AEM follow rest principal & you can access resource directly & after authentication it will redirect to requested page. Example request for [1] at author takes to login page & entering valid credentials takes you directly to page for editing. With this you can have link in publish instance page to take to authors directly.
In case you are looking to allow anoymous access to all pages in author instance & edit takes to authentication. You can achieve it but as a new user it might be difficult for you to get grasp my steps to achieve it.
Right way would be get trained authors on AEM they will grasp green screens easily.
[1] http://localhost:4502/content/geometrixx/en.html