Novel Editing Courses
How useful are they?
Last year, I wrote a post about novel writing courses so it’s time to follow up with my take on editing courses.
I’ve taken three courses over my five-year novel writing journey and I’ve loved them all for completely different reasons therefore it’s difficult to compare them like I did in my novel writing course post. So I won’t This is because I wanted different things out of each editing course whereas with the Novel Writing courses, I just wanted to learn how to write better. Therefore, I’ll list the courses by the date I took them chronologically
My feedback is based on my experience alone and, I’ll give the PROS and CONS as well as:
A) VALUE FOR MONEY
B) COURSE CONTENT
C) TUTOR INTERACTION
Please note: The prices quoted may or may not be the price I paid at the time.
CURTIS BROWN CREATIVE – REWRITE DOCTOR COURSE (Online, selective entry)
DURATION: HALF DAY
PRICE: £120
DESCRIPTION: This is a half-day selective entry course that I took in early 2023 aimed at writers who’d written a first draft. As far as I remember the half day went like this: we talked about our editing concerns on a live Zoom and were then shown the Rewrite Doctor method. Then we went away to try it and came back and had a Q&A on Zoom afterwards. There was also a section where the tutor discussed our synopses briefly.
PROS: Learning the Rewrite Doctor method is really useful if you're stuck with how to approach your next edit. Plus you have live interaction with the course creator.
CONS: None that I could see.
VALUE FOR MONEY: I thought it was excellent.
TUTOR INTERACTION: Lots. The tutor Anna was amazing at teaching the method, and a surprise perk was that she gave astute feedback on our synopses albeit brief.
COURSE CONTENT: Minimal as it’s a method that’s taught and it also forms part of their longer six-week Editing and pitching course which is why the tutor held back on giving some line editing info because that would cross over into their 6-week editing and pitching course. But in that course, you don’t get a live Zoom with Anna. I used the method for Novel 1.
CONCLUSIONS: This course is about introducing a method – how to approach both your structural and line edits — rather than teaching you how to edit per se. If you don’t know what’s wrong with your chapters, e.g if you can’t identify where you’re structurally going wrong or if your dialogue is crap, it won’t help you as you need to know that. I feel this course is for the more experienced writer or a writer with a natural talent, which is why it’s a selective entry course.
Although I loved it and I used it in 2023 to do my next draft in conjunction with a manuscript assessment report I had paid for, I didn’t use it when tackling my agent’s edits in 2025, which is a shame as I think my Agent’s edits might have taken less time as the Rewrite Doctor method is aimed at cutting down the number of editing drafts you would normally do. But it’s in my toolbox and something I’ll go back to for sure for novel 2 after I’ve done the first draft proper (not the zero draft).
THE NOVELRY – THE BIG EDIT (ONLINE, non-selective entry)
DURATION: 1 YEAR
PRICE: £799 or so
DESCRIPTION: I took this in 2024/5. You have a year to complete this course which involves over 100 lessons on editing and two feedback sessions with an editor — the first at a structural level where they analyse a chapter breakdown of 2k words and 750 word synopsis. The second is when you are ready to submit to agents, and they will review your submission package – around 10K words.
PROS: Excellent tips and lessons which I found incredibly inspiring and motivating. Plus I got very detailed feedback on the query package.
CONS: You’re on your own between the two feedback sessions and you have to be quite good to use this course as your only resource to help you get from the first draft to publishing standard. Indeed they encourage you to seek feedback from outside resources or from Novelry peers or you can pay for additional coaching sessions, but beware, you can fall into a big financial money pit if you’re not careful, however, you can use the genre and workshop classes they offer, which are free as part of your membership to help you with your manuscript before you submit your query package. You also only have a year’s access to the materials and have to pay ££ to renew. For the majority of people it takes more than a year to write a book so they might not be ready to take the second Big Edit meeting and end up having to renew or lose their second Big Edit meeting or they don’t renew and take their second Big Edit meeting but aren’t ready.
VALUE FOR MONEY: I loved it and not just because I got my agent through them. This is because if you are a good writer and they think your idea is marketable then they will invite you to their bespoke submission service and for these people this course is priceless. The editors go over and above to help you polish your script — and for free.
