Introduction
The way you tell your story can make all the difference.
You’ve done the hard work of crafting a story your audience will love. You’ve put your manuscript through rounds of developmental editing and revising, focusing on things like the plot, setting, and character arc.
So why is it still falling a little flat? Maybe your prose isn’t having the intended impact for any number of reasons, such as:
dialogue that doesn’t serve the story
weak wording
convoluted sentences that pull the reader out of the scene
or any number of pacing problems.
The goal of good writing is to get and keep readers immersed in the story. If they are pulled out of a scene, they are likely to put the book down, which is the last thing we want. (What if they never pick it back up?)
Line editing is the level of editing that takes a strategic looks at common culprits that break immersion for readers.
Scroll through the chapter headings to see what we’ll be working on in this self-paced online course. Each lesson comes with action steps for you to apply to your own manuscript.
Who is this course for?
This is a foundational line editing course designed for writers who want to acquire or brush up on the skills needed for crafting prose that grabs readers and keeps them engaged.
Read through the chapter titles to get a sense of what is covered.
Visit the Frequently Asked Questions at the bottom of the Course Overview page to learn more.
But can’t AI edit my manuscript for free?
Not like you think it can. There are different kinds of hidden costs in using AI to edit your work.
The free versions of AI editors often hide some of their editing suggestions in hopes you’ll purchase a subscription to see all the results.
All of the different AI tools have been shown to be less reliable than a human at editing, giving inconsistent and sometimes downright incorrect suggestions.
Is your story still your own if you upload it into a free version of AI, or have you just fed it to the LLM? Are you sure your manuscript is safe from being scraped even in the paid versions?
Do you want to trust a machine to make decisions about your story when that machine doesn’t know your intent and goals for your story? Or do you want to learn the skills of impactful writing so you can discern good editing advice from bad—editing advice that stays true to your intentions and voice?
AI tools are trained to edit to a specific standard. This means the voice of an AI-edited piece of writing no longer sounds like the author, but like all the other pieces of writing being spit out by AI.
Many readers (including agents and publishers) recognize the signs and voice of AI. Most of those readers will stop reading at the first whiff of AI use and some will be vocal about their suspicions, costing authors credibility and sales.
AI is a machine with no feelings. It can tell you there should be emotional moments built into your story, but it isn’t able to tell you if you crafted those moments in a way that makes them impactful to the reader. What does it cost you if your readers don’t connect with your story/protagonist?
Copyright laws are still being written, but early precedents have been set disallowing works that have been largely crafted (heavily edited) by AI to be copyrighted.
Thinking in terms of a different kind of cost, AI is gobbling up staggering amounts of electricity and water each year and stamping out a concerning carbon footprint in the process.