Editing Notes

Things to look for when reading stories from other contributors.

This will help their story and the process will hopefully also make you think more about these things in your own story.

FIRST DRAFT EDITING AND COMMENTS

How well the story is working as a whole

What's working well.

What’s not working as effectively as it might and could be strengthened

Point to specific places, and offer her reasons for making a comment. If you suggest ways the author might address an issue try not to impose your own vision on the author’s intentions.

Consistency of voice, if you are comfortable understanding the authors voice.

Awkward or clunky narrative or dialogue.

Syntax.

Extraneous or echoed words/phrases.

Consistency. Things like character and place names, descriptions, timelines.

Sensitivity. If an author request this, according to Writers Digest, "An increasingly popular service involving a professional reader who is expert or has a personal background in an area of story that the author may not have, in an effort to ensure accuracy and avoid stereotypes or other mischaracterizations readers may find offensive. It may encompass ... any area where an author may worry he isn’t sufficiently conversant with a topic."

READY FOR POLISHING EDITING AND COMMENTS

At this point we should be concentrating on the technical aspects.

Grammar, spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, etc.

PROOFREAD 

Before the publish button is clicked, a final copy will be sent out for everyone to look at least at their own story.

Check that the correct final version of the story is indeed the one that is in the final copy of the book.

Check that there are no dropped or garbled sections of text.

Titles and Author names are in place and printed correctly in the TOC, copyright info, at the start of the story, and in the Author bio.

The formatting is correct, italics only where it should be, poetry indented correctly,