I am very excited this week to share a blog post on the ALLi blog! The post is all about what authors can learn from professional editors in their own self-editing practice. Some of the information in that article is so important for authors to know that I’d also like to share some of it here on my own blog. I’m also particularly proud of the infographic I made for the article, and I’d like it to exist on my website too. If you want to read the full article, click here. If you’re just looking for a quick overview of central editing principles that authors can use in their own self-editing practice, then keep reading here:

If I could only tell authors one thing about editing, it would be this. Editing the story will change the sentences, but editing the sentences won’t change the story. That’s why you should edit the story first and the sentences second.

That is, in a nutshell, why different types of editing exist. It’s also why the order of professional editing (and self-editing) is so important. Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. What is the difference between editing the story and editing the sentences? Stories are made of sentences, so wouldn’t all edits involve both the story and the sentences? This nutshell concept could do with some more nuance, and here’s where things get more complicated.

All edits exist on a spectrum, with broad story-level edits on one end and specific sentence-level edits on the other. In other words, editing tasks won’t always fit neatly into a binary category. Some editing tasks are more broad or specific than others. Others yet are hard to place strictly in the story-level or sentence-level categories. Remember that it’s best to approach all writing advice as a flexible tool rather than a restricting box. If you treat this spectrum as a flexible tool, then these categories can really help you organise the huge and nebulous task of editing.

So, let’s list some core elements of the writing craft and see where they would all fit on the editing spectrum.