Editing Fiction Is Not the Same as Editing Nonfiction … Why That Matters More Than Most Authors Realize

One thing that genuinely surprised me while writing my first novel was how much more time-intensive the editing process was compared to my prior nonfiction business book. That’s not because fiction is “harder” in some abstract or romantic sense, but because the type of thinking required is fundamentally different.

I’ve written nonfiction as an entrepreneur for my own business and marketer for other businesses for years. Decades. Articles, frameworks, long-form guidance, lived experience turned into structure. Even when done well, most entrepreneur-authored nonfiction is built from material that already exists, usually within the author’s own brain. Or it may exist already in a printed format – articles online, social media posts, emails or letters sent to clients, prospects and others, perhaps even past interviews.

The primary work for most of the entrepreneur authors we work with is curation, synthesis, refinement, and clarity. You are organizing something you’ve already thought through, often more than once, and probably edited at least once.

That’s why many nonfiction books, when approached seriously, tend to land in the range of 100 to 250 focused hours of drafting and editing. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on complexity. But the underlying material usually exists before the book does.

Fiction is not that.

Nonfiction Organizes. Fiction Constructs.

When entrepreneurs tell me nonfiction felt “easier” to write or edit, they’re usually right. Not because they cut corners, but because the hardest work happened years earlier while building the ideas, systems, or experience the book is based on.

By the time the manuscript exists, much of the thinking has already been edited in real life.

Fiction doesn’t get that advantage.

Fiction requires inventing everything and then making it all hold together under pressure. World logic. Continuity. Pacing. Character psychology. Emotional restraint. Sensory detail. The internal rules of a reality that never existed before the first sentence was written.

And here’s the part new fiction authors almost always underestimate:

Every single change ripples.

You can’t revise one chapter without affecting five others. You can’t “mostly” fix pacing; it’s done across the entire manuscript. You can’t be “close enough” on motivation. If something contradicts itself, the reader feels it, even if they can’t articulate why.

At least, not if you’re planning to be a serious author.

Nothing in fiction can be approximate.

Why Serious Fiction Editing Takes So Long

For my novel, the total time investment for revising and editing landed somewhere between 456 and 890 human hours. (I didn’t start timing at the beginning, so I landed in a range).

That range is honest.

Fiction editing isn’t linear. You don’t move cleanly from one stage to the next and never look back. Developmental changes force structural changes. Structural changes surface character issues. Character changes alter pacing. Pacing shifts affect theme and payoff. Then language has to be re-tuned to reflect all of it.

This is why experienced publishers like us never treat editing as a single service.

Real fiction editing includes, at minimum:

• Diagnostic assessment before edits begin
• Developmental editing for structure, story logic, and theme
• Character and relationship editing
• Scene-level function checks
• Line editing for voice and rhythm
• Consistency and continuity control
• Copyediting and mechanical correction
• Reader-experience calibration
• Post-layout proofreading

Skipping steps doesn’t make the process faster. It makes it messier and usually more expensive later.

Why Nonfiction Often Feels More Forgiving

Nonfiction can tolerate a level of approximation that fiction cannot. If a framework is slightly reordered, readers adjust. If an anecdote is condensed, the meaning often holds. If tone varies, it’s usually interpreted as personality rather than error.

That doesn’t mean nonfiction editing is trivial. It isn’t. It still benefits enormously from professional guidance, especially when the author is close to the material. But nonfiction editing usually refines meaning.

Fiction editing has to preserve an entirely created reality.

The Publishing Role Most Authors Don’t See

This is where experienced publishing support actually matters. Not because publishers magically “make books better,” but because they know:

• Which edits must happen first
• Which edits are premature
• Which problems are structural versus cosmetic
• When polishing is productive and when it’s wasted effort

Most authors who struggle aren’t lazy or unskilled. They’re editing out of sequence. They’re fixing sentences before fixing systems. They’re refining chapters that won’t survive the next developmental pass.

That’s not a talent issue. It’s a process issue.

The Must-Use Steps of the Editorial Process

Editing is a service we offer as an add-on to any of our hybrid self-publishing packages because so many authors skip it, and that has real (negative) consequences. Most self-published authors stop at basic grammar and spell check, often relying on spell-check tools (like Microsoft Word or Grammarly) or a friend’s review instead of a professional edit.

• Fewer than 50 % of self-published authors never hire any type of professional editor at all; most either self-edit or ask someone they know to help rather than invest in full editorial support.

That statistic isn’t meant to let you think “Oh, then I don’t need to either.” It’s meant to point out something necessary that will immediately make your work better than at least 50% of the options that your readers have available to them.

That matters because the market is incredibly crowded. There are hundreds of thousands of self-published books released each year, and the vast majority sell very few copies.

• 90 % of self-published books sell fewer than 100 copies in the book’s entire lifetime; a reality tied closely to quality perception and reader experience.

Here are the editing steps that you actually need to include, especially for a fiction book:

• Editorial Assessment / Manuscript Evaluation – before draft is even finalized; diagnosis, risks, edit order
• Drafting / Discovery Writing – raw creation, idea generation, light editing as you go
• Developmental Editing (Structural) – plot architecture, pacing, act balance
• Story & Concept Editing – world logic, continuity, theme
• Character & Relationship Editing – arcs, motivation, emotional consistency
• Scene-Level Editing – scene purpose, entry/exit, information control
• Line Editing – voice, rhythm, language precision
• Consistency & Reference Editing – names, rules, motifs, canon control
• The only steps most self-published authors take – see how far down on the list they are, and the things still needing to be done after
  • Copyediting – grammar, syntax, style standards
  • Mechanical Editing – punctuation, hyphenation, formatting cleanup
• Reader Experience Editing – cognitive load, expectation management
• Beta Reader Integration (Managed) – targeted feedback, signal filtering
• Proofreading (Post-Layout) – final error sweep, layout fixes (we do layout fixes if we handle your layout, but sometimes those also require copyediting which needs your input as the author)

These take time. Between 400-800 hours for a fiction book of around 350-450 pages, in fact.

Professional editing is about shaping structure, polishing voice, tightening pacing, and ensuring continuity; the kinds of things that directly affect reader satisfaction, star ratings, and word-of-mouth sales. Books that skip those stages rarely rise above mediocrity in reviews, discoverability, or long-term sales.

That’s why, even though editing adds time and cost, serious authors treat it as essential — not optional.

Why Serious Authors Don’t Skip Editing Steps

Authors who are serious about their work, especially in fiction, don’t skip editing stages because they’ve learned the hard way that every shortcut shows up on the page.

Readers may not know what developmental editing is. They absolutely know when a book feels thin, rushed, inconsistent, or emotionally unearned, which is what the developmental editing step addresses.

Good fiction convinces the reader that the world on the page was always there, fully formed, even though it wasn’t. That illusion only holds when every layer has been examined, tested, and refined.

Fiction has to create a coherent reality from nothing and then convince the reader it was inevitable. That difference changes everything about editing, timelines, and the level of support that actually serves the work.