Joining an Editing Community: Sometimes, It Takes a Village

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Scribophile, a NaNoWriMo 2016 sponsor, is one of the largest independent writing communities online. Today, author Rebel Farris shares how joining Scribophile helped her develop a professional-quality draft:

As a first-time novelist who hadn’t taken an English class in nearly 20 years, finishing NaNoWriMo 2016 with 108k words was quite an accomplishment. Cue the sweaty-palmed, heart-racing nervous breakdown, as I stared down the big E-word: edits. I had no idea where to even begin. I was in panic mode, for a multitude of reasons. The most obvious was that I was sure my grammar was atrocious—but also, I had no clue if the end result was a good story or not.

I knew it needed another set of eyes on it, but finding willing and educated eyes is easier said than done.

After completing NaNoWriMo, I decided to peruse the winner’s offerings and stumbled across Scribophile. My curiosity was piqued: a community of writers that critique each other’s work using a karma point system. Earn points by critiquing; spend points to post your work.