All coaching strives to teach specific aspects of an art and elevate the apprentice. Novel coaching is no different. It provides a unique and highly individualized approach to your particular needs as a writer. Novel coaching is designed to help you achieve your writing goals by helping you organize your thoughts and ideas into a coherent, logical format that will then help you plan and write in a constructive and focused way.

Unlike with editing (which happens after you have written and self-edited your novel), coaching often happens while the writing is still in progress or before it’s even begun. If you have lots of ideas, but a hard time putting them on paper, coaching may be for you.

Coaching may also be for you if you are ready to:

• Learn how to make your writing goals a reality
• Push the boundaries of your craft
• Explore different styles and techniques
• Empower your writing life
• Immerse yourself in the writing world

I have many one-on-one coaching options available and I also offer group coaching packages.

One-on-One

This type of coaching is just you, the author, with a writing project or idea, and me, the coach, helping to identify your strengths and build your skills where necessary.

One-on-one coaching can be a super flexible service. It can be just about whatever you need it to be. My goal as a coach is to help you write a novel, to empower you, and to provide you with the tools you’ll need to actually get that idea on paper.

It can be difficult to know what sort of support you need, which is why I have created multiple coaching packages. In my experience, there are a few specific areas where I see authors needing or wanting some extra support, so those are the areas I have created my coaching packages around. Even within these pre-set packages there is plenty of flexibility. Every author has a different approach to writing and one-on-one coaching strives to accommodate whatever style or approach you take.

Group Coaching

This is one of my favourite groups and one of my favourite services.

Unsurprisingly, group coaching involves a group! The meetings include myself and up to five authors rather than just the two of us. That may sound scary, but I promise you this group is a thing of beauty. It’s the meeting of many creative minds with a common goal: to harness the power of positive peer pressure.

This group is for people with a decent grasp of what they want their story to be but are struggling to execute their ideas. It’s less about bouncing story ideas around and more about getting you to sit down and actually write the damn thing (whatever it may be).

Unlike with one-on-one coaching, group coaching has a fairly rigid structure that involves goal setting on a bi-weekly basis.

Group coaching is a good place to start because it is cheaper than one-on-one coaching, you’ll get to crowd source different approaches to overcoming your writing hurdles, and you get to experience the joy of being part of a close-knit writing community.

Novel coaching, whether you prefer a one-on-one or group setting, is a great way to make progress on your writing dreams. If you have any questions about coaching in general, drop them in the comments. If you think you’d like to try coaching, get in touch with me directly to set up your free 30-minute consult call.

The post Is Novel Coaching Right for You? appeared first on Clovis Editorial.

Unlike with manuscript critiques vs. substantive edits, copy editing and proofreading are very different from one another. As such, it is important to understand what each type of edit entails so you know you’re asking for the right thing.

Copy Editing

Copy editing is what most people think of when they think of editing. It happens before proofreading (but after substantive and stylistic editing). Copy editing deals with the following issues:

• Correctness – correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been used.
• Consistency – the style is consistent throughout the manuscript. Treatment of capitalization, expression of numbers, abbreviations, headings, captions, etc. remains the same throughout the manuscript.
• Accuracy – query areas of questionable accuracy or corrects as necessary.
• Completeness – identify plot holes and query the author when necessary.

At this stage of the editing process, large changes such as rewriting paragraphs and the addition or deletion of scenes should have already been dealt with. Copy editing is more focused on catching sentence level issues, but if a bigger issue has slipped through, it can still be addressed at this stage.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the last stage of editing before publication. The proofreader checks the manuscript after it has been typeset (laid out in its final format).

Proofreading looks for errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation which the copy editor has missed. It also has a heavy focus on addressing layout issues.

Some layout issues dealt with during a proofread:

• Images – ensure they are appropriate, they match the text, they are near the text which refers to them, the entire image is visible
• Table of Contents – ensure page numbers listed in the table of contents are accurate
• Headings – ensure headings of the same level are in the same style
• Text – ensure uniform text alignment (justified, flush left/right, first line of paragraphs indented the same depth etc.)
  • address visual distractions arising from spacing between words and lines
  • address any first and last lines separated from their paragraphs

As you can see, proofreading has a very different focus. The majority of the issues dealt with in proofreading do not appear in the copy editing stage because the manuscript hasn’t yet been formatted.

Please leave any questions about the differences between copy editing and proofreading in the comments.

The post The Difference Between Copy Editing and Proofreading appeared first on Clovis Editorial.

The way my services are structured both a manuscript critique and a substantive edit cover the following storytelling elements: plot, structure, characterization, theme, point of view, pacing, timeline, narrative techniques, language, and readership.

You may be wondering, if they cover the same topics, what makes them different? Imagine them as nesting dolls. A manuscript critique is nestled inside a substantive edit.

In both cases, you will receive an editorial report analyzing the big picture stuff mentioned above. But in a substantive edit, you’ll get the editorial report plus notes and edits in the manuscript pages.

What does that mean? Well, while a manuscript critique provides you with a report which points out an issue, explains why it is an issue, and suggests ways to fix the issue, a substantive edit does all of that and flags occurrences of that issue in the actual manuscript.

Simple as that.

Which Service Should You Choose?

So, how do you decide which service is for you? It comes down to your style of learning and your budget. A manuscript critique is the cheaper option because it requires less work (flagging issues in the manuscript and making more specific suggestions is time-consuming). A manuscript critique also requires you to apply story craft theories that you may have only just learned to your own writing. This can be difficult because being so close to your story makes some of these issues very tricky to spot.

Some people need or want lots of examples. In this case, a substantive edit is the way to go. Not only will you learn some important writing craft theories, but you’ll see in your own manuscript your strengths and weaknesses.

If you’re still unclear on the difference or want more information, please let me know in the comments.

The post Substantive Edit or Manuscript Critique appeared first on Clovis Editorial.