What Is Editing and Why Do I Need It?
So… what is editing?
I get this question a lot. More than you might think, in fact. It almost always comes from new authors who are only just starting to think about what it takes to get a book published – other than writing it, of course. Often, they’re looking into self-publishing and have just noticed a whopping four- or five-digit figure sitting in their “expected expenses” column marked only as ‘editing’, and are trying to work out how to get rid of it.
Of course, any experienced author will tell you that a good editor is worth every penny and that you should never go to publication without having your manuscript edited. But why? What does an editor do?
There are five main types of editing: manuscript assessments, developmental (or structural) editing, line editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Let me break down each of them for you.
MANUSCRIPT ASSESSMENTS
Manuscript assessments are a report provided by an editor detailing the strengths and weaknesses of the book, as well as suggestions for how to improve it to a more publishable standard.
Reports range from 5 pages to 20+, depending on the editor (mine usually sit at the higher end of that scale) and can cover areas such as the beginning, the ending, character development, arcs and depth, plot development, structure and pacing, voice and tone, dialogue, setting, point of view, sentence structure, beats, strength of writing and prose, the context of your book and other books on the market, overall length, target readership, and more. They aim to identify the key issues that will prevent you from getting published, or that will make your book stand out to readers as amateurish or unenjoyable. A good editor will also offer you a variety of solutions to fix your problem - all my manuscript assessments come with a free conference call to discuss your plans for going forward and to bounce around ideas and solutions. This brainstorming session can really help to find the best way forward to fine-tune your story while sticking to your authorial vision!
Manuscript assessments are great for new writers, especially those looking to publish traditionally. While a manuscript assessment doesn't guarantee that you'll get published, it's rare that a new manuscript will come across an agent's desk without having a handful of the many problems that can be picked up in a manuscript assessment.
They can also save you money in the long run - they're much cheaper than developmental editing, and they can really pinpoint the improvements your manuscript will need before being self-published or handed out to agents. Developmental edits can be pricy, but if your entire story is aimed at the wrong age group, or written from the wrong perspective, or should actually be four books instead of one, then there's a risk your money will be wasted as these changes are so big that a lot of the editorial feedback will remain unused. And, if this isn't the case, they work as a "mini" developmental edit - helping you correct large structural issues before your developmental editor can come in and really hone in on the smaller details.
DEVELOPMENTAL/STRUCTURAL EDITING
This type of editing looks at the big picture, mostly by asking big questions. Is the core idea solid? Are the characters compelling? Does your story follow a narrative arc? Is the resolution satisfying? Do the plot and writing flow well? Are there boring bits? Does this chapter go anywhere, or does it need to be cut? Is this detour necessary? Would the plot be better without this or with that element? Are your stakes too high, or too low? Or are they the wrong stakes for this story entirely? What are the themes, and do they work with the plot? Have they been properly executed? Are they worthwhile? Could they be enhanced?
The list feels endless. And then, once your editor has asked themselves all the questions they can possibly think of, they get to try and answer them.
Is the resolution satisfying? No. Then why not? Maybe you failed to communicate expectations to the audience early on. Perhaps it comes out of nowhere – a Deus ex Machina or a twist ending that hasn’t been properly foreshadowed. Maybe you’re in the wrong genre – if you’re a romance novel, for example, your book has to have a happy ending (or, at least, a happy-for-now). If it doesn’t, your book might not even be a romance – it could be women’s fiction instead. Maybe you resolved your A plot but not your B plot, leaving readers feeling cheated of an enjoyable ending.
The options are limitless and intricate. But once your developmental editor has worked out the problem, they can move on to why they’re really here – the solution.
Your editor should always have at least one suggestion for how to fix it. Often, they’ll have multiple. You might not always like them, and sometimes it can mean a hell of a lot of work on the author’s part to rewrite and fix the structural issues in their book, but a good developmental editor will come up with solutions to give you alongside the problems which you can use as you rewrite your story or use as a springboard for your own ideas on how to change your book.
It sounds exhausting – and it is. But the good news is that implementing developmental feedback is satisfying for the editor and the author. Writers often observe after properly implementing developmental feedback that they can see the improvements to their stories almost instantly. It’s a bit like the moments right before unjumbling one of those sliding puzzles – one minute, the story’s a mess and nothing makes sense, and then in a few efficient movements, everything slots right into place. There’s no better feeling.
LINE EDITING
Line editing looks at your books on a smaller scale: the individual words, sentences, lines, paragraphs, and sometimes even chapters that make up your book. Line editing is about making sure that each word you use is the right one – but, to do that, the editor must consider all manner of different things. A line editor will make sure your characters are speaking with correct and distinctive voices, that your words aren’t becoming too repetitive, that you aren't bogging down your writing with unnecessary prose or exposition or action or dialogue. That you’re not using extraneous words like “really” or “similarly” – but also aren’t cutting those words out entirely, because they can sometimes add tone or voice or implication to one’s writing. Your line editor will make sure your writing is consistent in terms of characterization, language and style, mood, tone, and logic.
