Click here to see an evaluation for an unusual contemporary novel about a man finding himself--and the unexpected.
Articles on Craft
Click hereto see Renni Browne's feature-length article for Writer's Digest, Characters: Love Them to Life.
Click here to see Peter Gelfan's Writers Digest article on tips to avoid the reject pile.
Feel free to visit the archivessection of our e-zine, Between the Lines to see many more of our own editors' pieces on topics relating to craft.
Line-Editing Samples
Editor's Note: Some of our editors are also writers, and not one of us would write anything we hope to have published without having it edited. Our editor Betsy White has agreed to allow the prologue and first chapter of her novel Waiting for the Rapture to be posted here so that visitors to the website can see a generous sample of line-editing.
Betsy is a highly skilled fiction editor and, as will be immediately apparent, a confident fiction writer. Neither of these gifts mean she doesn’t need editing herself. Like all good writers she is nonetheless too close to her work to see every opportunity, and like all good editors I found myself so engaged with her heroine’s story that ideas occurred to me as I edited it.
Keep in mind as you read that every suggested addition or deletion by an editor is just that: a suggestion. Betsy will not accept all of these changes; she’ll keep the ones that feel right to her and let the rest go. Or, quite possibly, a change I suggest that doesn’t feel quite right will inspire her to make one of her own that does.
After reading the pages with the changes showing, be sure to go on to the “clean” version with the editing changes clicked off. Often reading the clean version will make clear the reason for changes that aren’t explained in footnotes.
Enjoy your brief acquaintance with Wanella June Trueheart of Crab Creek, Tennessee. You won’t forget her.
Interested in a candid and thorough professional critique of your manuscript's opening? Further information about our introductory $35 Critique is available here.
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Penelope Stokes joined TED’s staff this summer as an editor of adult fiction and nonfiction. She is a published writer, prolific editor, and former college professor with a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature. More than twenty years ago she left the classroom to pursue a career in writing and editing, and since then has worked with dozens of writers on more than 150 novels and nonfiction books.
