If you have written a story and you’d like to improve it, either just so that your story is even better or because you’d like to do something with it like publish it, editing is something you are going to consider. Editing can come in a lot of different forms and phases, and here are four examples of them.

Structural edit

For some people, this looks like a rewrite. This phase focuses on the structure of the story, including things like the themes and pacing. This is where you can look at the story as a whole and decide if all of the events that happen in it are necessary, in the place that you want them to be, and if all the characters you have in the story need to be there.

This phase typically involves large, overarching changes that will affect the narrative and get the story into a state where the story you’re telling is the one that you want to tell. It’s more high level and ensuring that you have the beginning, middle, and end in the places you want them to be, and that everything is appropriately introduced and wrapped up.

Other people

Getting another set of eyes on your work is a fantastic way to make sure your story is reading the same way to you as it is to everyone else. Having another person read your story at different points in the process means that they can bring their insight and make suggestions on how to improve your story. This can range from large structural changes, to catching where something is inconsistent, to maybe even just picking out places where you spelled a name wrong.

This may take the form of beta readers or an editor, depending on what your intent is with this pass. Be sure to pick the right people for this phase based on what you want to get out of it.

Line edit

Line edits are a very detail-oriented type of edit. This is intended to make sure that all of your spelling and grammar are correct. This phase will check to make sure the details of the prose are correct, from placement of commas to ellipses, to ensuring dashes and em-dashes are being used correctly.

This phase may be supplemented with something like ProWritingAid or Grammarly, which are both programs that will check your prose to ensure that it is grammatically correct.

Read aloud

Hearing your story read out loud is a great way to find small things that you might have missed in other editing rounds. Bringing it off of the page means that you will gain a different perspective on your work and it can help you to catch where things are phrased strangely, or where you maybe made other errors like missing when you changed a character’s name.

You can read this yourself, have someone else read it to you, or even get a text-to-speech program to do it! So long as you are hearing your words, that’s all you need.

What other editing phases do you use?

One thing that people have trouble with when they start a project is whether they want to make their story into a series or a stand alone. There’s a lot to consider, from the size of the story you want to tell to what you ultimately want to do with it when you’re done.

Definitions

What is a standalone?

A standalone novel is a single novel with a beginning, middle, and end of a story. If you read just this one book, you could be satisfied that you knew everything about the story that you needed to know. All the major mysteries and plots wrap up, though there may be a few dangling questions at the end.

What is a series?

A series is multiple books that tell a story. Usually each individual book contains a beginning, middle, and end, but the story from book to book may feel somewhat incomplete. These stories usually have an overarching plot that does not get wrapped up until the final book and the story does not have a satisfying conclusion until the reader has gotten through all volumes.

Which should I write?

That depends on your story! There’s a lot of considerations when it comes to determining how to tell your story, even down to how many volumes it could be. Some things to think about are:

How complicated is your story?

The more complicated a story is, the more likely it is you will want to tell it as a series. If you have a lot of subplots or character perspectives that you would like to explore, then you may want to make the story longer so that you have the time to go into everything.

How long is the draft?

Sometimes it’s just a matter of sheer length. If your book is really long, it might be best to cut it up into smaller pieces, just so that your audience can take a rest and not be so intimidated by the sheer size of the book you’ve created.

Do you have multiple endings?

In a series, there tend to be individual book arcs as well as the overarching plot. If you have several end points where a number of plots are resolved, those might be good points in which you can split your work into a series. If you do not have these break points, then it is probably best to keep everything together.

What do you want to do with it?

The publishing question. Do you want to publish it and if so, do you want to do so traditionally or indie?

Traditional houses are currently leaning towards taking standalone novels, sometimes standalone novels with series potential. So if you have a standalone, that might be a good route.

If you are going to indie or self publishing route, series tend to do better in that market.

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What I did

I am a series writer. I have tried to write standalone novels, but it just doesn’t work out very well for me and I end up writing more. White Noise was supposed to be one book that turned into a trilogy a few years. City Without Heroes hit that point in the middle where it just didn’t feel write keeping that as one book.

But ultimately, it is your story and up to you. So which are you writing?

I may not be great with description, but I love writing dialog. I find it to be one of the most fun parts of the process and it really helps me to understand how my characters interact with the people around them.

I know it’s not for everyone, though, so here’s some things you should keep in mind when writing dialog between two or more characters.

