on to fix it or otherwise fulfill your initial creative vision for it.

Development of a novella

For instance, I originally got an idea for what I thought was a supernatural horror short story back in September 2004 after reading William F. Nolan’s 3000-word story, “Diamond Lake.” The earliest draft of my story I produced, tentatively titled “Kissing Cousins,” was also 3000 words, dated March 2005.

But the story didn’t work, and I didn’t know why. I sent it out for critique and comments, much of which I incorporated in further drafts. It still wasn’t right, and I was at a loss to discern why.

More edits and another critique in 2007. Still not right.

In 2008 I workshopped this story at Borderlands Writers Boot Camp in Baltimore. I got some great feedback (altogether a terrific workshop experience that really boosted my writing at the time—I can’t recommend it enough), but I still couldn’t make the story work. I vaguely remember another participant saying, “The story should be longer.” That was helpful yet simultaneously frustrating because I didn’t know exactly how to do that—should I pour more words into it simply for the sake of making it longer? (This was the beginning of progressing from something’s wrong to what’s wrong.)

One of the many problems with the piece was that I relied on a lot of “telling.” Looking back on it now, it was an indication that, instead of the narrative of an actual story, I had the narrative of an outline of a story. (This is when I progressed from knowing what’s wrong to knowing how to fix it.)

In 2008, I completed a series of worksheets I’d previously developed from helpful writing texts. This got me closer to the story I wanted to tell, which I’d retitled as “Oddington.” From that process, I expanded some of the outlined portions into dramatized scenes and grew the piece from 3000 words/13 pages to 13,000 words/60 pages. I now called it “Dinosaur Rock.”

I was getting closer but, nope, the piece still didn’t come together. I shelved it for over a decade.

The missing puzzle piece

I wrote no fiction and read little in 2020, especially the second half. Terrible time with health problems compounded by COVID isolation. But at the beginning of 2021, I got back into reading writing-craft books and came upon three by K. M. Weiland: Creating Character Arcs, Structuring Your Novel, and Outlining Your Novel. (Character Arcs was new, but the other two I’d had on my shelves for five years and never read.)

What I learned in these books wasn’t new (I’ve read and studied hundreds of craft books in the past thirty years), but it crystallized a portion of my writing process. Along with the study of theme (The Moral Premise by Stanley D. Williams, Writing Your Story’s Theme by K. M. Weiland, and Writing Deep Scenes by Alderson and Rosenfeld), developing a workable process to get from Idea through Outlining enabled me to fill in the story’s holes so I could get to the Drafting stage. I developed many more worksheets/questionnaires that are now part of my Scrivener project template that I copy to begin a new book.

How I proved my writing process

I codified my writing process and cultivated a new idea received January 21 (for which I highly recommend Meredith and Fitzgerald’s Structuring Your Novel) into a Plot with a beginning, middle, and ending. Using the new worksheets I developed from the Weiland books, I co-developed my protagonist’s internal character arc with the external story/plot arc into a somewhat detailed scene-by-scene outline in a month. I spent another twenty-nine days Drafting. I finished April 18 with the first draft of novel #7, a 40,553-word horror/mystery. You can read more about my stats at Novel #7 Finished.

The previous paragraph is here simply to prove (at least to me) my process works.

While #7 gelled before I began Editing, I wanted to get to work on something new. I toyed around reviewing my ideas file but, clicking through my FICTION folder on my laptop, I came across the dusty “Dinosaur Rock,” and a bloody flower budded in my twisted little mind. Forgetting everything about Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick, I reviewed the old worksheets and reread the 60 pages I’d written back in 2008.

I was convinced this piece still had potential and that finishing it was imperative because I had something important to say. (Certain pieces nag you for a reason—don’t give up!)

Even though part of my work was done years ago, in that I’d completed a few worksheets, I went through my entire, newly developed Brainstorming, Plotting, and Outlining stages and completed all of my current worksheets.

Lo, and behold, missing pieces showed up, and I began to see what was wrong as well as how to fix it.

I Outlined those plot holes, Drafted the dramatized narrative, and plugged the results into my Scrivener project. I compiled and printed, Edited it, and sent it off to a beta reader last week. “Dinosaur Rock” finally came out to 17,800 words/71 pages, a novella on the shorter side.

