Category: The Editor’s Hat

There are many things that can (and will) drive an editor batty. Punctuation just happens to among them. There is much confusion about punctuation. Often writers get them confused. Hell, even editors get muddled at times.

Today, I wanted to address the importance of the comma.

I will grant you that there is a significant amount of debate over the usage of commas, particularly the Oxford comma or serial comma (whether we should or shouldn't use it). It probably doesn't help that the Oxford comma has won a legal court case.

However, many editors will agree that commas seem to be disappearing from text, partly because of the increasing usage of smartphones and social media. This, folks, is not a good thing. I will grant you that when writing a hurried tweet, the comma can consume precious character counts. However, one little comma can change the entire meaning of a sentence. It can mean the difference between being a cannibal or a time traveller.

Every writer who puts their work out there will have to face critiques of all flavors: the good, the bad, and the outright mean.

For the new writer, one just starting down the journey, sending that baby out for review can actually be a terrifying experience. "What if they don't like it? What if I'm doing it all wrong? What if they tell me my writing is shit?"

Yeah, these are all fears that I had when I was first starting out. Even today, I have those fears. But there is one truth that helps me send my writing out the door anyway.

Not everyone is going to like what you write. Writing is like art, filled with subjective opinions.

If you're determined to have everyone in the world like your writing, then you might as well give up now. It's never going to happen. The best you can ever hope for is that the fans of your books like what you wrote, and hopefully, they'll help you spread the word of your book's existence.

But let's take a look at how to find value in every critique, including the outright-mean kind.

Writers often spend a long time writing their stories. Eventually, they need to turn their attention to editing. However, many writers don't fully understand what editing actually entails.

In the archives of this blog, you will find an article that details the stages of editing, breaking down editing into three main categories: developmental, copyediting, and proofreading. Each stage is important for a manuscript's development, but for different reasons. Unfortunately, too many writers seem to rush through the developmental editing process, going straight to line editing. It's because many writers tend to think of editing as just the copyediting phase.

What is worse is that there are some writers out there who incorrectly believe that because they've hired an editor that their story will read beautifully and be adored by all.

It's time to face the reality regarding writing and editing.

When editing a manuscript, one should always be looking at ways to tighten the writing and language used. There are many tricks that one can employ. One of my favorite ways is to do what is known as a "Was" edit.

This editing technique is incredibly simple. Search for every instance of is/are/was/were and ask yourself if can you reword that sentence to remove that instance of was-type words.