Genre Fiction Editing

Do you like found family tropes? Action adventure? Superpowers? Four MCs who can’t get their shit together? Maybe you hate all of those and just like nitpicking other people’s work? Then consider beta reading Wander Together! 

If you’re interested, here’s the form!

Come explore my mess of a third draft! Tell me what’s dirt and what are gems, because I can’t tell anymore!

But seriously, though, I would love some honest people to tell me what they like and what they don’t. I want to make my wip the best it can be, and I need you guys to do that! 

While I’d appreciate anyone willing to sit down and help someone else with their work (seriously, VIPs), I’d especially like to find beta readers who have diverse experiences. My wip features characters of various ethnicities, sexualities, backgrounds, and abilities. I would love to have feedback from people who have had similar experiences. 

I know it’s close to summer, so if you guys would like to wait until school ends, that’s no problem! There’s a section on the form about when you’d be able to start- since you’re the ones helping me, you get to call the shots!

If you guys would like to learn more about Wander Together, you can check out what I have posted here. 

If you already know you’d like to beta read (like the amazing @wordsbysarah and @itsjayjensen), THANK YOU! Here’s the form!

If you can’t beta read, or don’t feel like it, I completely understand! But I would really appreciate it if you could reblog this so I can reach as many potential readers as possible!

(Followers, I’m sorry in advance for the amount of times I’m going to reblog this.)

Thanks for reading! If my own glowing review wasn’t enough to convince you, consider reading the first few pages of my mess below! 

Critique Partners: 

Say: “These are all the things that subtract from the story you’re trying to tell and these are the ways I recommend fixing them if you want to reach your intended outcome.”

Must: Understand your personal writing style and your vision for the book, be at a similar writing skill level as you, and be able to communicate well with you in a constructive back and forth dialogue.

You should have: About 3 at any given time, though the number will vary though your writing carrier. 

Your responsibilities: To respect their advice and give them the thorough, honest critique on their manuscripts in return. 

Beta Readers:

Say: “This is what I understood while reading, this is why I came to that understanding, and this is what I think of it and how it made me feel.”

Must: Be a reader in (or near) the manuscript’s target audience, have the ability and desire to think deeply about a piece of writing, and convey those thoughts in a way that the author can make sense of.

You should have: 7-15 at the end of any given beta reading round. (The longer the story, the more likely it is that beta readers will drop out due to time constraints, personal life problems, or sheer forgetfulness.)

Your responsibilities: To keep track of their progress and encourage them to continue reading, to look for patterns or contradictions in their responses and decide what needs to be changed in order to receive the reactions you want from the majority of your readers in the future, and to ignore any advice you don’t firmly believe will make your book better.

More often than not I’ll crack into a sprawling fantasy series and, while I appreciate the luscious descriptions of furniture, landscapes, and clothing, all I’m focused on is that I don’t actually know how this world works. I only know what it looks like.  

Including some functionality to your universe can add to immersion and give your reader a strong foundation on which to build their mental model of your universe. 

You certainly don’t need to use all of these questions! In fact, I recommend against that, as all of these certainly won’t make it into your final draft. I personally find that starting my worldbuilding off with 5 to 10 functional questions helps pave the way for glittery and elaborate aesthetic development later on.

How is the healthcare funded in your world?

How does healthcare functionally differ between the wealthy and the poor? (i.e. can only the wealthy go to hospitals? do poor families often have to rely on back-alley procedures?)

Where are health centers (i.e. hospitals, small clinics, etc.) organized in your cities?

Does it differ in smaller towns?

How does this affect people’s ability to get healthcare?

Is healthcare magical, and if it is, how does that affect the healthcare system? 

If healing is instantaneous, how does that affect people’s views on injury, illness, and chronic ailments?

If you have both magical and physical healthcare, which one is deemed superior and how does that affect society? 

What illnesses are common in your world? 

How does this affect daily life? 

What do the people in your world think illnesses are? 