You should learn something new or reinforce something established

Banter is a lot of fun, but when two people are talking, there should be some purpose behind the conversation. Either this should be a time to introduce some new information or there should be some reinforcement of information that has already been established that you want to remind the audience of. Ideally, conversations should at some point touch on one of these three elements:

• The plot
• The characters
• The setting or atmosphere

The characters should want something different

In order to keep a conversation interesting, the characters involved should have some different motivations or goals for the conversation. Some form of tension or motivation to keep revealing information or emotions will keep the conversation going and give you more opportunity to play with the characters.

It’s important to note that this does not necessarily mean conflict. This could be as simple as one character wants to know what is going on because they are scared and the other character wants to explain what is going on because they want the other to calm down. If it is two characters just stating the same information with no tension it gets dull.

Their voices should be different

This does not mean give everyone an accent. This does mean that it should be clear who is speaking without a dialog tag. ((A said, B asked, etc.)) I find this can be the trickiest part of crafting dialog, especially if you haven’t given much thought to how characters talk.

This is, however, a great time to draw on a character’s background and use it. If they are stern, serious, and to the point, you can use shorter sentences. If they are younger, they may have different slang terms. If they are from different areas, they may have different accent words or terms of endearment ((Hun, sweetie, darling)) and different ways of using them with people.

What other tricks do you have for crafting dialog?

I’m doing a lot of world building right now with my current project and that means one of my go to scenes has been heavily impacting: The info dump while people are cooking scene. ((No, I don’t know why I keep doing this. It just happens.)) Since this is a fantasy world, I have spent a decent amount of time trying to think about what cooking might look like and if it would be any different.

What is available?

If your story takes place in the mountains with harsh, cold weather, the local food is going to be a lot different from what someone on a tropical island has access to. The possible meats are going to be different, since not all animals exist in all terrains.

The vegetation is also going to be considerably different! If there is no room for farming, then there may not be such a prevalence of things like flour and baked goods might look different, have a different base for the starch, or just be less common.

And then there’s the question of spices. How do they season their food and what kind of flavours might be available in that climate?

Outside of that, there’s also the question of whether that climate shifts and how that impacts what is available. What’s available all year round and what needs to be preserved in some way? How can they preserve food for times when it’s not as readily available from their environment?

It’s honestly a lot of fun to research.

What other climates are they getting food from?

Trade routes! Allies! Food can be a great way to imply how the fictional civilization is doing in relation to the countries around it. Are they able to bring in food from other regions? Are there trade routes to foreign lands? Are there people from the other lands that come with special spices or ingredients?

All of these things can be a great way to add a subtle touch to your world building, or be used to emphasize something that you are already trying to establish somewhere else.

How are they cooking?

Technology is such a big factor in cooking. The invention of the fridge did some amazing and terrifying things to cooking when it was introduced. ((Just look up some of those Jello salad recipes.)) So what do your people have access to and what of those things would make the most sense with that set of ingredients and the climate?

Some interesting things to look at is how people in similar climates have historically cooked the food available to them and take inspiration from that. Not everyone is going to be having a roast and Yorkshire puddings, after all, and other methods are fascinating.

Another thing to consider is the presence of magic in your world. Magic is a type of technology that could be used in cooking, and the kinds of magic might influence they way food is prepared and what can be done with it. Keep it in mind and see what you can do with that!

What am I doing?

So per my current project, this is what I have in my notes so far.

This takes place on a fantasy island that has been cut off from the rest of the world, with a relatively warm climate. Meat-wise, it’s a lot of fish and birds and the very occasional land animal only for very special occasions.

There is not much land left that would be used for farming, but most of the towns on the island are covered in vines that grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers that can be harvested and used to add to their food. Most buildings have a garden on the rooftop that supplies the people inside.

The majority of the cooking is done over a fire or via stove top because that seems to be the best course of action for this set of possible ingredients and generally matches what people in similar climates tend to use.

And, because it’s a magic universe, there is the ability to chill things. They prefer to have things that are frozen, though, and do a mix of sweet and savoury frozen foods as both meals and treats. Freezing to cook is considered an equivalent method to heating.

What food are you making for your fictional worlds?

There is a phenomenon where some people can actually read descriptions and actually picture it in their head. The smells, the sights, it plays for them like television or like a memory. It’s vivid and it can actually put them right in the scene. Crazy, right?

I was then informed that I have aphantasia and I am the weird one.

