Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

I am about to start my advanced editing course in second semester and a
crucial part of that is a major project. I want to do some fiction editing
for my major work, and so I am putting a call out for spec-fic novellas up to
50,000 words. I am not allowed to do my own writing, of course.

I am looking for something that appeals to me that would benefit from
editing, including structural editing, copy editing and then proofreading.
For instance, if it is too good then I can’t be of help and conversely if it
is really rough then it’s not ready. So I’m looking for something in the
middle of that.

I have had previous experience in editing, but this does not count for the
course unfortunately. I have assisted in editing Elsewhere, by CSFG
Publishing, I co-edited Encounters with Maxine McArthur by CSFG Publishing
and I edited The Grinding House by Kaaron Warren, also by CSFG Publishing. I
also edited Kered’s Crown by Kaaren Sutcliffe and published it with my
imprint and Johnny Phillips Werewolf Detective, short story collection by
Robbie Matthews, which earned an Aurealis nomination.

What I intend to do is look at the submissions and then choose a project to
work on. I would choose this on the basis of interest, the level of
challenge to me as an editor, and whether I think that an edit would improve
the work. As I said this is for my major work assessment, so all edits,
comments, emails between me and the author are to be submitted as evidence
of the project. I did have an offer of a novel from Maxine McArthur, but it
is rather well written and long (150,000) and I think that maybe I would not
be able to use my editor mojo (but thanks so much Maxine). I am still up for
being her beta reader though.

The process

What I would do for the chosen novella is do a read through and provide any
structural and other major commentary in an email to the author.

The author would then need to respond to that either through discussion or
through changes to the MS.

Then I would proceed to a copy edit, which is the nit picky part, which is
the grammar, spelling and picking up any consistency errors that have not
been addressed previously. I would also develop a style guide and this would
be used to ensure consistency in things like leaped versus leapt, no one
versus no-one or noone.

These would then be sent back to the author for taking up editorial changes.

Then after that is done , I would do a proofread and probably do a layout,
with the preliminary pages, copyright information etc, as if it was going to be
published. (proofreading is not my best skill…)

If you are interested please submit your novella to
donnamareehanson@gmail.com

Initially, I will open the submission until 29 June, unless I get so many I
have to call a halt. Or get none and have to go begging.

The chosen submitter gets to work on their novella with some input from a
trainee editor (me). I can’t guarantee you’ll get published at the end of it
but hopefully the novella will have benefited from the exercise and maybe
the author would too.

The chosen submitter would need to be able to commit to working on the edits
over the next 3-4 mouths. I get no marks for trying. I have to deliver the
end product.

By the way I love editing fiction. You are saving me from non-fiction if you
help me out.