Is it a miasma theory? 

Humor theory? 

Demons? 

Do they know about biological viruses and bacteria? 

How does this affect healthcare?

How do people get water? 

Is the water sanitary and if not, how do they sanitize it?

How does agriculture work? 

Is it large corporations or individual farms?

What sort of agricultural technology exists in your world and how does it affect food production?

Are farmers wealthy or poor?

What sort of natural resources does your world/country(ies) have and how are they obtained?

How does this affect the average wealth of the country?

How does this wealth affect the culture? 

What livestock or beasts of burden are most valued? Least valued? Why?

What is considered a luxury good vs. a regular good?

What forms of transportation does your world have?

What classes use what forms of transportation?

How far has the average citizen traveled, given your transportation limitations?

Which cities are the most accessible and which are the least? Why?

How do popular transportation methods change how cities/towns are laid out?

Does your world have public transportation? What is it?

Is there a coming-of-age aspect to travel?

Describe your world’s postal system or whatever equivalent there is. 

Who pays for it? 

How reliable is it? 

Are there emergency methods for transporting information?

How does your world keep time (i.e. watches, sundials, water clock, etc.)?

Does your world have a currency system, barter system, or something else? 

If you have multiple countries, do different currencies have different values across said countries?

How does this affect travel?

Do you have banks in your world and if so, how are they run?

Who owns the banks? Government? Wealthy? How does this affect the economy and/or class system?

How does credit operate in your universe?

Does your world operate more on big corporations or small business? Something in between?

How are workers/labourers treated in your world? 

Are there workers unions and if so, what are common views on unions? 

Describe your tax system. If you don’t have a tax system, explain why and how your world is affected by that. 

Can certain social classes not own property, certain livestock, certain businesses, etc.? Why?

How are business records kept? Are business records kept?

If your world has technology, does your world prioritize developing entertainment tech, communications tech, transportation tech or something else entirely?

What does this say about your world?

How does this affect your economy?

To the closest approximation, what type of government does your world have? 

How are rulers/presidents/nobles put in place? 

How much power does an individual ruler have? 

Is there a veto process? 

If you have multiple countries, do they have different types of rulers?

Describe any large-scale alliances (i.e. countries, factions, etc.) that are present in your world. 

How did they come about and how are they maintained? 

Are they strained or peaceful? 

How does it affect the greater politics of your world?

Describe how wars are fought both internationally and nationally. 

Do methods of war differ between countries/races? 

What about philosophies about war?

If there is a military, what is its hierarchy structure?

How does the military recruit?

Is the military looked upon favourably in your society?

What weapons are used by each country/type of people during warfare, and how does that affect war strategies?

Describe the sentencing system of your world. 

Is your accused innocent until proven guilty, or guilty until proven innocent?

How are lawbreakers punished? 

If you have prisons, describe how they are organized and run, and who owns them. 

Does differing ownership change how the prisons operate?

What are the major ways in which laws between countries vary? 

Do laws between cities vary? If so, how and why?

How does citizenship work in your world? What rights and privileges do citizens have that others do not? 

Can certain classes or races not become citizens?

Are there certain taboo subjects or opinions that artist/authors/musicians are not allowed to depict (i.e. portraying the official religion in a negative light, explicit sexual material, etc.)? What does this say about your society?

How do people get around these censorship laws?

What is the official hierarchy of duty in your world? (i.e. is family the most important, or patriotism? What about clan?)

How many languages are there in your world, and how many languages share a common origin? 

How many people are multilingual? 

Which language is the most common?

How is multilingualism viewed?

How are different languages viewed? (i.e. is one language ugly/barbaric while another is romantic and sensual?)

Fighter’s Block is the best writing app I’ve come across in a long time.

You type in the amount of words you want to write and as you write, your mini lil avatar fights a monster. Each word you write acts a hit towards your monster, and once you’ve hit your word count the monster is defeated!!!