It took nearly twenty years, but because I intended to finish the piece, continued to study writing craft and occasionally worked on the story to apply new things I’d learned, I was able to move from something’s wrong to what’s wrong to how to fix it.

Certainly, I have more revision and editing ahead of me, but this piece is finally realized. And I now have a new perspective on “abandoned” ideas and Inspiration in general.

The importance of having a writing process

First, as a writer, you must have a process. Yes, your process may be different from mine, it will develop and change over time, and you may abandon its belaboring if you become practiced enough to internalize it (see Lee Allen Howard’s Eight-Step Writing Improvement Process at Wordsmithereens.net). But, unless you have a defined process, you cannot identify failure points.

Knowing your process helps get you from something’s wrong to what’s wrong, and perhaps even how to fix it.

The prescient power of ideas

Second, not to get all religious or metaphysical (well, maybe metaphysical), inspiration takes faith as well as hard work to realize.

Have you ever had an idea for a book, but either didn’t know how to execute it or didn’t get around to writing it, and meanwhile someone else published a book based on that same idea? (I’ve kicked myself more than once over this.)

I believe that Inspiration in the form of Ideas is “out there,” seeking any and every channel to be communicated to humanity. Those with sensitive receivers (a.k.a good old-fashioned imaginations) pick up on these Ideas. Fewer have the capabilities and skills to develop these ideas into a Plot that can be encoded as narrative (Drafted). Others who have studied their craft and developed a process are able to realize those ideas into a finished product (Marketed).

Ideas are like seeds that seek to propagate themes in the soil of humanity’s minds. Inspiration, whether it comes from the Divine or the Collective Unconscious or your own creative brain, needs a process to materialize Ideas into marketable material that can be consumed by the reading public.

Some writers are fortunate enough to realize this process early in their careers. And some are blessed enough to have it internalized. I ain’t one of them.

I took AP English in high school. I earned a bachelor’s in English and a master’s in Writing Popular Fiction. I attended many workshops and conferences and classes, read hundreds of books on writing craft, and wrote a lot of unpublishable stuff. It took me fifty years (I started writing horror fiction in second grade) of grueling work to identify and codify a process to generate fiction from Idea to Market.

Inspiration doesn’t take your present skills into account. If you’re open to receiving an Idea, you’ll get it. Your ambition may outpace your capability at this point in time, but ideas and ambition have a prophetic influence on your career: They give you something to work toward and live up to; they call you to develop your art and skills so that someday you’ll be able to realize your literary visions.

Never criticize your capabilities. They are what they are at this point in time. And that’s good reason to keep working hard, reading fiction and writing craft, studying, trying, burying and resurrecting, and trying again. You can’t force professional development, but you can get better over time if you apply yourself.

How to nurture a big idea

If you’ve conceived a story you don’t yet have the ability or know-how to write, the first thing to do is set your intention that you will write it. If you can’t be positive about it, at least remain neutral; anything else is unproductive.

Recognize it will take a while until you get to it. Know that you’ll need to think about it, consciously and subconsciously, until things percolate. Understand you must continue to study and practice to get to where you can write it.

Then do what you can on the project today, even if it’s creating a folder on your computer, starting a Scrivener project with your working title, and making a bulleted list of possible ideas for the piece. (Again, I recommend Meredith and Fitzgerald’s Structuring Your Novel for its chapter on turning your idea into a plot.)

In some small measure, you’ve moved from thought to materialization. Even if you don’t touch the project for a year or a decade, you’ve begun. As further inspiration comes, be sure to capture it.

Granted, not every idea you receive or generate will become published material. I have a slew of ideas I’ve recorded over the past thirty years that remain seeds. A few will someday germinate; others may never progress to Brainstorming. Some might make it to Plotting, where I’ll lose interest in them.

But there are certain seminal ideas that will not let you rest. They may frustrate or disturb you. They haunt you and won’t let you go.

If you’re in possession of one of these, nurture it. Though you may be unable to fulfill that vision today, don’t give up. Set an intention for fruition. Remain neutral and receptive. Do what you can do today. Develop your writing process. Study. Learn. Apply what you’ve learned. Try again.

One day, you’ll find the missing pieces that let you complete the puzzle and see the big picture.

Until then, delete nothing from your hard drive.