Editing Lessons Introduction

Your fanfic masterpiece is finally finished. See you just typed The End. Now it's ready for everyone out there in Internet-land to read!

Hit save and sit on those eager hands. Remember the list of important lessons I gave you back in the Writing Tutorial Introduction? Especially #5: Never submit or post a first draft ANYWHERE! Including the 'Net. What you just finished is the first draft. You need at least two more drafts before submitting or posting. So we're moving into Important Lesson #6: You WILL write more than one draft.

Please don't cry. You finished the first draft, go celebrate. Go out and eat, go reintroduce yourself to your family, basically find your life again. Enjoy the high. Readers have this annoying habit of dismissing the misspelt, the ungrammatical, and the illogical. So isn’t it better to weed those out of your story first before showing it off? It’s just like making sure your hair is combed and your clothes match before leaving home.

In this section, we will cover techniques to polish your story before letting it leave its home on your computer for the wilds of the Internet.