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Nov 04

Susan Shiney

Line Editing Tips: My Step-by-Step Process

Developmental Editing versus Line-Editing

I think of developmental editing as working on the macro structure of your novel and making sure the spine or the character arcs and obligatory genre scenes are fleshed out. I also worked on the structure of my scenes during the developmental edit and will continue to hone my scene structures during the line editing phase. After I finish with my initial developmental editing pass with my manuscript I send it to critique partners for feedback and ask them just to focus on the developmental issues. I discuss how to incorporate their feedback in 15 Tips for Organizing and Implementing Feedback for Revisions. Micro changes at the paragraph and sentence level are line-editing as in going line by line through your manuscript to revise them.

Apr 22

Susan Shiney

How I Support my Wife’s Writing Life

As a writer's partner I sometime feel that there is not much I can do to improve Susan's writing. I am an IT man. I like downhill mountain biking as well as other mountain biking activities. I like cars and motorcycles… So in some ways I am the stereotype of the male figure. In some ways only, because as the "man" of the house I am suppose to provide for my family and yet Susan provides for both of us right now. How? Well, she has the energy to go to work 5 days a week to teach English, pretty much 41 weeks of the year.

For me, it's all about energy and how much energy I can put or want to put at doing something. So going to work the way Susan - and most people - do is way too much energy taking out of me for the reward (mostly the paycheck). I am not underskilled but I do think in France IT workers could be paid way more than they do but for political reasons (not economical reasons) it does not. So I could fight it, or accept it, or not work at all. For now I choose not to work at all.