You have your story going and now it is time to get some editing done. You want to make your story even better. Unfortunately, so many people are missing the mark when it comes to their editing. This is even something that is promoted in many creative writing classes when people are "workshopping" their stories. This is probably done unintentionally and unconsciously, but it is happening.
For so many writers, they live on that "Track Changes" tab in their MSWord program. While this has some benefits, it also tends to limit the type of editing people do. They wordsmith the document to death! Change this word, fix this grammar error... the list goes on and on. While these are certainly important things to fix, the question comes down to, "Does this really make the story better?"
When we focus on this line/copy editing, all we are doing is making our stories "grammatically correct." Think of this, did it really make your story better when you changed the word from GOOD to FANTASTIC? No.
Developmental editing focuses on "the big picture" of your story. Do you have enough information about your characters? Have you given us too much? Is the information you are providing about your characters actually relevant or authentic.
Looking at your character is just one of the areas. Consider...
- Dialogue - realistic? believable? driving the story?
- Narration - showing vs. telling? information dumps?
- Tone/Voice - Are you conveying the right tone of the story?
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