This does, however, explain why not only do I am so quickly bored with description, but also why I struggle with writing it. Which I know full well I need to get better at. So, in case you are like me and are looking for ways to improve as well, here’s a few strategies I’ve used to help.

Take note of your physical surroundings when they match

Going out into the world and experiencing surroundings is a great way to start trying to figure out descriptions. If I have a setting that is reasonably close to what I want, I have gone to that place and written down what I saw, heard, or generally experienced.

At one point, I was going so far as to try and recreate the scenes that I was trying to describe so that I could get a better description. I do not generally recommend this if you’re not writing contemporary settings.

I do, however, highly encourage taking phots and video along with notes so you can use them in your scenes!

Find art assets

If what I’m looking for doesn’t exist in reality, I will just look up images that get as close to that vague impression of a thing that is in my head. Once I have that, I can just talk about what it looks like.

If it’s a video, I can describe in more detail the way the winds blow or some general ambient movement in the setting. And sometimes I get really lucky and there’s a comments section about people who have experienced a setting in a video before and they will comment about it.

Or, if you’re looking for a smell to add to a scene, cooking videos and blogs will sometimes describe scents that sound interesting and can be incorporated in milder ways to help give the tone and ambiance of a scene.

Use the workbook

I use both the Storyteller’s and the Worldbuilder’s workbook a lot more now that I’ve made them because they have the structure that I need to remember some senses that I would otherwise forget to include. They help me to think of the senses that I can include when I’m doing my planning and, once they’re written down, I don’t have to think about what description to include. I just try to make sure I include all of the notes from there.

Focus on the feeling of the setting over the physical

Ultimately, I do still find description to be incredibly difficult and I don’t tend to remember to include anything about it in my initial drafts until a character interacts with something directly. My writing in general doesn’t rely on a lot of the five senses descriptions in general.

I tend to focus a lot more on mood and atmosphere. If the five senses description helps to enhance these elements, I have a much easier time remembering to include them in the first place, and this feels much more natural to me. Using this as a basis, I can take the notes I have from the workbooks and madlibs description into scenes and characters.

Do you have any other thoughts about writing with aphantasia? Did you even know about it?

There’s a lot of plot structures and story beats out there that are pretty common. Romancing the Beat, Heroe’s Journey, these ones are all over and you can see them in many of your favourite books and shows. They never quite worked for me, though, because of the particular kinds of leads I like to write.

I write what I’ve been calling Chosen One Self Actualization (COSA) stories. There is a person who is uniquely qualified to deal with a problem and they are aware of that, but they are actively avoiding doing that with the expectation that someone else will handle it. Eventually, it gets to a point where they have to deal with the problem and they accept their destiny.

This means that the story beats haven’t quite felt right to me. So I made my own. I present to you, my story beats: COSA Story Beats.

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As I think I’ve mentioned before, I had originally intended to write Cloned Evil as a serialized series but just couldn’t get the arcs to come together into anything fully cohesive. I had middles, I had ends, I had a couple beginnings, but I didn’t have all three for any of the arcs. I didn’t even have two for most of them! But here are some of the loose ideas I did have that I might possibly explore during this publishing break:

• Gigi meets her sisters and Red immediately tries to murder her
• Bea gets mad at Red and accidentally gives her an accen
• Rescuing mom from prison at 9 years old after Aunt Jez training them
• Aunt Jez and mom talking about Eve
• Their babysitter for when Aunt Jez and mom are busy
• Bea and Mars meeting for the first time

Let me know which ones interest you the most! Who knows, you might see it one day!

When working on your worldbuilding, adding a few distinct subcultures in your fictional populations can be an easy way of making the world feel richer and larger than it really is. But how do you create them?

First, a definition:

A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles.

Wikipedia

Subcultures can take a lot of different forms, from something as large to other races to something as small as a family. If you’re doing a fantasy story, it could be those with learned magic, those who were born with magic, and people who do not use magic at all. So long as there is something about this group that differentiates them from the wider culture that also makes them similar to one another.

The interplay between the subcultures is what tends to make this interesting in fiction. Seeing how their values or norms conflict with or complement one another can help to make the world seem larger, and give the implication of history without having to come up with specific details that might distract from the main story you’re trying to tell.

Here are a few elements you can use to differentiate people in a subculture:

• Fashion choices
• Language
• Religion
• Food
• Stereotypes the larger society places on them

Do you use subcultures in your worldbuilding?