The big stuff is there: good and evil, right and wrong, but the depth isn’t. Our protagonist doesn’t struggle. She’s too clean, too plain. How do we tell our author that their baby needs considerable re-working?
developmental editing
The Beginning of Our New YA Title
By Luis Ramos @luissoto805
Everyone likes Filipino food, and we are shamelessly capitalizing on that love. After all, when else will we get to work on a book with the words “egg rolls” in the title?
Beat Marking: What Prose Editors Can Learn from Theater and Scripts
By Phoebe Whittington @PhoebeW
There is no singular right or wrong way to approach editing, which is why there is immense creativity and personalized approaches. It also means that editors can pull inspiration from a wide variety of sources and mediums. I’d like to draw attention to theater and scripts as a powerful source for improving your editing skills with plot, characterization, and dialogue.
Editing Psychological Thrillers
By Megan Vader Bongolan
Editing psychological thrillers is a fun process that challenges authors and editors alike. It’s our responsibility at Ooligan Press to assist authors during the editorial process. Building relationships with authors not only makes editing smoother but it helps form an artistic bond. Psychological thrillers need extra attention from both editors and authors in order to portray mental illnesses and symptoms accurately.
How To Edit A Story Without Taking It Away From The Author
By Scott Fortmann
Rather than go through the sometimes tedious process of asking questions and making suggestions, we are tempted to just tell the author what to do to make the story better—or, at least, make it better to us. And that is the one thing we must not do.
Turn the Page
By Amanda Fink @_cecilia_mae_
Authors and editors of children’s and young adult books have an important job: not only do they need to resonate with adult readers, but they also need to connect with young readers. As editors, we need to help authors find the “turn the page” moments within their manuscripts—the moments that completely grab the reader and make it impossible for them to put the book down. These moments make a book compulsively readable. Regardless of the genre, we need to tease out these moments in every book that we edit.