Wayfarer's Lamppost Book Club • Vol. 6 • 2024

Option Three • Light Editing

This option consists of your partner pointing out punctuation and grammar errors, providing some developmental and line edits, and generally scrutinizing your manuscript for consistency and readability. Due to the nature of editing, Comment Topic questions will not be part of the requirements.

*Remember, most members are not certified editors, but they will do their best.*

Partners should discuss in advance which 5 items below they want their partner to focus on when doing a light edit.

Editors will be expected to perform the following:

Copyediting (only point out the most-egregious errors):

1. Point out grammar/mechanics rules that are frequently violated in an in-line comment giving an example of the error, stating the rule, and showing the correction. Example:

Text: "I have a bad feeling about this" Anakin said. [where you would put the in-line comment]

You need to put a comma before the ending quotation mark when it is followed by a dialogue tag.

*"I have a bad feeling about this," Anakin said.

(We pre-screen every book, so grammar/mechanics errors should not be the primary focus of your edit.)

2. Flag passive and weak constructions:

"The ball was thrown by Luke" becomes "Luke threw the ball."

3. Mark tense issues.

4. Indicate head-hopping from POV character.

Line Editing:

5. Focus on what is being said in the entire paragraph and comment if wording could be clearer or if emotions can be tapped.

6. Check for infodumps or lack of description. Give suggestions on improvements.

7. Watch dialogue tags and help with either showing them where they can be eliminated altogether or changed to action tags (which are much stronger).

8. Identify unnatural dialogue.

9. Indicate when you are confused at any time or losing interest.

10. Provide suggestions for improving vocabulary, especially if certain words are used repetitively.

11. Check for conciseness and consistency.

As you read each paragraph, answer these questions. Comment on at least one issue for each paragraph:

• Is this paragraph (or sentence) too long or too short?

Wattpad norms for paragraphs are 100–150 words unless shorter for effect. Anything longer than 150 words can appear as The Great Wall of Text on a small mobile device.]

Complex sentences should be the norm. Short, simple sentences are great for action sequences. Too many compound sentences can become monotonous. Compound-complex sentences should be avoided at all costs.

• What was the author trying to say here?

• Can I easily substitute one word for the two or three the author used here?

• Does this word really mean what the writer think it means?

• Does this paragraph (or sentence) match the author's voice?

• Which words are being used too much?

• Is anything redundant?

• Can the -ly adverbs be removed without changing the meaning of the sentences?

• Can the dead-weight words be removed? [actually, almost, am/is/was /were +ing (change to simple past tense), believe, down, currently, feel, had, in order to, just, of (when following another preposition], observe, only, really, start, suddenly, that, think, try, up, watch ]

• Can compound constructions be reduced to single constructions? (The black and dark coal streaked filth on the crate. --> The black coal streaked filth on the crate.—Usually one modifier or action is enough for the reader to follow.)

Feel free to DM SapphireAlena or AmericanBruja with any questions you may have.