The manuscript landed in my inbox on a Tuesday morning, nearly eleven years ago.

It was my first freelance editing project—a historical fiction set in pre-independence Bombay. The author had been working on it for three years. He’d hired me because he had seen me listed as an editor on an ‘author’s resources’ website.

I spent two weeks meticulously correcting his sentences. Fixed subject-verb agreement. Eliminated passive voice. Tightened paragraphs. Restructured sentences and rewrote a bunch of them. I felt proud. It was clean and read so much better.

But I was also shaky. It wasn’t my first project technically but it was the first one I had taken from someone unknown to me. One for which I was charging real money. Though today when I recall the size of my fee, I squirm. It was abysmally low. However, I was delighted I was actually getting paid.

Before I sent the manuscript back to the client, I decided to read it one last time. That’s when I ‘saw’ the story.

I found the 10th chapter veering off topic, diluting the ongoing conflict. The protagonist’s backstory was dumped in the first chapter—from her infancy to her current moment where she was 32-years-old. Oh, it was excruciating. As for the climax, there wasn’t one that was worth being called a climax.

I’d edited his language, not his story. That moment changed everything. It made me realize how much more there was to fiction editing that just grammar and punctuation. Just between you and me, I asked myself how I had imagined I could ever be an editor.  “Danced on my remains with hob-nailed boots,’ as THE Plum put it, just about covered it.

I panicked. I couldn’t send the manuscript to the client until I addressed these issues. I called him and begged for an extension. He agreed and to my surprise, didn’t ask me why.

The Education Nobody Teaches You

Here’s what they don’t tell you about becoming an editor: your English language skills prepare you for about 10% of the job.

I enrolled for a bunch of excellent online courses, purchased nearly a dozen books which got deep into the craft and devoured them as if the devil were after me.

Books on story structure. Save the Cat. Story Grid. The Anatomy of Story. Bird by Bird. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. Techniques of the Selling Writer. I devoured craft books the way some people binge Netflix shows.

My only talent is that I am quick on the uptake. Nor did I disappoint myself this time.

In two weeks, I learned how to break a story down into its constituent parts. Polishing each part and putting them back again took me two weeks more. At least, I knew the basics.

That learning continues to this day—because the way we tell stories is also evolving. Some things that worked a decade ago, wouldn’t work today.

With experience, comes depth and understanding. Somewhere along the way I also had to learn never to fix what isn’t broken.

I learned the skills but reading about editing isn’t the same as doing editing.

So I started taking on more projects. Slowly. Carefully. I edited romance novels, thrillers, literary fiction, memoirs, short story collections. I worked with debut authors and seasoned writers. I edited manuscripts that went on to win awards—and manuscripts that never got published despite being beautifully written.

And with every single project, I learned something new about what makes stories work.

I learned that a grammatically perfect sentence can still be boring. That technically correct dialogue can sound completely unnatural. That a plot with no holes can still feel emotionally flat.

I learned to ask different questions:

  • Not “Is this sentence correct?” but “Is this sentence doing the work it needs to do?”
  • Not “Is the grammar clean?” but “Does this scene have a clear purpose?”
  • Not “Are there typos?” but “Will the reader care what happens next?”

The Patterns You Only See After Hundreds of Manuscripts

After a decade and more manuscripts than I can count, you start seeing patterns.

Pattern #1: Most Writers Overthink the Wrong Things

I’ve seen authors spend months agonizing over whether to use “said” or “whispered” in dialogue tags, while completely missing that their protagonist has no clear goal driving the story forward. Btw, unpopular opinion, but please stick to ‘he/she said and he/she asked’… every time. The tags fade into the background and readers don’t need to pay attention to them. Let your dialogue ‘show’ the whispering.

They worry about adverbs when they should be worrying about stakes.

They obsess over word choice when the real problem is that chapter four has no conflict.

Pattern #2: The “Slow Middle” Has a Structural Cause

Almost every manuscript I’ve edited has had a saggy middle. And almost every time, it’s not because the writing is weak—it’s because the author didn’t know what the midpoint of their story was supposed to accomplish.

They wrote beautiful scenes that don’t escalate anything. They added subplots that don’t connect to the main arc. They filled space instead of building tension.

Once you understand structure, you can diagnose a slow middle in ten minutes. But most writers spend months rewriting those chapters without ever identifying the real problem.

Pattern #3: Character Arcs Break in Predictable Places

There are three spots where character arcs typically fall apart:

  1. The protagonist’s desire isn’t clear in the first act
  2. The middle doesn’t show enough change (just more of the same challenges)
  3. The climax doesn’t force a real choice (the character just reacts to events)

I’ve seen this pattern in literary fiction, romance, thrillers, fantasy—across every genre. And once you know what to look for, you can fix it.

Pattern #4: Voice Gets Lost in Revision

Here’s the heartbreaking one: authors who start with a raw, authentic voice in their first draft, then edit it into bland, “correct” prose.

They’ve been told to eliminate filter words, cut adverbs, avoid passive voice—and they apply these rules so rigidly that their unique voice disappears.

I’ve learned that good editing isn’t about following rules. It’s about knowing when to break them to preserve what makes a story sing.

What Editing Multiple Genres Taught Me

For years, I edited across genres—sometimes a literary family saga on Monday, a romantic comedy on Wednesday, and a crime thriller on Friday.

This taught me something crucial: story principles are universal, but each genre has its own grammar.

A romance reader expects certain emotional beats. A thriller reader expects escalating tension in specific ways. Literary fiction plays with structure differently than commercial fiction.

But underneath all of that? The same fundamentals apply:

  • Character wants something
  • Obstacles get in the way
  • Stakes escalate
  • Character changes (or refuses to change, which is also a choice)
  • The ending delivers on the promise of the beginning

Learning to edit across genres made me a better editor for every genre. Because I wasn’t just applying templates—I was understanding why stories work.

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Next in this series: The mistakes I made in my editing journey (so you don’t have to), and why I’m teaching what I’ve learned.

Want to learn more about story-focused editing? Join The Write Place community where we discuss craft, structure, and what really makes stories work.

Mother of three adult humans. An idealistic, outspoken woman of scrupulous integrity, in love with words. A storyteller who enjoys crocheting tales. And a passionate bibliophile, of course.