Here’s a little folk wisdom: anything worth doin’ is worth doin’ right. If you decide to devote your precious life minutes to something as ambitious as writing a book, you ought to make it the best it can be. And while you’re doubtless a talented writer who can write a pretty good book, an editor can help make it excellent.
I can feel your resistance. Maybe you’re confident in your grammar knowledge and feel you don’t need someone to point out mistakes because, well, there aren’t any. Maybe you’re not willing to pay an editor to do something you’re pretty sure you don’t need.
Maybe I’ve built a strawperson here, but just in case you’re real, dear skeptic, allow me to explain why editing is worth it: not only for your current project, but for all your projects thereafter.
Reigniting Passion for Your Story: The Value of a Developmental Edit
A developmental edit, as I explain on my editing page, is the broadest form of editing. It’s an evaluation of structure, plot, characterization, use of language, and every other element that impacts a manuscript as a whole.
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why a manuscript languishes in a desk drawer is because its author feels it isn’t good enough to show anyone, let alone submit for publication. You know that certain parts aren’t working, that your characters are thinly drawn, that your sci-fi concepts aren’t feasible: you just can’t put your finger on why. And instead of doing the hard work of figuring it out, you let your project simmer on the back burner.
If you’re brave enough to actually show your manuscript to loved ones, you’ve probably gotten the feedback “It’s good” or “I liked this part.” That’s nice to hear, of course, but it isn’t exactly helpful.
Here’s where a developmental editor can help. A good developmental editor has studied what makes stories work. They’ve read many books on the subject, and they know how to approach a story as a writer and as a reader. They’ll take all that knowledge and graft it onto your story, reading your manuscript multiple times and evaluating it backward and forward. Not only will a developmental editor point out what isn’t working—they’ll tell you why and offer solutions.
“Readers may feel cheated by the ‘it-was-all-a-dream’ ending: here’s a way to get around that.”
“This doesn’t seem consistent with this character’s behavior: maybe they would react this way instead?”
“The pacing here is a little slow: consider moving this scene here and making these adjustments to hold the reader’s interest.”
Perhaps the most important thing to note is that a good developmental edit isn’t prescriptive. Sure, a developmental editor can provide some guidance on how to proceed, but the chief goal is to reignite the author’s passion for the project—to show how their story can go from meh to whoa!—and give them the tools to make improvements.
Line-Level Excellence: The Value of a Line Edit
One of the most frustrating things about writing is that you never know when you’re finished. If Shakespeare didn’t have to pay for all those frilly collars, and if he were immortal, he might still be tinkering with Hamlet’s soliloquies.
Hate the game, not the playwright
Deciding when you’re done with a manuscript is a subject for another blog post; for now, let’s fast-forward and assume you’re done. The next step is a line edit, which involves rooting out typos, spelling and styling inconsistencies, and punctuation errors. A line editor might also do some light fact-checking and offer style suggestions, such as cutting adverbs, changing passive voice to active, and rooting out other common writing peccadilloes.
For most of us, writing a book is a messy affair. You power through a shitty first draft, and you change a bunch of stuff during your second pass, your third pass, etc. Somewhere in that whirlwind of creativity, you’re bound to make some mistakes. There are probably some misplaced modifiers, repetitive passages, sentences with funky logic, and plain ol’ typos.
Maybe you’d catch these if you just gave your manuscript one more pass, but it’s more likely that these mistakes and incongruities are straight-up invisible to you. You’ve been inside your own head and story for months, maybe years, and you might decide that whole sections are fine and not worth reexamining.
A line editor provides a fresh set of eyes, and connected to those eyes is a brain that knows its stuff. Your editor will evaluate every line, and they won’t give awkwardness, incongruities, or errors an inch.
This may sound brutal, but I promise that a good line editor is gentle: they’ll use Word’s Track Changes so that you can reject any change you don’t like. But you’ll probably want to accept those changes.
Perhaps most valuable of all, a good line editor will explain every substantive change. They’ll provide a distillation of the dozens of books on style they’ve read, providing bonus style lessons along with the edit itself. It’s like if your plumber came to your house, fixed your sink, and took the time to show you the intricacies of sink functionality.
Editors love good writing. They want to see more of it. And playing the role of teacher is just part of the game.
Cleanliness and Consistency: The Value of a Copy Edit
Copy editing is perhaps what most people think of when they hear “editing.” This is a more mechanical type of editing that is less concerned with style matters and is more about correctly and consistently applying Chicago Manual of Style guidelines and ensuring correct spelling and use of punctation.
Consistency is a big one. Readers take it for granted. They assume that the main character’s name and hometown are going to be spelled the same way every time. But this type of consistency doesn’t just happen; it’s the result of hard work (especially in the fantasy genre). A good copy editor keeps a style sheet with definitive spellings of people, places, and preferred stylings. And as a final measure of quality control, a copy editor will meticulously search a number of terms throughout the manuscript to ensure utter consistency throughout.
Even minor inconsistencies (such as a conspicuous mix of toward and towards) can take a reader out of a story mighty quick. It can plant the seed in the reader’s mind that they’re reading a sloppy draft instead of a polished book, and this can taint their perception and enjoyment of the story.
Copy editors aren’t necessarily snobby grammar nerds. While The Chicago Manual of Style is like a holy text for American copy editors, we know when to tell CMoS to respectfully take a hike. The story always comes first, and if an error is the right way to go (e.g., as in dialogue), then the error stands.
As with line editors, copy editors will cite the relevant rule when making a fix, pointing out that for clarity, independent clauses separated by a conjunction should also be separated by a comma, or Chicago spells out numbers one through a hundred and round multiples, or that titles like “queen” or “sheriff” are lowercase when not used as part or in place of someone's name.
There’s a good deal of overlap between line editing and copy editing, so I generally recommend one or the other rather than both (though I would suggest a proofread before publication to catch any errors introduced during drafting or design).
In closing, an editor isn’t someone who spills red ink all over your manuscript, insults you a little bit, takes your money, and sends you on your way. An editor doesn’t just do their work; they show their work. They won’t just give you a fish; they’ll teach you to fish. They actually care about your project and about you as a writer.
I’m currently working on a novel. And although I myself am an editor, I fully intend to hire at least one editor (even an editor needs a fresh pair of eyes!) to help me get my novel across the finish line. I hope you’ll consider the same for your manuscript—and while you’re here, you might as well contact me to learn more about what I can do for your project.