Edit Your Novel Like a Pro Update

When I launched the Edit Your Novel Like a Pro online course in January, I never thought it would take a year to complete. But that is fibromyalgia kicking my tail once again. The course is complete now, and contains about seven and a half hours of teaching—an hour and …

The Prophet’s Chronicle Storyworld

One of the things fiction allows us to do is examine hypothetical situations that don’t exist in the real world. A novel is a large-scale thought experiment. This is true of any fiction, but doubly true in speculative fiction. The whole point of science fiction and fantasy is to explore …

Using a Book Map to Edit a Novel

Last time we looked at how book maps can help in nonfiction editing. Now let’s look at how this technique can help novelists. As I worked on how to illustrate this, I found myself redacting so much information from so many client book maps, that you would get more out …

How to Make a Visual Book Map

Last time I wrote about how to use Excel to create a book map. My friend and editor Travis Perry once declared spreadsheets to be “antithetical to coherent communication,” and maybe you feel the same way, in which case a graphic representation may work better for you. Especially for people …

Use Storybreaking to Edit Your Novel

One of the hardest things about editing your book is keeping all of the information straight and in the right order. That’s one reason I advocate for outlining. A plain outline doesn’t suit everyone during the drafting process, but once we reach the editing phase, having a visual depiction of …

Elements of Fiction handout

I had a great group at the Mandel Public Library of West Palm Beach today for the Edit Like A Pro: Elements of Fiction workshop. I brought 20 handouts and ran out, so I guess I had about 30 eager writers there. So for those who didn’t get a handout, …