Intuitive Editing Supplemental materials

Cheryl B. Klein’s enlightening talk about how J. K. Rowling uses the “thesis statement” technique in Harry Potter, chock-full of valuable writing analysis:

Read the PDF here

Visual representations of story structure:

Stories might look like this:

Or like this:

Or this:

Or even this:

But good story doesn’t look like this:

Or this:

And certainly not this:

Jim Butcher’s glorious essay on how to address middle-of-the-book sag: https://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/1865.html

Seeing story analyzed:

Editor Margie Lawson offers specific prose examples, before and after editing, in her blog posts for Writers in the Storm (https://writersinthestormblog.com/), along with detailed analyses. Dave King, in his “All the King’s Editors/Editor’s Clinic” columns for Writer Unboxed (https://writerunboxed.com/), presents a page or more of a WIP with his editorial markup, and then specifies the reasoning behind all his suggestions; and in the “Flog a Pro” feature, also on Writer Unboxed, editor Ray Rhamey presents the first page of a bestselling novel and analyzes why he would or wouldn’t turn the page, inviting reader feedback as well (and make sure you read the comments for more perspectives).

Example of live critique:

My live analyses of attendees’ pages at the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference:

https://vimeo.com/72851019.

Great article on red flags for unhelpful crit groups: https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guideto-literary-agents/oct-2012-ready-the-top-10-worst-types-of-critique-partners.

Beta reader questionnaires:

I offer some free downloadable guidelines and examples here: https://foxprinteditorial.com/wpcontent/uploads/2022/02/Getting-What-You-Need-from-Beta-Readers.pdf

Author Kristen Kieffer offers great examples of these on her wonderful Well-Storied blog:

https://www.well-storied.com/blog/how-writers-can-prepare-for-a-fantastic-beta-reader-experience.

Finding reputable editors:

• Editorial Freelancers’ Association (EFA): the–efa.org
• Independent Editors Group (IEG): http://www.bookdocs.com
• National Association of Independent Writers and Editors: http://naiwe.com/
• Professional Editors Network: http://www.pensite.org/
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders (UK): https://www.sfep.org.uk/
• The Editors Association of Canada: https://www.editors.ca/
• The Institute of Professional Editors Limited (Australia): http://iped–org/
• 5E Editors: https://5eeditors.com/
• Bay Area Editors’ Forum: http://www.editorsforum.org/
• Northwest Independent Editors Guild http://edsguild.org/
• Society of American Business Editors and Writers: http://www.sabew.org
• The Editors’ Circle: http://www.theeditorscircle.com/
• Book Editors’ Alliance: http://www.bookeditorsalliance.com/
• Reedsy: https://reedsy.com/about

Vetting an editor:

• Absolute Write Water Cooler: absolutewrite.com/forums/
• Writer Beware (through the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America):

http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/editors/

Editor rate charts:

Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) member-reported current rates: https://www.the-efa.org/rates/.

In the UK, the Society for Editors and Proofreaders offers this guideline:

https://www.sfep.org.uk/resources/suggested-minimum-rates/.

The Editing Toolbox on my website, www.FoxPrintEditorial.com, features a number of free downloadables, including my Get It Edited! guide, my extensive Self-editing Checklist, a Story-sketch Template, and beta reader guidelines and sample questions: https://foxprinteditorial.com/editingtoolbox/

You can also find (and subscribe to) my weekly blog for authors (https://foxprinteditorial.com/blog/), where I dig into writing craft and life, as well as my monthly feature, How Writers Revise, featuring successful authors sharing their career ups and downs and how they overcame challenges, as well as describing their own editing and revision processes.

The Resources page of my website, Recommended reads and online resources, offers extensive recommendations for my favorite writing-craft books, blogs, podcasts, and more. You’ll also find info on researching agents and publishers; the query process; some of my favorite advice for authors, and organizations serving authors.