Whether you’re writing a steamy erotica novel or a children’s book, working with an editor is a crucial component to creating high-quality content. It’s a misconception to think that only bad writers need to work with editors. No matter how good of a writer someone is, having an editor or someone to look over their work is bound to make it better. And for most writing endeavors, editing your own work isn’t going to cut it. Trying to self-edit your work is like trying to give yourself a back massage, sure you’ll get something out of it but it won’t be nearly as effective or all-encompassing as having someone do it for you.
Luckily, The Soapbox’s sister company, Plume Press, provides an assortment of editing services to help you create and publish your next literary project. There are several ways writers benefit from working with an editor, here, we’ll take you through what those benefits are.
Proofreading vs Copyediting
Depending on the type of project you’re working on or what stage of the publishing process you are in, you will have different editing needs. The two main types of editing are copyediting and proofreading. Proofreading is the act of reviewing and editing a piece of writing to correct for errors in language, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and formatting. In essence, proofreading is about the nuts and bolts of writing, and the information that’s conveyed. One of the main objectives of proofreading is to ensure consistency. Proofreaders are particularly helpful for writers who are writing in a language that isn’t their mother tongue.
Copyediting, also known as substantive editing, is more concerned with the overall presentation of a piece of writing. Copyeditors look at things like whether or not statements are factually accurate, that the details of the story are consistent, checking for continuity errors, ensuring technical consistency, checking for legal liability issues, and making sure the writing is clear. For example, a copyeditor is interested in making sure that things like the descriptions of people and places are consistent throughout the writing, ensuring that all instances of email are either all “email” or all “e-mail”, that if you mention a drug that exists, it really has the effects and descriptors you say it does.
Typically, you’d want someone to copy edit your work before it’s seen by a proofreader. Copyediting deals with larger, more substantive issues within a piece of writing whereas proofreading functions as a way to catch mistakes that weren’t detected in earlier stages of the editing process. Of the two, copyediting is more likely to require rewriting or restructuring. Copyediting is more focused on quality whereas proofreading is more concerned with correctness. Because the purpose of each type of edit is so different, it’s advised that you hire different people to take on the tasks so they can focus solely on one aspect of the writing.
Working with a copy editor or proofreader can improve a piece of writing in the following areas:
Helps you refine what you want to say
Will save you from your writing weaknesses
Can help you distill your narrative and focus its impact
Helps you expand or trim your text, as needed
Tightens plotting and enhances characterization
Helps you pace your story
Helps you refine your work’s essential excellence
A Second Set of Eyes
Having an editor look over your work is like having a second set of eyes. An editor's job is to find and correct mistakes the writer may have missed. There are techniques writers can employ to improve their self-editing skills like reading out loud, highlighting, and giving yourself some space from the work, but none of these methods is as effective as hiring an editor. The human brain is lazy; it will fill in information gaps and gloss over details in favour of speed and comprehension.
The brain has a tendency to read something as what you meant rather than how it was actually written when it comes to your own work. This is particularly problematic when it comes to homonyms. Words like affect and effect, they're, there and their, its and it’s, and my personal scourge, cite and site, will be interpreted by your brain using the correct version of the word, even if it’s not what you used. That’s why editors need to work meticulously.
Reputation Management
Editing is always an important step in the publishing process but it’s one that’s often overlooked or underappreciated. When editing is done well, it’s undetectable to the audience. Most readers just assume that the work they’re reading was written by someone brilliant. What the typical reader is unaware of is just how much editing, and back and forth tends to go into creating that perfect piece of writing. They’re completely oblivious to the sometimes awful condition the piece was in before it was worked on by an editor. While this is an unfortunate truth for most editors, it's terrific for writers. Thorough editing gives readers the impression that the author got everything right and said everything perfectly on their own, which can be a huge reputation boost. This is one of the reasons why you should always acknowledge the contribution of editors to your work.
Push and Pull
In order for writers and editors to work well together it’s necessary that they both learn to compromise. For writers, that usually means accepting the fact that they won’t always have things go exactly the way they planned. To successfully work with an editor, a writer must be able to concede control, handle criticism, and compromise without taking things too personally. As a writer myself, I’ve often found it difficult to part with the clever references or analogies I’ve inserted into a piece but I’ve accepted the changes because I know they’re for the greater good. An important thing to remember as a writer is that more often than not, the changes made to your work are not because your writing is poor and more so because the changes make it easier for the readers to follow along.
For editors, one of the best things to do is not let the authority you’ve been granted get to your head. As an editor, there’s a temptation to make or suggest changes to a piece of writing simply because you don’t like it or don’t agree with it rather than it being wrong. Even though editing is an incredibly important job, at the end of the day, it’s not just about you. Being a good editor means accepting the fact that your personal preferences are secondary to those of the audience. Editor’s must also be vigilant to not impose their writing style on another writer’s work. One of the beauties of writing with an editor is it can bring out the best aspects of both the writer and the editor’s skillset to produce a piece of writing of the highest quality.
I like to think of editors like coaches or personal trainers for athletes. Writers and editors need each other in order to look good. The best players in the world will only have limited success playing for a poorly-coached team. It doesn’t matter if you're the best coach in the world if you don’t have a team that can execute your game plan. The writer-editor relationship is no different, and when working harmoniously, the collaboration makes the writer and editor better. While anyone with knowledge of a subject can tell someone what they’ve done wrong, a good editor or coach will tell you what you did wrong, how to improve, and will help you avoid making the same mistake in the future.
In my roles as an editor, I often challenge writers with comments like “explain”, “where did you get this information,” or “this wording is confusing.” I don’t say any of this to be combative or disrespectful, I’m challenging the writer to go a step further to be more clear or be more convincing. The Socratic Method of Arguments can be a useful tool when writers and editors work together. The ask-and-answer formula of the Socratic method is meant to stimulate critical thinking, draw out ideas and calls on both the writer and the editor to examine and articulate their train of thought.
In any healthy relationship there’s mutual respect. Partners should encourage and push each other to make each other better, and they should always be there to support and congratulate one another. Writers and editors should share a similarly symbiotic relationship.