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Q&A How do we edit a novel that's written by several people?

The first step is to work out some style guidelines among yourselves. Agree on what style you want the finished product to follow. Because this is a project among friends rather than, say, a corp...

posted 6y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:07:37Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42932
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T11:07:37Z (about 5 years ago)
The first step is to work out some style guidelines among yourselves. Agree on what style you want the finished product to follow. Because this is a project among friends rather than, say, a corporate publication, you'll probably end up including aspects of each writer's style while moving the whole thing toward a compromise center.

Once you agree on what the style rules are, _don't_ each go revise your own contributions. Even with good intent, you're naturally going to favor your own style because you're so used to it. You'll miss things. Instead, revise _each others'_ parts. You might need to do this more than once. When you think you've mostly converged, look for a beta reader from _outside_ your group and see what that person notices.

My documentation team has used peer editing to good effect. We already have a thorough style guide and everybody _intends_ to follow it, but there's drift. We get better results when a second person makes a pass through the work.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-03-03T22:14:04Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 13