So here we are in May 2020, already. To celebrate spring, we
also have a brand-new logo, thanks to Connie Vines. Our Round Robin topic for
the month is on editing. All books go through multiple edits. What have you
learned are your problems, and what irks you about editing? Some writers tackle
it with gusto, some writers sigh and get on with it, and other writers
(unfortunately) seem to think they don’t need it.
Hey guys, sorry to have to tell you – but you do. It is a
fact that every author who wishes to produce a professional product needs
editing. It doesn’t matter how great the story is. The author is cheating his
or her audience if they do not put out their best work, and that includes
paying attention to the editing. Editing is so much more than weeding out typos, so let’s
take a look at the different types of editor an author needs.
Firstly, there are the Developmental Editors who have eagle
eyes for plot holes, weak characterization and will find the problems with any
and every aspect of the story. They look at the structure, pacing, timelines
and presentation of a book.
Next come the grammar police. These are the Copy Editors who
look for consistency in your writing from the use of commas and exclamation
marks to quotation marks and spelling.
Want someone extra picky? That would be the Line Editors who
go through work, just as their title says, line by line. They look at word
choices, sentence construction and the meaning of each sentence. A Line Editor
will likely suggest how you can tighten your writing to make it flow better,
which makes it easier for the reader to follow.
Last, but not least, is the Proofreader. A good proofreader
will pick up on spelling mistakes and typos in general. They should also notice
if an author has inadvertently changed a character’s hair or eye colour. Yes, despite
everything, this still happens. If there is a reason for it, say a green-eyed
girl wearing blue contacts, that’s fine but the reader needs to know that
reason, which is fine. However, if there is no explanation then this would be
an error for the author to correct.
Many new authors still rely on good friends, family members,
or beta readers, but these are not editors. The best these good folks can do,
unless they are professional authors themselves, is offer feedback. What they
liked or didn’t like about your story, what worked for them or not. They may
like your least favourite character and vice versa. They may make suggestions
that make an author cringe that they had missed that particular point. When I
wrote Shell Shocked, one of my beta readers pointed out that the dog didn’t
enter the story until the mid-point in the book. As it happened, she was right,
so I had to introduce the dog, who was an essential element, much sooner in the
book.
One of my biggest problems in every book I write is crutch
words. These need not necessarily be the same words for each book, but they are
there. In one book, my hero’s face could have frozen with all the grinning he
did. In another, my heroine had a bad habit of sighing. But, hey, this is what
first, second, third and however many drafts are required, are for.
In that first heady rush to get the words on the page, I tend
to use past tense as in had, was, were. When I start my editing process these
are the first words I weed out and re-write the sentence they appear in. There
are times when they are necessary and nothing else will do.
It doesn’t matter how many edits my work has, what always
annoys is me that when I get my print copy, I invariably find an error. Never
mind all the good stuff, I just have a nose for that wrong word or missing
period. So far I haven’t found one on any of my first pages, unlike the ‘heard
of cattle’ and ‘he tossed his reigns over the hitching post’ I have come
across. I once mentioned this to a Harlequin editor I met at a workshop. She
just laughed and said we’re all human and errors will always occur. I should
take heart from that but, being a nit-picking Virgo, my errors will always bug
me.
I hope you’ll join me in visiting the following authors to
see how they feel about editing.
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1UN
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1UN
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.