How cute!!!!

Work quick though as how long you spent not writing decreases your avatar’s health. It’s a productive fight to the death against the clock!

Best things about this app:

You can PAUSE it!!!! Need go get a cup of tea? Need to sneeze? You can!!!!!

Settings are adjustable! You can change the monster’s speed and the attacks!

You can change the theme and font!

You can level up!!!!! The number of words you write equals your EXP. You can unlock one avatar thus far, but I believe there may be more in the future!

You can minimise the fight above if it serves as a distraction, and only show the decreasing green bar.

Best of all: If you don’t hit the target word count in time, YOUR WORK DOES NOT DISAPPEAR. In the past I’ve lost so much work because I wasn’t typing fast enough, or sneezed.I cannot express enough how thankful I am that it presents a challenge where the consequence is a knock of pride and not a fit of rage.

This is part of a series on free online resources for writers. All of the resources listed in this series are free to use and many require no logins/registration. Some of the resources have upgrades with extra functions that do require payment, but the basic versions listed here are FREE. This is because I got so tired of searching through Google for free resources for writers who are broke like me.

HemingwayApp.com and Readable.io are two sites that analyze your writing. You can either write it directly into their sites or copy-paste your work into it.

HemingwayApp will then tally up (and highlight in the text)

how many adverbs you used

how many times you used passive voice

how many sentences could have had simpler alternatives

how many sentences are hard to read

how many sentences are very hard to read

It has formatting tools and also gives you a basic readability score.

There is an app, but you have to pay for it on both Windows and Mac. The online version is completely free, however, and doesn’t require any sort of registration.

Readable.io is similar to HemingwayApp in that you type or copy-paste your work into it and it will analyze it for you. However, Readable.io focuses on how readable your text is, based on several different tests from all over the place.

It will tell you (and highlight in the text if possible):

the grade level (each test will come up with a grade level for your work, which Readable.io averages out)

the overall readability score

the text quality

numbers of sentences with certain amounts of syllables (e.g. one syllable versus two syllables, and how predominant they are in your text)

the number of times you used adverbs

the number of times you used passive voice

the number of cliches in your work

In addition, it has three scales at the end that analyze:

how conversational/formal your work is

how positive/negative/neutral the tone of your work is

whether or not, based on your text, your work looks like it was written by a man or a woman (with a disclaimer that it has an accuracy of about 70%)

Online this is all free. There is a premium version that requires money, but everything listed above is completely free. No login/registration required.

Before I get to who I would recommend these sites to, I would like to make a disclaimer.

Just because these sites tell you that you’re using too many adverbs or passive voice or too many big words doesn’t mean that your writing is wrong.

Let me repeat that, but shorter.

Many of us have a style and that style is not Hemingway.

I have my own opinions about the use of adverbs and long sentences and so on, but that’s not really the subject of this post. To keep it short, I would just like to say that some of us have a style that uses long sentences and big words, and some of us prefer it that way. Some of us prefer short sentences and no adverbs. Neither preference is incorrect, as long as it is written well. The HemingwayApp is literally named after Hemingway, because it’s trying to get your writing to be more like his - which can be either bad or good depending on the person. If you want to have your writing be more like Hemingway, excellent! But if you don’t, that’s also great! Everyone has a different style - just keep that in mind.

Anyway, if you do use these sites, please take into account that they might not fit your style, and just because one or both of them say you have too many adverbs or your writing is too simple doesn’t mean you should change your writing. Your style of writing and their style might not match up, and that’s okay.

So, I would recommend these websites if:

you want to find all of the places that use adverbs and cliches and so on and edit/delete them

you want to see how readable your work is (I would especially recommend Readable.io for that, because to the best of my knowledge, they are using the same tests that schools, libraries, bookstores, and publishers do, so it would be useful to check if your writing is in the right age range)

you want to see which sentences are too long/too short

you want to see what your work would look like in a different style, and see what you can learn from it

you want to watch these sites cover your work in highlights pointing out all the adverbs, and then laugh maniacally at the screen because there’s no way you’re getting rid of them (kidding! though, I would be impressed if you did)

As always, let me know if you find anything that should be added to this post (negative or positive)!

