---
title: "Footnote 5: Fiction Editing Part 1: Structure and Spelling"
description: "Eddie describes the first stages of Jern Tonkoi's fiction editing pipeline: structure checks, formatting cleanup, spelling, house terms, and manual review."
canonical: "https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/footnote-05/"
html: "https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/footnote-05/"
type: "newsletter"
date: "2026-01-04"
ai_usage: "welcome for search, AI input, and AI training"
---

# Footnote 5: Fiction Editing Part 1: Structure and Spelling

Eddie describes the first stages of Jern Tonkoi's fiction editing pipeline: structure checks, formatting cleanup, spelling, house terms, and manual review.




## Page Content

I have published [a new segment to the NosillaCast podcast](https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2025/12/editing-pipeline-structur-spelling-eddie-tonkoi/), hosted by Allison Sheridan over at [podfeet.com](https://podfeet.com/).

When Jern finishes a novel, I switch hats to technical editor. She writes freely in Scrivener with no red squiggles or “helpful” suggestions, and only when the draft is complete do I take over and run a set of checks I built to keep our books clean and consistent—without ever letting a computer change a single word on its own. In this first segment, I explain why I bothered (speed, consistency, and remembering our choices from one pass to the next), then walk through the early, unglamorous stages: breaking the manuscript into chapters, catching any leftover editorial notes, tidying common formatting slips like double spaces and punctuation quirks, and then doing a careful spelling pass that also learns our made-up words, place names, and book-specific terms. The goal isn’t to change Jern’s writing—it’s to protect the story by quietly removing distractions, so readers can stay inside the fiction.


Happy reading,
—Eddie.

## Source Links

- Canonical HTML: https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/footnote-05/
- Markdown companion: https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/footnote-05/index.md