“Who can possibly know what I write better than me?”
“The story is great! My wife read the whole thing.”
“I use spell check.”
If you have ever said one of the foregoing, you might need an editor.
Let’s face it: Editors do far more than spell check. Just as the beta team did far more for you than just adulate over your poignant use of alliteration, your editor is the one who is looking at your story with a microscope.
Line Edits
Long considered the bloodiest portion of the editing process, line edits are an absolute necessity. The majority of editors will read your work from the back page to the front, first. They will catch the small things this way. What can you catch in reverse?
True Book Examples:
- Lyons is not the capital of France.
- There were no Canadian troops at war in 1953.
- Gunpowder was invented in 400AD, but was not used for weapons for another 800 years.
- George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter.
- Sony did not invent the ereader.
Nitpicky? You betcha. Voracious readers who like your subject are going to know these things. If you have not done your research, chances are if the reader finishes the book, it will be the last one of yours.
After the reverse read, editors read the book the way you intend for readers. Good editors will have the notes from the beta team handy to see if your corrections have created any problems.
- If you changed your setting midstream, simply correcting the name of the town or place is often insufficient. Subsequent story may be based on inherent qualities of the now-deleted place.
- If you have non-zombie resurrection issues, your chapters may need to be completely rearranged or large sections may need to be cut for story continuity.
- If you changed the major battle of your Middle Ages novel to May 4, 1540, to add story line in support of your romance, your timeline is in serious need of help.
Language
With the vast and varied forms of the English language, one of the thing your editor will fish eye very closely is your use and your characters’ use of language. While it may have sounded poetic or amazing when you wrote it, your reader may just see it as weird or inappropriate.
Major issues are:
- Language beyond the scope of your characters.
- Children tend not to use polysyllabic words when there is a handy four-letter one.
- Substituting author education for characters
- Dialect belied by the character’s background
- Language for the sake of language.
- Incorrect usage of words like utilize, nauseous and disinterested
- Jargon
- Repetition of ostentatious words
- Systematic assassination of language
- Consistent fragments, run on sentences, comma splices, etc.
- Passive voice
- Tense shift
None of these errors are stylistic, even if it is your style to commit them. No matter who may have told you it was showing your individuality, it is merely a reason for a reader to never finish your book.
No, not all readers are Grammar Nazis; however, they do expect a modicum of decorum. Even when they cannot tell you what is wrong with a passage, they can tell you it reads like the Google Translate version of spam. Having a Grammar Nazi as an editor is in your (and your book’s) favor.
Copy Edits
Depending on your contract, copy edits may not be a task requiring your response. The very last edit is another reverse read looking only for spelling and punctuation mistakes. By now, at least ten people have read your book. A really good copy editor will find dozens of overlooked objectionable entries:
- Overabundance or dearth of commas
- Its/It’s and other common apostrophe mistakes
- Semicolon usage
- Spelling errors
- Subject/verb agreement
- Hyphenation
If your story editor is also your copy editor, choose a Grammar Nazi. After all, spell check is not an editor.
Spell check is not an editor.
Your copy editor is also going to take out all the other “style” you put in the manuscript. Overuse of formatting (italics, bold, underscore) and ellipses are on the chopping block because they assault your readers eyes and intellect. If your language does not support drama, italics will not make the reader imagine it for you. If you mean for the reader to pause to contemplate, skip the ellipse and begin a new chapter.
Necessary
Although you love your manuscript because it is the most effort you have put into writing anything, it needs to be edited by a professional. For all the same reasons your friends are not good choices for beta reading, they are likewise not the best candidates for editing. Seeing every blemish exposed can be difficult for ego. In the end, editing is the maturation process all good books survive.
Has an editor ever pointed out something you completely overlooked? What is your funniest edit? How many times was your book edited before press?
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Cha
/ April 5, 2013Hi Red!
wow this is a great post (with good advice)! 🙂
Xx
Red
/ April 5, 2013Thank you, glad to see you today, Cha. xxx
Bo Lumpkin
/ April 5, 2013E is for English, a language which is foreign to many countries and most aspiring writers. This fact makes editing necessary. If I ever master English I might attempt a book myself.
Bo Lumpkin recently posted..Government Growth
Red
/ April 5, 2013Ironically, the lack of English proficiency has not stopped some of the most popular authors of all time from selling millions of books.
Laurie
/ April 5, 2013I’ve never said that, does that mean I don’t need an editor? Except for the whole typo addiction and the to/too/two headache, that is…
Laurie recently posted..E is for Exhaustion, Elimination and Energy
Red
/ April 5, 2013Homonyms are a bugger for a lot of ppl.
Alexandra Heep
/ April 5, 2013Homonyms never presented a problem for me for some reason.