They’ll make sure your sentences are written to be as impactful as possible through tricks like backloading – putting important words at the end of sentences to add weight. They’ll ensure your sentences are easy to read; neither elaborately winding, nor jarringly short. They’ll make sure you do both of those things at the correct times to balance your paragraphs, and they’ll also make sure that sometimes you only do one of those things for the effect: short, sharp sentences for fast-paced action, or long winding sentences to convey luxury and leisure. Most importantly, their eagle eye will be able to tell when those techniques are working and when they’re not, in a way that all-too-often escapes the author.
Technically, there’s not much that a good line editor does that an author cannot do themselves. The skills a line editor uses are just very polished writing skills that most authors are mostly capable of employing (and often do while writing their books). But an author being able to line edit and being able to line edit their own work are two entirely different things. They’re too close to their writing to be impartial, and the words are their own; they can’t see it with unfamiliar eyes or read it like a reader does. Not to mention that the skillset of a line editor is honed by years of practice, helping them spot the most elusive issues and burrow right to the heart of the problem to find the fix.
While structural editing is satisfying, line editing is impressive. I would liken it to polishing stone. In the beginning, you have some quantity of rather ugly rock. There’s potential, but mostly it’s just… grey. But through loving attention to detail, the line editor takes that stone and brings out the natural beauty that lies just beneath the surface, waiting for a good sanding and a polish to reveal to the rest of the world the potential that was always there.
COPYEDITING
Copyediting is often confused with line editing or proofreading. Its role overlaps somewhat with both of these but their purposes are all quite different. Line editing cares about the craft of writing, whereas copyediting is much more concerned with the function and the technical elements of language.
Copyediting cares that everything is correct. Are there grammar and spelling errors? Tense shifts? Factual errors and internal inconsistency? Stylistic inconsistency, such as numbers sometimes being spelt out and sometimes written as digits? Is everything readable as well as correct – no rambling paragraphs, clauses in the wrong place, transposed words, or saying “then” when you actually mean “than”?
Why isn’t this done in proofreading, you might ask?
Proofreading should be a final read-through, to catch errors the copyedit missed. Of course, with modern publishing, proofreading is often treated a lot more like copyediting, with multiple corrections in each sentence being a fairly common occurrence. This is why self-published books tend to have a lot more mistakes than traditionally published books; all traditionally published books go through several rounds of editing, whereas self-published authors often operate on tight timeframes and thin margins. The copyedit and final proofread can sometimes get merged into one editing round, and errors slip through the cracks.
It’s the nature of the industry, unfortunately. It can be avoided; I offer a four-round editing service that includes one of each type of edit (developmental, line, copy, and proofread) at a heavily discounted rate, making a full edit more accessible to self-published and indie authors. But for the most part, it’s small presses and larger-scale publishers for whom copyediting is a regular part of their processes.
PROOFREADING
Everyone thinks they know what proofreading is – however, those people are usually wrong. As mentioned above, proofreading is usually a final read-through to catch the odd mistake. What novice authors think of as proofreading is usually copyediting, where the editor corrects mistakes in every other sentence. In self-publishing communities, however, proofreading and copyediting are often treated interchangeably.
The real question on everyone’s minds isn’t “What is proofreading?” but: “Do I really need a proofreader?”. After all, we live in the world of Grammarly and Pro-Writing-Aid and various spell-checker tools that are built into our writing programs. Surely whatever mistakes they catch are close enough. Right?
You’d be surprised at how many issues spelling and grammar programs will miss. Even more worryingly, there are a lot of “errors” they catch that aren’t errors at all. Most writers think they know how to distinguish between real and fake errors, but these writers tend to publish books stuffed full of mistakes, which in turn annoys the reader and makes their writing look amateurish. If I’m trawling the web trying to find my next indie fave, nothing will put me off faster than spotting multiple errors early on in the book.
Another word of warning regarding writing aids: they have a nifty feature for pro users that will analyse your writing and recommend words to improve your diction, suggestions for words to cut, or provide alternatives that will make your writing seem more polished. Use these features with caution. They can be a helpful tool for the self-editing author, but, at the end of the day, they are created with data gathered by artificial intelligence, and are no match for the human brain when it comes to understanding and improving the craft of writing. At least, not yet, anyway. In addition to making incorrect suggestions, these programs have a tendency to strip a book of the author’s voice, to sterilise and sanitise, and to alter style and tone. They’re incredibly impressive and can be very helpful, but they’re still not a replacement for a human editor.
Of course, people often have faith in their own eye for errors as well. To this, I would say two things. The first is that it is very hard to proofread your own work. Even I, as an experienced editor, usually get someone else to look for mistakes in my writing. And as for the second…
There were four errors in this article. Did you spot them?
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