Effective Editing

How to Take Your Writing to the Next Level

De: Molly McCowan, The Great Courses

Narrado por: Professor Molly McCowan

Editing your own work is difficult, but it’s a crucial skill to master if you want to be a successful writer. After all, writing goes far beyond simply creating a rough draft - it’s how the work evolves from a rough draft to a finished piece that separates the good from the great. And as anyone who’s tried their hand at revising a novel or memoir can tell you, it’s all too easy to become mired in the details rather than see the bigger picture, merely focusing on the trees and forgetting the forest, until it grows unwieldy and overwhelming.

The tendency during the revision process to focus on the “little picture” versus the “big picture” can be overcome with the right tools and perspective. This is where Effective Editing: How to Take Your Writing to the Next Level comes in. Book coach and editor Molly McCowan takes you through the self-editing process in 13 detailed lessons, using a step-by-step method designed to reduce overwhelm and to structure the revision process in the most productive way possible. Working from the big to the little picture of your work, Molly shows you how to strengthen character development, find and fix plot holes, build stronger scenes, focus on smooth pacing and point-of-view issues, elevate your language, and much more.

The focus of this course is for you to improve your narrative writing skills, including fiction and nonfiction, such as memoir, autobiography, biography, and personal essays. Molly’s tips and tools throughout the course can help any writer edit their own work with skill and confidence.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 The Great Courses (P)2021 The Teaching Company, LLC

Loved it.

As a writer, I found this very helpful. I especially appreciated the tidbits on why still hiring a professional and the end is needed. This is one of those essential listens that you will go back over again to glean more.

Listen, listen and listen again

Invaluable advice, structured in a manner accessible for armatures and aspiring professionals. Fantastic course. Has gotten me to the stage of submitting a trilogy to literary agents and I’m feeling quietly confident having followed this step by step guide.
Thank you for that great piece of work.

Short, sweet, to the point

Succinct, useful, practical info that could be beneficial to any type of writing. Definitely recognized some areas where I could improve my own. Included pdf is a great resource as well!!

Practical thought on comprehensive edit practice

Listened several times. Best to first absorb the lessons in contemplation and then return to listen while in actual practice. Effective Editing's nuanced teaching is particularly accommodating of learning in this way.

Thank you

Thanks for clear actionable items. I was putting in daily effort and could not really place how to organize all the little things I noticed. This is a huge help.