Alexandra Heep recently posted..E is for Extended Stay America
Red
/ April 8, 2013I think it really only affects those who learned to write phonetically, rather than by roots or correlation to other languages.
Alexandra Heep
/ April 5, 2013Reason number 5 why I will never get around to writing/publishing a novel.
Yes, I’ve read books by authors who sell millions of books and noticed the most blatant of spelling errors. If someone with English as a second language can find those … why are people dumber than I rolling in money?
Then again, I can’t even write a simple comment without needing an editor. 😉
Alexandra Heep recently posted..E is for Extended Stay America
Red
/ April 8, 2013I think we all have the comment gremlin living in our keyboards. I am convinced my lives on the sugar crystals which fall from the brim of my coffee cup. 😉
Carl D'Agostino
/ April 5, 2013I am a dern good proof reader. However I am wise enough to always let someone else proof read my own stuff. It is not a matter of style but usually a typing or even hand written error because our eye sees what is supposed to be there which overrides the ability to catch an error. The most frequent error of others I catch is the misplaced modifier “only”.
Red
/ April 8, 2013I would have to think long and hard to come up with something I catch more often than it’s/its and to/too/two.
El Guapo
/ April 5, 2013I have so much trouble writing the damn things down in the first place that I hate editing.
And I have the rejection letters to prove it!
El Guapo recently posted..Friday Foolishness – Self-Actualization Edition
Red
/ April 8, 2013Good thing we have typo fairies. 😉 Do you find it easier with flash based on the smaller word count?
El Guapo
/ April 8, 2013I don’t think “easier” is the right word, maybe “simpler”. A flash is usually one idea in limited space. It’s a lot easier to stay focused and pare away the extraneous, while the reader also isn’t expecting full blown descriptiveness. It’s a snapshot, as opposed to a full length piece being a lush 3D orchestral film.
(It’s also possible my ideas aren’t sustainable because they suck.) 😉
El Guapo recently posted..Friday Foolishness – Self-Actualization Edition
Red
/ April 8, 2013For me, flash was the permission to stop over-explaining. It is the trait of authors I despise the positively absolute mostest. With flash, I get to leave more to the reader’s imagination. Perhaps, if you let your ideas out into the daylight occasionally, they would not be insolent teenagers and mature into stories.
Valentine Logar
/ April 5, 2013This is excellent advice most writers hate to follow!
“But it is mine and I am write, I mean right, I mean I know best!”
I am a terrible editor, this is true because I read far too quickly and cannot stop myself from doing so. I miss things my eye should catch, it is difficult for me to slow down.
I cannot self-edit either, for the very same reason nothing to do with ego I have none when it comes to my writing. I know well how many errors I make.
Valentine Logar recently posted..Overrated, Certainly Not
Red
/ April 8, 2013I have a harder time self-editing because I have a tendency to speak it as I write. My hands, however, do not often listen to what I am saying.
frigginloon
/ April 5, 2013I was asked to check a 11 year old’s assignment on Egypt. Lucky for her I did because the Egyptians did not put elevators in their pyramids. Seems she had copied someone elses notes and that person hadn’t heard the teacher properly when talking about elevation and so just put elevator instead. It took me ages to convince her otherwise because she kept telling me “Look, it says it right there in her notes”.
frigginloon recently posted..Manatee Gray
Red
/ April 8, 2013Oh, that is rich! It is as good as “It must be true. I read it on the Internet!” Great to see you today, Loon.
MJ Logan
/ April 5, 2013I edit a lot of short stuff and that goes well. Clients are usually pleased with fixed-up sentences, punctuation, and grammar. I am not really a Grammar Nazi, but I do look for glaring errors that make reading difficult.
Editing fiction is a completely different animal. People are so sensitive about fixing grammar, pointing out that thick accents don’t read well, and “I never told you to change anything. You’re supposed to edit this.”
And the ever annoying, “My mom read this and said it was great. Why are you changing things?”
Happy Editing,
MJ
MJ Logan recently posted..E is for Easy
Red
/ April 8, 2013Fiction is the proverbial horse of a different color. Non-fiction rarely finds its voice in the systematic disassembly of the language. I have to wonder if it is the sole misinterpretation of “poetic license” to blame or merely being too far removed from true readers’ opinions. Hmm. You are giving me a research idea.
Angela Tague
/ April 5, 2013Great tips for writers of all types and levels! Happy A-to-Z 2013! ~Angela, Whole Foods Living
Angela Tague recently posted..Edamame: Tasty Bean, Funny Name
Red
/ April 8, 2013Welcome, Angela. Feel free to leave a link to your blog in The Green Room. It is our official jumping off spot. I hope you stop by for more.