Every writer needs an editor. This may be the one at the publishing house, or it could be an honest and gifted friend. Both, unfortunately, are hard to come by.
There are a number of tasks
that come under the general heading “editor.” In the sense that you need an editor at this point,
I mean it
as someone who can do the tasks in bold:
Acquisitions: acquire new works
or authors for a publisher
Coordination or production: manuscript handling, planning, estimating, working with designers,
printers, monitoring
a project.
Copy: correct spelling, grammar, and if the publisher has a house style (Chicago, MLA, etc.) matters of house style (see mechanical style). These are often freelance copy editors even
for large publishers. Sometimes called line editing because the editor goes through the
manuscript line by
line.
Fact: checking facts
Format: that
the
design of the book, typography,
layout,
conform
to company policy
Integrity or continuity: internal consistency of the document regarding tables, references, part
numbers,
etc.
Language: how ideas are expressed—sentence complexity, conciseness, logical development,
jargon
Mechanical style (house
style): capitalization,
spelling,
symbols, reference style, etc.
Permissions editors: locate any place where an author quote another author, lyric, poem, etc., and obtain permission to
use
the
material.
Policy: making sure that the manuscript conforms to company policy, e.g. presentation, legal,
content,
etc.
Project: follows the manuscript through
the
complete
editing
process
Screening: illustrations and table are correctly inserted, specialized typesetting such as mathematical
formula or
foreign words
are
correct
Substantive: looks at the work as a whole, is it coherent? Does the style work? Is all the necessary information included?
Technical: this has several meanings. Technical editing may involve someone with specialized expertise; the example often given is someone who edits a how-to book, making sure the instructions work. A
another meaning is someone who determines the levels of
editing
a particular manuscript
requires,
and
oversees the editing process.
Although you can see several
of these
areas
overlap,
what goes into preparing
a manuscript for publication
can
involve
many people.
The rule of unravelment applies here. If your prospective agent or publisher receives a manuscript that is poorly edited, you will have a huge hurdle. Yes, “all” publishers, agents, and editors
claim they will read anything within their fields of interest and they will give everything a fair chance. They won’t and they can’t. Do not give them the excuse to reject your book because of
poor
preparation.
The more you can think about all these various tasks when you enter the revision or proofreading
stages
the
better.
Once you start looking at each word and make a change, more changes must follow. If all of your writing from sentence to sentence is competent, and you make one sentence very good, it
changes
the
relationships between words
and
sentences
and
you, or
your
editor, will
have reasons
to change more,
then
more
still
. . .
Editing is often done in waves. Big problems often obscure other problems; and not until the
next wave of editing will
you
see
it. It is not
unusual to
go over a book a dozen
times.
I
believe
that the gods
created single malt
just
for
writers
and
editors at
the
end of the day.
The
battle is
over, now you must be, if not friends,
friendly.
