👩🎓 Course done and dusted.
I really feel this CIEP fiction course has supercharged the next steps of my career development.
I will probably still call myself a proofreader. This is the most common subject line for indie authors contacting me. And some people do want a proofread, as in the final spit and polish, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s — gosh, I hate those apostrophes even though that is the way this expression is styled — and I have been through all of the training to do the thing technically known as proofreading.
But.
I am more of an editor. It’s a more comfortable home for me.
And when indie authors contact me asking for a proofread, often when we get to the nub of the matter, they want more to be done at sentence level. They want interventions to improve their prose.
They want an edit.
This was my second copyediting course.
I undertook a more general one initially, and then this one was specific to fiction.
Of all the training I’ve done, this is the one that has sat best with me.
It confirmed to me that what I’ve been doing when working with authors on an edit (or proof-edit) has been right.
I was comfortable with all of the components of the course:
- Story vs plot
- Author’s voice and style
- Points of view
- Dialogue
- Consistency
Much of it was what I was doing already. But I’d definitely say this course has refined and levelled-up some of the services that I can offer to authors.
For example, that’s why I announced my new manuscript critique service. It’s something I’ve learnt to do in this training and something I’m going to trial with a few guinea pig author friends over the next couple of months before it becomes an addition to my suite of services around Easter time.
I’ve also been trained to write synopses and blurbs. I’m letting those ones settle for a while as I think there’s an element of copywriting required to excel at those skills but I am happy to share what I’ve learnt with authors who have already drafted theirs and want a second opinion.
So, this is all good.
Adding new strings to my bow.
🎻
What next?
I’ll be planning next year’s CPD in the new year.
I have a few ideas which I’ll mull over with oranges and cloves during the festive season.
But that’s a wrap on CPD 2021.
CherryEdits 