How to Edit Your Manuscript (2026)
We are really looking forward to welcoming you to ‘How to Edit Your Manuscript’. Over six weeks, you'll work with editor and mentor Alex Hammond to develop your self-editing skills across all the key areas: structuring and pacing, tension and dialogue.
All writing is rewriting. This editing course will develop your ability to reflect critically on your own creative work, to take what you’ve put together and refine it into a story that can reach out and grab readers; give them memorable characters; break their hearts; melt their hearts; make them angry or happy; keep them on the edge of their seats or at the very least, keep them turning pages; in short, taking what you are making them read and turning it into making them feel.
Over six weeks, you'll work with editor and mentor Alex Hammond to develop your self-editing skills across all the key areas: structuring and pacing, tension and dialogue. During class, Alex will introduce key editorial tools and help you apply them to your work, encourage discussion and create space for workshopping and feedback. Between each session you'll be able to watch a pre-recorded video which will drill down into some of the essential need-to-knows about editing. You'll also have the chance to hear from a literary agent and ask them questions about what they are looking for in a manuscript, and the submissions process.
By the end of the course you can expect to have a solid understanding of self-editing that focuses on the key elements of storytelling, a working synopsis of your manuscript and the first ten pages of a redraft that can be worked on in your own time after the course.
As well as in-class workshopping, during the course you will also be invited to have a 30 minute one to one with Alex where he will answer your questions, and delve into your manuscript and the specifics of editing your work.
Please note, this course will be best suited to you if you have an early draft of your manuscript ready by the beginning of the course.
Course Benefits
- You'll benefit from a small class size, of no more than 20 people, to ensure everyone's work receives time and attention.
- You'll receive expert advice for an experienced editor and tutor
- Practical sessions will arm you with the tools you need to edit your own manuscript, and ready it for submission
- During workshops you'll receive feedback on your work from your tutor and writing peers
- During a one-to-one with Alex, you will get bespoke feedback and advice specific to your project
- You'll get to ask your questions of a literary agent
- Course materials will be made available to you, including pre-recorded slides and catch-up video recordings- Discounts on W&A Products including editing services and books
- A copy of the Writers & Artists Yearbook, which is full of advice articles, and agent and publisher listings
Course Outline
Week One:
This week we will start with an Introduction to Self Editing, and finding The Story in your story, looking at pitch, genre, market/ audience. The first half of the class will be based on a market research task we’ll ask you to do before starting: where on the shelves in (eg) Waterstones would your book sit? What titles are next to it? We’ll then look at the blurb and opening page of each of them and discuss genre expectations. During the second half of the class we will go through the Five Finger Pitch, what it is and how to use it. You'll be asked to come up with your own, for your own story. The purpose is to help you solidify your understanding of what it is you’re selling.
Week Two:
This week we will be focusing on structure. All editing issues are subordinate to Structure – if that doesn’t work, nothing else you fix will work until it does. It’s therefore far more efficient to check the structure and give it a shake before embarking on any other kind of rewrite. There are two tools we’ll be going through for this – the first will be a discussion of the Three Act Graph (i.e., How Story Works, with a short (brilliant) video from YouTube of Kurt Vonnegut talking about the Shape of Stories. Alex will then introduce you to the 8 Paragraph Synopsis, and everyone will be required to write one. Not one that’s perfect – a sentence for each paragraph that will give a broad sketch of their story structure. You will be finishing a full 8 Paragraph Synopsis for homework.
Week Three:
Pace and Tension. During the first half of the class, Alex will give feedback on your 8 paragraph synopses. We’ll then go through Pace and Tension (because this is always where the work needs to happen – everything is happening Structurally in the right place, but there isn’t enough at Stake), and we’ll be refining the 8 paragraph synopses in this light. This will then bring us into Character, and homework will be for everyone to complete a Character Sheet for every Character named in the 8 Paragraph Synopsis.
Week Four:
Character and Dialogue. We’ll go through the character sheets in the first half of the class, and in the second half of the class we will workshop two pages of dialogue from each student, discussing what’s working and what isn’t, and why. The dialogue has to have at least one character named in the character sheet. After this, you will be refining your first ten pages and synopsis through a workshop process for the final two weeks.
Week Five:
Show, Don’t Tell. We'll discuss how to apply the rules of show, don't tell to your writing and when to bend them, and Alex will share a short guide with you. He'll also offer top tips for making your writing more crisp using this technique. This will be followed by workshopping for the remainder of the session.
Week Six:
During this session you will be doing a final workshop, as well as reflecting on your own strengths as an editor, and areas to keep focusing on. You'll be asked to think about your editorial process following this course, and map out how you will be applying what you have learnt to your work in progress.
The key details of the course are below, as well as the link you’ll need to join each session.
When: Monday 9th February - Monday 16th March, 7:00pm-8:30pm, Online (UK Time)
Where: Online
Joining Link: How to Edit Your Manuscript | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams
PREPARATION
Please send Alex a rough synopsis and a couple of pages from the start of your manuscript to look at in advance. The synopsis should be about a page and cover all the key points that take place in your manuscript, including the end. His email address is: [email protected]
The deadline to send this to Alex is 6th February.
Ahead of most sessions, Alex will share a pre-recorded video of up to 45 minutes for you to watch. You’ll be able to ask any questions you have about the video content during the session but do make time to do some watching between sessions.
SLACK
We will be using Slack during the course, which is a free, easy-to-use platform that enables everything related to the course to be stored in one place. Please click on the below link to gain access to the Slack workspace that we’ve created for this course:
https://join.slack.com/t/howtoedityour-dmc6241/shared_invite/zt-3o0r7gflg-E9t3FMtfnJPRNjd3JYvWtw
When you arrive in Slack you’ll see the workspace is called ‘How to Edit Your Manuscript’, with several channels within that workspace. A quick bit of guidance on how these different channels will work:
- Course Etiquette: We’ve put together some course etiquette guidelines. Please have a read and comment to confirm that you’ve seen them.
- General: This is a general discussion board. Alex, James and myself will all have access but it’s mainly a space for you guys to chat amongst yourselves, discuss, share advice and book recommendations! A great way to start would be to introduce yourselves, share info about your writing journey so far and let the rest of the group know what you’re working on and why you’re here.
- How to Edit Your Manuscript: We will be sharing the homework, recordings and pre-session videos in here each week.
Everyone involved in the course will have access to all channels by default. It’s therefore important to make Slack work for you, so please take a bit of time to manage your notifications. You can do this by right-clicking on the channel and then selecting ‘Change notifications’.
Myself and James will also be available via email so if you’d prefer to reach out to us via email then please do get in touch.
Finally, as part of your course fee you receive a complimentary copy of the Writers & Artists Yearbook, which is full of advice articles, and agent and publisher listings. Please do send us your address when you can so we can get that in the post to you!
