Copyediting for Fiction
WCWP-40343
Copyediting for Fiction (WCWP-40343)
10 Weeks | Online
As a fiction copyeditor, you will be expected to guide the author through a full edit of their manuscript, including working with them on sentence structure, word choice, consistency, plot holes, timelines, and point of view. In addition, you’ll often be asked by authors to guide them through the publishing process after editing is done. In this course, you’ll learn how to execute a copyedit of fiction, create and maintain a style sheet, and how to fact-check fiction, all while sustaining a collegial relationship with the author and maintaining the author's voice.
What you will learn:
- Understand and edit punctuation in fiction
- Understand the levels of editing and different types of editing
- Work with an author on appropriate dialogue
- Handle issues with timelines, plot, and setting
- Point out and fix competing points of view
- Create and maintain style sheets
- Preserve the author’s voice
- Politely and appropriately query the author
- Fact-check fiction
- Complete sample edits and proposals
- Guide an author through the publishing process
Requirements:
- Microsoft Word 2016/Office 365 (PC or Mac) or higher required.
- Working knowlege of Microsoft Word and its Track Changes feature
- Native-level fluency with English
- Ability to write clear, logical, and grammatically correct sentences
Note: This online course is not self-paced. There are assignments and readings with weekly due dates. Please purchase textbooks before class begins.
Course Information
Course sessions
Section ID:
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This course is entirely web-based and to be completed asynchronously between the published course start and end dates. Synchronous attendance is NOT required.
You will have access to your online course on the published start date OR 1 business day after your enrollment is confirmed if you enroll on or after the published start date.
Textbooks:
All course materials are included unless otherwise stated.
Policies:
- No refunds after: 4/10/2026
- 1st no meeting date: 5/25/2026
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Schedule:
Instructor:
Lourdes Venard, M.A.
A news editor at Newsday, overseeing a team that copy-edits the business pages and a Sunday news-feature section, and has worked at the Chicago Tribune.
Lourdes Venard has more than 40 years of writing, editing, design, and project management experience. She currently works as the education editor for the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit. Before that, she worked as a copyeditor, and copy desk supervisor at major newspapers, including The Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Newsday, and also as a freelance fiction editor. She served on the advisory committee for the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.
She has been a UC San Diego Extension instructor since 2012 and she is a lead instructor for the Copyediting Certificate Program. She teaches Copyediting I, Copyediting II, Copyediting III, Copy Editing with Associated Press Style, and Copyediting for Fiction. Venard holds a master's in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a bachelor's in communications from the University of Miami.
You can reach her at LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lourdes/.