But I also loved the course as you get experienced editors’ eyes on your work twice and they really go to town on your package. In my opinion, An editor who still has a hand in market trends is worth more than a writer turned teacher looking over your work. Plus the editors on this course all talk to each other and discuss your work.
TUTOR INTERACTION: You only get those two 45-minute interactions, and no one sees your actual writing until the 2nd meeting but you can pay extra for a voice check or for as many coaching sessions as you want. In the early days of taking the course, I wondered if they should include feedback on one page of writing just so applicants get an idea of how good their writing is but they can get that feedback from elsewhere.
COURSE CONTENT: I LOVED it. Found it inspirational and motivating. For example, I’d never thought about a prologue and now I have one. This course has some useful tools here.
CONCLUSIONS: They recommend that you take this as soon as you finish your first messy draft so that they can structurally help you and you can avoid extra drafts. I didn’t. I was probably on my 3rd draft after I’d done CBCs Rewrite Doctor and a manuscript assessment when I started it, and I still found the course incredibly useful structurally and editorially. Some people who come to it straight after their first draft don’t get the “green light” (confirmation that their structure is sound) after their first Big Edit meeting because they’re still working things out and have to do some more work and then have to purchase additional meetings to get the scene breakdown looked at again so they can get the green light. Depending on what you want as a writer, I think you can use this course to suit you. Along my writing journey I’ve met several writers on other courses who were also part way through this course. Just don’t rush it to get to the query package assessment because you have a whole year to get it right and their bespoke submission thing is priceless.
JERICHO WRITER’S SELF-EDITING COURSE (ONLINE, non-selective entry).
DURATION: 6 WEEKS
PRICE: £899:
DESCRIPTION: A 6-week course, each week covering an editing topic like structure, dialogue, voice and prose with group and in-house tutor feedback on 250 words each session. The last week is an “anything goes” session with, the tutor on call to answer and settle any of your editing problems.
PROS: The tutor, Debi Alper, a freelance script editor, is a genius and gives herself to you fully for the whole six weeks. The last week is priceless — you get her eyes on your work on anything you want and also how much of it. No 250-word limit here!
CONS: None.
VALUE FOR MONEY: 100%. In other places to have Debi’s in-depth feedback you’d be paying £££.
TUTOR INTERACTION: Incredible. Debi’s knowledge of all the genres is great and Debi always knows something about something.
COURSE CONTENT: There’s a lot of it and it’s for life so you’ll be able to dip in and out if you can remember what’s there — but from what I saw of it —it’s mostly blog posts available from author Emma Darwin’s blog, which is publicly available. (Emma Darwin is one of the creators of the course). Who knows the resources might become more useful as time goes on but during the course what I felt I was paying for was Debi (plus peer feedback) which was sooo worth it.
CONCLUSIONS: I bought this course a year or so before I took it as I didn’t need it for my first novel. I used it for Novel 2 after writing a very messy first draft and found it a godsend. I was stuck on voice, character and plotting and I got all of that looked at. I am now VERY confident writing the next draft and cannot wait to restructure. I usually knock peer feedback due to it being so hit and miss, but I think peer feedback works after the first draft stage and my cohort was special and amazing and all VERY experienced which was lucky considering it’s a non-selective entry course.
So for me, I’d definitely take this course after a messy first draft but my peers loved it, too, and they were further on in their drafts and had attended some of the courses I’ve reviewed in this post and my previous post The Best Novel Writing Courses. They tended to be stuck and needed expert help on specific points like I did – plotting and voice.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So, out of all three, the Jericho course is the one I think you could take any time in your editorial process and get a LOT out of it. This is because of the tutor interaction so you can see where you’re going wrong and learn and discuss. The other two don’t really have that facility built in and rely heavily on your own self-evaluation or you have to seek other resources but again, the Rewrite Doctor isn’t about that, it’s just a method.
Hi Janice--I took the Jericho Self-Editing course and found it amazing. Highly, highly recommend. Debi is so generous with her feedback. But it did have a long waiting list to get on!
Thank you for all of this information.