Here are more notes on a great panel at Life the Universe and Everything SF/F symposium. The topic is on editing.
– Here are the levels of editing:
– 1. Content editing to check how the story flows with motivations. The big picture plot holes etc.
– 2. Cop/lines editing. This is where you start looking for spelling, grammar, etc.
– 3. Proofreading.
– 4. Galleys
– 5.Page proof
– 6. Title read this includes the catching design, appearance and titles, etc.
– What makes a good editor? Someone who reads and is familiar with the genre that you write. You need to find someone against the idea of your story, and use author. That means you don’t get a mystery editor to look at a fantasy book.
– Where do you need to get an editor? It’s been a lot of rejections, the book need work. Some people will send the first 10 pages to two different editors and see how they like their work. Authors will sometimes also been the first three chapters professionally edited so that when they send them to the 20 agents. They are presented well. Take advantage of critique group reviews. We need also include the content editing, and the line editing the importance of content editing is emphasized when it has not done and you spend a lot of money having parts of the book line edited and those pages have to be taken out, you wasted good money.
– You need to find people that are not necessarily friends or family members at your work they may be too close to it to give you an honest appraisal. On your beta readers. You may even just have them marked the pages with 🙂 they like it? They are confused. When you get suggestions on how to change your writing, you need to have your gut. Make the final decision of accepting or rejecting a recommendation. Another way you can determine if you’re ready for an editor is if you are now open-minded enough to have a story fixed and improved to go to the next level of your writing
– Editing is an editor’s job. The writers did all the praise and editors get all the blame. Editors have noticed that the bigger the name, the easier it is to work with them. And author, needs to be ready to accept improvements of the books they’ve written when author gets comments, they should ask, why does the editor feel this way. The probably point out may not be what they see, but will be a symptom of a problem that exists elsewhere in the story. For example, if a certain part of the book is not clear that might actually mean that book section. These gas and foreshadowing to repair the reader for that scene
– Book 1 of a series needs to be a standalone with the potential of being a series. A writer is not a good source of knowing when the book is well edited. Your writing needs to stand by itself as a testimony of your skill. The complaints of a reader or editor cannot be answered. In book 2
– many people discourage having a book open with the bunch description.
– Many people like of story that opens up with action.
– The first page needs to have a strong voice.
Have something to add to this subject? Please do so in the comment section of this blog.
