Editing 101 – What is an editor's role?
As we continue our blog series of lifting up the curtain on publishing with Luath Press, we now turn to the all important role of an editor.
Just what is an editor? What is it they do? What steps do I need to take before my manuscript is seen by one?
Hooray, your book got accepted for publication!
You dreamed it up, planned it out, wrote, revised, wrote, revised, cut that bit out, added that bit in, re-read it compulsively for a few months, sent it off and now Luath Press has agreed to publish it. Your work here is done, right?
It is a surprisingly common misconception among authors that, a few tweaks aside, their manuscript is a finished product once it’s accepted by a publisher; this is very rarely the case. While every publishing house will have different methods, processes and timelines, they will all send your text to an editor who will work with you to create the final, published version of your work.
The submitted draft is just the beginning of the journey.
What’s the point of an editor?
Let’s be honest – when you’ve put your heart and soul into writing a book that you believe has something important to say to the world, getting feedback on it can be a pretty terrifying prospect. But sending your text to an editor isn’t throwing it to the wolves; our job isn’t to tear apart what you’ve written but to peel back all the layers – from the fancy flourishes to the bare structural bones – to check that everything is working how it should.
In a nutshell, we’re here to catch as many potential problems as we can before anybody else sees them, and before someone decides to tweet you with the dreaded ‘ummmm, actually…’. This often means finding every way we can think of to misread your text so other people don’t. As nit-picky as this feels, we’re on your side and are working with you to make your book as good as it can be before it heads off into the big wide world.
It’s worth saying here that your editor isn’t there to make you sound like them (what a dull world that would be), but to make sure your voice and your words are as effective as possible, and to bring a fresh set of eyes to the text you’ve been staring at for months, or even years.
We’re not there to tell you what to do, either. Editing is a process and a dialogue. This means that although we’ll raise questions – ask what you want to achieve by this or that, and give you feedback on whether an effect is coming across – at the end of the day it’s your story. So while there are some non-negotiables like avoiding plagiarism, if you come up with a different way to solve a problem that’s just as effective but sounds a bit more ‘you’, then great!
What does the editorial process look like?
Since every book is different, every editorial job is different too, especially at a publisher like Luath which covers poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, English, Scots and Gaelic.
In each case, though, you will have been asked to provide your entire text as a Microsoft Word file for the editor to work on. Your editor will read your book through carefully by doing multiple passes focussing on different things – e.g. reading first for content (developmental editing) and then for style (copyediting) – and get back to you with all their feedback in a marked-up version of the text. Often, they will have made little tweaks themselves (with ‘Track Changes’ enabled so you can see them all) and also kept a note of larger questions or comments, either in the margins of the document or in a separate file.
Now the ball is back in your court. The amount and type of changes required will vary with each book, but it’s always worth digesting the editor’s comments for a wee while before you set to work, and if there’s anything you’re not clear on then drop them an email or set up a call.
Once you have responded to all of the points, the text goes back to the editor again, and the game of manuscript ping-pong keeps on going until everyone is happy that the text is ready to be typeset. This is when the book is laid out in a PDF as it would be printed, with page numbers, running heads and any images. Once it’s in this format, you will get proofs for proofreading, but it’s a lot harder to make big changes at this stage, so best to catch as many as possible in the edit!
It’s very important that you don’t do any more work on the text while it’s with your editor: not only would this mean that they are wasting time working on pieces of text that you’ve already decided to change, but also that all your work would be lost since it wouldn’t be included in the edited version of the text. Basically, the book ends up in a right fankle. This is why, when the text bounces backwards and forwards between you and your editor, only one of you will be working on it at a time and also why you’ll both keep the ‘Track Changes’ feature in Word turned on. That way, no work gets lost and each of you can see what parts the other has tweaked without having to read the whole document again each time.
As for how long it takes, the answer is always, ‘How long is a piece of string?’ The word count, genre and practical things like whether the author has a day job will all impact the duration of an edit. Some texts can be done in a couple of weeks, others can take a few months, but the new and improved book that comes out the other side is worth the work and the wait.
Some common mistakes:
Here are some of the problems we flag most often. They might help cast an eye over your book, or just give you an idea of what to expect:
Standardising and correcting spelling and grammar: running spelling and grammar checks is a great place to start, but they often don’t catch typos which are valid words, just in the wrong place. Complements and compliments have a habit of getting confused, stationary and stationery are too close for comfort and many authors accidentally bare things when in fact they only want to bear them… which can be embarrassing in certain situations. For other typos, getting Word to read the document aloud to you can be helpful. Unlike someone who has rewritten the text several times over, the software will read what is there rather than what should be there. Also, it’s always worth casting an eye over the punctuation and layout of any direct speech – this often gets a bit muddled in the excitement of a mid-scene moment.
Consistency: of spelling and formatting, but also of settings, characters and action. Inconsistencies can easily creep in as you make changes, leaving your poor hero impossibly sipping a cup of tea they finished two paragraphs before, so think about the knock-on effects of the changes you make on the rest of the scene/book.
Rhythm and voice: read it out loud to yourself. Do your sentences change length? Are they all the same? Is it getting dull to read? Are you nodding over your empty teacup?
Repetition: let’s be real, it’s dull for the reader and also means the structure probably needs a few tweaks.
Repetition: let’s be real, it’s dull for the reader and also means the structure probably needs a few tweaks.
Structural elements: pacing, character development, argument. Does your plot or argument follow a coherent structure? Do you take your readers from A to B in the most effective way; in fiction, this might be in the most dramatic, unforeseen way; in non-fiction, this might be the most logical and comprehensible way. Do all the chapters, paragraphs and sections all contribute to the point of the story? Is it missing tension or part of a character’s development – maybe we need an extra scene. Is there a key theme or foreshadowed idea that just fizzles out? All of this is a lot easier to see with fresh eyes, so try leaving the text completely alone for a while – really let it sulk in the back corner of your hard drive and see what it has to say for itself when it’s ready to come out.
Looking on the bright side: What editors’ feedback actually means
When authors are invested in their books, editing can be rough. Nobody wants an email full of errors, fact-checks or even the dreaded structural changes. But reading between the lines of your editor’s feedback is just as important as what’s there: we rarely have the time to highlight the sentences we liked, the characters we thought were well developed, or the plot twist we enjoyed. So after a few days of staring at marginal comments and all the red lines that Word puts under our edits, try to bear in mind that everything your editor hasn’t asked you to change (structure, plot, characters, tone, imagery, etc) is something that they feel is already working and don’t want to mess with.
The unfortunate truth
For all our hard work, a book is still never perfect when we’re done. Perfect is a pipe dream… but at least we’re a good deal closer than when we started!
