It’s just fic. It’s supposed to be fun.
I don’t want to follow all those stupid rules.
I’m doing this for free, so no one should expect me to be perfect.
I’ve heard all of these objections to notion of self-editing fic, and I’ll bet you have too.
And it’s all true.
Writing fic is supposed to be fun and subversive, and no one should expect perfection from any writer, much less one who’s doing it for love rather than money, but getting the basics right is still important.
It’s about respect, folks. Respect for readers, who have chosen to spend their precious time reading your fic out of the zillions of others on AO3 or FFN or Wattpad. And respect for the craft of writing, which is rapidly being siphoned away by things like AI slop and the increasing commercialization of fiction. And, I think, it’s about respecting the source material, the love of which is (presumably) what prompted you to pick up your quill in the first place.
While writing fic isn’t about being showered in adulation, it is nice when readers appreciate your story. Technical perfection on its own isn’t enough to bewitch readers’ minds and ensnare their senses, but terrible spelling and grammar and wild inconsistencies in style will certainly turn some readers off, no matter how brilliant your plotting and characterization is. And that would be a shame.
I guarantee that self-editing your work will not only improve the story you’re working on, it will make your next story better from the get-go.
The next time you take up your quill or sit down at your keyboard, your writerly senses will be more attuned to the things you had to fix the last time around. The more self-editing you do, the more confident you’ll grow about your work, and the more joyful your experience of writing will be. You may get faster at it; you will certainly get better.
Although it’s becoming more widely accepted, fanfic is still stigmatized in the media and in literary circles. While I have mixed feelings about fic going mainstream, and I certainly don’t want it to become more commercialized, it would be nice if it could shed some of its reputation (both earned and unearned) for bad writing.
The stigmatization of fic and other fanworks matters because fandom spaces are among the few outlets where underrepresented folks can read, view, and create works that reflect their experiences.
When you post fic that is polished to the best of your ability, you’re doing your bit to raise the reputation of fanworks in general.
Doesn’t that feel good?
If you’re a fic writer, I’m guessing you don’t have the luxury of spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on professional editing (if you do, I’m just an email away), but you can do some self-editing to make sure your work is as polished as it can be.
As I noted in my previous post on copyediting problems in fic, pro fic generally goes through at least four types of editing:
Developmental editing, (sometimes also called substantive or structural editing) looks at the big-picture elements of storytelling—the major issues that affect how your fic works as a story. These include:
You can think of these elements as the engine of a car; they’re what make your story go. You need a lot more than an engine to make a car drivable, but without it, you’re going nowhere.
Line editing (sometimes called content or stylistic editing) looks at how the author uses language to tell a story, with the goal of making the story more vibrant, helping it to “pop off” the page. This is about the style of your story. It can include:
In the car analogy, it’s like the design of the body and interior. If it isn’t right, the car might still go, but no one will want to drive it because it’s ugly and uncomfortable.
Copyediting is a mechanical review of a story to make sure it follows general guidelines for good communication. A copy editor looks for things that can affect a reader’s comprehension of a story, including:
On our car, this would be like making sure the door locks, windshield wipers, and turn signals, etc., work. A car might be drivable without these things, but it will be annoying as hell and possibly dangerous.
Proofreading is the final step to ensure everything is correct before you publish your story. A proofreader will check the formatted story for:
This is the final check after the car comes off the assembly line but before it’s sent to the dealership for sale to the public.
You can approximate these stages of editing yourself, and it’s a great idea to do it even if you plan to pass your work on to a trusted beta or editor. The better shape a story is in when it gets to a beta, the better the finished product is likely to be once you’ve gotten your beta’s suggestions and incorporated the ones that make sense to you.
In upcoming posts, I’ll give you some suggestions for how to apply these stages of editing to your work.
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