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You write “the end” on the last page of your first draft. Whether you are a pantser or a plotter, it’s a moment to celebrate. Balloons and confetti! You did it! And then, reality’s sharp elbow nudges you in the ribs. Now what? How do you move on to the second, third, fourth draft?

The key to self-editing is to create some distance between you and your precious words. You need to see your work as an agent, editor, or ideal reader will—with a cool objective eye. Where are the plot gaps? Where will a reader escape your story’s gravity, and maybe never return? Are you showing and not telling? Isn’t there a need for telling, too? Is this character flat? Or too inflated? How do you know?

In this 2-hour workshop, Nora will share the principles she draws on again and again in her editing work, teaching you to add, subtract, rewrite, and to give you the answers to the question, now what?

Nora Gaskin has more than a decade’s experience working as a developmental editor. She is also a fiction writer who applies what she has learned from editing to her own writing. She knows the self-editing formula works because she applies it to her own manuscripts and sees them get better. Nora is a lifelong resident of the Durham-Chapel Hill area. She has a bachelor’s degree in English with Honors in Creative Writing from UNC, and a Masters in English from the University of Washington in Seattle. She spent more than 24 years as a stockbroker and financial advisor with a major investment firm, working in the Durham office. She retired in 2005 to focus on writing. She is the author of two novels, Until Proven and The Worst Thing, as well the non-fiction book, Time of Death. Her third novel, Lammy Loves Cubby, will appear in 2025. She has worked as a developmental editor since 2013, and her small non-traditional publishing company, Lystra Books, has published more than forty books.