Category: The Editor’s Hat

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.

When I critique and edit writing, there is one common flaw that comes through time and time again. Sometimes, it's subtle and easily overlooked. But then there are times when it hits you in the face.

I'm talking about he said — she said.

You're staring at a manuscript that you have spent countless hours, days, weeks, preparing for publication or submission. It's as stellar as you can make it. Or is it?

Here is just one of the tricks that I occasionally pull out of my hat when editing. It can be slow going, but it can help you isolate those awkward, sticky sentences and eliminate those beasts.

During a backwards edit, you read a manuscript from the last sentence backwards to the first. When you do this, you're unable to focus on the story; sentences lose their contextual meaning. As a consequence you focus entirely on the words.

Recently, I was skimming through a fellow editor's website (who shall remain nameless) and encountered a page where people were listing the titles of their manuscripts and their respective genres. OMG, the number of people that listed their genre as FICTION...

People, FICTION is NOT a genre. It tells us nothing about your story, except for the fact that it's made up. And it's not good enough to tell us the you write Young Adult or Middle-Grade either. All this tells us is who your target audience is.  Let's face it, a science fiction story is very different to a western. (However, you could have a Western SciFi — Firefly is the perfect example of this sub-genre.) A Young Adult SciFi and a Middle-Grade SciFi, on the other hand, will contain similar elements, all related to the SciFi genre.