Rose’s Red Pen: Why Use an Editor?

Has this happened to you? You’re reading a mass market paperback or a best seller on your e-reader, and you stumble over a typo. How did that experience make you feel? Me too. As a writer, you want to transport your readers to another world, not yank them from it feeling irritated that no one cared enough to make this right.

Rose Ciccarelli

Caring about your readers may be the single best reason to use an editor, but there are others as well. Cold readers are crucial to honing your work, and an editor is the ultimate cold reader,who not only possesses a set of keen eyes but also LOVES to read, and has probably read a lot.

An editor sees what you don’t, the missing words, misspellings, and errors in punctuation and grammar. We all miss our own mistakes because our brains fill in the blanks. We see what we think we wrote, not what is actually on the page. At the most basic level, an editor is a proofreader, taking care of all the nuts and bolts and niceties. Editors make sure that a character named “Sue” on page 10 hasn't become “Sheryl” by page 96. They help writers avoid triteness traps, whether you open like Snoopy with “it was a dark and stormy night” or describe a character’s “constellation of freckles” on her cheeks.

More substantively, editors check for flow and organization. Does this story have an arc? Does this chapter belong here? What about this passage or this sentence? Does it make sense? Is anything missing? Editors also analyze your characters. Are they acting consistently or just following the demands of the plot? Do they grow or change in believable ways? Do they have unique ways of expressing themselves? Does this line of dialogue fit with this character?

And when problems are pointed out, an editor can help you fix them by making suggestions or brainstorming with you to find solutions.

Finally, an editor is your advocate. An editor invests in you and your writing and really wants your work to succeed. Beyond your family and close friends, an editor can be your number 1 fan.

Comments

Victim of Circumstances?

The article below has been getting a lot of hits lately, and I thought it may be time to repost it. A couple of weeks ago, I took the picture below. I thought it pretty much sums up our life journey. We never know what's around the corner for us. Circumstances change in seconds some days. Whether the circumstances of life are good or bad, we're fond of blaming them for how we behave and think. Here are a few of the well-used excuses: "I'm a victim of circumstances.""The situation is impossible." "The circumstances are beyond my control." "Under the circumstances"...fill in the blank. Funny how principles, self-control, and positive thinking can go out the window when we're "under the circumstances." And lest you think the author is above blaming circumstances, she is not. I've used most of the excuses above, whether spoken or unspoken. An imprisoned and wrongly accused Jewish C...

The Castile Knapper

It's always fun to have family members who have a bit of notoriety because of interesting pursuits. My husband's cousin, Ken Wallace is one of those. Ken is an artist who works in stone as a flintknapper. Flintknapping is the ancient art of shaping tools and weapons from pieces of stone. Knapping was part of the survival skill set of Native Americans. Arrowheads, knives, hatchets, and more were shaped from raw pieces of flint or chert. Ken knapping at the Wallace Reunion Ken became interested in this process back in 1985. One of his favorite pastimes was searching fields for arrowheads, both of which are pretty plentiful in Western New York. Freshly plowed ground in rural areas often yields many different types of arrowheads since the Iroquois were the original residents of what are now corn fields and cow pastures. Fascinated with how the Iroquois made their weapons and tools, Ken started to try and recreate them. He says a lot of trial and error were involved in the...

Second Chances

Tonight, I'll be teaching a women's Bible study at our little church on the border. We're studying the book of Jonah. It's a familiar Sunday School Bible story, many of us have heard over the years. It's easy to focus on the "great fish" and there have been innumerable debates over the actual "great fish" that swallowed Jonah. However, the fish is a minor player in this book. The real focus of the four short chapters is the dialogue between God and Jonah. God begins the conversation with Jonah, who's a well known prophet in Israel. He tells him to go to Nineveh, a great city in Assyria and tell them that God's judgment is coming. Now the Assyrians were Israel's archenemies, despised and hated by any self-respecting Israelite. There was a reason for this. The Assyrians were unspeakably cruel and wicked. Israel had been captured, plundered, and massacred by these people. Judgment for the Assyrians was probably music to the prophet...

Rose Ciccarelli

And when problems are pointed out, an editor can help you fix them by making suggestions or brainstorming with you to find solutions.

Finally, an editor is your advocate. An editor invests in you and your writing and really wants your work to succeed. Beyond your family and close friends, an editor can be your number 1 fan.

SimplyLife

Search This Blog