View the archive of my two-hour class and discover how the Five Things That I’ve Learned about self-editing can help you to recognize what works in your own writing – and to fix what doesn’t.
The ugly truth? Most writing groups don’t know much about writing. The individuals in the group most often critique by letting the writer know what “doesn’t work” for them without giving the writer any guidance in the area of how to fix it. Sometimes someone in the writing group decides she doesn’t “like” or “cannot connect with” the main character. Sometimes someone says there’s something wrong with the pacing. Sometimes someone declares that she “just doesn’t get” what you’re trying to do. And on and on.
Often, the writer takes copious notes, returns home, and tries to fix everything that was mentioned during the group meeting. Often, also, the writer struggles to please the group members in the hope that pleasing them equates to pleasing a literary agent or a publisher. The best that can happen is a miraculous Road-to-Damascus moment during which the writer achieves clarity on what’s gone wrong and what’s gone right in her work. The worst that can happen is an unfortunate throw-in-the-towel moment during which the writer has become so confused that she just gives up.
This doesn’t have to be your reality. You don’t have to go through this. You also don’t have to pay an independent editor to read and evaluate your work and then to write an editorial opinion piece for you. You can learn how to edit yourself.
Learning how to edit yourself will give you an advantage as you make your way along the road to publication. Potential literary agents will be looking at a much more polished piece of work than they are used to seeing. Potential editors will see a manuscript that is quite possibly the start of a career as a professional writer. And you will be spared the possibility that your writing group’s evaluation of your work is actually a case of the blind leading the blind down a rabbit hole.
In this live, two-hour class, I’ll take you through the steps of self-editing your work. I’ll answer your questions as we go along and giving your pointers about recognizing in your own writing what actually works as well as what actually doesn’t work and how to fix it.
Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty psychological suspense novels, four young adult novels, one book of nonfiction, and two short-story collections. Her work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, two Edgar nominations, and both France’s and Germany’s first prize for crime fiction. She has taught creative writing internationally and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate in humane letters and an honorary MFA in creative writing. Her 2020 release, Mastering the Process shares her routine of researching, outlining, and writing that she has perfected over dozens of books.
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