Choose Your Itinerary – Beginner

Developmental Editing for Fiction

Step 1

If you’ve never seen a developmental edit, start with Naked Editing. This is a self-paced class that shows you what a real developmental edit looks like.

Interlude Step

If you know you’d like to pursue developmental editing for fiction as a career, consider applying to the Club Ed Certificate Program in developmental editing. Applying is free, and most of the classes you take at Club Ed will apply towards the certificate requirements.

Step 2: self-paced

Then, take the Essentials of Developmental Editing series (DE 1 – 6), which starts with Foundations of Storytelling for Developmental Editors. You can buy all six classes in one package. This series is self-paced and will set you up for success.

Step 2: Instructor-led

If you prefer to have personal feedback from the instructor as you practice your developmental editing skills, choose Beginning Developmental Editing for Fiction and Intermediate Developmental Editing for Fiction from the on demand catalog. These two classes are the equivalent of DE 1 – 6 and can be scheduled most months (except August and December).

Step 3

Next, dig deeper into the main problem areas you’ll encounter on many manuscripts with these instructor-led classes: Editing for Plot and Story Structure; Editing for Character Development; and Editing for World-Building and Setting. Check the schedule for the next session of each.

Step 4

Then, consider taking these self-paced classes, which dig deeper into common developmental problems. Other self-paced classes can be found here.

Step 5

Next, you’ll want to explore genre with these self-paced classes:

Step 6

Finish with Advanced Developmental Editing for Fiction (check schedule for next session) or take the self-paced Developmental Editing Practicum, in which you do a complete developmental editing on a novel manuscript and receive personal feedback on your work.

Developmental Editing for Nonfiction

Get started learning about developmental editing for nonfiction with these self-paced classes:

And choose other self-paced nonfiction classes here.

Copyediting for Fiction

Check the schedule for the next instructor-led Beginning Copyediting for Fiction class.

Line Editing for Fiction

Check the schedule for the next instructor-led Beginning Line Editing for Fiction.