The Editor and Editing

Happy Tuesday to you. Today I'm going to discuss editing. To some, edit is a "four-letter word". To others, it's a grueling though rewarding process to perfect translated thought. Any way you look at them, edits are the lifeblood of good writing.

I write for several publishers, and each publisher assigns me an editor I consistently work with on each project. Each of my editors has different quirks and quibbles. But one thing they all have in common: a thorough editing process. **This is key to finding a good place to publish your work. Any place that considers itself a professional publishing house that refuses to edit work is either a vanity press, a self-publishing business, or a "publisher" who puts out shoddy work. Take heed.**

For an example of what I go through once my work is finished, I've chosen one of my favorite editors! "Fave" has been professionally editing my work for two years. She and I have an open writing relationship. I can disagree with her changes so long as I explain why, and she always listens. (I've gone round and round with line editors over my refusal to minimize the "M" when I write about Marines--U.S. Marines, the proper noun, not the adjective.)

Fave gets it. And she supports me, even when my ideas may look odd on the surface. It's that two-way communication that allows us both to be successful. And she's given me many, many word choices and changes that have cleaned up my work. She doesn't take offense if we disagree, and neither do I if she wants to delete a line I absolutely love. She'll always explain why she's doing what she does, and that helps a lot. Added to that, she won't just change "a" to "the" for no reason.

Oh, and all of my editors use MS Word's Track Changes feature. A must have, in my opinion!

Here's how it goes. Putting it all together...

After going through it intensively, I submit my book to Fave. She receives it, lets me know, and I sit back and wait.

On Fave's end, she reads the story not only for grammar, but for content. Plot holes, inconsistencies, sentence structure, that hated comma, and the publisher's style standards. (Note: every publisher is different. I can't tell you how many times I've had to change "blonde" to "blond" depending upon who I'm writing for.) She'll read and edit the story anywhere from one to three times before sending it "down the turnpike," as she likes to call it.

The manuscript then goes to Line Edits, where a line editor goes through the text. Once done, the line editor gives it back to Fave, who gives it back to me. I go over the work, send it back, Fave reads over my changes, and we're either fixed or we go through the process again. After the line editor has finished ripping through, er, I mean going through the story, a proofreader takes hold of it.

The proofreader does the same thing. Looks it over, makes her comments, sends it to Fave, who sends it to me. I go over the MS, give it back to Fave, who reads it, then sends it back. This process may be repeated. Yep, really.

The proofreader, when done, sends the book to Formatting. It will rarely return from Formatting with problems, thought that can happen. But generally, once it's hit formatting, I can consider my edits done.

All in all, this process can take several weeks. Most publishers like to have their stories edited and ready to roll months before they publish. This way, there are no last minute emergencies or changes interfering with the publishing schedule, which is normally set months/years in advance. Good editing takes time, especially when you can have four people or more eyeballing your story.

Honestly? It's an exhausting process. I'm a fairly clean writer (Father taught English, I majored in English at college, call me a grammar Nazi), but they still find mistakes I've made as far up as the proofreader. Having so many different sets of eyes on the work makes it that much cleaner once it's been "filtered."

Having been with publishers who edit and others who don't edit, I can truthfully say my work is ten times better in places with people who care about putting out quality product. Edits can make or break a work. And it's funny, because as a reader, I do care that I'm reading the very best money can buy. When I catch spelling errors and inconsistencies in a novel, it really throws me, because I'm expecting the editor, not so much the author, but the the publisher's editors will have caught this.

Now, all of my publishers are different. But each of them pretty much follows the above process as concerns editing. Questions? Comments? Then on to tomorrow where I'll discuss the administrative details of publishing, namely, contracts (in general), artwork, blurbs and more. And thanks again to Fave.