The Editors · 3:10pm Oct 2nd, 2022
If you missed my post, Being Cautious About Editors, you can find it here before proceeding. I will assume you’ve read it to keep this moving.
Last time I went over the importance of what you can do to protect yourself against bad editors and how to find good ones. Today I’m going to talk about the types of editors there are and my experience editing.
First thing that springs to mind, from my experience with users on the site, is the misunderstanding of what an editor is and what he or she does. For some, they assume an editor is a co-writer, ghostwriter, beta reader (not pre-reader), or proofreader; for others—a grammar or spell checker. I can also add in the different types of editors along with the philosophies of approach to editing, and the mess just gets larger. Thankfully, I’ve already gone through that hell so we can skip that step.
When it comes to fiction there is going to be a slider between two points of view. Say formalism and informalism; minimalism and maximalism; beige prose and purple prose; prescriptive and descriptive; etc. You are going to fall somewhere between each of these so-called dichotomies, and so will your editor. If you don’t know what these terms mean, I will tackle them in a future post. For now, the web is open wide for your curiosity. With that said, let’s address the types of editors you will meet.
There are three types of editors: developmental, line, and copyeditors. You may know these by other terms (or spellings), but these are the ones I’m sticking to. Regarding some editors, the middle—the line editor—tends to get merged with either the former or the latter, but it is its own skill set. Some editors will specialize in one of these three or will combine each into a single service he or she provides. Regardless if they do, it is important for the writer to understand what service the editor will be providing.
When it comes to developmental editing, the editor will be providing services that focus on improving the quality of the story. From character motivations to world-building and everything in-between. If it concerns the development of the actual story it is what this editor is concerned about. Not how a sentence sounds, or grammatical correctness, least of all checking for spelling errors.
You can typically expect a few things from a developmental editor.
- A manuscript critique (not a beta read)
- A timeline of events of your story
- A style sheet
- Providing the writer writing exercises in areas that he or she might be weak in
- A whole bunch of time finding issues and helping to instigate possible solutions
What is not expected is line or copyedits, proofreading, ghostwriting, co-writing, (re)writing, or spell-checking your story. You alone are responsible for fixing your story. A developmental editor provides a second set of eyes for your consideration. I’ll say that last part again. For your consideration. First and foremost, in this place, you, the writer, are the boss. The editor is here to help you find answers, not tell you what to do. There is a big difference between offering a possible solution and dictating what that solution is.
A line editor is more simplistic. He or she is looking for how to improve sentences without losing clarity along with ensuring grammatical correctness. This doesn’t mean a line editor takes purple prose and creates beige prose. No, what is happening here is finding the sweet spot between brevity and excessive length. People tend to mix line editors with copyeditors.
Last, the copyeditor. This type of editing focuses on grammar, (house) style, usage, consistency, ambiguity, permissions, markups, and a lot of other stuff. What a copyeditor is not is a proofreader. Different job and purpose.
One thing to note, only the line editor will make actual changes (that you have to approve). Developmental and copyeditors will suggest a change and it will be your responsibility to make the correction.
As I stated before, some editors merge these three together or some combination or only focus on one or two. This is why it is important to understand what the editing needs are for your story and what services the editor is providing.
For example, I am a developmental editor that offers basic line editing and basic copyediting. When it comes to fiction I find intensive line and copyediting to be very intrusive and will sterilize the author’s voice. I won’t do medium or heavy edits and if it seems I will have to then I will send the manuscript back informing the writer that he or she needs to work at cleaning it up some more before getting an editor. Writing fiction isn’t the same as writing an academic paper. The less intrusion a line or copyeditor has to be the better. Or so are my beliefs.
When I work on someone’s story I provide a style sheet. It’s a list that records characters, places, particular events, spellings, details, and such of the story so everything remains consistent. I also map out the timeline for the same purpose to ensure events are in order. Another service I provide is a manuscript critique, which is an editor’s version of a beta read, but not the same. For those who don’t know the difference, they can seem one and the same. To clarify, a manuscript critique is an editor’s opinion of your manuscript from the viewpoint of an editor. A beta read comes from the perspective of a reader. And to top things off, a critique comes from a writer’s perspective. It may seem silly that I have had to spell this out, but people can be dense. Each is concerned with a different perspective. One sees the story as an editor, the other as a reader, and the last as a fellow writer. They each have different perspectives and their own place.
If you didn’t think so before, hopefully you understand now that editing is hard, time-consuming work. Work, like an art commission, should be thanked with a financial return. Or at least something, but that is a topic I believe the community at large needs to have because editing doesn’t get the same appreciation as artwork does. But I digress.
When looking for an editor, you want someone who is going to compliment your story. Not every editor is going to be able to tackle every story. Sorry, that isn’t going to happen and if someone says they can they are probably not going to be the best for you. For myself, I handle sci-fi/fantasy/horror and a few others. I’m not skilled in romance or historical fiction and I’m not interested in erotica. I won’t touch what I am not good at. I keep to my wheelhouse because that is where I am at home. Every genre has its own nuances (they tend to be a lot when you break genres down into sub-genres) to it and if an editor doesn’t know those nuances then they shouldn’t be touching it until they know.
It can be a task finding an editor, then finding one that works well with you and your story. There are methods of finding editors, but finding the best one for your story’s needs, well, that you have to work through via trial and error. As in the previous post, I mentioned some ways of making this process easier. But not to leave you without a suggestion, one trick you can do is send out one of your middle chapters, not your first chapter (because it has been workshopped to death), and see how different editors tackle it. The edit you think works best, go with that editor.
Until the next post, keep your pencil sharp and your mind sharper!
Very informative post. A style sheet sounds useful. Do you think that there might be dedicated software designed for creating style sheets? I doubt there'd be many (if any), and I suppose that a lot of general-use software would work for the job.
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I’ve never seen any software. Editors mostly make their own. There are templates online, but you’d have to find them. It’s very personal preference.
I just use gdoc as it keeps things simple. You don’t need a special program for this. It’s easy to do—just tedious. Of course, if you want to be particularly evil, leave it up to the editor to do. Most writers are going take this route because they never thought or knew about style sheets. Some editors don’t even know about using them. Says a lot about the editor.
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I do dedicate a section under the story for keeping notes.
[Chapter Notes] is where I keep chapter outlines and ideas to try to slot in
[Primary Notes] includes general stuff to keep track of and character details.
Although if I were to go more in-depth, I'd likely create a google slides document.
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Cool, but if you ever get an editor make sure he or she has access to it.
Glad I could help.