Fiction Editing Techniques

From PDF markup to EPUB errors: a complete proofreading guide for authors working with a pro or flying solo. Know what to catch before your book publishes.

oncise writing isn't always better — but knowing how to cut is a skill every writer needs. A professional editor shares three practical editing techniques for tightening your prose: finding words that can be replaced by one, cutting nothingburgers, and a sentence-by-sentence brevity exercise.

Reading your own writing with a critical eye is one of the hardest things a writer has to do. These three self-editing strategies — scene-by-scene synopsis, backward reading, and reading aloud — help you create the distance you need to find what's not working at every level, from plot to prose.

Character names carry more meaning than you think. Here's how to choose names that fit your characters' backgrounds, time periods, and personalities—and how to create convincing pseudonyms.

Learn how to give writing criticism that actually helps: deliver praise broadly and criticism precisely, and why the compliment sandwich is doing it wrong.

A beta reader who tells you your manuscript is perfect is wasting your time. Here's what good beta feedback actually looks like — and how to ask for it.

Your manuscript has bugs. Beta readers are how you find them before your readers do. Here's how to build the beta reading team that will actually make your book better—and who to use with caution.

Know the rules. Break them with intention. The only one you can't break: don't use a word if you don't know what it means.

Too many characters and readers lose track. Too few and the story feels empty. Here's how to find the right cast size—and what to do when you have too many.

If you had a single tool that could organize your entire revision process—from plot hole to final polish—would that make your book better?

Voice is not what a character says. Voice is how a character cannot help saying it.

The Editor’s Pass is a complete family of workbooks that guide writers through the revision or self-editing process. It’s the macro-to-micro methodology that professional editors use every day, written for writers.

You can write a whole novel in first person and still violate POV if your narrator knows something they couldn’t possibly know. You can write in omniscient third and still fail if you head-hop without purpose. That’s why I made The POV Lock.

The flexibility is the value signal. Not the binding. You wondered: Aren’t you selling something less valuable by selling it as a PDF? No. I’m selling something more usable. More reusable. More flexible.

If you’ve been frustrated by the beta reading process, if you’ve gotten vague feedback—or no feedback at all—and wanted a solution, I made this for you.

Action doesn't equal tension. Learn why "raise the stakes" is useless advice—and get a concrete system to map, diagnose, and fix your manuscript's pacing problems.