Stages of Learning How to Edit
As we learn the craft, we go through stages of learning how to edit—I’ve decided there are four stages.
When you’re first learning how to edit, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the learning curve and to wonder when it would be realistic to start charging for your services. The answer is at Stage #3.
4 Stages of Learning How to Edit
- You don’t know what you don’t know. (Unconscious incompetence)
- You know you don’t know stuff. (Conscious incompetence)
- You know stuff. (Conscious competence)
- You do stuff. (Unconscious competence)
If you’re not sure what level you’re at, you’re at level 1.
Or, possibly, level 4.
Tips for Editors & Writers
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Editing Quest Novels
Authors often struggle to create compelling plots. They try to hit plot points (“turning point” “black moment” and so on) but without a solid sense of how structure works, their stories can feel formulaic and lifeless. It helps if you understand story patterns so that you can see where the story might be getting off…
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Effective Scene Construction
A common structural problem you’ll encounter in fiction development is ineffective scene construction: A good scene includes the meat of a plot event – whether that event is an emotional discussion over coffee, a decision to take a certain action, or a foot chase across town – but not a whole lot more. Problems with…