Stephanie Roberts

(via

psliterary

Specifically for fiction oriented feedback, but with concepts worthwhile for all areas of critiquing.

Originally requested by @ephirae.

The Devil is in the Details.

If you signed up to give feedback on a manuscript, be prepared to do two things:

1. For every opinion you give, explain why. 

What lead you to the conclusion you reached? If you don’t know this, you may need to reread a few times until you figure it out.

2. For every specific situation, concept, or relationship the writer asks about, describe your interpretation back to them. 

Give a short summary, whether its of what you believe happened, or how you think that piece of world building works, or why you believe those characters came to that conclusion, or why the PoV character is feeling these emotions. 

Often problems appearing toward the end of a manuscript are caused by misunderstandings in earlier segments. If you tell the writer your interpretation of the key events as you go, they can identity the root of those problems much easier.

Negative Critique: Courtesy Is Key.

Unless you are either (a) a professional editor who’s being paid to whip the manuscript into shape or (b) a long time critique partner with a strong relationship with the author, always be as kind and gentle with negative critique as you can. If a writer trusts you enough to let you look at something they poured their soul into, it’s your responsibility to be honest but also courteous.

Try to avoid:

Sarcasm; “Like that would ever happen.”

Absolutes; “This would NEVER happen.”

Abruptness; “Bad. Change.”

Arrogance; “This wouldn’t happen. [My way] would. Do it instead.”

Better ways to approach negative critique:

Make it clear that you understand the problem might not be in the writer’s ideas, but your interpretation of them. Don’t harp on a writer’s creativity– guide them towards explaining their awesome concepts better!

Respect the time and effort that’s already gone into the writing by demonstrating that this work as valuable, even if major changes are still needed. Example: ”You have a lot of great concepts here, like [this and this], but I think they would hit home a lot harder if you rewrote the chapter [like this], while still including [the good aspects of the current chapter].”

Your personal writing style is unique to you. Pick out incidences of passive voice, filter words, and bulky or awkward sentences, but don’t try to rewrite sentences to fit your personal preferences unless you’ve already talked it over with the writer in length.

All your critiques are only your opinion, and they aren’t necessarily the same opinions of this writer’s future publisher. Mention when a writer’s use or breakage of a “writing rule” throws you off, but don’t claim your preferred way is the correct way.

Good examples of courteous negative critique:

Y’ALL I’M BROKE.

remember when i did line edits for sir (my grandpa) that should have cost him $5,488.80? well he only paid me $800. and with my bills, peanut’s bills (remember she has renal disease and we just started her on subcutaneous fluids that she needs twice weekly? who has already cost me hundreds of dollars in vet bills?), and other expenses, like……

that $800 is not lasting me as long as i thought it would.

i’ve cleared out my entire 401k; i don’t have anything left over to cushion me. i need to make money to build back my cushion because my mom is paying the mortgage, paying my car insurance, paying for the house bills etc. etc. and i’m just trying to pay for my basic self (but would love to be in a position where i could help her!!)

I Edit Professionally

i’d like to take manuscripts, but if you have anything that needs editing, hmu! check out BEAR ESSENTIALS EDITING if you want to see my editing packages for manuscripts, but feel free to message me if you have somethin else

I Have Patreon

if you’d like to support me as a writer, check out my PATREON! i’m working on HOMETOWN HEROES, DRACONOLOGIST, NEW GODS, and SILVER BULLETS right now – i’ve been spending all my time working on the character/setting issues i’d been neglecting in hometown heroes/kt7 for the last like five drafts lmao

I Have PayPal

if you’d rather just donate to me directly to help puff up my bank account that’s fine too!

i’m pretty desperate for some editing work!